Slums Along the Mohawk

Planning for smart growth means planning for no growth

2011-07-18T14:21:00.001-07:00

Perhaps the state of planning in Schoharie County is best represented by the apparent “get it all done at once” approach to repairing the bridges that move traffic through the county’s most populated and heavily traveled communities. If so, it is not surprising that the county planning department would continue wasting time and resources on an improbable (and unnecessary) expansion of water and sewer infrastructure along the Route 7 corridor in a time of severe public sector retrenchment and almost nonexistent private investment.

The narrow vision is reflective of what happens when the planning process is dominated by those who are either incompetent or self-serving (or perhaps both?). Sadly, it would seem that this is Schoharie County’s current predicament. Neither the county’s poorly conceived attempts to secure funding for the previously mentioned infrastructure projects or the Galasso vision of paving over the horizon for big box stores and large-lot residential growth (which the water and sewer expansion is expected to lead to) rise to the level of a vision of sustainable planning and development that the county needs or deserves.

In previous years, this model of laying new infrastructure to spur costly and unsustainable development was flawed (at best). In 2011, it’s completely asinine and comes with dangerous opportunity costs for ‘undeveloping’ communities that need to be focusing on ways to make life a little more bearable for the remaining residents who are either unable to leave or choose to stay for some inexplicable reason.

Until we as a nation grow the balls to tax the rich (who are doing quite nicely in this economy) ‘economic development’ efforts will continue to be nothing more than an endless waiting game. But there has to be something better than waiting for jobs to magically appear, especially when more jobs are being lost than can possibly be offset by any new ones that might come along.

Instead, county and local planners could be pro-active and leverage the resources that are available to ease some of the pressures faced by Schoharie County’s communities. Job one should be facilitating the transition of our dying downtowns into walkable /bikeable places where the jobless can live within their means and at least have access to some basic level of services, amenities and some semblance of community.

I still think that the Town, Village and County planning/economic development offices should be relocated to Downtown Cobleskill in the Newberry Square building. At the very least it would bring a blighted and underutilized building back online and allow residents easier and more convenient access. Potentially, the increased traffic flow to Downtown (for town and village court, various public meetings) would put potential customers in closer proximity to struggling local businesses on Main Street.

Another priority should be to site several access points in Downtown areas for individuals applying for public assistance (Medicaid, HEAP, food stamps, etc.). There may be many residents who are unaware of the benefits they are entitled to simply because they are unable to get to Schoharie County’s government office building or one of the community action offices. Instead of career fairs, county and local governments could hold regular ‘benefits fairs’ to insure that they are reaching as many people as possible. For the time being, state and federal entitlement programs represent a steady stream of money entering the county, and it should be pursued every bit as much (if not more aggressively) than the crumbs that are currently being sought to bolster the Galasso empire.

County planners should also look to rehabilitating various Downtown sites for use as single-room occupancy dwellings. New housing opportunities that reflect the emerging characteristics of the population (chronically unemployed and rapidly declining in economic status) should be developed in a way that actually leverages the remaining amenities and services in the regions downtown areas. The local housing stock is already moving in this direction (call them rooming houses, flophouses, welfare hotels, SROs…whatever), it’s really just a question of whether or not people will live in campers, barns and sheds in remote areas or in safe, clean and affordable units in downtown areas in walking distance to services and amenities that they could benefit from.

Further, there is no reason that county residents must rely on obscenely inflated food prices at local supermarkets when the region is surrounded by farmland. County planners and local organizations should be building systems for channeling affordable, locally produced food directly into our communities, bypassing the large-scale processors and costly logistics and distribution networks used by retailers. As energy prices continue to soar, the benefits of making these changes becomes plainly obvious and critically necessary.

Sadly (or perhaps not) the region cannot sustain or support unlimited development of hotel chains and pharmacies. Whoever told county planners and local officials that this is the case was wrong, and they should stop listening to them. If the Galasso’s believe that new infrastructure will pay for itself, then let them pay for it! While these changes need to happen on a grassroots level, there also needs to be regime change at the county level, or at least a dramatic change in direction.

Consolidation and growth machine politics

2010-06-23T14:26:00.001-07:00

Previous efforts to consolidate municipal government and induce future growth in Cobleskill have faltered due in large part to a lack of cohesion among local elites. The push has largely been led by local developers and their proxies serving in local government. These pro-growth interests see consolidation as a means of streamlining planning and zoning functions and more easily extending infrastructure to desired growth areas.

However, these efforts have been pursued piecemeal and furtively for the most part because Cobleskill’s downtown business interests, most notably the Cobleskill Partnership, Inc., have strongly resisted efforts to dissolve the Village into the Town. Obviously, they understand that further development in the Town of Cobleskill or the Town of Richmondville will come at their expense.

What’s more, dissolution or consolidation means a relinquishing of power (i.e. the power of extending water and sewer to proposed developments, or the power of planning and zoning) at the most local levels of government. Understandably, citizens who currently hold that power are not likely to voluntarily give it up, perhaps even if it means reductions in government costs and thus lower tax rates.

Though a citizen’s committee established to explore dissolution of the Village dissolved only itself last January, the push for consolidation has recently picked up a head of steam in the form of Village Mayor Mark Nadeau. Not only has Nadeau been enthusiastically pushing a significantly broadened conception of local consolidation and partnership, he has also continued the piecemeal consolidation of individual town and village services, even proposing an ambitious plan to dissolve the village police department into the county sherriff’s department, a plan which was recently beat back by local opposition.

This gradualist approach to consolidating individual services is particularly troubling. Last year’s efforts to shove village dissolution down voters’ throats was met with substantial outcry from village residents who wanted no part of it. When asked outright if they support dissolution of the village, the answer is a resounding no. However, it is unclear if village residents understand that Nadeau and Galasso are simply going ahead and doing it anyway piece by piece.

But at this point you should at least be aware that Nadeau and Galasso are interested in a bit more than saving a few pennies for strapped local taxpayers. When Mike Sellers, Sandy MacKay and Carol McGuire were on the Board of Trustees, Cobleskill’s development interests were focused mainly on projects just outside the Village so that they could conceivably connect to Village water and sewer systems. But even that seemed to elude them. However, with Mark Nadeau, Mark Galasso and Howard Burt on the Board, the horizon has shifted dramatically.

Cobleskill’s pro-growth faction is now playing at a much more ambitious region-wide consolidation of government services – everything from police and fire protection to land use planning to (naturally) local infrastructure. This would not only open up huge swaths of land to development but it would grant a virtual monopoly over that growth and development in Cobleskill and Richmondville to a Nadeau-Galasso power axis already taking shape.

The plans currently being undertaken arguably represent a classic and essential strategy of growth coalitions: the manipulation of government activity designed to induce growth and direct that growth to locations that benefit members of the coalition. This would mean putting in new roads, selectively expanding local infrastructure and enacting favorable land use and zoning regulations.

When you begin to put the pieces together, just as Nadeau and Galasso apparently have, you begin to see a plan not for consolidation of municipal services but for consolidation of political power. You see a continuous corridor of apartment complexes and chain stores from Howe Caverns to West Richmondville Road, a “second Main Street” of strip malls developed along an expanded MacArthur Avenue that will divert traffic away from the first Main Street, and hillsides dotted with subdivisions full of unaffordable McMansions.

But is all this scheming really worth their while? Currently, it seems unlikely that significant additional commercial growth could be supported by the region’s population. Therefore, even with water and sewer hook-ups, the chain stores may never come. Additional market-rate housing doesn’t quite seem that feasible either. Look at the intersection of South Grand and Mineral Springs Road: Nadeau’s own condo project seems to have been stalled for years.

The real question then is, How much damage can they do in their desperate attempts to stimulate growth even if they don’t manage to pave over everything from Central Bridge to East Worcester? Unfortunately, quite a lot. For example, an extension of MacArthur Ave. might well open the door for an additional strip mall or two (which would probably not be a good thing). However, extending that side street to completely bypass Downtown could be disastrous. The diversion of vehicular traffic could be the coup de grace that turns Main Street into a boarded up skid row.

Another possibility is that opening up additional parcels to growth could simply result in the shuffling around of existing businesses, creating nothing but more vacant buildings and more headaches. We’re already seeing this with the new Rite Aid that is being built across the street from the CVS that is currently being built. Even worse, these schemes may entice businesses to leave Downtown Cobleskill for locations further afield, i.e. the Maranatha complex. The result could be a highly inefficient and unsustainable reshuffling of local businesses for the benefit of a handful of landowners and land developers.

There’s also the future costs of extending water and sewer lines to consider. These lines may not bring the promised sprawl, but they will still require regular maintaince. No matter, all the new roads and water lines will mean more money in the pockets of the old boy network of lawyers, engineers, and developers.

Perhaps the biggest problem with this strategy are the opportunity costs, particularly of not fixing up Downtown Cobleskill. As the plywood plague continues to spread, Main Street needs more money and ideas than ever. Yet Nadeau and Galasso would happily reduce Harmony Acres and half the block to rubble if it meant putting in a Walgreens.

This assumes that runaway sprawl development is not economically feasible. However, if land is readied for growth there should be no doubt that there will be new projects proposed. Will we be the next Clifton Park? No; and to suggest such is silly hyperbole.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't put the brakes on these schemes lest we watch Nadeau and Galasso throw away a ton of our money in a desperate bid to wreck what’s left of our local economy just to make a few bucks for themselves.

From work to welfare

2010-06-23T11:00:00.000-07:00

The first thing people must understand about the current jobs crisis with its painful, intractable double-digit unemployment, is that it is not simply a temporary manifestation of the recent recessionary period. Rather, it arguably represents a much deeper set of structural trends within late capitalism that have been taking place over the past three decades or so.

Some of these changes have been orchestrated by elites, i.e. trade policies that have eviscerated America's manufacturing sector, and a financialization of the economy that prioritizes reckless speculation and guides Americans toward amassing crushing levels of debt to make up for flat wages. However, other changes have come about as a result of inevitable technological and economic ‘progress’ – computerization, mechanized production, and the rapid industrial development of competing economies.

Americans have been understandably reluctant to confront the reality that given these changes even the modest middle class existence achieved by the mid-20th Century is simply no longer feasible without accruing shocking levels of personal indebtedness. Yet we are increasingly finding ourselves in agreement with the oft-repeated but nonetheless popularly resonant prediction that future generations can no longer expect to be better off than their parents.

The second thing we must understand about the jobs crisis is that it is far worse than it appears. The government’s official statistics put the unemployment rate at around ten percent. But the problem with the official unemployment rate is the fact that it ignores so-called “discouraged workers” – those who have been unemployed for so long that they have simply given up hope of finding a job.

Some estimates put the number of discouraged workers at between 10 and 15 percent of the population, on top of the ten percent who are officially ‘unemployed’. If not addressed, chronic joblessness and its spillover effects will ripple throughout our entire society. Therefore, the first thing we must do is end the numbers game that artificially deflates the number of people who are actually unemployed. The current formula merely encourages denial and we don't need more of that.

But the denial is not merely limited to those who refuse to face the true dimensions of the crisis. It extends as well to those who believe that we can stimulate our way out of the crisis with a few puny jobs bills.

The Myth of Job Creation

At the political level, the solutions are predictably hackneyed and uninspired – and that’s the best of it. The response from the political right has been downright idiotic. The political elites orchestrate a 700 billion dollar giveaway to Wall Street and the banks, an asset bubble results in hundreds of thousands of home foreclosures and neoliberal trade policies have left us with a ‘real’ unemployment rate of anywhere from 10 to 25 percent. Unsurprisingly, the old cliché still rings true: the rich get richer. Yet amid all of these catastrophic instances of capitalism’s malevolence, the largest and most vocal outcry has come in the form of a deranged populism that enthusiastically enlists itself as shock troops for even more draconian and brutal free market practices.

From the political left we have a disastrously misplaced faith in economic stimulus legislation, and among the more starry-eyed: dreams of a new ‘green economy’. But how many jobs can we actually create with a pathetic stimulus bill that amounts to three or four percent of the GDP? Recall that it was not such spending programs during the New Deal that lifted us out of the Great Depression; in fact it was a different ‘economic stimulus’ plan altogether that did the trick. It was called World War II and government outlays for the war effort amounted to nearly 40% of GDP! The current stimulus plan under discussion could be as small as $150 billion. Any job creation that came about as a result of such a bill would amount to a barely noticeable drop in the bucket.

Claims that a green economy could create a large enough amount of jobs to revive the American economy are well-conceived and tempting to believe – especially considering the fact that we ought to make investments in various forms of green energy anyway, regardless of its job creation prospects. However, hopes of green jobs significantly reshaping America’s economy look more and more like green pipe dreams when held up to the light of scrutiny.

As the U.S. gradually begins to increase its investments in alternative forms of energy (wind power, solar power, geothermal, and increased efficiency) what is to stop other countries from exporting lower-priced, higher-quality supplies to the United States, especially given the fact that European and Asian countries already have an advantage? Even U.S.-based companies that could competitively produce parts for wind turbines and photovoltaic panels, or electric cars for that matter, could do so much more efficiently in other countries like China. Admittedly, there are jobs to be created in the construction industry making sure new and existing structures are LEED compliant; but the number of jobs will surely dwindle once the majority of homes are retrofitted and homeowners and existing contractors become familiar with the practices.

From Work to Welfare

The inescapable fact is that in an economy that has perfected the art of eliminating jobs (stock price-boosting layoffs, massive downsizing, outsourcing, computerization, mechanization, etc.), for the government to attempt to ‘create’ jobs is tantamount to trying to sweep the sand off the beach. Rather than squander limited resources on unneeded infrastructure, policy makers and voters must heartily confront the new economy reality of the 21st Century: that there simply are not and will not be jobs for a substantial portion of the population.

Policy makers must redirect their energies and resources accordingly. The situation calls for a dramatic paradigm shift away from traditional Keynesian stimulus economics and toward large-scale welfare spending for it’s own sake. Bold and innovative thinking will be necessary to bring the millions of unemployed Americans under the umbrella of new and existing social welfare programs. Medicare and Medicaid must be dramatically expanded so that they can absorb the coming flood of new applicants. The Aid to Families with Dependent Children program will most likely need to be reconstituted, the food stamp and WIC program will need to be expanded, and new HUD housing projects, particularly massive numbers of dormitory-style SRO facilities, will need to be constructed. Funding must be allocated for things that have intrinsic value to Americans, such as food, housing, healthcare, schools, basic necessities, libraries, cultural resources and gathering halls, etc., not just because they will create a few jobs, but because these are the things that will make life more livable for the majority of Americans.

However, these are only the most basic of spending measures that will need to be undertaken. Policy makers will need to find other more creative ways of allowing the unemployed to both subsist and somehow not turn the U.S. labor market into a nasty race to the bottom. A few things will need to happen. First, the Social Security system will need to be drastically overhauled. Instead of a pay-as-you-go program that requires that people are working to pay into the system, Social Security should be re-envisioned as a retirement/welfare program paid for by steep corporate taxes. This way, rather than raising the retirement age, which would probably be necessary under the current system, we could actually lower the retirement age to about 50 or 55, removing a significant number of people from the labor market and providing them with a longer and better retirement.

Second, we must dramatically increase spending on education at every level all the way up to colleges and universities. Why? American students must be globally competitive when they move abroad to find jobs. We still have a first-rate higher education system in this country and we ought to use it to our advantage. American students should be subsidized all the way through college and graduate school enabling them to earn the necessary advanced graduate degrees to successfully compete in European, South American and Asian job markets. This too will provide a critical relief valve for America’s overcrowded labor market as well as the potential for a better life for young Americans willing to migrate to countries with more opportunities. This could also provide some economic benefit as many will migrate and send money back to family members still living in the United States.

But before you go thinking that all this will be a giveaway to the jobless at the expense of those who are still working, you had better think again. Such a massive welfare system will be just as necessary to prop up the employed as it will be for the unemployed.

Consider the leverage that employers will have in the labor market as increasing throngs are desperately searching for work. With virtually no unions left to speak of, real wages could conceivably plummet dramatically over the next quarter century. This alone will necessitate spending hundreds of billions on welfare programs simply to keep unemployed Americans from becoming the scabs of the 21st Century who undercut whatever remains of the American workforce’s bargaining power.

Obviously, this system can not be financed by taxes on the middle classes. They simply couldn’t bear it. Instead, political elites will have to come to terms with the necessity of levying hefty taxes on the wealthiest of Americans. State and federal income taxes must be raised on the highest incomes, inheritance and estate taxes must be increased and expanded in scope, capital gains taxes must be increased, corporate taxes and penalties for wrongdoing must be heavily increased and most importantly, there must be new taxes that cover the increasingly shadowy financial transactions taking place on Wall Street.

Remember too that prisons and the military will continue to be viable, if not quite humane, options for dealing with a surplus population. However, if we are actually able to provide people with their basic needs we should be able to preempt many of the life choices that necessitate incarceration and joining the military in the first place. De-emphasizing these priorities could potentially be a significant additional source of funding for the above-mentioned programs.

Conclusion: Redistribution or Restitution?

I sincerely hope these recommendations are not read as hyperbole or glib satire. The transition from desperate, pathetic and misguided economic stimulus spending to direct welfare spending must be made out of both societal necessity and a collective striving for decency in a global economic order that has been designed to meet the needs of elites at the expense of the people.

I’m sure many will regard these ideas with disdain and quite possibly hostility. Call it what you like, but do not dare call it “redistribution”. Since the 1970s American wages have stagnated while productivity has risen steadily. The incomes of working Americans have plummeted in an era of runaway corporate profits. Meanwhile, Americans have been forced to turn to consumer debt to finance the lifestyles that they have become accustomed to, essentially borrowing the money they should have been earning but at the usurious interest rates offered by the banks and credit card companies. Tax hikes on the rich that directly fund welfare programs benefiting the vanishing middle class is not and can not be termed “redistribution”. It is nothing more than restitution pure and simple; and it is long overdue - and about the only thing at this point that can bring us back from the cliff.

Downtown is the Real Loser in Cobleskill Town and Village Elections

2009-11-14T19:55:00.002-08:00

A lot has happened in Downtown Cobleskill over the past few months: façade rehabilitation, sidewalk improvements, a community plaza. However, in this Tuesday’s election town and village voters overwhelmingly rejected the candidates most closely associated with those achievements. In the village, Trustee Sandy MacKay lost badly to brutish developer Mark Nadeau. The even more brutish developer Mark Galasso was returned to the Board of Trustees with almost twice the votes of his own running mate.

In the town council race, Brian Kaiser, of Cobleskill Partnership, Inc., the group responsible for the façade improvement program this summer, didn’t even come close to winning a seat on Cobleskill’s town board. I won’t try to sugar coat this election by pointing out what appear to be democratic victories in the town supervisor races in Cobleskill and Richmondville. These victories should not distract Schoharie County progressives from the fact that something went terribly wrong in the election for village officials and the Cobleskill Town Board.

Both Brian Kaiser and Sandy MacKay have been tireless advocates of Downtown Cobleskill. Yet when voters were asked who should represent them, they selected a slate of candidates that in large part shares their vision for Cobleskill with trustee Bob LaPietra, a man who recently pled guilty to election fraud charges and was just sentenced (this week) to three years probation. So what the fuck happened?

To some extent at least, we can thank the Times Journal for this outcome. In the months leading up to the election, hardly a week went by without the T-J obsessively covering every belch, snort and scratch by Nadeau. Conspicuously absent from the T-J was any ribbon-cutting fanfare or even minimal coverage of the new Main Street sidewalks (overseen by MacKay) or even any serious consideration of MacKay’s idea on how becoming a city could net the village an additional two million dollars a year in sales tax revenue.

But the fact that Jim Poole consistently gets it wrong is old news, as is the fact that Mark Galasso has more than enough money to buy himself, Bob LaPietra and all his crooked friends as many elections as they could ever want. Voters still overwhelmingly chose the candidates with the self-serving big fish in a small pond mentality and thumbed their noses at the candidates with a real record of accomplishment in this community.

But it’s not about MacKay and Kaiser. Hopefully they will continue in their efforts to build a viable and dynamic Downtown Cobleskill. Unfortunately, they will probably be slapped down at every turn by this entering class of goons on the Village Board who will likely rubber stamp every nasty idea that Mark Galasso and Bob LaPietra pull out of their asses.

Voters may have endorsed the simple, straightforward and appealing message of Nadeau and his slate (expand the tax base and lower property taxes) but they arguably didn’t consider the record of these candidates, they didn’t consider the range of implications of the political coalition that now has a majority, and they didn’t consider the full breadth of the toll that unchecked big box development would have on our local economy and environment. Stay tuned to witness the consequences of an uninformed electorate.

Cobleskill Planning Board Should Think Twice on Stewarts Re-Zoning

2009-11-14T19:55:00.001-08:00

Given the recent spate of ill-conceived and ugly projects to get the Village of Cobleskill Planning Board’s approval it should come as no surprise that the Village seems poised to sit back and allow yet another development that will change this community’s character and quality of life for the worse. This time, Village trustees and planning board members are scrambling to find a way around the existing village zoning ordinance to allow Stewarts Shops to expand its gas station to an adjacent parcel (the former restaurant at the corner of West Main Street and Harder Avenue).

The current village zoning code limits new gas stations to village gateway (vg) districts. Stewarts Shops on West Main Street is one of several gas stations in the village that are not located in a village gateway district and are operating as non-conforming uses. In order to expand, the zoning status of the parcels in question must be changed either by granting a variance (unlikely in this case), expansion of the village gateway district, amendment of the existing zoning classification or the creation of a new zoning classification altogether. Seemingly off the table, however, is the option of simply leaving the zoning ordinance in tact and rejecting the proposed project.

Unfortunately, this course of action is unlikely as village officials are understandably eager to see two long-vacant parcels put back on the tax roll. But economic development is not the only concern here. The Planning Board must ask the equally important question: Does this re-zoning serve the interests of the residents it is going to immediately affect?

If allowed, an expanded Stewart’s gas station will result in an intensification of vehicular traffic that will most certainly inconvenience and very possibly endanger residents of Harder Avenue, Bridge Street and West Main Street, not to mention SUNY students walking to and from Downtown Cobleskill. The increase in cars turning in and out of the gas station would render that side of West Main Street a virtual no man’s land for pedestrians. Even worse, this would force pedestrians to cross the street to avoid the traffic and walk on the opposite side of the street.

There are also sizable opportunity costs associated with this development. For example, if Stewarts expands it will preclude the much more desirable possibility of somebody local buying those adjacent parcels and opening a business that could better serve not only village residents but SUNY students who live close enough to walk there.

I hope the Planning Board examines these concerns before doing something stupid that could have long-term negative effects on this community.

Fact is, this could present even more issues to the West End of the village if, for example, the Planning Board proposes to extend the village gateway district to the Stewarts site. This could open up additional parcels to similarly intense and inappropriate development. Hopefully, the planning board and the VBOT will carefully consider the manner in which they gut the village zoning ordinance so as to avoid any collateral damage down the road.

Overdevelopment in the village in and of itself is not the issue here. My complaint is that rather than looking for an end-run around the village’s zoning ordinance to accommodate a gas station expansion that will ultimately encompass an entire block in a residential section of the village, officials should ask what impact this expansion will have on residents of the west end of the village, and maybe even what they would prefer to see developed there.

A vote for Mark Galasso and Mark Nadeau (both developers) was a vote for the exact opposite form of government. Instead we have a government that bends over backwards for developers but would charge residents a fee to file codes complaints against slumlords. Apparently Cobleskill voters agree that the village’s historic buildings should simply be trashed and replaced with drugstores and mega-gas stations on every corner and that village government should be used to protect slumlords. Or maybe they’re just not paying enough attention.

From a taxpayer’s perspective, it’s a toxic asset

2009-11-14T19:54:00.001-08:00

While one shouldn’t really expect much in the way of vision from a group of county planners and economic developers whose last best hope for the county was going after $90 million in federal stimulus money to build three new interstate exits, the dearth of ideas for dealing with the former Guilford Mills site is unfortunately even more depressing.

Here we have a building the IDA plainly does not know how to market, at least according to Ron “it’s too big” Filmer. We have dwindling support coming from the state for the Empire Zone program, and worst of all, we have a building that’s been rotting into the ground for almost ten years and, apparently, stripped for salvage.

Yet Schoharie County’s economic developer Jody Zakrevsky appears inexplicably optimistic about the buildings' prospects proclaiming that “from a marketing perspective, it’s an opportunity”. He’s obviously smokin’ the good shit. From my perspective, county taxpayers are now the proud owners of a multimillion dollar toxic asset.

In the best of times, marketing this basket case of a building would be a daunting challenge. In the bowels of this recession I would say the chances are slim to none. Yet the county seems poised to sink millions of dollars into this property without any chance of recouping any of it, let alone the back taxes owed on the building. The costs of bringing the buildings up to code, marketing the properties, and then massively subsidizing any potential investors will insure that taxpayers are climbing out of a seemingly bottomless financial hole on this building for the next 20 years, and that’s IF anyone (anyone who is actually qualified) is dumb enough to buy it.

All of this puts the county in an unenviable position. However, there has to be a way to deal with these properties that doesn't involve the county subsidizing another deadbeat who will only leave us holding the bag again.

Maybe some out-of-the-box thinking is in order. Let’s say there were to be an unfortunate explosion or fire on the premises and the entire building was destroyed and burned to the ground. The county could collect on the insurance and then market the site as developable acreage. You’d have a much better shot at selling that property to somebody interested in developing, I don’t know, townhouses or retail perhaps…

Such an occurrence would be terrible and tragic, but you have to admit, it would be convenient.

But I should be careful; sometimes thinking outside the box can constitute a felony. Not that that’s ever stopped certain Cobleskill trustees in the past.

Is Cobleskill becoming disillusioned with dissolution?

2009-08-28T08:57:00.000-07:00

The first thing that needs to be said with regards to Cobleskill’s evolving engagement with the issue of consolidation is that all bold and innovative ideas should be welcomed and explored enthusiastically. Maybe that even goes without saying. However, to anyone who has observed the process over the past several years this clearly has not been the case.

There has been talk and even some action on sharing services for a long time, but the process was given a major boost about three years ago when Mayor Sellers and Deputy Mayor Sandy MacKay applied for a grant to produce a study of the costs and benefits associated with various consolidation plans. The village won that grant and the product was a study by a Rochester-based group called the Center for Governmental Research. The CGR study outlined the various possibilities from outright dissolution to joining with the Town of Cobleskill and incorporating as a city. Despite the wide variety of possibilities outlined in this report, many of which offered benefits worthy of further consideration, a few members of the Board of Trustees, namely Mark Galasso, Mayor Sellers and now Robert LaPietra (strange political bedfellows to be sure) have been pushing relentlessly to dissolve the village while virtually ignoring all other possibilities.

It is tempting to offer cynical explanations as to why the Board is so singularly committed to dissolution. For much of the past five years the Town of Cobleskill has been eager to see commercial development along the village’s eastern boundary. In many cases, access to village infrastructure (water and sewer) has been crucial to making those projects happen.

Not surprisingly, the village has been hesitant to hand over access to its water and sewer services for projects that would divert shoppers away from Downtown Cobleskill and help to further erode the village’s tax base. The unintended result of this was that the village Board of Trustees had an unofficial veto power over suburban sprawl development in the town, a card they should very much want to play for a variety of good reasons. In 2008, Lowe’s backed out of its plans to build a store in the Town after a long and protracted effort to convince the village to extend services, an effort that arguably included open bribery of village officials.

Now that the membership of the Board of Trustees has changed to include a multi-millionaire developer, a slumlord who owns multiple local properties, and Mayor Sellers who is almost religiously committed to the idea of consolidation for consolidation’s sake, it makes sense that the pro-growth forces of Cobleskill would seize this opportunity to see the village, the last remaining check on rampant sprawl development, dissolved. Dissolution would have numerous implications but none as glaringly obvious as the fact that it would hand over control of the Village’s water and sewer infrastructure to the Cobleskill Town Board, a move that would open up the Route 7 and Mineral Springs corridors to intense commercial and residential development.

The real travesty in all of this is not that these forces have hi-jacked the process in an effort to grab the village’s resources, but that this has prevented a real conversation about the benefits of alternative plans for consolidation. Another village trustee, Sandy MacKay, has consistently raised the question of jointly incorporating with the town to form a city. Granted this is not a perfect option, as it would still mean that the village (notice use of lower case) would relinquish its control over water and sewer services. However, it would allow Cobleskill to take advantage of a variety of prerogatives that cities in New York state benefit from, including state-financed courts and an ability to both preempt up to 50% of county-levied sales taxes generated within its corporate boundaries and levy a separate sales tax, which could generate significant revenues without affecting county revenue streams.

It would also be possibly easier to devise a governance structure that limited the amount of power that residents of the village would give up in the process of consolidating with the town. For example, a ward system could be used to maintain the voices of village residents and insure that they are not drowned out by town voters in an at-large system.

I am not mentioning this option because I’m endorsing it, I just want to illustrate that there are alternatives to the dissolution scheme being offered up by Sellers, Galasso and LaPietra and that those alternatives deserve to be considered every bit as much as dissolution.

Mayor Sellers defended this scheme during the public comment section of a recent board meeting, claiming that it was not being “rammed through”. Clearly that was not the impression of a majority of those who spoke out at that meeting, nor is it the impression of this observer either. While I do not endorse any specific plan for consolidation, I encourage concerned village residents to attend more meetings and speak out against what they rightly perceive as a quick and dirty effort to place the question of dissolution on the ballot.

I also sincerely encourage concerned residents to watch this group of trustees very carefully, Mark Galasso and Bob LaPietra in particular. In large part, it is apathy that has led us to this point, especially with regard to LaPietra’s election last November.

However, that so many spoke out against their plans for consolidation bodes well for this coming election. I won’t get into endorsing specific candidates here, but it is obviously time for a change, and for voters to redeem themselves after last year’s fiasco in which they elected a man who is a confessed perjurer, a slumlord and a non-village resident to the Board of Trustees. I don’t know; it may be time to raise the bar, just a little.

Worst Laid Plans

2009-08-28T08:55:00.002-07:00

A recent resolution passed by the Cobleskill Village Board of Trustees endorsing the proposed CVS Pharmacy development was, make no mistake, an utterly shameless and inappropriate attempt to preempt the Planning Board’s final evaluation of that project. Yet this is only a hint of what’s to come should Mark Galasso and Bob LaPietra continue to dominate the Board of Trustees. Be prepared for more of the same depressing vision for Cobleskill and, most likely, more naked attempts to bully those involved in making land use decisions.

The resolution was spearheaded by trustees Mark Galasso and Bob LaPietra (and, sadly, supported by Mayor Sellers). Galasso attempted to justify the resolution with the absurd claim that the planning board was out to deliberately sabotage the project. I call this absurd because there is no evidence that any planning board member was attempting to exceed their statutory responsibilities in reviewing the proposal and because, in fact, the planning board has every responsibility to heavily scrutinize a project of this magnitude. Instead, by injecting itself into and politicizing the village’s land use review process, Galasso, LaPietra and Sellers have in effect sabotaged and enfeebled the planning board, which was arguably what they set out to do from the get-go.

This latest episode, like the previous attempt by LaPietra and Galasso to remove Nelli Mooney and gut the village Planning, Environment and Codes Department, is best understood as part of a broader long-term strategy to reduce the public’s role in the village’s land use planning process and to marginalize those individuals who work and volunteer in that capacity. It’s no surprise then that consolidating the village into the town (a move which would have the same effect) is also strongly supported by Trustees Bob LaPietra and Mark Galasso.

Given this recent history, it is difficult not to see this latest attack on the planning board as fitting into a larger picture: a growth model driven entirely by land developers that gives short shrift to preserving the historic character of the village and the economic well-being of Cobleskill’s downtown business district.

Having said that, the pertinent issue here is not whether or not Cobleskill needs another pharmacy, although this is an eminently important question. The issue is whether or not Cobleskill’s village residents will be able to exercise their rights to review major land use decisions in their community.

It is not so much about questioning the wisdom of razing one of Downtown Cobleskill’s largest and most impressive Victorian mansions to make way for yet another pharmacy, when one already exists across the street, as much as it is about the public’s right and responsibility to do so and to have a process in place for insuring that developers don’t run roughshod over the community. The planning process that is lead by our community’s volunteer planning boards and zoning boards is meant to be a space not just for debate about the merits of such projects to the community, but a process (with teeth) that insures a community’s own vision for its future is upheld.

Unfortunately right now that vision is not one single vision, as might be represented in the comprehensive plan, but a series of competing visions being put forth and defended by a diverse group of stakeholders. Right now the village’s land use planning process exists solely as an extension of the political arena and as such is being driven by whatever forces happen to be able to manipulate it for their own purposes.

To be sure, the Village currently has a comprehensive plan in effect; however, bulldozing historic homes so that medium-box retail can be built is not really included in its vision statement. The plan is over ten years old, and perhaps it is time for a revision that reflects the need to balance protecting the village’s historic character with the need for economic development that increases tax revenue and jobs. It is perhaps also necessary to view these goals as competing in a kind of zero-sum game and to recognize that pursuing one over the other will eventually lead to diminishing returns.

Otherwise, local officials and developers will continue to proceed in an opportunistic fashion disregarding the former objective for the latter. This might not be so easy if village planners and planning board members had some vision in place as to how they should balance these two necessary but often-times conflicting imperatives. More importantly, it is perhaps time to replace our existing boards with people who will have the public interest (not their own) in mind.

Currently, the Board of Trustees’ efforts to quash debate have been successful, and this is lamentable. An open and vigorous debate would have weighed the potential jobs and tax revenues created by the project against the potentiality of Rite-Aid (which would be just across the street) being forced to close down, as well as the additional traffic generated by the project and the costly road improvements it will necessitate.

It could also have weighed the economic benefits against the less tangible costs of losing one of the village’s largest and prettiest Victorian mansions, not to mention the diminished pedestrian access and lost human scale of the block. Of course, a vigorous debate can lead to more than a yes or no vote, it could have led to amendments to the design of the project that really did serve to increase its chances of adding to the community rather than simply just being there, or worse yet, detracting from the community.

Yet these debates will not and can not occur when town and village boards are comprised of developers, real estate professionals and absentee property owners whose financial interests and economic instincts run counter to the goals of long-term comprehensive planning and community development. It is arguably worse when these developers populate the planning and zoning boards themselves, which they do in many places in Schoharie County.

Only the voters can insure that the planning process remains under the control of ordinary citizens and they can do this by not sitting home while a minority of their neighbors thoughtlessly elects land developers to their village boards who then unsurprisingly proceed to shamelessly push their own agendas.

As these officials attempt to shove consolidation and unneeded sprawl development down our throats voters should reflect on their plans for this upcoming Election Day. Will the deepest pockets in the town and village (i.e. the Galasso’s and Nadeau’s) continue running the show? I’ve heard it said, and sometimes agree, that people get the government they deserve.

Is it time for a ‘community plaza’ in Newberry Square?

2009-08-28T08:55:00.001-07:00

Now that the Town of Cobleskill has backed out of its plans to relocate its offices downtown, other agencies and municipalities would do well to step up to the plate and take up where the town left off. Though the town’s decision not to move, as well as it’s refusal to seriously consider moving into the Newberry Square building is lamentable, they ought to get credit for at least making the effort. Most importantly, the Town’s recent interest underscores the Village’s own long-term inaction on this issue. For the past ten years there has been talk but little serious movement on bringing the Village offices back into Downtown Cobleskill.

Why not? The current location makes absolutely no sense. It deprives village residents of a user-friendly civic center that they could walk or bike to while also depriving the village’s downtown business district of a stable, long-term anchor tenant that would generate plenty of vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The original move to Mineral Springs Road was dumb and the apparent unwillingness to move back is even dumber.

Not to mention the fact that Cobleskill’s Main Street is in desperate need of an upstanding tenant for the Newberry Square building, whose boarded up windows are currently pulling down everything around it. It’s one thing for a community to lack vision when it comes to sustainable long-term growth and development strategies, but it’s quite another when it can’t see the obvious benefits of a simple plan staring it square in the face.

But the village isn’t the only possible agency in a position to help revitalize Downtown Cobleskill by moving there. Virtually right next door to the village offices are the headquarters of Schoharie County’s Department of Planning and Development, Department of Economic Development and the Schoharie County Rural Preservation Corporation which handles Section 8 housing all located at 349 Mineral Springs Road. Imagine this; the folks from planning and economic development themselves helping to develop and revitalize a distressed building which could then serve as a community civic center or ‘community plaza’ drastically raising the stock of Cobleskill’s Main Street!

Even better, how about the village and county (and perhaps the town) go in on it together? I know, I know…obvious benefits…simple plan. Silly me, I guess.

Yay for Main Street!

2009-08-28T08:54:00.001-07:00

I know I usually tend to do a lot of criticizing on this blog but occasionally it behooves me to give credit where credit is due. Over the past few months Cobleskill’s Main Street has come a long way, and this is a really positive example of the power of grassroots coalitions of small business owners and citizens working together to build on their shared assets.

Beginning a few months ago, Cobleskill Partnership, Inc. committed $15,000 to a matching grant program targeted at downtown business owners for lighting, signage and façade improvements. Slowly but surely I began noticing the changes throughout the summer. Some of the more sorely needed improvements include the replacement of that awful corrugated steel paneling above Pizza Shack as well as the plain grey facade on the building at the north-west corner of Main and Union with faux-brickwork.

The long under-utilized space at the western corner of Main and Division will also be undergoing changes as the result of a joint effort between the property owner and SUNY Cobleskill. What once was just a strip of planted trees will now be a small commons area with benches and chessboard tables.

To the shopkeepers who have driven these improvements this summer, way to go! It is now time for village officials to step up and support these efforts by going after additional grant monies for more improvements, to attract new businesses and to implement long-needed streetscape improvements, not to mention bringing Village Hall back downtown.

America an Undeveloping Nation?

2009-07-03T12:26:00.000-07:00

As I contemplated Obama’s apparent endorsement of a plan to bulldoze fallow portions of rustbelt cities like Flint, Michigan, I began considering America’s larger economic and infrastructure dilemmas. By now, we are familiar with that nasty term ‘rustbelt’, especially us here in Upstate NY. However, looking around the country, at California’s economic crisis, at our inability to rebuild New Orleans, or just at the general dysfunction that hinders our nation’s ability to maintain a minimal infrastructure and provide basic services such as public transit and healthcare, which other developed countries provide as a rule, I realized, that the ‘rustbelt’ phenomenon wasn’t merely limited to places like Flint, MI, Youngstown, OH and Upstate, New York. Our entire country has become a ‘rustbelt’, warranting an entirely new classification to better clarify our standing in the world. ‘Undeveloping nation’ seems to capture it.

The idea of bulldozing deteriorating urban neighborhoods, which at first seems unthinkable, begins to seem more and more like our only option. If we really have so little vision for our own future and can not come up with sustainable uses for our historic industrial cities and the factories that made this country great, then a wrecking ball is perhaps a suitable and appropriate fate. But why limit this logic to the Flint, Michigan’s and Gary, Indiana’s of America? Why not have the whole nation simply cut it’s losses and ‘shrink to survive’?

Take the stimulus bill for example. The problem with Obama’s stimulus package is not whether it’s too big or too small to make a dent in America’s crumbling infrastructure and economic recession (which it is by far). Nor is it an issue of bad fiscal policy leading us to dangerous and reckless state interventionism, an argument that the Republicans are betting it all on. The problem as I see it is that spending trillions of dollars to maintain an infrastructure that was originally put in place to accommodate a much larger and growing economy is inherently a losing proposition. Few want to admit it, but the dams, levees, bridges and aqueducts that were built largely in the first half of the 20th Century, are outsized relics of an America whose best days were just ahead.

Everybody’s favorite new word seems to be ‘infrastructure’, as if throwing money at our ‘infrastructure’ will magically lift us out of recession and save us all. But the problem is not that we have neglected our infrastructure, which we certainly have, it is that the costs of maintaining that infrastructure are very simply going to outpace the amount of wealth being generated by our economy. Sadly, the degree to which Americans will be forced to ‘re-adjust’ to a lower standard of living and lower level of services has yet to be fully appreciated.

What’s worse, this is not just about spending enough money to meet our current and future needs. In the very near future, this outsized infrastructure will begin to present serious risks for future generations. Not only will we not have the money to maintain our levees, dams, landfills and nuclear power plants, but we may not have the money to safely decommission them either. With states and cities flat broke there will be no easy answers as to how best to deal with all those unstable, crumbling structures looming over us like giant, rust-covered swords of Damocles.

I can seriously imagine that ten to twenty years from now this country might be so broke and dysfunctional that major pieces of infrastructure like our own Gilboa Dam will essentially be abandoned and left to rot, with no one standing up to claim responsibility for them. This leads me to the conclusion that our smartest solution to the infrastructure problem may not be to sure-up or build more of it, but to decommission and safely dismantle some of these structures and systems while we still have the resources and know-how to do so.

For example, we might consider closing down some bridges and sections of highways. We’ll never be able to fix them all and it’s only a matter of time before they start collapsing and killing people. Of course this may not be necessary when increases in gas prices begin to force a majority of drivers off the roads for good. Perhaps we should also start shutting down the airports. Pilot salaries start lower than those of a Wal-Mart cashier, and we are outsourcing all the mechanical work. The airlines can only maintain existing standards with less and less for so long until the planes start falling out of the sky.

Throughout the U.S., many cities should simply be abandoned. New Orleans is a good example. It is doubtful that we can sure up those levees, and even if we did, complacency would set in in a few years and insure that they once again fell prey to neglect and budget cuts. New York City’s bridges and tunnels are also a major liability. They were all built at least over fifty years ago and are already showing their age. Yet, America will never again see the kind of wealth that was tapped to build these transportation systems in the first half of the 20th Century. Close them down now before the next disaster occurs and kills hundreds of people.

There’s no point in denying the inevitable. We should accept the writing on the crumbling wall. America is on its way to becoming a third world nation. Over the past 25 years, America has handed it’s economic dominance to China and submitted to a corporate-dominated laissez-faire economic orthodoxy that disparaged government-involvement in the economy as ‘socialistic’ and worshipped at the altar of so-called ‘free trade’. Conservative republicans, largely working in concert with democrats have strangled public education, abandoned our neediest cities, helped ship America’s manufacturing base overseas and used their control of the government to prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that government couldn’t do anything right. They have heaped unending abuse on the public sector while encouraging the nation to puts its faith in some infallible free market. The end result of this is either a race to the bottom, or a slow, inevitable decline.

As I see it, those are our two options. The first is to continue on our current path, letting the rich look for better countries in which to park their wealth and spending billions on a bloated military, all while denying the fact that we are fundamentally a nation of losers incapable of providing services and producing goods on par with the rest of the world. The second option is to accept that we are a nation of losers on our way down. We tax the rich at 75%, slash the military budget (who are we to be running the world anyway?), and run up the biggest tab with China that we can get away with. Then we take that money, give all Americans free health coverage, a free I-Phone, and a monthly tax rebate check. Tell everyone to move into their parents’ basement, play Guitar Hero for the next 25 years and just enjoy the ride down.

Our best hope is a few good decades before our freefall into barbarity and cannibalism.

Why the county should ignore Bill Cherry

2009-07-03T12:19:00.000-07:00

Though the act may have left him something of a self-made martyr for his cause, Bill Cherry’s recent resignation from the position of county budget director was essentially the grown-up equivalent of a temper tantrum, borne of his apparent failure to understand the limits of his own role and authority in the administration of Schoharie County’s finances. Yet it’s easy to sympathize with his frustration; when you think you have all the answers and no one listens to you, it tends to get on your nerves.

Clearly, Cherry’s position was not an enviable one. Schoharie County’s lack of any clear-cut administrative or managerial role thrusts an awkward list of responsibilities, in the form of it’s ‘budget director’ position, on already fully active department heads, which promises to test their time, skills and egos. Whether you agree or disagree with Cherry’s forceful admonitions to the Board of Supervisors (calling for hiring freezes and draconian budget cuts), you should recognize that these proposals come not from his skill or expertise as an administrator, but rather from his lack thereof.

For the past several years Bill Cherry has been something of a broken record, telling the Board of Supervisors to simply stop spending and stop hiring. This was understandable as Cherry is clearly capable of simple mathematics; meaning he could add up the amount of revenue coming in and clearly see that it did not match up to what the county was spending. These are very practical and common sense solutions and explain why Cherry has substantial support from county republicans. Surely it feels good to be able to take the high ground and give those out-of-control supervisors a public spanking. However, in an administrative role, these simplistic feel-good solutions don’t cut it.

This is why Schoharie County needs a professional administrator with the education, skills and experience to play around with the numbers, fine-tune the budget process, and insure that the county is effectively using its resources. We all want to see county government operate more efficiently, but service cuts and hiring freezes are not necessarily the healthiest answer in a recession, especially when the federal government is shipping billions of dollars to state and local governments to maintain services and increase hiring. Not only does the county provide an array of services that keep people able to live here and maintain property tax rolls, but county government is a source of employment for hundreds of residents and this helps to keep our economy afloat, especially during hard times.

Politically, it would solve the problem of tasking existing county officials with an impossible job and would eliminate the, shall we say, misunderstandings that arise from this situation. Put simply, asking other department heads to serve in this quasi-administrative capacity is merely a recipe for further frustration. It also places the Board of Supervisors in the very difficult position of having to override what is perceived as objective, expert economic counsel. The wise move for the county would be to fill all current vacancies and freely hire new staff as necessary. Yet it can not do so without disregarding the advice of Bill Cherry (or whoever else is in the position), whose advice will inevitably be given far more weight than it deserves.

Cherry’s own proposal that we replace the Board of Supervisors with a ‘professional’ county legislature completely misses the point. A full-time county legislature would only mean an additional set of elected individuals representing the county. Their particular skill level and ability to deal with complex financial problems would be no better or worse than those of the current Board of Supervisors. Not to mention the fact that a full time legislature could cost upwards of three to four times what the Board of Supervisors costs us in salaries and benefits. This plainly sounds as if Cherry’s personal anger with the Board of Supervisor’s is getting the best of him.

Let’s stop wasting our time and playing games. The county needs a single professional administrator to step in and find some intelligent solutions to a budgeting process that is far too complex to be left to overwhelmed department heads. Such a professional is needed, now more than ever, to take a more active role in the day-to-day administration of Schoharie County. There’s a lot more involved than simple mathematics. The county needs a finer set of tools to deal with the fiscal challenges at hand and should avoid the blunt-force solutions that Cherry is advocating.

Gaveled In for Life

2009-07-03T12:18:00.000-07:00

The dysfunction and stalemate that has gripped Albany since the June 8th Republican takeover has only really served to emphasize that which most of us already know: our state government is in the hands of a cabal of shameless, self-serving creeps and we are powerless to do anything about it. Sure, this latest spike in madness or shenanigans or whatever you want to call it, has more people than usual talking, and proposing bolder and crazier solutions. But at the end of the day, nothing short of voting each and every one of these legislators out of office and instituting a wide range of reforms will result in any meaningful changes. Sadly, even with the current mess in the State Senate, this does not seem possible. This leaves only one real option to fed-up residents of the State of New York: shut up and deal with it.

Everyone who observes this crisis of governance has a few good ideas on how to clean up this mess. Republican gubernatorial candidate and former Long Island congressman Rick Lazio has suggested abolishing the assembly and senate and replacing them with a uni-cameral legislature. Hey, it works for Nebraska! But what’s to stop a uni-cameral legislature from being just as self-serving and corrupt as our current bi-cameral one? Nothing as far as I can tell. Probably just an empty gesture exploiting this mess to attract attention to his own candidacy.

Similarly, likely gubernatorial candidate Rudy Giuliani has called for a new constitutional convention. Plenty of good reforms could come out of this, such as tougher campaign finance regulations, non-partisan redistricting commissions and even possibly term limits. But they won’t, so keep dreamin!

Most likely, the next governor, who I’m betting will be a Republican, will get elected on a tidal wave of support for reforming New York’s broken government. But once in office they will realize that A. reform is impossible and B. they have more to gain by cooperating with the system. More backroom deals will be made, everything will go back to normal and money will continue to change hands, in other words, democracy as usual.

Of course, I’d be willing to bet that most New Yorkers would be happy to see our state government simply return to its status quo of corrupt backroom deal-making if it meant a return to some semblance of functionality. At least our municipalities would have those necessary ‘housekeeping bills’ passed and would get their damn money, right? What this essentially means is that all of us are just as in hoc to state legislative leadership for our own ‘member items’ as all those cowed little legislators. Still, I wouldn’t bet on a single incumbent being tossed out of office in November.

But will things ever go back to normal? Don’t count on it. If the Republican coup is allowed to stand and democrats recognize their leadership as legitimate, this would virtually guarantee that each election would be followed by endless backroom wrangling and scheming intended to sway the weak links of the majority party. If Republicans get away with this, they will do it again and again and again. Democrats need not worry, they will try to do it as well.

Sure there are reforms that if passed could force these creeps to have a real bad day. For example, if we adopted a system of impartially drawn legislative districts, it would mean real, competitive elections, and our legislators would actually have to pay attention to the voters. But this will never happen. We could also implement term limits, making it impossible for weasels like Espada and Skelos to ensconce themselves in office for as long as they are able to favorably gerrymander their districts. But this too, will never happen. Then of course, we could also do away with legislative member items, well, yeah right! Better yet, why don’t we just ask these guys to be honest and ethical and focus solely on the ‘people’s business’?

What this all boils down to is that here in New York we have a caste of political leaders who are so beyond accountability that they feel that they can do whatever they want, which is exactly what they’re doing. It should make you angry, but not too angry. After all, there’s nothing you can do about it. This is only a democracy.

If anyone has any better ideas, I’m all ears.

Stuck with Them

2009-07-03T12:17:00.000-07:00

As Cobleskill developer Mark Nadeau apparently announced his mayoral candidacy last week via t-shirt, I began seriously wondering if it wasn’t time for Cobleskill to return to two-year terms of office. It’s not that Cobleskill has had an especially bad run of non-credible candidates over the past few years, it’s that Cobleskill actually votes for them. Then, once they reveal themselves to be, oh I don’t know, pathological liars bent on personal vendettas, the voters are stuck with them for four long years.

With Trustee Bob LaPietra, Cobleskill has essentially been saddled with an absentee slumlord, an admitted liar and a brazen lawbreaker whose word clearly can not be trusted. Did voters adequately consider these potential character flaws when they elected him trustee? Maybe not, or maybe they just gave the guy the benefit of the doubt. Either way, the voters now have no recourse but to put up with him until 2012 when he will again face the voters.

Part of me wants to simply sit back and enjoy these candidates for their entertainment value. However, there’s actually a lot of damage they can do. Just consider the fact that if three of five of the current trustees had their way, there wouldn’t even be a village left to speak of. As it is now, the village is dangerously close to being dissolved despite not having sufficiently studied the move, and despite the fact that the studies that have been done actually show that Cobleskill might be better off becoming a city. This November there will be a referendum on the village ballot on the question of dissolution, not incorporation as a city. Will voters fully appreciate the consequences of voting for this, or will they be told that they are merely voting for ‘consolidation and shared services’, everybody’s favorite new buzz words? If LaPietra’s demonstrated ability to lie to voters during a campaign is any indication, this will be an interesting election.

In his short time in office, LaPietra has attempted to gut the village Department of Planning, Environment and Codes and charges residents a $25 filing fee for codes complaints. This man seems to be out to single-handedly dismantle the village of Cobleskill, and if possible, to do so from his winter home in Punta Gorda, Florida. Because of their poor choices, Cobleskill’s voters may not have a chance in four years to correct themselves.

Assuming the village isn’t dissolved any time soon, voters ought to have an escape clause when they get stuck with maniacs like this. Each village official should serve only two year terms. I’m all for bringing additional voices to the table and choosing from a variety of bold and innovative ideas and characters. But for cryin’ out loud, can we please vet these candidates with a little more scrutiny, or barring that, at least have the option of voting them out after two years once they’ve shown us their true colors?

The List Goes On (and on)

2009-05-05T16:10:00.000-07:00

The now-famous Schoharie County “stimulus wish-list” that has been circulated to state and federal representatives has been hailed as a coordinated, quick-thinking effort by our county’s leaders to get out in front of what could be a huge opportunity. However, it’s a shame that with all this energy and “quick thinking”, this quite extensive list was the best our county could come up with. Looking over the ambitious list of proposed projects, what I find most disheartening is the utter lack of vision shown by our county’s leadership. Instead of long-term, forward-thinking ideas that will foster vibrant and sustainable communities, this list is a one-stop funding shop for all of the absolute worst ideas that have been floating around Schoharie County for the past ten years, as well as some entirely new bad ideas.

The projects for which the county is requesting funding range from reckless speculative ploys to outrageous boondoggles to pie-in-the-sky pipe dreams. And those are the good ones! Then there’s the outright scandalous $90 million dollars being requested for three totally unwarranted I-88 exits. The notion that these new exits would stimulate job growth is doubtful at best. However, they would pad the wallets of the local highway developers (Lancaster) who will most likely get the contracts. Some of that money will trickle down to the workers but other than that there would be little upside.

But the real danger in proposing these interchanges is that if even one of them is funded, at $30 million a pop, and this takes away all that money for other needed projects it will be a colossal and tragic waste for this county.

At best, most of the projects reflect a wide-eyed belief that if only a new exit is built here, or a new water line here, or a gas line here that the skies will suddenly open up and jobs will rain down. All while the promise of Empire Zone-created jobs goes unfulfilled after over two years of waiting. Anyone who actually believes the county’s projected job creation figures, well, there’s a bridge on Podpadic Road for sale.

As usual, little thought is given to maintaining our downtowns as livable and functional communities. And this is the real opportunity associated with the stimulus bill, and it’s the one our leaders completely missed.

All of our commercial centers in Schoharie County are in need of facelifts, and this is nothing new. But where is the money for downtown streetscape improvements and façade rehabs? Where is the money to rehab the upper-level apartment units in Downtown Cobleskill’s business district? For that matter, where is the money to replace those damn windows in the Newberry Square building?

I know that its hard to restrain oneself when the government is giving away free money. Even those who regularly decry government pork are going hog wild. However, a list of bad projects that goes on and on (and on) is a bad strategy for capturing federal stimulus dollars. Even if there are good projects on the list, which there are, they are inevitably going to be overshadowed by all the bad ones. A far shorter list, with a few solid (and less costly) projects that are long overdue might have gone a lot further. In the end, it may be that our county’s leaders have actually screwed up something as simple as free money. Nice one, guys.

Next Steps for Newberry Square?

2009-05-05T16:01:00.000-07:00

The recent Schoharie County court decision overturning the Village of Cobleskill’s $20,000 fine against Newberry Square owner Henry Ioannou affirms what had long been apparent to anyone driving down Main Street over the past year: The village is completely powerless when it comes to getting this owner to step up and maintain this property.

That Judge Bartlett’s decision is legally questionable and probably ought to be appealed, is a moot point. I sincerely doubt that a different decision would have translated into a different outcome with regards to the plywood. This owner is a deadbeat and has obviously committed himself to not making any improvements to the property. And this is not an acceptable long-term solution for this community.

Last year there was talk of an investor buying the building and using Restore NY grant money to rehabilitate the upper levels. But that doesn’t seem to be an option. Apparently, there is new talk of another buyer, but don't hold your breath.

More than likely, the saga will go on, and the village will be stuck with a deadbeat owner who would rather pay a lawyer than a window installer. Which brings me to the question, if the village can’t find another buyer for the Newberry Square building, why don’t they just acquire the building themselves, through eminent domain, if necessary? For years, the village has been talking about moving its offices back downtown. Is there a more appropriate time and place for such a move?

As the private sector has failed to find a profitable use for the Newberry Square building, it falls on our local government to insure that this centerpiece of Cobleskill’s business district is returned to some productive use. The existence of village offices could insure a steady stream of customers into the building, making it’s several retail spaces, as well as those in neighboring buildings that much more attractive. The same could be said for rehabilitating the upper-level apartments, either as offices or residential units. As it stands now, Newberry Square's blight is pulling down the rest of that Main Street block and indeed Main Street itself.

Now that the courts have cut off the Village's legs with regards to remedying the current owner's mess, the Village has an obligation to look into more aggressive approaches. Moving Village Hall to Newberry Square could resolve many issues at once. At the very least, it's better than sitting around waiting for Henry Ioannou to call a window repairman.

Old Whine, New Bottles

2009-05-05T15:57:00.000-07:00

Let’s not harbor any illusions about the recent passage of a compromise version of the so-called ‘bigger better bottle bill’. The only ‘green’ that Governor Paterson is interested in here is the $200 million+ in unclaimed bottle deposits that the bill will transfer into state coffers. Not that that in and of itself is necessarily a bad thing, given the financial crisis facing our state, and the fact that there is no conceivable reason why this money shouldn’t be used to help stave off budget cuts or tax hikes.

The recently passed bill addresses several key aspects of New York’s deposit bottle recycling system. First and foremost, the bill places a 5-cent deposit on water bottles, i.e. the 12 oz. plastic containers that have been rapidly proliferating over the past ten years. Other provisions in the law include the transfer of 80% of unclaimed bottle deposits from the beverage industry to the state. The bill also increases the handling fee paid by the bottlers to stores and redemption centers from 2% to 3% and mandates New York State-specific UPC codes for ALL containers sold in the state to prevent out-of-state containers from being redeemed in New York (like in Seinfeld when Kramer and Newman tried to take a mail truck full of bottles to Michigan, where they pay out a ten cent redemption).

However, while the bill was heavily supported by environmental activists and public interest groups such as NYPIRG (New York Public Interest Research Group) as a way to increase recycling and keep plastic bottles out of landfills, the beverage industry has fought the bill tooth and nail, mainly because they were afraid of losing the hundreds of millions of dollars in unclaimed container deposits.

It now appears that this industry is planning a risky gambit to stir up old fears that the new law will cost consumers, cause people to lose their jobs, and that the new law simply won’t work. These are the same old complaints that the beverage industry has been using to kill the bottle bill for the past ten years. Not to mention the fact that these are the same scare tactics they used in the early 1980s when the current deposit-recycling system was put into place.

But the beverage giants are merely drawing attention away from the plain fact that they are the ones responsible for the problem of container disposal in the first place as they are producing the containers. Deposit-based recycling systems insure that the industry bears some responsibility for taking out its own trash. Otherwise, there is no incentive to look into more environmentally neutral packaging and bottling methods, as the costs of disposing of containers are subsidized by taxpayers and built into state and municipal property taxes in the form of curbside recycling programs, street cleaning services and procuring new landfill capacities.

Another complaint designed to gain sympathy pits the new recycling regime against the mom-and-pop grocers and convenience stores, who critics claim, simply lack the space to accommodate all the containers. But before you shed a tear for the small corner store owner, consider the fact that virtually no one redeems bottles and cans at small grocers and convenience stores. They take them back to supermarkets which have separate redemption rooms and reverse vending machines.

While these larger-scale grocers will likely experience an uptick in container redemption, the notion that they will be unable to accommodate the increase is absurd. And so it goes for the rest of the unfounded claims that the new law will drive up the costs of bottled water and break the backs of bottlers and distributors.

This legislation is an important update to a valued recycling program that recognizes the changes that have taken place in consumer trends and is in fact long overdue. Hopefully, lawmakers will keep this new bill on track to become effective on June 1st and understand that the fear tactics are nothing but a desperate end game by the beverage industry to cling to millions of dollars in unclaimed deposits.

Dead-Ender

2009-05-05T15:55:00.000-07:00

The New York State Assembly’s Republican conference recently held another panel on how to stop the ‘brain drain’ as part of its “RemaiNY” initiative. This time, the events were held on Long Island, but previous forums were held in Upstate, which would seem more appropriate given the exodus of recent college grads from Upstate’s communities. In any case, over the past twenty years much has been made of the so-called ‘brain drain’.

But the issue always seems to be framed as if it were the responsibility of Upstate NY’s communities to adapt themselves to the needs of the young, ambitious and college-educated, when perhaps it should be the other way around. I look at everything that Upstate New York has to offer: a moderate climate, some of the most beautiful natural landscapes in the world, an extremely low cost of living, and some of the nations’ oldest and richest historical communities. I then have to wonder what it is exactly that the people leaving in droves are hoping to find.

Well you can get your answer by looking at the places these people are leaving for, i.e. New York City, Boston and Chicago metro regions. What do these places have that we don’t, besides heavy suburban sprawl, traffic-choked highways and gentrifying (read: unaffordable) inner city neighborhoods? Well, contrary to conventional wisdom, it’s not a lack of jobs that drives these people away from Upper New York, it’s a lack of jobs that pay a ton of money to fuel an obsession with status and material acquisition that has become the standard of the American way of life.

A person can easily live in a city like Amsterdam or Utica on minimum wage (maybe with a little help in the form of food stamps, WIC and Medicaid). But what, that’s not good enough?

That these people don’t want to live in MY Upstate NY is not something I consider a problem and I don’t believe that we should waste one second thinking about how to keep these people in this state. Let them go off and join their rat race. Good riddance!

The Times-Journal Misses Mayor Sellers

2009-03-11T18:52:00.000-07:00

About halfway through the Times-Journal’s ridiculous editorial entitled “In Absentia” I realized it was going to be one of those annoying editorials that made me want to call up Jim Poole just to tell him to shut the hell up. If you want to take a public official to task for not showing up at Board meetings and not responding to citizen’s calls, I can understand that. But in this case, the Times-Journal goes way overboard. In the editorial, Mayor Sellers is criticized not for his poor attendance at Village meetings, but at, get this, memorial day ceremonies! He is also skewered for not showing up regularly enough at the annual meetings of Cobleskill Partnership Incorporated, a voluntary organization of which Mr. Sellers is a committee member.

Why Mr. Sellers’ attendance is so absolutely crucial and essential at these annual CPI meetings? Oh yes, according to the Times-Journal it was an “opportunity to schmooze with local entrepreneurs”. Hey, good schmoozing opportunities don’t come along every day.

Sellers is also criticized for not being involved with the “remodeling” of the corner of Main and Division St. But if I remember correctly, there were plenty of people who “had a hand” in the project already. I seem to remember seeing all their faces in the obligatory Times-Journal photo-op a few weeks ago. Another missed schmoozing opportunity, I guess. If anyone can think of any more events in the village that the Mayor has missed please contact Mr. Poole at once.

Then the editorial informs us that Mr. Sellers is on vacation in Peru, a revelation most likely greeted with the loudest collective ‘who gives a shit?’ in recent memory. I am still scratching my head trying to figure out exactly how this constitutes news. I know that the Times-Journal loves to bash Sellers as the “no-show mayor” and I know that its hard to stray from the established talking point, but this is grasping at straws.

If anyone reading this has any contact with Sellers, be sure and remind him to send Jim Poole a postcard from Machu Picchu.

LaPietra’s Intolerable Acts

2009-03-11T18:51:00.000-07:00

One wonders if getting slammed with a $25 dollar fee for complaining that your slumlord won’t fix the furnace is what the Boston colonists had in mind when they dumped all that tea into the harbor. Probably not, but that’s okay. We’ll just add irony to the list of things Village Trustee Bob LaPietra, who ran on his own ‘Tea Party’ line, doesn’t quite get.

At February’s first Village Board meeting, Cobleskill’s most patriotic slumlord attempted to strike a blow for deadbeat property owners everywhere when he introduced a motion to charge village residents a $25 dollar fee for reporting codes violations. Shameless, I know. But if that wasn’t bad enough he also made a motion to Nelli Mooney, head of the Department of Planning, Environment and Codes with two part-timers. If passed, these two measures would have discouraged cash-strapped tenants from filing complaints and removed an experienced village employee, effectively dismantling the codes office in the process. The message to village employees would have been simple: if you do your job by protecting village residents from people like me, I’ll have your job.

Though Trustee Mark Galasso supported LaPietra’s measures, they were blocked by the other three members of the Village Board (Linda Holmes, Sandy MacKay and Mayor Michael Sellers).

LaPietra’s abuse of power was so blatant that even the Times-Journal, which is usually supportive of LaPietra, had to take a step back and wonder what the hell this guy was thinking. They correctly point to LaPietra’s long and sordid history of flouting local zoning ordinances and building codes. As recently as several months ago, LaPietra was ordered by a state court to remove residents from the upper floor of a commercial building that was out of compliance with both the local zoning ordinance and the state building code.

The Times-Journal said LaPietra’s proposals “raised alarm bells”, and that’s reassuring. However, the editorial extended LaPietra little more than a slap on the wrist for his naked attempt to gut the codes office. They also completely failed to hold Trustee Mark Galasso accountable for his support of that attempt. This raises the question, far more urgent and critical than the Times-Journal’s “alarm bells”, of whether or not LaPietra and Galasso will be held accountable at all. LaPietra casually violates the law and then goes after the jobs of the people who attempted to stop him. Meanwhile, Mark Galasso, whose Daddy handed him a multi-million dollar highway construction company, wants to charge Schoharie County’s working poor $25 to file a complaint against their slumlord. It’s obvious that these two men have no shame. Jim Poole's ears are ringing, but where's the outrage?

Were I LaPietra or Galasso I would seriously consider holding off on the whole American Revolution theme as now would probably not be a good time for them to remind people of that whole tarring and feathering thing we used to do.

Experience and Issues Matter in Richmondville, Finally

2009-03-11T18:50:00.000-07:00

While Reunion Power has been busy measuring the wind speeds up on Warnerville Hill, there has been more than enough hot air blowing around Richmondville Town Board meetings to power most of the Eastern seaboard. I’m sure most of you have seen them, if not live and in person than surely on Schopeg. Every month the same cast of characters shows up in force to point their fingers and stomp their feet.

However, Richmondville residents accustomed to getting what they want via temper tantrum were surely quite displeased when former supervisor Betsy Bernocco was appointed to the Town Board to fill out the term of Larry Zaba. Could Bernocco’s appointment be a sign that Richmondville’s elected officials are finally growing a pair? Could this mean that they are finally realizing that the angry NIMBY’s who stalk Town Board meetings are not representative of the town as a whole?

I sure hope so, because it’s about time this community sobered up when it comes to wind power. For over two years the discussion has been dominated by a small but vocal group bitterly opposed to wind power who have infected every aspect of the process with unfounded fear and hysteria. Last Fall, the Town Board inexplicably voted to adopt an onerously high wind turbine setback of 1500 feet, a figure arguably adopted only to placate Reunion Power’s critics, often the loudest and rudest voices in the room. God only knows what kind of lop-sided and biased information the committee used to determine those setback recommendations. Schoharie Valley Watch themselves have criticized the supposed secrecy of the setback committee. I too, would like there to be an open process and I would like to know just how the committee came up with a setback figure of 1500 feet when dozens of nearby communities with comparable population densities and topographies have adopted considerably lower setbacks.

While Bernocco’s appointment has been criticized by the usual chronic complainers, her experience and long record of service to the town and village of Richmondville make her an asset to the Town Board. As the Town attempts to move forward on the wind law and dozens of other issues objectively and intelligently it is crucial that they act as representatives for all town residents, not just the handful of loudmouths who show up at Board meetings every month to bitch and moan.

PAYT a mixed bag

2009-03-11T18:48:00.000-07:00

Pay-as-you-throw garbage collection is back on the table in the Village of Cobleskill as trustees grapple with the rising costs of trash removal. While the temptation to save costs by removing trash collection from the Village budget is a powerful incentive, the new system being proposed could have village residents throwing away their money more than anything else.

Initially, PAYT emerged as a brainchild of the libertarian far right as a way to rationalize waste disposal by individualizing costs and benefits. In a twist of irony, the idea was later adopted by some environmentalists who believe that PAYT incentivizes recycling and reduces waste streams. Ithaca, NY of all places uses PAYT for trash removal, precisely because it has been so successfully re-packaged as a green reform.

However, the other side to PAYT is that the system radically shifts the burden of paying for trash removal from a somewhat more progressive system where the costs are built in to your property tax bill to a far more regressive system where the poorest of the poor pay the same rates as the richest of the rich. This regressive system can be compounded for poor households that happen to be larger in size and who will therefore tend to generate more waste. The bottom line is that under PAYT, the poor pay more for trash removal as their fees constitute a higher portion of their household income.

Admittedly, PAYT is a system that has generated a considerable amount of “curb appeal” as an innovative way to privatize a costly municipal service AND at the same increase recycling. However, PAYT often makes trash removal unnecessarily complicated, encourages illegal dumping and regressively shifts the burden of trash removal costs to the poor. With these obvious positives and negatives, PAYT is clearly a mixed bag. Any municipality interested in adopting a PAYT system should look carefully at these positives and negatives and weigh them against each other. In Cobleskill, that doesn’t appear to be happening. Instead, village trustees seem to be looking to pawn off an expensive service on village residents with little regard for the economic impact it will have.

Porkers!

2009-02-09T01:56:00.001-08:00

When not actually in government, Republicans like to blast away at the reckless spending of big government liberals who, as the old saying goes, will spend taxpayers money like drunken sailors. But when in government, and/or when in a position to benefit, Republicans can spend like the best of them. In Schoharie County, Obama’s stimulus package has local Republicans lining up with their hands out like kids in a candy store, or should I say pork store.

In fact, if you listen closely you can already here Schoharie County’s fattest piggies lined up at the trough squealing for treats. Schoharie County’s Board of Supervisors settled on a list of 17 projects costing over $153 million dollars. Make no mistake, Schoharie County is in desperate need of a few hundred million dollars or so of stimulus money. But many of the proposed projects leave me scratching my head as expensive and for the most part unnecessary, and worst of all, they take away resources from more worthy projects.

For example, the county proposes to spend $90 million on three new I-88 exits, one for the proposed water park by Howe Caverns, one for Guilford Mills in Cobleskill and another for Schoharie. Not only is this is a colossal and unjustified waste of money, but the fat highway contracts will be manna from Heaven for the Galasso's. Here’s an idea, why don’t they just put in a separate exit ramp leading straight to the home of the Galasso’s so they can just drive right up and drop the money off by the truck load?

The pork list just goes on. The Board is proposing replacing a small bridge on Podpadic Road in order to access a proposed industrial site. Pay attention because this one’s a gem. Mill Services, who already have a factory in the Village of Cobleskill are being courted by Town of Richmondville officials, including Planning Board Chair Harold Loder, who incidentally, owns the piece of land that the bridge replacement would provide access to. Let me get this straight. We waste millions of dollars in federal money for a new bridge for Podpadic Road and the Village of Cobleskill gets another empty factory, all so Harold Loder gets a buyer for his land. And to think, these people probably didn't even vote for Obama!

Then there’s $11.8 million dollars for water and sewer extensions out to Shad Point, and everything in between. Interesting strategy by local developers. Tell the water hoarders in the Village of Cobleskill that they’re costing the county nearly 12 million dollars in federal aid by not playing along.

Of course, buried in all this pork there are some worthy projects like the $25.8 million dollars for broadband service, a truly critical piece of the infrastructure puzzle. There’s a modest $3 million dollars in there for SUNY Cobleskill which will be used in the development of a waste-to-energy project. More projects along these lines could push us further toward developing a green energy/technology economy that has the best chance of creating new opportunities for Upstate NY.

Another critical but overlooked piece of the puzzle is sustainable development. Amidst all of this pork for new highway projects and moving factories across town, there is little talk of projects that will help to revitalize our downtowns and promote sustainable development. There needs to be more of a focus on projects like the Newberry Square building rehab and the Cobleskill Creek Trail. New sidewalks and facades for all the Downtown business districts in the region would not only provide temporary construction jobs and provide the facelift our business districts will need to thrive in coming decades but it could be done at a fraction of the cost of Schoharie County’s three new proposed highway exits. The current and temporary reduction in fuel costs has made a lot of us forget just how obsolete our automobile-dominated society is becoming. We need to start rebuilding compact, high-density communities sooner rather than later. We need to start by rehabilitating the vacant spaces in our downtown business districts and working on our bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure in the county, which is currently non-existent.

More federal aid for wind farms could also be a windfall for the area if federal aid stipulated more robust PILOT payments for local communities. This could help to reduce local resistance as communities realized they had more to gain than to lose by working with wind power developers.

Right now is a critical time for America and particularly the depressed economy of Upstate NY. With the Federal Government eager to throw hundreds of billions of dollars at the problem, it is imperative that we as citizens insure that this money is used wisely to build a sustainable future and not to pad the wallets of the porkers who run this county. After all, a trillion dollars is a terrible thing to waste.

How Wal-Mart Short-Changes Communities

2009-02-09T01:46:00.000-08:00

Wal-Mart’s recent attempt to shake down the Town of Cobleskill by demanding a reduction in its property assessment shouldn’t come as a surprise; it’s standard operating procedure for the retail giant. As the country slides deeper and deeper into recession, Wal-Mart counts on the fact that cash-strapped communities like Cobleskill won’t have the resources to fight back when they demand concessions on their property assessments, even when the local assessment is correct.

For a company that has become infamous for playing hardball with its vendors and with many of its employees, the thousands of municipalities in which Wal-Mart’s operate should not be surprised when they begin to receive similar treatment from the company. Even still, for many of the communities who don’t come out ahead in their dealings with the company, the consequences can be devastating. Many of these communities welcome Wal-Mart’s and similar big box retailers with open arms, precisely because these companies promise significant sales and property tax revenues. Communities see these developments as a way to increase economic development and help defray the increasing costs of providing services.

In the final tally however, most of these communities find themselves short-changed by such big box retailers. Stores like Wal-Mart almost immediately drain business away from local merchants rapidly transforming downtown business districts into ghost towns. Meanwhile, rather than helping to lessen the costs of providing services through additional tax revenues, Wal-Mart and other big box retailers consume far more resources than other businesses. However, for many communities the coup de grace comes when a company like Wal-Mart decides to further cut its own costs by challenging its local property assessment to the tune of millions of dollars. Needless to say, this can come as a major blow to small towns who after having hosted a Wal-Mart for several years usually have lost businesses who do pay their taxes and will continue having to provide expensive services to the local Wal-Mart.

However, it may be at the local level where communities stand the best chance at beating back these hardball tactics. Local governments need to be counseled by state agencies and non-profits on how to defend their assessments against challenges by companies like Wal-Mart. Defending assessments can be a costly and time-consuming battle for local assessors. However, if they have done their homework, and the assessments are correct, they should hold up in state proceedings.

Obviously, state real property services agencies, such as New York’s Office of Real Property Services have a vested interest in preventing companies like Wal-Mart from in essence gaming the system by intimidating small communities with a barrage of legal threats. The less that companies like Wal-Mart pay in local property taxes, the more the states have to pick up in financial aid to municipalities.

Another way for local communities to get what it they are owed from Wal-Mart is to support union organizing efforts. If the Employee Free Choice Act (AKA card check) becomes law, and most likely it will, Wal-Mart employees will be able to bring in a union like the Union of Food and Commercial Workers simply by having a majority of employees sign union cards.

This could be an invaluable tool for insuring that Wal-Mart’s largely poor, rural and female workforce earns a living wage and has access to decent benefits. It would also insure that more money stays in our communities as opposed to being sent down to Bentonville, Arkansas to enlarge the already obscene family fortunes of the Waltons.

With companies like Wal-Mart playing hardball with us, it makes little sense for members of the community, including local government to simply roll over. There are things that we can do, and must do, to play hardball right back at these corporate pirates. The first step is to realize that they are not our friends.

The Forces Behind Consolidation

2009-02-09T01:11:00.000-08:00

Apparently, the town/village consolidation study conducted by the Center for Governmental Research was intended as the local equivalent of a show trial in support of dissolving the village. It was to provide supporters of dissolution with a heavy stack of papers confirming the many presumed benefits of eliminating the Village of Cobleskill. That the study actually failed to provide any solid, compelling arguments for dissolution, and actually recommended becoming a city, seems to matter very little, if at all, to a majority of the Village Board who have chosen to selectively interpret the study and, with blinders firmly in place, feverishly rush toward dissolution of the village, as it always intended to in the first place.

To those of us who have followed village affairs closely over the past three years and have watched numerous developers unsuccessfully request village water service for projects located outside the village, it is obvious that this is the real impetus behind the push for consolidation. Village officials may attempt to throw sand in your eyes by telling you consolidation will save money and increase efficiency. But this is not true and THEY KNOW IT! The truth is, this attempt to consolidate the village into the town is essentially a smash-and-grab operation to plunder the village’s water and sewer services in order to fuel growth benefitting only a handful of developers.

Additionally, the move would consolidate all local planning and zoning functions in the hands of Republican-appointed members of the town planning board and zoning board of appeals. These people will be tripping over each other to accommodate companies like Lowes and the Shad Point mystery manufacturer. Dreams of a rebirth of Main Street would be just as shattered as the windows of the Newberry Square building.

The move to dissolve is currently being led by a three-person majority on the Board of Trustees consisting of ultra-conservative developer Mark Galasso, indicted felon Robert LaPietra (recently elected despite pending felony charges) and curiously enough Mayor Mike Sellers, a member of the Green Party who used to think that this community mattered.

When it comes to this issue, the Board of Trustees is operating in an ethical black hole. Both Mark Galasso and Bob LaPietra stand to benefit personally if the Village is dissolved. Almost two years ago Galasso requested that water service from the Warnerville Water District be extended to his company Lancaster Development, but that request was denied by the Village Board of Trustees. Does anyone here seriously think Roger Cohn and the Republicans on the Town Board will say no to Galasso or, for that matter, go out of their way to reconstitute the Village’s tighter planning and code enforcement regime? The latter of course being a prime source of Bob LaPietra’s headaches with regards to his illegally rented apartments.

But behind Galasso and LaPietra there is a handful of developers and bought politicians who want to get the village’s water flowing so that they can rev up development throughout the eastern half of the town.

Frankly, it would only be appropriate for Galasso to recuse himself from voting for consolidation given that his company, Lancaster Development, stands to benefit directly.

I would also like to know why Mayor Sellers is going along with this scheme which will only lead to unchecked development (read: sprawl) in the town causing Downtown Cobleskill to dry up that much faster. As a member of the Green Party you might think Sellers would want to encourage smart growth and sound development practices and stand up to blatant corruption and conflicts of interest in local government.
If Mayor Sellers doesn’t wake up to the brazen corruption underlying this consolidation scheme and distance himself from Galasso and LaPietra, village residents may wake up one morning to find that their community has been broken into and picked clean by thieves in the night.

Taking a Wait and See Approach to Gillibrand

2009-02-09T00:59:00.000-08:00

Governor Paterson’s appointment of Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand to Clinton’s vacant U.S. Senate seat has some members of the Democratic Party’s left wing crying foul. While I agree that some of her votes, particularly on immigration and gun control are quite revolting, I have to recommend that progressives take a wait-and-see approach to Gillibrand before they go gunning for her.

Most of Gillibrand’s detractors are progressive democrats who understandably feel that that her positions are too far to the right and thus out of step with the positions of most New York democrats. To be sure, her record does leave a lot to be desired. She is a member of the Blue Dog Democrat coalition and received an A rating from the National Rifle Association and voted to support funding for a wall between the U.S. and Mexico and to penalize sanctuary cities, as well as for a host of other nasty anti-immigrant legislation. Long Island Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, who is known for her one-issue advocacy of gun control has already announced that she will challenge Gillibrand in a primary in 2010.

It certainly isn’t my intention to make light of these awful positions (and there are more to be sure). And I definitely don’t want to suggest that coming from a Republican-leaning district gives her a pass for these votes. However, there is reason to believe that she will begin jettisoning some of her more unsavory Blue Dog positions now that she no longer has to pander to the Deliverance-vote in places like Essex and Delaware Counties (by the way, I can say that because I’m from Schoharie County). Already, according to the Empire State Pride Agenda, Gillibrand is coming around on the gay marriage issue, assuring the group that she now supports marriage equality.

Furthermore, many of the liberal democrats who are griping about Gillibrand are completely ignoring her strong support for working families. Not only does she support the Employee Free Choice Act (which would allow unionization through card check) but she was a co-sponsor of the legislation.

For Upstate New Yorkers, this choice is potentially very good news. Gillibrand will be in a position to bring millions of economic stimulus dollars to Upstate’s desperate communities. And while she does not have as progressive a voting record as say fellow Hudson Valley Congressman Maurice Hinchey, she has two years to show downstate democrats that she is not as conservative as they think, something she will have to do in order to head off a major primary challenge from a more liberal democrat.

Meanwhile, other democrats have more pragmatic reasons for questioning Gillibrand’s appointment, namely the fact that a special election to fill Gillibrand’s seat would likely result in a Republican pick-up.

In fact, Republicans ought to be lining up to meet New York Governor David Paterson and shake his hand. By plucking Kirsten Gillibrand out of the House and appointing her to Hillary Clinton’s vacant Senate seat, he has given Republicans their first glimmer of hope of taking back some of the hard-won Democratic seats in the House of Representatives.

The 20th District is perhaps one of the most culturally conservative in Upstate NY. It stretches from the Adirondack mountains in the north to Poughkeepsie in the south and leaves out virtually all of the Democratic zip codes in between, and yes, there are a few of them. In 2006, newcomer Kirsten Gillibrand barely squeaked by against the scandal-plagued incumbent Republican John Sweeney. At the time, Sweeney was under investigation for domestic abuse. Hard to say if this behavior is considered a positive or a negative in such a district. Despite this district’s leanings, it twice sent Gillibrand to Congress. Is there another democrat who can win in the 20th? Maybe, but not in the next two months.

In the past election cycle, Gillibrand spent nearly $5 million dollars (a lot for a congressional seat) holding the seat against powerful Republican challenger Sandy Treadwell in one of the most hotly contested races in the country. Despite all the hard work by Democrats, Governor Paterson has virtually given this seat back to the Republicans. With a line of potential replacements that stretched out the door, the Republicans settled on Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco, one of Upstate NY’s most powerful and well-known Republicans behind the disgraced Joe Bruno. The Democrats had to pick someone from a pathetic list of nobodies, settling on investor Scott Murphy. Murphy was an easy choice for Democratic Party chairs: he is wealthy and can self-finance his campaign, which is a good thing, because the Democratic Party would be criminally stupid to waste a dime on this race.

In the end, one can only look at the upcoming special election with bemusement. If the blue collar voters of this district want a Republican who is going to vote against union rights, healthcare and economic stimulus funding while feeding them the same stale old platitudes about the free market then let them have Tedisco. Better to have a Republican who will hold the line on gay marriage then a Democrat who can bring money into the district, right?

While Gillibrand would not have been my first choice, she is by turns more qualified and engaged than Caroline Kennedy. That we finally have an Upstate democrat at the top of New York’s political food chain is also something to be thankful for. While other democrats react to this news with reckless pessimism, I believe some cautious optimism is in order. While I would have preferred to keep Gillibrand in the 20th District, keeping the seat in the democratic column, her ascendency may mean that Upstate NY finally has a real voice in Washington.

Not So Sweet on Caroline

2009-01-08T10:52:00.000-08:00

The appointment of Caroline Kennedy to the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton has become an unfortunate fait accompli for New Yorkers, and especially New York’s democrats who are about to get a Senator whose sole qualification for the job is a surname. Don’t get me wrong, American history is full of famous political dynasties. Even in today’s U.S. Senate, names like Bayh, Casey, Clinton, Kennedy, Murkowski and Udall stand out as a testament to America’s deep and abiding love of nepotism.

However, in most cases, these office seekers actually work their way up the ladder before going for the big seats and are usually careful not to offend voters with their presumptuousness. Caroline Kennedy on the other hand, has zero political experience but so much hubris I doubt her head would fit under the Capitol dome. Without ever having served in public office or having done much at all on the public stage, Kennedy now expects, almost as a matter of entitlement to be handed a U.S. Senate seat, as if they were hereditary titles reserved for America’s political royalty.

This should bother democrats, especially after having laughed Sarah Palin off the national stage (and rightfully so) for not having sufficient experience. I would say Caroline Kennedy is in the same league as Palin, but that would be giving credit where credit isn’t due, I’m afraid. And let us not forget that we have just suffered through eight long years of incompetent administration by a patently unfit product of nepotism. One would think that Democrats especially would be tired of seeing the wrong people pushed up the political ladder for the wrong reasons.

Instead, Democrats seem unphased that Caroline Kennedy is about to be anointed Senator, largely as payback for her and her Uncle Teddy’s early support for Barack Obama. That the most unsavory kind of horse-trading and influence peddling went on behind the scenes to help elect the candidate of “change” and “hope” doesn’t leave me feeling too optimistic that the next four years will bring much of either.

The real losers in all of this are the countless New York democrats who are far more deserving of this Senate seat than Caroline Kennedy. New York is full of creative, bright, innovative political talent slogging it out in the real world trying to find solutions to the problems that plague this state. It is a slap in the face to them and a loss to us that they should be brushed aside because Caroline Kennedy woke up and decided she wanted to be a U.S. Senator.

It also wouldn’t hurt to bring some balance to the state by appointing an Upstate democrat to the seat. Think about it, all the top political positions in New York are currently held by Downstaters: Paterson, Smith, Silver, Skelos, Cuomo, DiNapoli, and our Senior Senator Charles Schumer. All of these guys are either from New York City or Long Island.

If ever there was a devastated region in desperate need of a voice it is Upstate NY. Why not put in somebody like Rochester’s congresswoman Louise McIntosh Slaughter, a progressive Democrat who has spent over 20 years in Congress as an advocate for labor, the environment, civil rights, women’s rights and economic justice? The same can be said for Representative Maurice Hinchey of Saugerties, who would be my second choice.

Since Upstate NY’s metropolitan regions have been hit hardest by global economic shifts over the past 30 years, cities like Buffalo, Rochester and Binghamton ought to be tapped as political farm teams for people who know Upstate’s problems and have thought long and hard about how to begin addressing them. Buffalo’s Byron Brown and Binghamton’s Matt Ryan are two examples of progressive Democratic mayors who have tried innovative approaches to solve their cities’ ongoing economic problems.

This is the real tragedy behind Caroline Kennedy’s likely appointment: The loss to our state of a voice who has the experience, the understanding and the will to make a difference where it matters most.

In the coming years, we are going to desperately need leaders who understand the problems that face our communities and, more importantly, understand what is needed to tackle them. It is for this reason that our state and our country simply can not afford to indulge the Park Avenue socialite who wants to play Senator.

Government Positions in Village of Cobleskill to Bring New Residents to Area

2009-01-08T10:51:00.000-08:00

Whoever said Schoharie County did not have the economic base to attract residents from outside the region, obviously hasn’t met Bob LaPietra. LaPietra is a part-time resident of Morris, NY and Punta Gorda, Florida. Yet due to a recent job offering he received from the voters of the Village of Cobleskill, LaPietra may soon become a full-time County and Village resident.

All too often, you hear about people packing up and leaving small towns like Cobleskill. It is a rare occasion indeed when you hear about people actually moving in to take jobs. But that is just what Bob LaPietra is doing. Although his dubious residency may have brought him a few legal headaches since allegedly filing false petitions to place his name on the ballot, he remains optimistic about all the possibilities that this new job will offer him.

While some in the Village have sought to prevent Mr. LaPietra from assuming office, due to the questions surrounding his legal residency, Village officials and Schoharie County officials should be looking at this as a potential growth opportunity. Many more jobs in the public sector could be created as a way to bring new people into the area and rejuvenate the local economic base.

In the spirit of the times, I have decided to put my name in the running for Cobleskill Mayor in 2009. That I am legally a resident of the Town of Richmondville shouldn’t really matter. Perhaps I’ll simply squat in the Newberry Square building or rent out a dog kennel at K-9 Cosmetician (Bob LaPietra owns the building) while obtaining the necessary signatures. If anyone has a problem, I’ll just tell ‘em to come on over and sniff my bed linens.

Respect Voters Wishes, No Matter How Dumb

2009-01-08T10:47:00.000-08:00

As much as I lament the election results that put Bob LaPietra on the Cobleskill Village Board of Trustees, attempting to enjoin LaPietra from assuming office, as the existing Board members tried, was a foolish maneuver. For the time being, we must accept that the people have spoken (however foolishly) and as a result LaPietra’s service on the Board of Trustees ought to begin when scheduled and continue uninterrupted until the criminal charges against him are proven in a court of law or until he loses an election.

But village officials, including all five current members of the Board of Trustees and Village Attorney Meredith Savitt, claim that if Bob LaPietra is convicted of the numerous felony counts he has been charged with, it will threaten the validity of Board actions undertaken while he was a member. Yes this reasoning seems to reverse the concept of being held innocent until proven guilty. However, it actually is a semi-legitimate reason for keeping LaPietra off the board, in case you think its purely politics.

Having said that, however, the voters of Cobleskill must bear some accountability for electing the man fully knowing what he’s been charged with. I can understand the appeal of laPietra to the average voter. Surely it must have been very psychologically satisfying pulling the lever for LaPietra. Village morale has been low for a long time and any new blood was viewed as a good thing.

LaPietra also very likely benefited from the widespread perception that he was being railroaded for his vocal criticism of Village Board members. The Times-Journal only fueled the fire when it editorialized that the charges against LaPietra were in part attributable to his “lightning rod personality”.

It is understandable that voters want to stand up for the underdog. However, when voters elect a man indicted on over a dozen felony counts, they must bear the responsibility for what happens when and if he is convicted. For that reason, current trustees have no business attempting to spare the village any inconvenience or embarrassment that might arise from LaPietra’s being convicted of the charges against him. He is the now the Village’s cross to bear.

I do hope Cobleskill residents enjoy the press coverage they’re going to get if and when LaPietra is convicted and must be removed from office. I’m sure it will be quite a story on the nightly news. I know I’ll get a kick out of it.

Zoning Out

2009-01-08T10:41:00.000-08:00

There are two ways to respond to Governor Paterson’s new cost-benefit requirements for the Empire Zone program. One would be to point out that the Governor is simply cutting funding for economic development under the guise of making the program more efficient and how this will be a tragic loss to Upstate’s struggling economies. Another way to respond, and this would be a lot easier, would be to simply not worry about it, because, at least for Schoharie County anyway, the Empire Zone program has been a big waste of time that has brought nothing but false hopes and some extra paper work.

Statewide, the Empire Zone program has been a mixed bag. It has undoubtedly helped to plug some of the holes on the sinking Titanic that is Upstate NY’s economy. On the other hand, it has also used taxpayers money to lure businesses to communities even though, in many cases, they would have located there anyway.

However, in Schoharie County, the program’s impact has been minimal at best. Sure there has been talk of various projects: a mystery manufacturer in shad point, a water park at Howe Caverns, and a multi-million dollar renovation of Sharon Springs’ old hotels. Some of this might eventually come to fruition, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.

One of the few success stories is along Route 7 near the high school where the Town of Richmondville seems to be on the verge of poaching two companies (Maranatha Fitness and Mill Services) from nearby Cobleskill.

Why has Schoharie County not benefited from its Empire Zones? In part, this is probably because Empire Zone benefits represent a drop in the bucket compared to the incentives that businesses have for leaving Upstate NY, which are many. Another reason is that local officials didn’t do a very good job at determining which land to include in the zones. Empire Zone benefits are a finite resource and are meant for targeted areas. However, in some cases, the Empire Zone-designated areas in Schoharie County included huge swaths of land owned by people with absolutely no interest in selling to developers. $100,000 in zone capital credits for community development projects can be a very beneficial tool for communities. However, Joe the farmer probably isn’t going to have much use for them, especially if he has absolutely no intentions of selling his land.

Perhaps it is time to realize that the Empire Zone is not the best way to solve our state’s economic development problems. All it does is pit communities against each other. In the end, instead of leading to net gains for the state it is likely to lead to net losses as these communities give up more and more concessions to attract companies. In the end, it is a race to the bottom.

This state of affairs can not be laid entirely at the doorstep of the Empire Zone program, although it has arguably exacerbated the problem. The best hope Upstate NY’s communities have right now is making bold and dramatic investments in our infrastructure. This is the only way we can hope to compete with the cheaper labor and weak regulatory environments found in other regions and other countries. A national trade policy that stops making it so easy for American companies to move overseas wouldn’t hurt either.

Capital District Sprawl Spreads its Tentacles

2009-01-08T10:37:00.000-08:00

For residents of the remote corner of the Capital District that includes the communities of Duanesburg, Central Bridge, Esperance and southeastern Montgomery County, the proposed Hannaford Grocery store may come as exciting news. Less exciting however is the possibility that one of the few remaining undeveloped areas in the Capital District is about to be paved over to make way for more strip mall banality.

Long neglected by grocery chains due to its low population density, this area has never before had to contend with the effects of big-box commercial development on its communities. But this current proposal is a sign that things are changing and residents really ought to begin thinking about what they want their communities to look like after all this is said and done.

The proposed 35,000 square foot store and accompanying shopping center will be located at the intersection of U.S. Highway 20 and State Route 30, just outside the Village of Esperance. There is currently a Stewarts Shop gas station and a tavern at the intersection. If the Hannaford’s is built, more commercial development near this intersection would be a safe bet.

Unfortunately, since this area is so eager for a local grocery store, you can bet that the Duanesburg Planning Board won’t hold out for a more tasteful site plan or higher architectural standards which might complement the historic Village of Esperance and add more to the area than just another big ugly box.

Instead this will likely be an early sign of what is to come: poorly planned exurban Capital District sprawl. Let me say that I sympathize with area residents who must drive 20 minutes to buy a roll of toilet paper. But how long will it be until Highway 20 in Duanesburg looks like Highway 20 in Guilderland?

The Slums Election Rundown

2008-11-03T15:55:00.000-08:00

In terms of local races this year, there are a few that are noteworthy, such as Bob LaPietra and his (so far) ill-fated quest to win a seat on the Cobleskill Village Board of Trustees. Then there’s four guys vying for two council seats in the Town of Richmondville, and another Town Council election in Wright, but who the hell cares about that?

To all of these candidates who would assume office and serve as your local representatives, I have but one question that I would put out to each of you: what is the name of the mental illness that would make you want to have anything to do with local politics in this county? On second thought, comparing aspirants to political office with the mentally ill is a pretty harsh insult to the mentally ill.

But seriously folks, who are these people and what drives them to run for public office? In the case of Bob LaPietra, it is most likely sheer egotism. The man already behaves as if the laws of the earthly realm do not apply to him. How he must have sinisterly guffawed for two years straight as he continued to rent out his illegal and unsafe apartments to stupid college kids while village officials scrambled in futility to stop him. Meanwhile, Cobleskill’s absentee slumlords come out of the woodwork to cry foul when the Village attempts to require annual apartment inspections, and unsurprisingly your fearless leaders on the Village Board cave in like a termite-ravaged shack.

The problem in the Village of Cobleskill is that the incumbent (Carol McGuire) does little to inspire. However, her challenger is a crazed madman and perhaps a felon, and those are his good qualities! When it comes to LaPietra’s politics, his attacks on village officials (and in particular Carol McGuire) are largely of a piece with those of Mark Galasso, who regards the concept of Downtown revitalization with unmasked derision. Both Galasso and LaPietra call for a rapid dissolution of the Village, despite the fact that other options presented by the CGR study would leave Cobleskill far better off. Instead, Bob LaPietra (along with what would be a majority of Galasso and Sellers) is supporting a mad rush to eliminate the Village. The main result of such an action would be that Cobleskill’s infrastructure would essentially be up for grabs, a move supported by Galasso because he is a blindly greedy developer and wants to have at it, and most likely supported by Sellers because he has proven inept at handling the complex issue successfully, preferring now a solution that would take the matter out of his hands completely. LaPietra would just like to see Carol McGuire out of a job.

Linda Holmes, the third candidate for Village Trustee is just a nice old lady who serves on the Village’s recreation commission. While I confess that I do not find this crop of candidates to be the most compelling, I will lay out my endorsements nonetheless. For Cobleskill Trustee: Linda Holmes and Carol McGuire. I say McGuire because she has been a steady opponent of the attempts by Galasso and Sellers to move toward consolidation, urging more careful consideration instead. I pick Linda Holmes as choice number two, because as I’ve just stated, she is a nice old lady, and who doesn’t want to vote for a nice old lady?

Now on to Richmondville. Here four candidates are vying for two town council seats. Why any sane resident of the Town of Richmondville would want to serve on this Board is beyond my comprehension. From the few Town Board meetings I have attended, the job description of a Richmondville Town Board member seems to mainly consist of sitting slack-jawed behind a fold-out table, as angry resident after angry resident takes out all of their worldly frustrations on you. For some reason, Richmondville seems to have a disproportionate number of malcontents. Whether they are frothing over property tax assessments, the evils of wind turbines or the pitiful state of Romania’s Olympic gymnastics team, they can expect Town Board members to show up dutifully every month to serve as whipping boys.

One incumbent, Dennis Handy, apparently has better things to do and decided not to run, good for him. The other incumbent up for re-election, Dick Lape, probably didn’t want to run and probably was relieved when the Republican Party couldn’t manage to hold a caucus. However, he must have had a change of heart as he is now mounting a write-in campaign to stay on in his current position. Write in Dick Lape? Who in their right mind would bother?

Also in the running is newcomer Bob Johnson. Johnson is a registered republican, but because there was no nominating caucus, he is running as an independent on his own “Common Sense” ballot line. The first rat to be smelled with regards to Johnson is that if he had a lick of common sense he wouldn’t want to be a Town Board member in the first place. The second problem is that he is largely a one-issue candidate, backed by the infamous Bob Nied and Schoharie Valley Watch and the rest of the anti-windmill NIMBYs. Johnson is the husband of Kathleen Johnson, who you will recall, accused a man of stalking her at a recent wind power forum at SUNY Cobleskill because he had the audacity to stand up from his seat the same time she did, AFTER the presentation was over. These are people who persistently harangue Town officials but cry foul and see intimidation tactics the minute somebody talks over them.

Then there are the Democratic candidates, Scott Bennett and Vern Hall. Vern Hall has plenty of experience taking abuse from irate residents as a member of the Board of Assessment Review. On one occasion, I think I saw him snap back at a critic, getting a tad nasty and personal in the process. Needless to say, that secured my endorsement. Of course Hall is also a supporter of alternative energy and has worked as an alternative energy consultant, according to the Times Journal. I would much rather have an energy expert on the board then some NIMBY who will indiscriminately oppose anything that might lower his/her property value. Scott Bennett is the other candidate for Town Council. Bennett is President of the Richmondville Volunteer Emergency Squad and seems to bring a level-headed approach to issues of alternative energy and tax assessments.

Both Bennett and Hall would bring a welcome change to the Town Board. Johnson would continue the rancor and divisiveness while Lape would likely just continue sitting there slack-jawed.

In case you forgot there are other state and national contests to be decided on Tuesday as well. Democrat Don Barber is challenging long-time incumbent Jim Seward for a seat in the State Senate. Seward has been a staunch opponent of meaningful healthcare reform via his seat as Chair of the Senate Healthcare Committee. Seward has taken huge sums of money from insurance companies to block any legislation that would extend coverage to New Yorkers. Don Barber on the other hand is a farmer and long-time Town Supervisor from Caroline, New York. He is a supporter of growing our local economies, green energy and providing better healthcare opportunities for New Yorkers. I support Don Barber for Senate; it’s time for Seward to go.

For Congress, Paul Tonko, a democrat is running against Republican Jim Buhrmaster for the seat being vacated by Democrat Mike McNulty. Because Tonko is a shoe-in, I’ll spare you all the re-hashing of how he has been a tireless advocate for Upstate’s communities and alternative energy and all that. Tonko gets my vote, easily.

Secretive Setback Committee Praised by Schoharie Valley Watch

2008-11-03T15:54:00.000-08:00

At this October’s monthly Town Board meeting, Richmondville town councilman voted 3-2 to adopt the recommendations of the town’s wind turbine setback committee which suggested a minimum setback of 1500 feet for any wind turbines sited in the town.

Such a large setback requirement could potentially make Reunion Power’s proposed wind farm development in Richmondville unfeasible, which is why Bob Nied and Don Airey, co-directors of the anti-wind turbine group Schoharie Valley Watch are praising this decision by the Town Board.

Yet Nied and Airey’s own criticism of the town Setback Committee and its secretive methods casts doubt on the validity of the recommended 1500 foot setbacks. The groups’ own website contains posts which accuse the setback committee of meeting in private and conducting research and making decisions without public input, and perhaps most seriously, that they have done this in violation of New York State law. But apparently all that is okay now that SVW is happy with the committee’s final recommendation.

When it comes to using zoning powers to prevent a particular land use, the law is clear. There must be a compelling reason having do with the protection of the public’s health, safety and welfare. Concerns about potentially diminished views and decreasing property values, while perhaps compelling on a political level, are simply not applicable. Neither is a general atmosphere of vocal opposition to the development of wind power facilities, which many town officials would understandably want to placate.

This is why the setback committee’s secretive behavior creates a cloud of suspicion over their 1500 foot recommendation. Without an open and above-board process, the committee’s findings lack the evidentiary support and public input required to use local zoning powers to prevent the construction of wind turbines. Instead, it appears that the committee has chosen to knuckle under to a small but sufficiently irritating group of residents opposed to wind turbines.

It is important to bear in mind that while opponents of wind power development claimed that they only wanted to slow down the process, and do more research, and find out more information, their ultimate aim was to drop Reunion Power’s plans in a shallow grave, regardless of the facts involved. This is why wind power critics have held repeated public temper tantrums and stormed out of meetings. When these tactics did not satisfy, they resorted to issuing laughable legal threats. It is understandable that town officials wanted to a setback requirement that would make this issue go away. However, if anything, it is Reunion Power who now has a potentially actionable grievance in being denied their right to due process by a clandestine setback committee who thought they could make a tough issue go away by issuing an arbitrarily strict setback requirement.

Put simply, that there are a handful of angry and vocal residents living near the proposed wind turbines who don’t want their views diminished or their property values affected, does not justify an arbitrary and baseless misuse of the town’s zoning powers. Though I have disagreed with SVW on numerous points, I have always supported their calls for open and transparent government. I hope they will continue to hold town officials’ feet to the fire, regardless of the fact that they have found the setback committee’s final recommendations favorable to their agenda. If SVW continues to praise the recommendations of the setback committee, whose own methods they have criticized in the past, it puts the lie to every lofty claim that SVW has made regarding the necessity of upholding the law and respecting the democratic process.

Cobleskill’s Main Street at a Crossroads

2008-11-03T15:52:00.000-08:00

After reading the recent front-page article in the Times-Journal which rattled off a litany of new businesses opening up in Downtown Cobleskill, my initial reaction was cautious optimism. I share with many a sense of hope for a potential rebirth of Main Street, but I also see that realizing such a vision will take more than a few new businesses opening up only to close down in six months.

Fortunately, many of the necessary ingredients for a renaissance are already in place. Downtown Cobleskill benefits from a large and devoted group of advocates who own and operate small businesses and are active in Cobleskill Partnership, Inc. This group of people has worked to cultivate a number of successful ongoing projects like Arts in the Park concerts, ArtWalk, and the crafts market, all of which have helped to re-make Downtown Cobleskill as desirable destination. It is also important to mention that Main Street dodged a big bullet this year when Lowe’s decided not to build a home improvement center next to Wal-Mart in the East End.

However, when it comes to its elected officials both on the Village Board of Trustees and the Town Council, Cobleskill seems to be at a distinct disadvantage. The Town Board under the leadership of Republicans Roger Cohn and Mike Montario before him, has aggressively supported any big box project or major developer to come down the pike, leaving Downtown pretty much an afterthought.

Meanwhile, the Village Board under Mayor Mike Sellers, despite once seeming to have Downtown’s best interests at heart, has seemingly lost its way. Beginning in 2005, the Village Board articulated, and claimed it would uphold, a policy of requiring annexation for developments outside the village that wanted village water and sewer service. However, the Board twice backed down on this policy under pressure from Lowe’s, Town of Cobleskill officials and county officials eager only for additional sales tax revenue and sadly uninterested in the affairs of Cobleskill’s Main Street.

Downtown Cobleskill just recently dodged another shiv to its back courtesy of Trustees Mark Galasso and Bill Gilmore who voted (but lost 3-2) to abandon a grant proposal for the Newberry Square building and instead support a grant for Stella McKenna’s proposed fitness center in the Town of Richmondville. Stella McKenna has plans to move her physical fitness facility out of its current location in the Village of Cobleskill to a new location on Route 7 in the Town of Richmondville. But McKenna needs a grant to make it happen and has been asking Village Board members to stop requesting Restore NY grant monies to rehabilitate the Newberry Square building because that project might reduce her chances of receiving the grant monies. Apparently, Galasso and Gilmore would rather use state grant money to help a taxpaying business leave the village and create another empty building than to pursue grant monies to rehabilitate an important piece of historic Downtown architecture. Does that make sense to you?

Clearly, with friends like these, Downtown Cobleskill doesn’t need enemies. But it could actually get worse. This year’s village election could see Bob LaPietra elected to the Board of Trustees. LaPietra is a slumlord who was just recently forced by state courts to vacate an illegally rented apartment in the Village after two years of dragging his feet and is also currently facing charges of ballot fraud. Yet despite all of this, he still has a decent shot at winning a seat on the board. Go figure!

If he does win, he and fellow conservative Mark Galasso will join forces with Mayor Sellers to push for a dissolution of the village, a move that will carve up Cobleskill’s infrastructure at the behest of county Republican Party hacks and every water-hungry developer that wants to build a strip mall from Wal-Mart to Howe Caverns.

In spite of the current leadership in both the town and village, Downtown Cobleskill does have a fighting chance. The recent spate of projects shows that there is interest. But nothing can be accomplished if town and village officials simply turn their backs on Main Street. Now is not the time to use scarce grant money to help businesses leave the village, and it is not time to enthrone slumlords who already believe they are above the law. Now is the time to look for ways to capitalize on the current momentum and help businesses stay open on Main Street. It will take leadership dedicated to this goal. With the exception of one or two people, the entire Village and Town Boards need to be replaced, but (for Christ’s sake!) not for the worse (as with LaPietra).

In the end, a successful revitalization of Main Street need not come from politicians, but no grassroots movement or group of enthusiastic business owners can succeed with the likes of Gilmore, Galasso and Mike Sellers pulling the rug out from under them. There’s enough of that coming from other levels of government.

Is tea time over for ‘tea party’ candidate Bob LaPietra?

2008-10-04T22:55:00.000-07:00

For the past several years, LaPietra has made fighting village hall something of a personal vocation. In 2005 he ran an abrasive mayoral campaign aimed at dislodging incumbent Bill Gilmore. That year, he and two others made up a slate of three candidates for village office, running on the aptly named “Tea Party” ballot line. Though he didn’t win the race, he succeeded in forcing out incumbent Bill Gilmore and getting fellow “Tea Party” member Mark Galasso elected to the village board of trustees. Over the past several years, he has been locked in conflict with the village code enforcement officer for continuing to rent out space in a village building in violation of the zoning ordinance and local building codes.

LaPietra has been very successful at tapping into a general frustration with what some people perceive as high taxes and overregulation. He has combined this political tack with a personal flair and controversial style rarely seen in village politics.

In large part, this is the reason that many have leaped to his defense with regard to the recent volley of charges leveled against him. In an attempt to place his name on the ballot as a candidate for village trustee, LaPietra filed nominating petitions listing his address as 784 Main Street in the village of Cobleskill. After incumbent trustee Carol McGuire (who is running against LaPietra) attempted to challenge the validity of his petitions, questions arose as to whether or not LaPietra actually lives at this address. Following a three-week investigation by the sheriff’s department, LaPietra was arrested and recently indicted on 30 felony counts including perjury and filing a false instrument.

LaPietra immediately took the opportunity to frame himself as a martyr for his cause, calling himself Cobleskill’s “first political prisoner”. Despite having been arrested and indicted for potential ballot fraud, LaPietra is actually still going to appear on the ballot. The fact is, LaPietra could very well end up winning a seat on the board of trustees. In large part, this depends on whether LaPietra can keep up the lie. Many in the village, including some village officials, see LaPietra as an abrasive nuisance, whose greed and reckless disregard for the rules has actually placed his tenants’ lives in danger. Others however, really do see him as a troublemaker being targeted by the political establishment.

The Times-Journal even stoked these flames in a recent editorial which references LaPietra’s “lightning rod personality”, clearly implying that the charges against him are at least in part motivated by his attacks on village officials. While LaPietra’s supporters are free to believe any conspiracy theories they like, they must admit that LaPietra does have a history of behaving as if the law didn’t apply to him. For the past several years he has allowed tenants to live in the upstairs apartments at 784 Main Street in flagrant violation of local building codes and zoning regulations. No, this is not the crime of the century, but it does bespeak a certain arrogance with regards to local laws and procedures. It really isn’t much of a leap to imagine this disregard for the rules extending to the filing of nominating petitions. But of course LaPietra is innocent until proven guilty, and whether or not he actually does live at 784 Main Street will be for a jury to decide.

Before that happens, Cobleskill voters will likely have their say on LaPietra. This is the trial that concerns me now. For despite being on trial for committing numerous felonies and facing jail time if convicted, LaPietra is in a position to possibly be elected to the village board. Who knows how voters will perceive LaPietra’s current legal travails? In the past, voters have believed his rhetoric about cutting taxes and wasteful spending and helping businesses by curbing regulation. It is understandable to want to support a guy who can tell Carol McGuire to check his sheets in response to questions about his residence.

But make no mistake, Bob LaPietra only stands for one thing, and that is Bob LaPietra. Stubbornly renting out illegal apartments to clueless college students isn’t fighting the good fight, it’s reckless endangerment. LaPietra is not a patriot fighting “taxation without representation”, he is a slumlord motivated by greed and a belief that he is above the law. In the end, it matters little whether LaPietra is convicted, because wherever he lives, his behavior and business practices are a nuisance, and his politics merely an extension of that fact.

If elected, he and Mark Galasso will push hard for a dissolution of the village of Cobleskill and a subsequent extension of water and sewer services to any developer who wants them. A main street struggling to pick itself up will get a swift kick to the teeth. And slumlords will rest easier knowing annual apartment inspections are most definitely off the table. If convicted, LaPietra will have a lot to answer for. If elected, it will be all of Cobleskill who must answer for LaPietra.

B.A.R. Brawl

2008-10-04T22:50:00.000-07:00

Monthly town board meetings in Richmondville are increasingly becoming like bar-room brawls, with bitter and angry residents confused and throwing punches at anyone dumb enough to stand in the way. The public’s animosity over the ongoing tax assessment controversy in Richmondville has recently seemed to shift from the largely absentee assessor Matt Richardson to the members of the Board of Assessment Review who, critics allege, grossly overstepped their boundaries by improperly lowering the property assessments of a select few. But exactly who is really responsible and what are they responsible for?

Part of the reason for the confusion is New York State’s system of local government. In New York there are numerous tax-levying entities (i.e. school districts, counties, etc.), many of which encompass multiple tax-assessing jurisdictions (i.e. towns, villages and cities). Since all of these tax-assessing entities assess their own property, pretty much all of these communities assess at a different level of market value, creating what appear to be vast discrepancies in assessed value throughout the state. Now, if taxes were levied only in the same community in which they were assessed, the assessment level would matter very little, as in the end the tax rate would be based on the level of services demanded and the budget adopted by the community’s elected officials. Higher assessments would mean a lower tax rate and lower assessments would translate into a higher tax levy.

Unfortunately, towns like Richmondville are not only taxed by the town government. Richmondville is also subject to Schoharie County and Cobleskill-Richmondville School District tax levies. Here’s where the situation gets a bit more complicated, and actually quite understandably provocative for Richmondville taxpayers. In fact, this is why there is so much confusion as to who is paying what.

Over the past several years, the town of Richmondville has seen assessed property values rise, in some cases slowly, in other cases, quite rapidly. Within the town this may have resulted in an uneven distribution of the tax burden with some residents being forced to pay what is obviously more than their fair share, and others less. However, others fear that the assessment problem has also resulted in a much larger shifting of the tax burden onto the town of Richmondville at the county and school district levels.

Critics claim that these rises in assessed value have translated into a significant increase in the percentage of the county budget and the CRCS school district that Richmondville is paying into. This increase could be as much as $500,000 a year coming from Richmondville taxpayers!
Now, if school boards and county governments applied their tax levies evenly across the board, this would result in a substantially unfair and uneven distribution of the tax burden. However, this is not the case. School boards and county governments use the ORPS-determined equalization rate to apportion property tax levies across the multiple assessing jurisdictions within their own boundaries. The purpose of this is to prevent unfairness between different jurisdictions that have different levels of assessment.

All things being unequal

The equalization rate is the ratio of total assessed value to total market value in a given municipality. Currently, Richmondville’s equalization rate according to ORPS is 100%. Meanwhile, the Town of Cobleskill, has an equalization rate of 73 percent. Summit’s equalization rate is only 53%! At this point no other town in Schoharie County comes close to having a 100% equalization rate. But pointing to a higher equalization rate than neighboring municipalities can be misleading.

Imagine both Summit and Richmondville (both part of the CRCS school district) were paying the same school tax rate. That would mean Richmondville was paying twice as much as their neighbors in Summit! This would be truly outrageous. However, the equalization rate is used to prevent just that scenario. The equalization rate is used by school districts and county governments to apportion property taxes across various municipal jurisdictions according to their respective level of assessment. This is supposed to prevent one town or village from carrying an excessive tax burden. Now if this isn’t working the way it’s supposed to, the appropriate parties to be held accountable would be your school board and county government. There’s probably very little your assessor or B.A.R. can do.

Abuse of power?

In an entirely different assessment controversy, one more particular to Richmondville itself, critics also contend that the Board of Assessment Review overstepped its bounds by drastically lowering the assessments of some of the town’s highest assessed properties. According to critics, the B.A.R. has acted in ways that go well beyond its authority and that have actually unfairly lowered some people’s assessments. Critics like John Primeau allege that the B.A.R. in many cases simply rolled assessments back to 2007 and applied a smaller 2% increase. He also claims that some of the highest assessed properties were lowered dramatically, thus shifting the tax burden within the town itself.

The question here is whether the Board of Assessment Review, which is supposed to apply strict and consistent standards for reviewing and potentially altering property tax assessments, has simply applied a general formula as the basis for making changes to assessments. If so, the B.A.R. would have grossly and illegally exceeded its authority. It is an administrative body, which in theory means it is only applying the law, in this case, the property assessments. If there has been an error and the property owner can prove an excessive or unequal assessment, the board can lower that person’s assessment accordingly. Generally applied increases or decreases are legislative actions and therefore completely inappropriate, if in fact that’s what was done.

Primeau also alleges that the B.A.R. dramatically lowered assessments on a handful of highly-assessed properties. He references several cases in which assessed values were decreased anywhere from $75,000 to over $100,000. Richmondville taxpayers have a right to know and a duty to find out what standards were used to decrease these assessments by such amounts. There is also the possibility of conflicts of interest, as Horst Fierek’s property (Fierek is a member of the B.A.R.) received one of the largest decreases in assessed value. Certainly I’m not accusing anyone of improper actions, but the potential for conflict is strong enough to justify an in-depth look, possibly a state audit, at who is receiving lowered assessments and on what basis.

Others allege that the B.A.R. lowered the assessment of Richmondville Power and Light, Richmondville’s municipally-owned power company, by nearly a million dollars over the past several years. John Primeau claims that a B.A.R. member, when questioned about the RPL decrease, told him it was done to keep their rates low. Aside from the fact that RPL does not serve each taxpayer in the town of Richmondville, each of whom would be forced to shoulder the extra tax burden, this is obviously not what the B.A.R. is supposed to do.

Unfortunately, there’s no quick fix to these problems. If indeed, Richmondville has a runaway B.A.R. that is not following the rules for altering assessments, I believe it falls to the state to audit the B.A.R.’s actions. Over the long term, it may be in the town’s interest to switch to a county-based property assessment system. But on that issue I would advise caution (see next post) and recommend county-based assessment only as a last resort.

Additionally, the air needs to be cleared as to Richmondville’s equalization rate compared to other towns. Aligning Richmondville’s equalization rate with that of Cobleskill or any other town in the county, would not have any real effect on the apportionment of school or county taxes or Richmondville’s tax burden. But if you feel Richmondville is being unfairly stuck with a higher percentage of the school or county property tax, feel free to take it up with the school board or the county.

The appropriate way to address any alleged malfeasance is to call for more oversight and an engaged (and informed) citizenry demanding rational explanations for the activities of B.A.R. members.

However, let’s not forget the bottom line. School and county taxes are going up due to rising fuel costs, salary increases and rising insurance costs. Local property assessments have little to do with this. However, when people see that their tax bills are rising in concert with their property assessments, it’s natural to want to point the finger of blame toward the assessor. Combine this with a tax assessor who has seemingly been beyond reach, and you begin to see why people want to blame everything on the assessments.

This doesn’t mean that the Richmondville Board of Assessment Review is beyond criticism. If RPL and other highly-assessed properties received undue or improper decreases in their assessments, it transfers the burden not just onto other Richmondville taxpayers but taxpayers throughout the county and the Cobleskill-Richmondville School District as well. If there is a remedy here, it is to be found through either New York State audits of local assessments and assessment reviews or closer supervision over the activities of B.A.R. members by the Town Board or state auditors.

Schoharie County Board of Supervisors pushing expensive consolidation scheme

2008-10-04T22:48:00.000-07:00

With everybody’s favorite new buzzwords being “consolidation” and “sharing services”, it seems like all the politicians want in on the game, apparently regardless of whether the consolidation of the services in question actually results in greater efficiency and thus less cost to the taxpayers. After all, if you consolidate services only to end up performing the same level of service for the same cost or a higher cost to taxpayers, that would just be...dumb, right?

For some inexplicable reason Schoharie County supervisors are considering switching to a county-wide property assessment system, which would relieve towns of the responsibility. The county Board of Supervisors just recently received a consultant’s report on consolidating property tax assessments. Despite the fact that the report’s three alternatives to the current town-based system would be more expensive, county supervisors seem largely in favor of centralizing the property tax assessment system.

The current system costs county taxpayers around $820,000 a year. Meanwhile, switching to any of the three proposed variations of the centralized assessment system would cost more than a million dollars. Now, if we’re going to switch to a more expensive system, there has to be some compelling reason. Like say, if having the county do assessments, we might actually save money in the long run by having more equitable assessments.

However, what reason is their for believing that a group of assessors at the county level is going to somehow better assess properties than the current town assessors? Could this be wishful thinking? In fact, switching to a county-wide assessment system could increase inequity. Larger towns who pay more taxes would end up subsidizing the smaller towns that pay less taxes. It would be a boon to smaller towns who would be relieved of a large expense, and a drag on larger towns who are carrying more of the county’s tax burden on account of their larger population.

I’m far from an expert on consolidating services, but I am pretty sure that the objective is to increase efficiency and save money. This proposal to consolidate property assessment at the county level would do just the opposite; it would drive up the cost of assessing property in Schoharie County.

It’s funny, because it’s not assessments that cause taxes to rise. In fact, it is just this kind of ineptitude and poor judgment that results in wasteful spending and unnecessary bureaucracy that actually results in higher taxes. For the board of supervisors, the additional costs would be a small price to pay for getting rid of the headache that property assessments have caused in certain towns. Pawning the whole assessment mess off on the county is probably the best hope people like John Barlow have of resolving the recurrent controversy.

However, in the end, obsessing over either property assessments or consolidating services is a distraction. If you want to increase efficiency and lower taxes (or free up money to be spent on more important things) get involved with your local school, town and county budgeting processes and fight the wasteful spending that is going on. Or, better yet, encourage responsible growth that builds the tax base but protects the quality of life.

Ready or not, development is coming to Richmondville

2008-10-04T22:46:00.000-07:00

It is with some amusement that I read Cobleskill village trustee Mark Galasso’s letter to the Times-Journal defending his support for the proposed Maranatha fitness center in Richmondville. The issue that concerned Galasso was whether or not the village of Cobleskill should pursue a Restore NY grant for the Newberry Square building or whether it should back out and endorse the fitness center instead. Galasso criticizes the “us-versus-them” attitude in the village and argues th1at we all need to come together for what’s best for the region.

Believe it or not, I think Galasso makes a pretty good case for why Cobleskill village officials should support the Maranatha project. However, as a Richmondville resident who lives in the path of this recent surge of proposed development along Route 7, I’m not so sure Schoharie County ought to be using its limited Restore NY monies to encourage more sprawl.

It seems like with the Empire Zone in place, there is a rush to build up the area with very little concern for the consequences or the people in the way.

Here are some of the projects that have recently been proposed for the Route 7 corridor between Warnerville and the village of Richmondville

-$4.2 million Maranatha fitness complex next to the former Warnerville Roller Rink
-Expansion of Lancaster Development site on Podpadic Road
-Relocation of Mill Services wood finishing factory on former Sabata farm or on Podpadic Road
-New town/village highway garage on Podpadic Road
-Proposed truck stop near either Warnerville or Richmondville exit off I-88
-Car wash in Warnerville near high school (currently under construction)

It appears that the usual suspects, i.e. Makeley, Loder and Galasso have big plans for Podpadic Road. I know that the Town of Richmondville needs a new garage and that the area is starved for jobs, but is anyone asking what all this new development will mean for the existing land uses in the immediate area? This part of the town of Richmondville, which bleeds into the hamlet of Warnerville, is home to a small residential neighborhood, a few small businesses, a few remaining farms and of course the Cobleskill-Richmondville high school.

As all of this new industrial development brings increased truck traffic, how will that affect residents and high school students who walk to school? What effect will this truck traffic have on air quality? For that matter, what are the hazards associated with the processes used by Mill Services, Inc.? What will happen to the last few farms in this area? Are they just going to get squeezed out until Makeley, Loder and Galasso buy up everything and build more sprawl and industry?

Over the past year, many residents have loudly protested the building of a few wind turbines. But what’s shaping up in Richmondville’s east end and Warnerville promises to be a much more drastic change to the landscape. The scope of these changes requires a new comprehensive plan for the town conducted with maximum citizen participation.

This is necessary to ensure that Empire Zone-related development occurs in an orderly and sustainable fashion. This growth can occur in a manner that complements the area, or it can be left up to the greedy few to become a sprawling mess with unknown environmental consequences.

What this boils down to is a handful of powerful people making very big decisions about the future of this community without any consultation or participation from members of the community at large. The people deserve, and ought to demand, better.

Downtown deserves grant

2008-10-04T22:43:00.000-07:00

Stella McKenna has been planning to build a new fitness and rehabilitation center in the town of Richmondville on Route 7. This facility would include a sports complex, a physical therapy facility, a strip of retail businesses and a restaurant featuring adaptive use of two historic barns. The complex would be a virtual one-stop shop for all your physical therapy and health & fitness needs.

But in order to make it happen she needs a little help. So far, she has been applying for a number of grants to get that help. This year, she is again applying to New York State’s Empire Development Corporation for a Restore NY grant.

McKenna however, has some competition for Restore NY grant funding. The village of Cobleskill is also planning on submitting a proposal for Restore NY money to rehabilitate the Newberry Square building in downtown Cobleskill. Here we have a project that comes with numerous obvious benefits to downtown Cobleskill. It is a large building with two large store-fronts on Main Streets (they’re the one’s currently covered in plywood). There is also additional commercial and potential residential space throughout the large arcade-style building. Newberry’s takes up a large part of Main Street, and with a new façade could make a real impact on downtown as a whole.

But here’s where things get a bit complicated. McKenna has asked the village of Cobleskill to withdraw their grant proposal for Newberry Square so that the state will be more likely to grant her the Restore NY monies. Making things even more complicated is the fact that McKenna’s project falls within Schoharie County’s empire zone, making it somewhat more likely to receive Restore NY funding. Yet at the same time, the Newberry Square building is an anchor building in a potentially resurgent downtown area, which makes it highly worthy of state grant money, perhaps more so than McKenna’s fitness complex. So we have two projects that are both deserving of state monies, but chances are, we’re only going to get one grant, if we get anything at all.

Setting aside McKenna's request for the village's exclusive support, the Cobleskill village board voted 3 to 2 to continue to pursue funding for the Newberry Square building. While McKenna's fitness center may be deserving of public monies, the Cobleskill village board made the right decision. Here’s why. The Restore NY program was created to bring back downtown areas. Rehabilitating an old building in a historic downtown is a much better fit for the Restore NY grant, both in spirit and in terms of the village's obligation to its own downtown business district. This doesn’t mean that communities can’t work together for the common good. In fact, rehabilitating Newberry Square does more for the common good of the region than McKenna’s project. But for the village board to abandon a grant proposal for a critical project in a struggling downtown would be a travesty.

We also have to ask if the proposed location for the fitness center is best for the region. Why use taxpayer money to build more sprawl? This is an especially critical question when there is a surplus of empty space in downtown Cobleskill that McKenna could expand into. In fact, wouldn’t McKenna’s relocation leave an existing building empty? Fact is, if McKenna tried, she could certainly find a suitable location in downtown Cobleskill. And if she did, I doubt she’d have much trouble getting the Cobleskill village board to endorse a grant proposal.

In the end, the Newberry Square grant doesn’t take away from McKenna’s chances of receiving a grant, except in the sense that the Newberry Square project seems to be more deserving. If in fact that is the case, Cobleskill village has every right and responsibility to pursue grant funding and no business whatsoever supporting another project in another town.

Montgomery County’s Withdrawal from “MOSA” Spells Disaster for Regional Acronym

2008-08-21T15:49:00.001-07:00

Because of Montgomery County’s go-it-alone attitude when it comes to solid waste removal, the Montgomery Otsego Schoharie Authority (MOSA) could cease to exist by 2014, less than six years from now. Luckily, the Schoharie County Board of Supervisors has begun soberly contemplating the implications of such a move. By far, the biggest concern of Supervisors is that without Montgomery County’s membership in the regional solid waste removal authority, it couldn’t rightfully be called “MOSA” (pronounced Moe-zuh).

Lacking the critical “M”, the authority now would be known as “OSA”. While OSA is certainly a memorable acronym, it clearly doesn’t quite roll off the tongue as mellifluously as MOSA does. Several supervisors mentioned the possibility of pronouncing it “O-S-A”, rather than as one word. But that drew complaints as sounding too non-distinctive and bureaucratic. I agree.

While the withdrawal of Montgomery County would be disastrous enough, there are also reports that Otsego County may follow suit. This would spell irreparable damage for the “MOSA” acronym. Without the “M” and “O” of Montgomery and Otsego counties respectively, MOSA would become “SA”, which can scarcely be considered an acronym! It’s only two letters, and its hard to see how they could be fashioned into a word that flows off the tongue as gracefully as “MOSA”.

I don’t know about Montgomery County and Otsego County, but I like to think that us folks in Schoharie County appreciate a good acronym when we see one. To Montgomery County officials opposed to renewing MOSA, I say, the next time you utter the word “MOSA”, know that it is the sweet sound of regional partnership and people working together. Montgomery County’s membership in “MOSA” is simply irreplaceable.

No really, I checked a map for counties that border Schoharie and there are no others that start with “M”.

Lying in the Weeds

2008-08-21T15:48:00.001-07:00

An overgrown strip of tall grass in the village of Cobleskill’s East End has yielded a virtual bumper crop of material for critics of Village officials. The Times-Journal, eager to blow the slightest village misstep grossly out of proportion, has called it a “flashpoint” for the future direction of the Village. Letters to the editor offered a similar lament.

But as the weeds grew taller, Cobleskill supervisor Roger Cohn clearly saw an opportunity to make political hay out of the weedy median and gathered a few of his friends to help. In what was obviously a cheap political stunt, Cohn and several others decided to take matters into their own hands and remove the weeds themselves.

At the next village board meeting, trustees argued over who is actually responsible for the maintaining the median. Trustee Bill Gilmore angrily chastised Tom Fissell, the village’s highway superintendent, for not tending to the median. Trustee Mark Galasso cited a lack of planning on the part of the Village Board, and argued that officials should have budgeted money for median maintenance. Clearly, someone goofed.

Does that mean that there is a “leadership vacuum” in the village of Cobleskill as the Times-Journal editorialized (8-13-2008)? Not really, it just means that village officials made an honest mistake. What I find particularly troubling is the way in which the Cobleskill town supervisor opportunistically seized on this “honest mistake” for political expediency. Cohn could have easily called Mayor Sellers and the other trustees and asked them all to come out and weed the median. Instead, he called the Times-Journal to tell them of a photo opportunity.

This kind of realpolitik shows that Cobleskill town officials are interested not in working together with village officials but in embarrassing them. The problem is not with village officials, any random group of trustees is capable of making such an oversight. The problem is the mean-spirited hardball politics that people like Cohn are playing and that the Times-Journal is encouraging.

I’m glad that somebody took the time to weed out the tall grass. I just hope that the people of Cobleskill are able to weed out the naked political grandstanding.

City Status Could Mean $ Without Hurting County

2008-08-21T15:47:00.000-07:00

Instead of begging County Treasurer Bill Cherry for a bigger share of sales tax revenue, Schoharie County’s villages should strongly consider city status, not to demand a larger piece of the existing sales tax pie, but to make their own pie. In New York State, incorporated cities can do something that villages can’t: they can levy their own sales taxes.

Follow my math for a second. Currently, Schoharie County’s villages are asking for an additional five percent of the county sales tax take, about $700,000. What’s the total annual sales tax revenue then, about 14 million dollars? About sixty percent of that revenue is generated in the village of Cobleskill, right? Sixty percent of 14 million is 8.4 million. Let’s say our hypothetical city of Cobleskill decided to levy a 1% sales tax. Since the county’s current sales tax rate is four percent, the city of Cobleskill would get 1/4th of what is currently generated in the village of Cobleskill at the county rate, which would be about 2.1 million dollars.

That’s money that wouldn’t have anything to do with the County. It wouldn’t bust the County budget and it wouldn’t take anything away from taxpayers in Jefferson or Conesville or wherever. A city of Cobleskill could use this extra revenue to spruce up Main Street (which would ultimately help to generate more sales tax revenue which would stay in the community), or they could drastically lower property taxes. Either way, it’s a huge boon to Cobleskill, and potentially other county villages, that doesn’t take anything away from those dependent on existing sales tax revenue.

Potholes as Traffic Calming Devices

2008-08-21T15:43:00.000-07:00

In a stunning display of insight into the behavioral psychology of motorists, Middleburgh Town Highway Superintendent Dale Nunamann explained that “the smoother we make the roads, the faster they go”. This of course was in response to a series of complaints from residents of East Hill Road in the town of Middleburgh. It's true apparently, the smoother the town makes East Hill Road, the faster drivers want to go.

This is quite a dilemma. But I wonder if there is a solution that could not only spare the slow-moving pets of East Hill Road residents but also lower taxes and help the environment at the same time.

Let’s chew on Nunamann’s little nugget of wisdom for a moment. If people go faster when we make the roads smoother, let’s just not make the roads any smoother! Instead of constantly upgrading our county’s rural roads with pavement or blacktop, or some other petroleum-based product, let’s leave them as is: rough, gravelly, uneven and strewn with gaping potholes! Naturally, they should be minimally maintained so that they don’t cause damage to car tires (when driving at reasonable speeds of course). But it seems like it might be cheaper and safer all around to just have dirt roads remain dirt roads.

Think of the taxes rural towns could save on material and labor costs. Not to mention the environmental benefits of not using all those nasty petroleum-based materials for paving. Then there’s the safety and quality-of-life aspect: if don’t make the roads smoother people probably won’t drive as fast! Just ask Dale Nunamann, he’ll tell ya.

Richmondville Blew It

2008-08-21T15:42:00.000-07:00

In a recent editorial, the Times-Journal criticized the anti-wind power group Schoharie Valley Watch for the tone of its attacks on Reunion Power and Richmondville Town officials. The Times-Journal had harsh words for SVW, calling the group “venomous”, “bitter”, and accusing the group of engaging in “slash and burn style” politics.

I believe that wind power is a critical resource, and we must exploit it to our best advantage. But when it comes to SVW’s criticism of town officials, you have to admit, they have a point. Over the past year, the town of Richmondville has given its critics (some of whom may be inflexible NIMBYs) more than enough ammunition. The secrecy, the stonewalling, the conflicts of interest on the zoning rewrite board, the firing of Kathleen Johnson; much of SVW criticism has indeed been over the top, but Richmondville officials have done more than enough to warrant it. There may not be anything wrong with any of this, but it has created an appearance of impropriety that anti-wind activists have seized on. SVW are gadflies and the way you handle gadflies is by absorbing their energies, co-opting them and challenging them to buy in rather than storm out. The last thing you do is hand them ammunition on a silver platter.

The real tragedy is that Richmondville could have had a meaningful discussion about how to make a contribution to alternative energy. Maybe Reunion could have sold wind-generated electricity to Richmondville Power and Light (I still would like to see that happen). But town officials have bungled this opportunity and played right into the hands of SVW and the NIMBYs.

SVW will complain, they will attack town officials, and they will probably file suit against the town. In the end, they will probably succeed in stopping Reunion Power. Though I supported the idea of a wind farm from the beginning, I feel no sense of loss at this inevitable result. If Reunion Power doesn’t build here, they will likely build somewhere else. The urgent need for renewable energy sources is simply too great. There’s plenty of wind in this state. Let the NIMBYs have their mountain.

The Case against Sharing Services

2008-08-04T17:55:00.000-07:00

After reading “A Study of Shared Service Opportunities for the Village and Town of Cobleskill, NY” prepared by the Center for Governmental Research, I couldn’t help but notice an interesting point: if implemented, the ‘shared service opportunities’ recommended by CGR would seem to result in an annual savings less than the cost of this study. I'm not saying the study wasn't worth paying for (in fact it was paid for by a NY state grant), but I would like people to understand exactly how much is at stake here: It ain't much.

So what’s the rush? Mayor Sellers and Trustee Mark Galasso have both displayed an eagerness to dissolve the village that is not warranted and quite likely not supported by village residents. Since the CGR study only addressed potential savings, and ignored what village residents might lose in the process, I would like to shed light on this ignored aspect.

While the study repeatedly overstated the pennies to be saved by eliminating salaries and sharing equipment, there was virtually no acknowledgment of the benefits that village governments provide residents. Smaller, more intimate municipal units such as villages provide an important political space or political community that allow for expressions of local autonomy, community identity and face-to-face democracy. Many Village residents understandably value these things, making the imposition of consolidation seem highly questionable.

The CJR very vaguely alludes to the benefits of joint planning efforts by the Town and Village. But little is said of the fact that consolidation would eliminate the Village Planning Board, Zoning Board of Appeals and Scenic and Historic Preservation Board, thus eliminating a good chunk of Village residents’ political autonomy. Dissolving these boards costs Village residents the ability to control what happens closest to them and instead forces them to share this power with people who may have less of a connection to that immediate community.

These questions, which seem to fall outside the purview of the current discussion of the merits of consolidation, cast serious doubts on the wisdom of dissolving Cobleskill Village. Both Trustee Mark Galasso and Mayor Mike Sellers (Cobleskill’s oddest couple, to be sure) have been feverishly pushing consolidation. Galasso’s support for cannibalizing the Village can be explained by his own thirst for Village water and his support for unrestrained sprawl development. Mayor Sellers on the other hand should know better. Both of these individuals need to take a step back and consider the costs and not just the savings associated with consolidation.

To put it in terms I’m sure Mayor Sellers will understand, could a 21 year old member of the Green Party get elected to the top position in the Town of Cobleskill, where the Village’s center-left voters (including SUNY students) are sure to be completely drowned out by the Town’s Republican majority? Put simply, what’s the rush to eliminate the only constituency in Schoharie County capable of electing a progressive government? The point I’m making here is that the town and village ARE different, and that they are not separated by some imaginary line, but by significant demographic, economic, and political conditions.

Outside consultants and state bureaucrats all think consolidation is a great idea because it will result in greater efficiencies. But the benefits of village government are simply beyond the purview of these analyses. Cobleskill has done just fine with a village for the past 150 years. So can someone please explain this rush to get rid of the village in order to save a few pennies?

Bemusement Park

2008-08-04T17:52:00.000-07:00

Before Schoharie County residents start stripping down to their bathing suits and heading up to the new water park at Howe Caverns, I would like to "dampen" people's enthusiasm with some very serious and unfun environmental and land use questions.

I’m certainly not opposed to the idea of a water park near Howe Caverns. What I am concerned about is the eagerness to please displayed by county officials when dealing with these unknown entities that blow into town with big ideas and a list of demands.

Over the past few years we’ve seen it again and again. In Sharon Springs, billionaire Korean investors want to buy up and renovate historic hotels with taxpayer’s money. But there has been little legitimate discussion of what such massive investments would mean for the current residents of the village. Then, an unnamed mystery company comes to county officials with plans for a new factory in Shad Point. Cobleskill town officials promptly get their marching orders: an expedited planning and permitting process and a shovel-ready site. All before anyone even knows what the hell is gonna be built there!

Now, a former VP for Six Flags wants to break ground on a hotel and water park in 2009 and have it built a year later. He also wants the towns of Cobleskill and Schoharie to relocate over a mile of Sagendorf Corners Road. I don’t have a problem with re-zoning some land or re-locating a portion of a road. But to expect these things without serious community input is sheer arrogance.

Is anyone concerned about the extra traffic this will generate? How about all the trucks that will be needed to provide the park with its water supply? Will there be a real environmental review process or will that be one more ‘procedure’ for the town to expedite? How will Sagendorf Corners Road be re-located, and will it require the use of eminent domain? How do the developers plan on meeting the water and sewer needs of the proposed 250-room hotel? Since this project will be getting Empire Zone benefits, does anyone care to insure that they make good on their job creation promises?

People have a right to ask these questions and they have a right to serious answers. Such a project would have a huge impact, and I’d hate to see people ignore the negatives because they’re blinded by the potential benefits.

Downtown Cobleskill Can Be More than a Parking Lot

2008-08-04T17:49:00.000-07:00

Once again Cobleskill Partnership, Inc., an organization composed of downtown Cobleskill business owners, has proposed that downtown Cobleskill switch to diagonal parking in order to increase the number of available spaces. However, downtown Cobleskill faces much bigger challenges than inadequate parking, and I fear that CPI is doing itself a disservice by not thinking bigger. Especially today, with the ever-pressing need for pedestrian-friendly environments and alternative modes of transportation, I sincerely hope this isn’t all CPI has in its bag of tricks.

First of all, everyone is quick to focus on the businesses downtown, but downtown’s real value lies in the fact that it is a ‘mixed use’ district. Why isn’t CPI more concerned about increasing the amount of available residential space? How many apartments are vacant or uninhabitable? How much potential is there for infill development in and around the business district? I have to think downtown’s businesses would benefit by having more potential customers within walking distance from their businesses.

What about making downtown less auto-centric? Rather than figuring out how to squeeze more cars into Downtown, why not figure out how to better accommodate cyclists and pedestrians? Why not look into adding bike lanes, repairing the sidewalks and adding traffic-calming devices to protect pedestrians.

Inevitably, as the price of gasoline renders suburban sprawl overpriced and obsolete, compact communities like Downtown Cobleskill will once again flourish. Cobleskill will be attractive because residents will be able to walk or bike to destinations. This is something that CPI should encourage.

Cobleskill’s village officials need to take some proactive steps as well. I know they are still scratching their heads over the loss of Lowe’s (when they should be breathing a sigh of relief), but there should be a collective effort to move away from small-scale changes like “diagonal parking” in favor of a more comprehensive vision of a future downtown Cobleskill.

I know it’s easy to be an armchair critic, and that’s why I’m not trying to attack CPI or Cobleskill officials. I’m just trying to expand the discussion a little.

Right now, downtown Cobleskill has a lot going for it: crafts fairs, farmers markets, Arts in the Park, SUNY Cobleskill’s plans to open a book store extension, and best of all, Lowe’s isn’t coming! What I would like to see the Village and CPI work on is attracting residential development, applying for some grants to improve facades and sidewalks, maybe putting in some bike lanes and more public art along the lines of the infamous horse painting on that hollowed out storefront (I love it!). :-)

Oh and hopefully there will still BE a Village to say no to the next big box store that comes to town demanding Village water and sewer.

Let the Windbags Speak!

2008-08-04T17:41:00.000-07:00

While I don’t agree with Schoharie Valley Watch on the issue of wind power development in Schoharie County, I respect their right to express themselves without having the cops called on them. A recent wind power forum held at SUNY Cobleskill’s Bouck Theater was supposed to be an honest discussion of wind power. Instead, one side got to speak and the other side got tossed out. This is not how we’re going to solve our energy problems.

Members of Schoharie Valley Watch came to the forum with the intention of expressing their concerns about industrial wind turbine development. I for one would have preferred to hear their criticism, and then hear their points challenged on the merits. But rather than engage SVW, the organizers of the event decided to take the easy way out and call campus security. This was a missed opportunity for real dialogue and a black eye on all of us who support green energy alternatives. But worst of all it is a slap in the face to the very notion of free and open dialogue that is essential to democracy.

At the same time, I would like to address to Kathleen Johnson’s letter to the Times-Journal in which she alleges that an individual was “stalking” her during the event. Johnson is a member of SVW who was among those asked to leave the wind forum. During the entire event, Johnson claims that an unidentified male was following her around and leering over her in an apparent attempt to intimidate her. So was this just some creepy guy? Was it T. Boone Pickens (he’s pretty creepy)? Or is Kathleen Johnson just paranoid?

Let’s look for a moment at the evidence Johnson offers as proof of being stalked. Johnson claimed that this unidentified individual stood up from his seat the same time she did. Clearly, these are gestapo tactics! She also claimed that he was standing near her while she was distributing literature and talking over her. I’m sorry, but bad manners do not qualify as stalking. I agree that calling campus security was an overreaction and was the wrong thing to do. But some people just need to grow thicker skin. People taking their cause to the streets have endured far worse than someone “speaking over” them.

Marauding Horde of Bikers Hurt and Insulted by Small Town’s Reaction

2008-07-03T16:59:00.000-07:00

Hurt feelings and bruised egos were the general response after this year’s AM-JAM motorcycle festival in Cobleskill, NY. The group’s reception was so unfavorable that the head of the American Motorcycle Jamboree (known as AM-JAM) threatened to consider alternative locations for 2009 if Village officials didn’t get their act together. AM-JAM cited shortages of methamphetamines, women to rape and gunplay involving automatic weapons as some of their major complaints. They then pointed to the presence of law enforcement officers, something they found to be outrageous and unacceptable. The lack of opportunities for criminal activities combined with the police presence left the normally hard-living, nomadic bikers feeling unwanted, unwelcome and emotionally drained.

One biker, going by the name of “Bonebreaker”, had been planning a fun-filled weekend of violent gunplay and armed robbery for nearly six months, but was unable to get his multiple assault rifles past a State Trooper checkpoint.

The indignities continued, such as when “Lone Wolf” arrived late, only to find that there was no speed left, and that he would have to rely on cheap beer to get a buzz. Lone Wolf couldn’t help but wonder how many mobile meth labs were scared away by Cobleskill’s police- state atmosphere.

Many Am-Jammers were shocked and disappointed by the Village’s newly instituted policy of charging fairgrounds users for municipal water usage. This forced AM-JAM to cut in half the number of wet t-shirt contests they were able to hold. This in turn left the biker gangs with fewer local high school girls to pass around.

Many bikers sat and reminisced about AM-JAM’s of the past. One biker, “Hambone”, remembers the way things used to be in Cobleskill. In fact, he received his first tear-drop tattoo at AM-JAM thirty years ago after committing his first homicide. But this year Hambone was crying real tears when he saw what AM-JAM had become.

The tales of woe just go on and on: confiscated knives, interrupted rapes, dirty looks for urinating in public, etc. Hambone freely admits that bikers are used to people holding negative stereotypes about them, but then pauses to wipe a tear from his eye and say’s “that doesn’t mean we have to like it”.

Editorial: Wind Turbines could Spoil Views of Drilling Rigs

2008-07-03T16:42:00.000-07:00

At first I was a supporter of wind power in Schoharie County, New York. However, after finding out that Schoharie County might soon be home to breathtakingly stunning views of natural gas drilling rigs including large derricks, pumping and drilling equipment and storage tanks, I’ve realized that we can not jeopardize these precious environmental assets by erecting wind turbines. I’ve seen natural gas drilling fields before, and believe me, nothing recharges the soul like the fresh air that wafts off a ‘drilling mud’ pit.

You might think that we could do both, but you’d be wrong. Natural gas drilling simply can not exist side by side with wind power. Wind turbines are often two or three times as tall as the drilling rigs that majestically ‘fracture’ underground rock formations flaring gasses into the atmosphere and leaking heavy metals into the groundwater. These busy little derricks would be dwarfed by the monstrous wind turbines. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want anything getting in the way of my views of drilling platforms and bermed pools of toxic mud waste. That’s just not why I came to Schoharie County.

But wind turbine development could also pose other more serious environmental threats to natural gas drilling operations. For example, natural gas drilling requires the use of high-pressure ‘fracturing fluids’ such as diesel, acids and heavy metals. These fluids may enter into groundwater used for drinking and bathing. How can I enjoy sitting out on my back porch looking out at a natural gas derrick, sipping water contaminated with acids and heavy metals when there are giant wind turbines off in the distance to distract me?

Then there’s the air quality issue. Natural gas drilling inevitably results in the release of numerous toxic chemicals into the atmosphere such as hydrogen sulfides, nitrogen oxides, heavy metals, and sulfur dioxides. In areas with heavy natural gas drilling, these pollutants can result in ozone levels well beyond the danger threshold level of 50-60 parts per billion. In other words, it creates pretty smog. It may be possible that with this level of smog, we might not be able to see the wind turbines, but what if we can, and what if they take away from the pretty sunsets?

Clearly, wind turbines are not the “green” solution that their supporters claim they are. In my opinion, Schoharie County simply can not afford to build wind turbines when of our best assets is the natural landscape, which will soon be enhanced by drilling rigs, derricks, diesel-flavored groundwater and exotic multi-colored smog.

Big Box Retailer Cancels New Store Plans: Say’s Town Not worth Destroying

2008-07-03T16:38:00.000-07:00

After years of driving smaller competitors out of business and leaving downtown business districts unviable, the retail giant Lowe’s has recently noticed a new phenomenon that threatens to suck the joy out of their economic success.

For years the retailer watched triumphantly as its aggressive advertising and sheer size caused mom & pop businesses to lose everything and main streets to dry up. However, in recent years the retailer has found itself face to face with perhaps its biggest challenge yet: small towns so defunct and pathetic that they aren't even worth ruining.

Recently, Lowe’s officials came to Cobleskill, NY and toured the Downtown area. After seeing numerous empty storefronts, hollowed-out buildings and boarded-up windows, Lowe’s officials simply came to the conclusion that there probably wasn’t very much left that they could do to Cobleskill.

For three years, Lowe’s officials watched with disgust and pity as Cobleskill Village officials withheld water and sewer services in the futile hope of sparing their pathetic little town from being economically raped and pillaged. Lowe’s officials admitted that at first they got a sadistic pleasure out of watching the Village put up a pointless fight for its survival. But as any bully knows, you can only mercilessly pummel a victim for so long until you just begin to feel bad for them.

After three years of studying the matter, Lowe’s simply came to the conclusion that Cobleskill was just so weak, helpless and pathetic that it took all the fun out of ruining what’s left of the local economy.

Aliens, Men who Shot JFK ask Village to Reinstate Water Fluoridation

2008-07-03T16:21:00.000-07:00

A top-secret delegation consisting of extra-terrestrials as well as the men responsible for the Kennedy assassination arrived in Cobleskill, NY this week for a top-secret parlay with Cobleskill Village officials. The delegation made the long trip from their base at Area 51 in a sleek and silent black helicopter. Once in town, the group attempted to convince the Village Board to reinstate fluoridation of the Village water supply.

Brushing aside reports alleging negative health effects, the group forcefully explained that water fluoridation was crucial to implementing the “new world order” in a timely manner. Several village officials protested, claiming that fluoridation is an unnecessary practice with few public health benefits. The delegation quickly shot back, explaining that fluoride was necessary to lower IQs and keep the public docile during construction of the NAFTA Superhighway between the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

However, after nearly three hours of debating with what they called a “do-nothing” Village Board, the delegation walked out extremely frustrated, leaving plans for future world domination in the air. Adding insult to injury, the group said that it was no longer considering Cobleskill as a potential site for faking future Moon landings.

Village Limits

2008-06-12T00:12:00.000-07:00

Apparently the Village of Cobleskill has once again paid thousands of dollars for a consultant to tell them something they could have learned just by reading this blog. Over the past several months, a private consulting group has been studying ways to reform municipal boundaries to improve efficiency and better provide services. It turns out that the Village has a lot to gain by scrapping its village status and re-incorporating as a city.

The consulting group claims that the Village could gain nearly 2 million dollars in sales tax revenue if it became a city. As Deputy Mayor MacKay rightly stated, this could eliminate the need for property taxes in the Village. Many of the county’s retail businesses are located within the Village boundaries. This would entitle the Village or a future city to a much greater share of sales tax revenues.

Though the sales tax revenue gain is perhaps the biggest reason to consider re-incorporation, there are plenty of other reasons as well. Remember that whole issue with the Town double-billing Village taxpayers? If Cobleskill were a city, this would no longer be an issue. The Town would not get any of a City of Cobleskill’s tax revenues. Becoming a City would also give Cobleskill representation on the County Board of Supervisors. The Village is currently represented by the Town Supervisor. Now, this is okay until Town-Village relations go sour. With Town and Village leaders at each others throats, can the Town Supervisor be relied upon to fairly represent the interests of the Village at the county level? If Cobleskill were a city, it would get its own supervisor to sit on the County Board and serve as an advocate.

If Cobleskill were a City it could re-invest any revenue windfall in revitalizing Main Street. Plus, it would have more of an incentive to do this, as it would directly reap the benefits of any extra sales tax revenue.

This is something the Village of Cobleskill should begin work on immediately. We don’t need to talk endlessly or pay another consultant another $50,000. Whatever steps need to be taken, let’s take them. Petitions need to be filed? A referendum vote needs to be set up? I’m willing to invest some time in this effort, is anyone else?

How Lowe’s Bought Cobleskill

2008-06-12T00:08:00.000-07:00

Three years ago, a newly elected Village Board found itself in the position of having to deal with a plainly irresponsible deal entered into by the previous administration to sell Village water and sewer service to a proposed Lowe’s just past the Village line. After reconsidering the deal, the new Board, led by Mayor Sellers and Deputy Mayor MacKay voted to effectively turn off the tap before it was even hooked up. Citing concerns over fairness to Village taxpayers as well as the fiscal and economic health of the Village, the Board from then on maintained a policy of requiring annexation for a project to receive Village water and sewer services.

Yet last month, the Village Board made a dramatic about-face on the issue and agreed to extend water and sewer lines out to the Town so Lowe’s could tap into them. Given the Village Board’s steadfast refusal to do exactly this over the past several years, one wonders, why the sudden change of heart?

Call me cynical, but I’m thinking the decision has something to do with Lowe’s offer to take the $200,000 it would have spent building an on-site water and sewer system and give it to the Town and Village instead. The Times-Journal essentially interpreted this move as a good will gesture (June 4 2008, “Cobleskill Finally Gets Water Deal”). I, however, interpret it as a pay-off.

According to the Times-Journal, Lowe’s developer Rob Jess made the announcement of his decision after the Town and Village came together and made this deal. However, Jess must have insinuated or just came and told Town and Village officials that they would get the 200K if Lowe’s got the water.

It’s interesting that Lowe’s chose to take the position that it did not need village water and sewer; though it obviously wanted it. Given the developer’s eagerness to obtain Village services, I have to believe that building their own water and sewer systems would have presented complications and potential costs far exceeding the $200,000 to be given to the Town and Village. Let’s not forget that with water and sewer hook-ups, the site becomes more valuable as it can be marketed to more potential businesses such as restaurants.

For three years the Village Board has maintained a wise policy of requiring annexation for projects interested in receiving Village services. This reversal makes a mockery of local government and democracy and indicts the character of all the local officials who signed on to the deal. This clearly demonstrates that our local community is for sale. What a disappointment.

A Lowe Blow for Schoharie County’s Downtowns

2008-06-11T23:56:00.000-07:00

At a time when gas prices are rising drastically, it is more important than ever that our community leaders take the steps necessary to plan for compact, sustainable communities where people can live, work and shop within reasonable distances. On the surface, it seems like a Lowe’s in Cobleskill will help cut down on fuel consumption by saving people from having to make trips to Oneonta or Amsterdam. However, the net effect of the Lowe’s development will be to drive local hardware retailers out of business while negatively impacting other locally-owned businesses as well, giving people less choices, especially ones that don’t involve driving.

Instead of abetting further sprawl development on its periphery, the Village of Cobleskill might better expend its energies seeking ways to revitalize the residential apartments on its Main Street. But it seems like the Village Board doesn’t even have the temerity to insist on annual apartment inspections for fear of angering slumlords. Despite this, there are things happening in Schoharie County’s downtowns. In Cobleskill, SUNY has decided to open a branch of its bookstore on Main Street. Plus, the Village just spent over $30,000 for a study on how to revitalize Downtown. I don’t think that that study calls for helping the Town build another big box development outside of the Village!

More needs to be done! Why hasn’t the Village government taken steps to move its offices back downtown? This is a very simple step and it should have been taken years ago. The next step: a facelift for downtown. Storefront facades could use some paint and new designs and there’s plenty of grant money available to do it. Main Street’s sidewalks need to be replaced; how about some simple brick inlays and traffic calming devices? These are all very simple steps that would go along way to setting the tone for a revitalization of Downtown Cobleskill. I fear that if the current administration won’t move on this, then no one will.

Instead, this current administration slaps in the face the Village taxpayers who receive water and sewer service as part of the “whole package” of Village services. They don’t get to cherry pick which services they will pay for and which ones they won’t. Instead this current administration chooses to subsidize development in other municipalities essentially agreeing to a parasitic relationship where Town sprawl latches on to the Village infrastructure and essentially sucks all the life out. Developable land in the Town, that now has access to Village water & sewer becomes more valuable than Village land. Developers get the services without the taxes! As more and more commercial developments pop up in the Town, Town taxes will go down, thanks to the Village’s generosity. Meanwhile, the Village will foot the bill, as not only will it be providing water and sewer services but police protection as well.

As an ex officio member of the County Board of Supervisors, Cobleskill Town Supervisor Roger Cohn knows that a Lowe’s development will bring in sales tax revenue for the county to divvy up. Meanwhile, water and sewer lines get extended outward toward the next big project. So local growth supporters, i.e. county officials, developers, the chamberpot of commerce, and the Times-Journal all have been attacking the Village Board for the past three years for “holding up progress” in order to shove this deal down Village taxpayers’ throats once again. Instead, this current administration finally backed down and endorsed this distorted notion of ‘progress’. A Lowe blow indeed.

McMansion Owners Complain About Taxes

2008-06-11T23:50:00.000-07:00

As Schoharie County slowly morphs from a rural county to a distant exurb of the Capital Region, economic, political and social changes promise to divide the community in many ways. The ongoing property tax debacle in the Town of Richmondville is an example. While the Town certainly has its share of legitimate grievances when it comes to assessments (most Towns do), it is a small minority of McMansion owners who seem to be making most of the noise.

The majority of Richmondville’s residents live in small site-built or manufactured housing along the Route 7 corridor or clustered in the hollows of the surrounding hills. However, where there are good views to be had, we’ve begun to see an influx of large expensive houses popping up.

Two extremely vociferous critics of Richmondville’s assessments are Horst Fierek and Robert Peck. I’m not going to publish any specific information about them personally, although I invite readers to look for themselves on Schoharie County’s website. These individuals’ properties are each assessed at around half a million dollars. Sure, that seems like a lot, until one looks at the homes these people live in: they’re monster houses! In fact, most of these high-assessment properties consist of extravagantly large homes on large parcels with sweeping hillside vistas.

So what do these people expect? Not only do properties with good views fetch higher market prices, but they usually require greater levels of road maintenance by the Town being that they’re built all the way up on top of a mountain. More road means more materials, more fuel for municipal vehicles, more culvert pipes, more repairs after Spring floods, and of course more road to plow during the winter. This way, the homeowners’ benefits of building a home with a good view are balanced out to account for the local government’s added costs of providing services to that property.

Also consider the fact that increased development on hillsides poses significant public safety dangers to residents; just look at the hillside collapsing underneath Horst Fierek’s sprawling mansion off Route 10. Obviously, I’m not saying there’s a one-to-one connection in the case of Route 10 but development obviously puts pressure on the land: streams get diverted, large amounts of soil and clay are displaced, and private water and sewer facilities take their toll as well.

Meanwhile, rural towns often lack the resources to keep up with the services required by increased growth. In few places is this more true than in Richmondville. Here’s a Town with a municipal garage that’s literally falling into a ravine, being held up with chains! The Town office is a shack! Meanwhile, exurban homeowners don’t understand why they’re being forced to bear the brunt of costs for increased services, which their presence creates the need for in the first place!

Personally, I have no sympathy for people who build giant McMansions and then have to pay high taxes. Why should people who live within their means by not building large garish houses have to subsidize a handful of snobs looking down their noses on the rest of us?

If the Horst Fierek’s and Robert Peck’s of Richmondville get their way and thus shift the costs of their services to the already strapped poor of the Town, it would be nothing short of a travesty. There’s more of us than there are of them. While I would like to see Richmondville’s assessment problems evened out, I certainly don’t want to let a few snobs use the issue to weasel out of paying their fair share of taxes.

What to do with Newberry Square

2008-05-07T17:22:00.003-07:00

All of us want to see the broken windows of the Newberry Square building replaced, and sooner rather than later. However, the building's owner Henry Ioannou claims that he just doesn't have the money. The windows were damaged by vandals last month and have remained boarded up ever since. Meanwhile Village codes enforcement officer Mike Piccolo has stayed on Mr. Ioannou's case, trying to get him to replace the $3,000 windows.

Ioannou maintains that the broken windows are a criminal matter and that for this reason he shouldn't have to pay to replace them until an investigation is completed. He does have a point; the person who is responsible for the damage is ultimately the one who should pay. However, this can happen whether or not Mr. Ioannou fixes the windows in the meantime. Naturally, this is what he should do.

Mr. Ioannou claims that he doesn't have money to fix the windows, that he barely has money for his utlity bills. More sympathetic, I could not be. However, instead of spending his scarce resources on an attorney fee, he ought to just pay to have his windows fixed. Something he's most likely going to have to do anyway.

Furthermore, why are all the commercial units vacant in this building? One has to wonder if maybe lowering the rent or maybe taking a more hands-on approach would attract and keep more commercial tenants in the old arcade-style building.

Clearly, allowing a community asset like this to sit vacant, with boarded up windows no less, is a travesty. Rather than a long, protracted legal battle between the Village and Mr. Ioannou, maybe something better can come out of this. Aren't there any civic-minded developers or groups that might step up and engage the community to find a better use for this historic building than to sit vacant covered in plywood for the forseeable future? If Ioannou is losing money operating the building, he should have no reason not to want to sell it, right?

There are a lot of opportunities for downtown redevelopment in an old arcade-style building such as this. I'd much rather see the discussion shift from how to get an absentee landlord to maintain the building to discussing various ideas for how the community should use this building. Henry Ioannou can do this as well, it doesn't matter who does it. Someone just have to be willing to put in the time and energy, and it may require a little something more than bottom-line thinking.

Adam Werbach and the Sierra Club: Environmentalism In Search of a More Convenient Truth

2008-05-05T21:48:00.000-07:00

The Sierra Club’s Adam Werbach came to Cobleskill this week, and despite heralding the ‘death of environmentalism’ a few years ago, he rode into town as part of a breathless campaign of speaking engagements, consulting, networking with non-profits and multinational corporations (like Wal-Mart!) and otherwise doing the work of a good post-environmentalism environmentalist. Werbach came to the fore at a time when the conventional wisdom had written off the environmentalist movement. 23 at the time he became Sierra Club president, Werbach brough a youthfulness and energy that had long been missing.

By this point, the radical movement cultures of the 60s and 70s had all but completey given way to the amorphous soup of post-modernism. Adam Werbach stands at the pinnacle of this process as it relates to the environmentalist movement. Werbach's critique of environmentalism is very much couched in the language of the post-modernists who are always declaring an end to one thing or another.

Werbach tells us that the environmentalist movement needs to broaden its appeal and become consumer friendly. He would have the movement packaged so as to promise Americans that they can have their cake and it too. He would have us believe that self-sacrifice and hard policy choices are unnecessary. True, many of the things Americans value are not mutually exclusive with environmentalism. However, Werbach’s feel-good analysis is so superficial that it doesn’t even matter.

Broadening the environmentalist movement conceptually is one thing, but watering it down to the point of meaninglessness is quite another. Doing this allows a disastrous side-step of the necessary dramatic shift in policy and consciousness that will keep us from ruining our ecosystems. To me, broadening means connecting the dots so that working people see the connection between the exploitation of their labor AND the exploitation of the environment. It means a New Deal-esque marshaling of federal and state resources to retrofit homes and buildings, invest in alternative transportation and seriously reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, foreign or otherwise. It means empowering people to take on the big corporations like Wal-Mart who trash workers rights around the world and recklessly fuel what is possibly the biggest environmental threat in the coming decades: China. Adam Werbach should be teaching people how to lead attacks against multinational companies, not how to be co-opted by them.

Environmentalism shouldn’t be a stand alone issue, it needs to be nested in other parts of our civil society. But cozying up to the multinationals is not the way to go. This only serves the status quo and allows them to blur the deeper connections between the destruction of ecosystems and the perpetuation of poverty and exploitation. It allows these connections to be replaced with a big yellow smiley face. Instead, an empowered progressive or social democratic movement needs to take up the banner and bring the cause back to the streets and out of the board rooms.

A lot has happened since Werbach became Sierra Club president (An Inconvenient Truth, Hurricane Katrina, $100 dollar a barrel oil). Yet as environmentalism is replaced with everybody’s new favorite word, sustainability, it runs the risk of becoming some thoughtless catch-all panacea for the general psychic unrest of the current zeitgeist. I get worried when everybody starts saying they want to be more sustainable. Everybody can not possibly know or agree upon what sustainability means. Compact fluorescent light bulbs are not going to prevent the next Katrina. Cars running on discarded fry fat aren’t going to bring down the price of gas or reduce dependence on oil. But as long as we nod our heads and applaud in approval at these things, we’re only going to keep on kidding ourselves.

We can’t shake ourselves of this pesky little global warming thing unless we start ripping up highways and replacing them with light rail, rapid rail and high-speed rail transit systems that will cost us BILLIONS of dollars, or without moving back into cities with corner grocery stores so we don’t have to drive two or three miles for a gallon of milk and pop-tarts.

And I know Schoharie County folks aren’t going to like this one, but we can’t do it without making real commitments to alternative energy, like wind power (as ONE example). Americans are going to have to learn to live with the inconvenience of windmill blades swooshing all the night.

Our current landscape: sprawled out, automobile-dependent and increasingly alienated is NOT sustainable, no matter how much we wish it so by applauding the use of the word sustainability. Our current landscape is not just ecologically unsustainable, it is economically and socially unsustainable as well. Proactive steps are not really needed; these problems will begin to force our hand as gas hits 5 dollars a gallon and people go broke driving to the supermarket to buy food at its inflated prices (due to fuel costs). Feedback loops will resound through our entire society, much louder than the swooshing of wind turbine blades, I’m afraid.

And what would Wal-Mart say? How about: Take those rebate checks (paid for with deficit money borrowed from China) and gas up the SUV and (with whatever you have left) pack it tight with useless junk from…Wal-Mart (useless junk manufactured in China!). Don’t think about how much extra you’re paying to ship your consumer goods all over the damn planet or to gas up a massive hunk of metal to drive all over the place or how much more sensible it would be just to live, work, and shop in the same small walkable community that we manufacture our crap in and grow our food in. That would be too utopian and it might scare people away from becoming good consumer-environmentalists. And we don't want that.

I don’t know, maybe Adam Werbach is right. Maybe if I buy some more fluorescent light bulbs I’ll feel better.

The Real Truth About Economic Development is No Mystery

2008-05-05T21:34:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, a mystery company (Code name Avalon) came to town dangling 500 new jobs in exchange for a shovel-ready site, planning and zoning approvals (for what no one knows), water and sewer services (good luck!) and did I mention our virgin women! This has become the way of economic development in America’s rustbelt Hoovervilles.

Karl Marx once wrote about how the capitalist pits groups of workers against each other, relying on a reserve army of unemployed workers to keep wages down and benefits non-existent. Today, capitalists are still doing that, but they’re also relying on a reserve army of depressed rustbelt communities just like Cobleskill. It has been called the ‘race to the bottom’. The playing field has become so obscenely tilted in favor of big business, that it is now possible for companies to demand an endless string of concessions from job-desperate regions, pitting one county, city, or state against another, as they go subsidy shopping. Companies claim that they need tax breaks and other goodies, but the truth is, places like Cobleskill need jobs and economic development a hell of a lot more. Companies won’t get very far in America if they don’t exploit an advantage like that to the fullest degree. But don’t worry, they do.

This company will probably demand (and get) some kind of obscenely favorable tax deal where the County economic development agency actually owns the land on paper so the business doesn’t have to pay taxes. Instead, they’ll pay a PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) for a much lesser amount and we will all find the pathetic number acceptable because they will tell us the amount spread out over something like 20 years.

Sick of lazy, shiftless welfare recipients sucking away your tax dollars? If so, I would point you not to the poor people sitting on porches along Main Street that you normally like to bitch about. Instead, look at the Wal-Mart distribution center in Sharon. The county “owns” that facility for which Wal-Mart pays no taxes. Instead Wal-Mart pays a small PILOT. Over the 20 year life of the agreement, it will save Wal-Mart almost $50 million!
Source:http://www.walmartsubsidywatch.org/subsidy_report.html?sub=U2FsdGVkX1/CTiGQpJnM9UFqAgVmH1Tc

Does this make any sense to you? The Waltons are among the top ten richest people in the world. Now you know how they got that way.

Lancaster Development has a similar deal for its facility in Richmondville on Podpadic Rd. Lancaster president Mark Galasso serves on the Cobleskill Village Board, before which he served as Chair of the Village planning board. Hey, it pays to know people.

Hopefully Cobleskill Village officials can stop their petty infighting and get with the program so they can join in the heaping of obscene amounts of subsidies on a company that hasn’t even revealed itself. By this of course, I mean extending water & sewer lines all the way out to Shad Point, conveniently out to the same area where every little local developer would like to get his grubby hands on a water/sewer hook-up for another strip mall or McMansion development, including Lowe’s. Won’t someone tell the “do-nothing” Village Board to stop their bickering and get that water pumping? Haven’t they been listening to the chamberpot of commerce and the four partners? Don’t they know how easy it is for this mystery company to simply go to another community and demand shovel-ready land, zoning approvals, water/sewer hook-ups, tax abatements and first-born children? I guess they are simply blind to the suffering of wealthy developers and multinational corporations as they pull the rug out from underneath our communities and dictate the terms of our economic future.

Karl Marx was right.

Water’s Edge

2008-05-05T21:30:00.000-07:00

In 2005/2006 the newly elected Cobleskill Village Board (consisting of new members Mark Galasso, Sandy MacKay and Mayor Sellers) voted to rescind a deal to extend water and sewer lines to a Lowe’s development just outside the Village boundary. Since then, the question of how to extend to water and sewer services to developments outside the Village’s borders is one that has persistently troubled the community. Town of Cobleskill officials feel entitled to the services and take the Village’s stand as an intentional slap. County-wide, economic development proponents accuse the Village of hindering potential progress.

Yet the Village has maintained, largely at the insistence of Mayor Mike Sellers and Deputy Mayor Sandy MacKay, that developers wanting Village water and sewer services must be annexed by the Village in order to get Village services.

This is a quite sound policy for a number of reasons. First of all, the Village’s water and sewer system does not exist to subsidize development in other municipalities. Allowing developers in the Town to tap into these services will only hurt the Village in the long run. Providing these services makes it economically attractive to build outside the Village, depriving it of tax revenues. This hurts the Village by helping to drive business away from Downtown and by undermining its fiscal stability.

Therefore, the Village has said to developers: if you want Village services, become part of the Village. So far, two developments on Mineral Springs eager to tap into the Village’s water and sewer lines have gone for this. Annexation talks and procedures are more or less underway for both projects.

But now, the recent mystery company’s arrival and its demand for water and sewer hook-ups puts extra pressure on the Village’s policy. The company is interested in a 100-acre site in Shad Point, an area in the Town of Cobleskill near Crossroads Barn and the east end of Mineral Springs Rd. This area is almost two miles from the Village boundary. Who would be expected to pay for the installation of these water and sewer lines for this distance? I don’t think it will be the mystery company.

But the best part (at least for some) is that extending these lines out to Shad Point would mean bringing potential water and sewer services to all of the parcels along Route 7 and Mineral Springs Rd., the area most likely to see increased development pressure. Naturally, this would solve Lowe’s water problem. How many other developers would be waiting in the wings to start building up other parcels with strip malls and big boxes?

I wouldn’t want the Village to rule out selling water and service to this mystery company. However, I think its existing policy of requiring annexation should be upheld. Let this company apply for annexation to the Village. Then, any other property owner wishing to hook into the water and sewer lines will have that option (of annexation) as well.

Better yet, this provides the community with the ability to hold this company’s feet to the fire. Legally, the Town is not able to condition approvals and such on meeting certain ‘social requirements’ like paying a livable wage and maintaining a commitment to keep the amount of jobs promised for a fixed period of time. However, the Village could make these part of a “community benefits agreement” as a condition for extending Village water and sewer services. As the company is requesting an extra service that it is not in anyway legally entitled to, such an arrangement would be completely voluntary, a form of contract zoning.

Hopefully, the Village doesn’t bend to the temptation to throw money and favors at a company that promises jobs but offers no proof or other means of validating its intentions. The public has the right to demand fair treatment from this company and any others seeking to do business here. What is required is a Village Board with the audacity to stand up for this right. So far they have demonstrated a willingness to move in this direction. In order to keep the Village Board on track, those concerned about economic justice and fairness should continuously remind Village officials of their obligations to the community.

Local Slobs Ignore Community ‘Clean-up Day” in Cobleskill

2008-05-05T21:28:00.000-07:00

This Earth Day, the Village of Cobleskill saw a host of events related to green activities and green awareness. One such event was a community-wide “clean-up” in Cobleskill where participants spread out and cover the Village gathering up litter and debris. Nearly every year, events like these help to foster civic pride, community awareness and an ecologically responsible lifestyle.

However, for a group who describe themselves as “cleanliness-challenged”, this Earth Day’s Clean-up was nothing but a big waste of time. One young man, who can often be seen carousing around Veterans Park bare-chested and smoking cigarettes, say’s he doesn’t care if he sees people picking up garbage; he will continue to litter anyway. Several others with stain-covered clothes and uncombed hair looked bewildered as groups of citizens of all ages stuffed litter into giant bags throughout the day. One wondered, “why would they be doing all this when they could be sitting around, watching TV, and dropping crumbs on themselves”?

Another baffled resident looked on from her apartment, where dishes were piled in the sink and personal belongings were strewn chaotically on the floor. Why bother to clean up she wondered, when its so easy just to ignore the messiness and clutter and put off cleaning up?

She offered her opinion of the motives of the people involved in the clean-up. “They’re probably a bunch of neurotic neat freaks obsessed with cleanliness and order”, she said.

Others interviewed expressed sympathy for the participants but said they didn’t have the time to get involved in such a clean-up, maintaining that eventually they would get around to it.

Most of the people interviewed confessed to being “slobs” and said that “clean-ups” weren’t really there thing. However, they all insisted that they would like to get involved in the community in other ways, as long as they didn’t conflict with their chosen lifestyle.

Cobleskill in the Midst of a Pre-Teen Crime Wave

2008-04-02T14:36:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, Schoharie County residents were inconvenienced by a house fire on the corner of Main and North streets in the Village of Cobleskill. Traffic was redirected and a thick choking cloud of smoke hung over the business district and other parts of Downtown. But the truly disturbing issue was not the inconvenience, but the fact that the fire was apparently deliberately started by an 11-year old girl. So young.. and already a depraved arsonist! The young girl, in a display of maniacal abandon is alleged to have caused the hellish conflagration by setting fire to a couch with a cigarette lighter. Fortunately for the other residents of Cobleskill, this pre-teen menace was arrested and charged. Hopefully, the demon child will remain in custody long enough to prevent her from doing any more damage.

If this wasn’t bad enough, a quick glance in this week’s police blotter reveals that a 12 year old male was arrested for “forcible touching”. Now the police blotter entry did not go into any more specific details, but it seems to me like we’ve got a pre-teen boy with a penchant for rape on our hands and I want to know what we’re going to do about it? According to the blotter entry, the individual was released on an appearance ticket. This means that this sexual deviant is on the loose, free to wreak havoc and mayhem on decent people everywhere.

The local law enforcement authorities may need to recalibrate their strategies to account for this new criminal element. They may need to change the way they look at pre-teen children around the ages of 10-12. When these children assemble to loiter in the Downtown business districts of our communities, we can no longer turn a blind eye. We must be on guard against potential arsonists, sexual predators, and any number of other dastardly criminals.

My sincere hope is that the system tries these children as adults. I say, no special circumstances for juvenile offenders! I see no reason why this 11-year old girl shouldn't do hard time for this. Let the little arsonist have a go at general population. And as for the "forcible toucher", how about electroshock therapy? At the very least, he should be thrown in a dark room in some prison basement somewhere until he learns some manners.

Otherwise, what kind of message are we sending to all those potential pre-teen lawbreakers out there?

Galasso Would Give Breaks to Fellow Developer

2008-04-02T14:34:00.000-07:00

Proving why it is important to have ordinary citizens as opposed to millionaires in Village government, Trustee Mark Galasso recently questioned the need for sidewalks, lighting and open space requirements as part of the sprawling condo project being constructed along Mineral Springs Road. The project will include nearly 60 condominium units and will be among the largest developments in the Village. To the Village’s credit, they did require the property to be annexed by the Village before receiving water and sewer services.

But that seems to be where the accountability ends. Village Trustee Mark Galasso, President of Lancaster Development, a major highway contractor based in Richmondville, has questioned the need to enforce requirements for sidewalks, lighting and open space. The developer of the project, Nadeau, originally balked at putting in sidewalks but has agreed to do so. As for the streetlights, Galasso argues that it would cause the Village’s electric bill to increase. Really? Is this about saving money for the Village or for Nadeau? Then there’s Galasso’s rant against mandating open space in planned unit districts. Galasso objected, calling the practice “wrong on so many levels”.

However, if anything is wrong with the Village’s zoning ordinance, it is that it is not strong enough on developers. The sidewalks, streetlights and open space are all something to build on. However, there needs to be design guidelines as well to ensure that the project is aesthetically appropriate, pedestrian-oriented and not out of character with the rest of the Village. Compactness, density, walkability, minimum setbacks, building at the lot line, requiring tree plantings; these are all things that could make the Donats Brow project more integrated with the Village. It would make the difference between having an asset to the Village and having an eyesore.

Don’t expect Galasso to hold the developers’ feet to the fire, he’s a developer himself. This is something Village residents should think about when they consider their own levels of political and civic engagement and when they vote for Village officials. Who should be leading development in Schoharie County: citizens with a stake in the community or developers with their own agenda?

Critic of Gilboa Dam Watchdog Group Doesn’t Hold Back

2008-04-02T14:31:00.000-07:00

Lester Hendrix, the founder of Dam Concerned Citizens, a watchdog group focused on the safety of the Gilboa Dam had no desire to hold back criticism for the current membership and leadership of that group recently. He charged them with failing to push for necessary protections (liability for damage in the event of an accident, accountability to local governments effected, and more aggressive inspections). Instead, Hendrix accuses the group’s current leadership of preferring to “play cozy with political bigwigs and parade themselves in front of TV cameras every month in Schoharie”.

Hendrix’s basic complaint is that the group has lost its edge, been tamed and bought off by State and City officials. Now, as someone who does not live near the projected flood zone in the event of a dam failure, I really don’t care much about what goes on between the DCC, the State and the City of New York.

However, as someone interested in community organizing and activism in general, it seems like Hendrix is probably right. The DCC seem to have been de-fanged by the powers that be. This is a shame because a more confrontational approach would be good for the local communities. A good fight can unite people around a common cause and build community capacity, as opposed to typical NIMBY fights which revolve around smaller self-interested groups (see Richmondville posts).

If more people would rise up and increase their demands, they would learn that doing so can have substantial benefits. The more they speak out, the more money the State and City will be willing to send up here to shut them up.

So I join with Lester Hendrix in lamenting the fact that Dam Concerned Citizens has lost its way.

Is it Time to Ban Snowmobiles Altogether?

2008-04-02T14:30:00.000-07:00

Recently, Sharon Springs school district residents concerned for the safety of their children have decided to speak out against the gangs of marauding snowmobilers who somehow believe they should have the right to ride their vehicles on school property. Of course, the critics are right. These machines are really quite dangerous. They are free-roaming and can approach very high speeds. Allowing them on school grounds poses a significant threat to school children. One resident recently called for the resignation of Jim McFadden, a Sharon Springs school board member who has supported the idea of allowing snowmobilers to pass through the school grounds. Whether McFadden should resign or not is a separate matter. However, it seems like every winter there are issues of public safety and quality of life being raised by residents complaining of snowmobilers. There are numerous concerns. The snowmobile treading has been know to cause damage to private property and public road surfaces. The noise that can be heard at all hours of the night is a nuisance. There are also numerous safety issues posed by intersections of roads and snowmobile paths, and then there’s the potential threat to pedestrians. That’s not to mention the danger to the riders themselves. By the way, there also a monumentally stupid and unnecessary waste of fuel. Add all this up and you get one more nuisance that we just don’t need. Snowmobiling is both a nuisance and a threat to public safety. Let’s end the bickering by banning snowmobiling completely.

The Man Bill Cherry is Afraid to Talk To

2008-04-02T14:26:00.000-07:00

The latest victim of the divisive NIMBY politics associated with Reunion Power’s bid to install an industrial wind farm in Richmondville is a proposed municipal power company for Schoharie County. County Treasurer Bill Cherry proposed creating a public power company to provide electricity to country residents at a cheaper rate than National Grid. Currently, the Town of Richmondville already has a municipal power company and provides Town residents with electricity at lower costs.

The creation of a county-wide municipal power company has real potential to lower energy costs for Schoharie County ratepayers, and as a pretty significant side benefit, it would create a few new jobs. A resolution had been presented to the County Board of Supervisors and Cherry had been exploring talks with Albany County about creating a two-county program. The discussion had been moving along, until Bill Cherry found out that Albany County Legislator Sandy Gordon (with whom he was working on the project) was involved with Reunion Power, the very same Reunion Power of Richmondville wind farm fame. After finding out about Gordon’s involvement Cherry stopped short in his talks and has since put the whole issue on hold.

Ostensibly, Cherry cited a potential conflict of interest as the reason for his refusal to work with Gordon. However, that explanation simply doesn’t pass muster. It is obvious that Bill Cherry simply doesn’t want to get pulled into the political sh*tstorm raging in Richmondville over the wind mills. One incumbent town supervisor (Bernocco) was already defeated because of it. Cherry just doesn’t want any of that taint blowing his way.

But Cherry can only be blamed so much for his political cowardice, as most politicians would probably elect to play it safe in this situation. The real blame lies with the anti-windmill activists in Richmondville, whose scorched earth campaign has driven a wedge into the community and embittered local politics.

Sandy Gordon is not the problem here. The real problem is the glorified NIMBYism in Richmondville and a lack of political will to appropriately dismiss it. Cherry made the politically smart move by distancing himself from Gordon. Meanwhile Schoharie County is still paying unnecessarily high electricity rates to an overseas company, when it could be exploring a cheaper local alternative.

Spitzer’s Crimes?

2008-03-10T22:08:00.000-07:00

Are all crimes created equal? Certainly, few would advocate that a public official should resign for the offense of jay-walking, or talking on a cell phone while driving. Obviously, Spitzer’s involvement in a prostitution ring is a little more serious. But does it rise to the level of a political capital offense? To me prostitution is not really a crime. First of all, I believe prostitution should be legalized, and in fact, it is legal in parts of the State of Nevada. Furthermore, prostitution, like other imagined crimes (drug use for example) is a product of an antiquated morality that no longer seems to make any sense in a society that is (slowly) evolving and maturing on matters of sex and recreational drug use.

In many states and countries around the world, marijuana has been essentially decriminalized, or made equivalent to a minor traffic infraction for all intents and purposes. And though the public is often scandalized by stories involving their leaders’ sexual improprieties, prostitution has similarly been essentially decriminalized, with most johns getting let off with a warning.

The bottom line here being, these are victimless crimes. They are non-crimes. These are laws that are relics from a bygone age. This does not mean that citizens or politicians can flout them with impunity. But it does mean that we should accord our politicians the same amount of leniency that we would accord the average Joe who gets little more than a slap on the wrist for being caught with a little pot or for soliciting a prostitute.

The activities in which Governor Spitzer has engaged make him fair game for criticism, especially considering the hypocritical nature of his involvement. Critics may take shots at him and they may be right. He may be a jerk and a hypocrite. But in my view, these are not compelling reasons for him to abandon his governorship.

Spitzer’s behavior while clearly a violation of the law and morally reprobate to some do not indicate an impaired fitness to serve as governor, even a great governor. What’s more, a Spitzer resignation would be a political windfall to Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno (who is currently under federal investigation for serious crimes and corruption) bumping him up closer to serving as governor as a contingency. To see Spitzer go down while bolstering Bruno would be a travesty.

Anyone of us could find ourselves in the position of having made a mistake that could potentially derail our careers that we have worked so long and hard to build. In Spitzer’s situation we would be hoping for a second chance, and many of us (provided it is not a repeat offense) would probably get it.

Why shouldn’t Spitzer?

Donats Brow Development Needs Careful Site Planning

2008-03-10T22:07:00.000-07:00

The Village of Cobleskill is in possession of a very critical piece of infrastructure (water and sewer lines) and a lot of developers want to tap into it. In my view, this gives the Village an incredible amount of bargaining power. But they don’t seem to be using it.

The Donats Brow development, consisting of a proposed 14 apartment buildings on Mineral Springs Road (across from the fmr. Guilford Mills plant) will be the largest residential project in the Village’s history. But the only reason the project is going to go ahead is because the Village and Town are (most likely) going to agree to the Village’s annexation of the land in question. The annexation means that the properties will be taxed by the Village AND that the developer gets water and sewer for the projects.

Now, I’m glad that the Village has insisted upon annexation in order to extend water and sewer lines to the development. However, the developer in this case, seems to be getting more than the Village out of the deal.

My biggest concerns have to do with the planning and zoning of this development. Have village officials taken any steps to ensure that this development is integrated with the rest of the Village? Has there been any concern for the long-term potential for development in that area?

There are two reasons to worry about this: first, what will be the negative unintended consequences of rapid development in this part of the community? Secondly, what opportunities are we missing out on by not planning this better?

To put this in perspective, let’s consider that this project calls for roughly 14 apartment buildings! This is essentially going to be a “village within a village”. What kind of open space will the project offer? Will the buildings be aesthetically well-conceived or the typical “build and run” model of apartment complexes? Why not go with a more grid-based “new Urbanist” design developing on the lot line and incorporating some commercial uses in the project? How will South Grand Street handle the increased traffic? Will their be sidewalks and bikeways connecting the project with the Village and the fairgrounds? These questions do not even take into account the potential for future growth in the area once water and sewer lines are set up. Remember as well, that this will be what travelers on I-88 see of Cobleskill.

How these questions are answered by developers depends to a large extent on how much they want access to Village infrastructure AND the degree to which Village officials are willing to hold developers’ feet to the fire.

Does Cobleskill have the capacity to both envision these changes and make them a reality? I think Mayor Sellers and Trustee MacKay have the Villages’ best interests at heart, but I don’t know if this community currently has the capacity to hold developers accountable to a deeper democratic agenda of participatory planning and sustainable development.

I think Mike Sellers, Rebecca Burgos-Thillet and co. need to begin building the “Community Matters” ballot line into a more substantial organization uniting activists in the county. Then and only then can you begin to mobilize people on issues ranging from increased apartment inspections, smart growth, downtown redevelopment and youth issues.

Until then, turn off the tap.

Stand Up and Take the Mic from the Slumlords!

2008-03-10T22:06:00.001-07:00

So far, the discussion over increased inspections for Cobleskill Village rental properties has elicited a great deal of squawking from Village landlords. If Village officials are listening to and acting on these concerns, it is mainly because they (the landlords) have shown up at meetings and spoken out. For the most part, tenants, students and long-time homeowners have not done this.

Cobleskill’s tenants, whether they don’t know or don’t care, are being victimized by their own landlords who are trying to deprive them of the right to a safe and sanitary living space.

Village landlords protest the inspection fees and claim this will only be passed on to renters, about which they are correct. However, the real reason landlords want these increased inspections killed is because they see a slippery slope gradually leading to less and less of an ability to extract profit from poor and mostly ignorant tenants.

The difference between inspections every year and inspections every three years is quite significant for landlords. Maybe you want to put off making improvements until you sell the property in a year or so. Maybe you want to “cover up” violations of the law and would prefer to do this only once every three years instead of every year.

The main problem with the landlords protesting this law is that they are not landlords, but slumlords. They have short-term investments and profit interests in their properties and thus have no interest in maintaining them over the long term.

The victims here are many. First of all, the overall housing stock is only going to whither away because the slumlords just don’t care and will rent out space in any condition as long as they can get away with it. Then there are the tenants. Usually these are folks who are locked into their current housing situation due to poverty, lack of transportation options, dependence on institutions located in the Village, etc. As far as tenants go, this is a very pliant group of people, usually unlikely to complain about the little things that go unfixed.

Many of these tenants are students, who typically aren’t going to pay attention to the consequences of failure to provide basic maintenance. Landlords know this and thus know they can get away with not providing that basic maintenance.

I can understand that many homeowners in the Village do not care about the safety of students and poor people. But at least consider the spillover effects of deterioration of the housing stock. Is it not in your best long-term interests to protect the quality of the housing in your community?

Why is it that students, poor people and long-time homeowners are not down at local meetings speaking out in favor of this new inspections law? Obviously no one wants to take a stand publicly against their own landlord (or neighbor). However, the slumlords are going to get their way it seems because nobody else has come to Village meetings to speak up.
If this continues to be the case, I plead with the Mayor and Village trustees to hold their ground on this issue. Don’t let the big-mouthed slumlords get their way.

Struggling War Profiteers Cheer Cuts to Hospitals

2008-03-10T22:03:00.000-07:00

A recent move by President Bush to cut spending on hospitals (cutting several million dollars over several years for Cobleskill Regional Hospital) has our nation’s struggling war profiteers rejoicing that they’ve finally received some sense of fairness and justice from this administration.

War profiteers who delicately manufactured the bogus pretense for going to war in Iraq were worried that money spent on healthcare and hospitals would take away from their hard-earned war profits in the form of high taxes.

Instead, President Bush has said no to greedy hospitals who want to take your tax dollars and spend it on improving the quality of the care they provide people.

For decades, executives of companies that manufacture weapons systems and that contract with the armed services, have struggled to maintain a standard of living comparable to other wealthy individuals. However, misplaced fiscal priorities in Washington have depressed their bloated salaries through excessive taxation and regulations.

Currently, only 54% of the US budget is spent on the military. But by cutting spending on health care and hospitals, that number could easily be brought up to around 56 or 57%. This might not be felt so much by the millions of people who benefit from such spending. But it would assuredly be appreciated by the handful of wealthy war profiteers who stand to benefit handsomely.

Don’t think that just because the US has spent over two trillion dollars on the war in Iraq that war profiteers aren’t hurting. Every dollar NOT spent on war is a dollar that could be used to purchase supplies at inflated prices from military contractors, or to invade Iran, or to invest in unneeded weapons systems. Fortunately, it looks like President Bush is beginning to hear the cries of this nation’s leading war profiteers and will offer relief by first trimming down the nation’s outrageously bloated spending on hospitals.

Roundabouts: Moving us Ahead or Just Around in Circles?

2008-02-09T17:17:00.000-08:00

Recently, State DOT officials met with local leaders at SUNY Cobleskill to discuss future plans for Route 7 stemming from the bridge replacement at the western gateway to the Village. All kinds of bold new ideas were proposed for the Route 7 corridor from the Hess Station to the bridge. However, nothing is quite as exciting as the proposed roundabout on Route 7 at the intersection near the Hess Station. Honestly, I can’t remember being this excited about DOT repairs since…well ever!

A roundabout is similar in nature to a traffic circle, but not quite the same thing. The main difference being that roundabouts force incoming traffic to yield to traffic already in the roundabout. Traffic circles typically give incoming motorists the right of way.

Though the roundabout has the potential to improve the overall efficiency of intersections, they are not without their disadvantages. Cobleskill should do a lot more research on roundabouts before building one on Route 7.

As a traffic-calming device, roundabouts are all the rage, particularly in fast-growing suburban areas where residents want to slow down traffic. In this regard, a roundabout on Route 7 would force eastbound drivers to slow down as they enter the SUNY Cobleskill area.

There are numerous other benefits as well. Roundabouts have been found to be safer for motorists, as repeated research has found a lower number of accidents at roundabout intersections than at traditional intersections. They also eliminate the need for traffic signals which can range up to $50,000 a year to operate. They also reduce unnecessary vehicle idling which decreases pollution. They also allow motorists more options. If someone misses a destination, they don’t need to turn around backing in and out of traffic; they can simply drive all the way around the roundabout.

However, a major drawback is that roundabouts have been found to be unsafe for pedestrians, particularly bicyclists. They also present problems for the visually impaired as well. These concerns should not prevent roundabouts from being used, but they should be used to weigh the concerns of the community before a roundabout is built.

If prior local issues are any indication, the community-wide debate over the roundabout should be exciting, to say the least.

Aside from the proposed roundabout, local officials and DOT representatives discussed other traffic-calming devices for Route 7 near the SUNY campus, including center medians and landscaping measures.

A major theme discussed by SUNY officials, Dr. Anne Myers in particular, was the idea of developing the area specifically as a Village gateway. Some specific ideas, such as how to design the next bridge for example, were put out there. But there’s a lot more to discuss.

For example, what can be done to make the area more student-friendly? The loss of the P&C supermarket several years ago marked the loss of a major asset for SUNY students.

What are the possibilities of using college-owned land along Route 7 for a small pedestrian-oriented commercial district catering (not exclusively) but largely to college students? There could be a small grocery store, a coffee shop or a restaurant for example. It would provide a place SUNY students could walk to for convenience purchases that would also better link the Village with the college.

These and other concerns need to be brought to bear on the discussion in a forum that includes Village residents and college students in addition to a handful of college officials and local business leaders.

When it Comes to “Discreet Adult Services”, locally grown is Better

2008-02-09T17:16:00.002-08:00

With so much recent talk of economic development and Empire Zones, you’d think Schoharie County’s officials would be going after every local dollar being unnecessarily spent elsewhere.

But after a local man was beaten and robbed by a Schenectady man for a debt he owed to a Scotia-based escort service, it is clear that Schoharie County is missing out on a significant economic development opportunity: discrete adult services.

When I saw the story in the Times-Journal last week, I started wondering: how many Schoharie County residents are traveling to Schenectady or Albany to patronize prostitutes and escort services? The answer, I believe: too many!

What Schoharie County economic developers need to do is take out an advertisement in the adult section of Metroland telling Capital District escort services and “massage” parlors all about the benefits of doing business in Schoharie County.

They should do a survey to determine how many Schoharie County residents are currently making the 45-minute haul to the Electric City for a little discrete companionship. My guess is that the County is losing out on a lot of lucrative economic activity.

I’m not suggesting that the County seek to bring prostitutes to the area, in case that’s what you’re thinking. I’m talking about “escort services” and “massage parlors” and these are legitimate businesses, that on occasion offer unadvertised services to customers who aren’t in any way associated with law enforcement.

Think of all the gas that would be saved by not having to drive all the way out to Schenectady, and then not having pimps have to drive all the way out here to beat and rob people who don’t pay!

This could be a win-win situation. I hope Jody Zakrevsky is reading this!

No Sand for You!

2008-02-09T17:16:00.001-08:00

Schoharie Town residents accustomed to backing up to the local municipal salt shed and appropriating a bucket or two of road salt/sand to use on their driveway or walkway, are in for a nasty surprise for the rest of this Winter.

The Town Board of Schoharie, acting on a request by the Town Highway Superintendent has adopted a policy restricting the ability of Town residents to take Town road salt for their own use.

What is the rationale behind this new restrictive policy? The Highway department cites an increase in salt costs due to the busy Winter season. However, no rationale can justify what is at heart a simply boneheaded policy. While Town officials have the right to restrict use of their Highway Department’s resources, they are wrong and reckless to do so. First of all, it is the Town taxpayers who own the salt, and it is extremely inappropriate for the Town Board to deny them access to it.

Secondly, it presents a major safety risk to people and property. How many will slip and fall because the Town denied them a cup of road salt? How many cars will slide down driveways potentially endangering people and other property?

Now that we know the Town Board and the Highway Department in Schoharie is committed to cutting costs at the expense of safety, is it fair to assume that road plows will reduce the amount of salt they use on the roads?

Schoharie Town officials need to be made aware of what a stupid and reckless policy this is. I hope they take a step back and look at the bigger picture. If they don’t, they should get sand-blasted in the next election.

An Ill Wind Blows through Richmondville

2008-02-09T16:53:00.000-08:00

Apparently unsatisfied with bludgeoning the discussion of wind power into non-existence, Bob Neid and Don Airey, co-founders of Schoharie Valley Watch, have been on the look-out for ways to keep the controversy and friction levels high in Richmondville. Rather than slink back into relative obscurity, the ringleaders of this increasingly laughable circus, have sought to stretch out their fifteen minutes of limelight, inasmuch as weekly coverage in Cobleskill’s Times-Journal affords such limelight of course.

The actions of Bob Neid, Don Airey and other members of Schoharie Valley Watch have exemplified all of the worst aspects of small town political conflict, running the gamet from NIMBYism to divisive name-calling to proposing outlandish conspiracy theories. The result is a bitterly divided community, with a downgraded capacity to work together to find worthwhile solutions.

At meeting after meeting, windmill opponents thuggishly bullied anyone with opposing points of view, until those wanting to contribute constructively to the process were simply overwhelmed and turned off.

Rather than work with the Town Board and Planning Board to insure an equitable implementation of a viable green energy solution, Robert Neid, an individual with a respectable environmental record, chose to take the low road, sabotaging Democratic Supervisor Betsy Bernocco in his own quixotic write-in race for Supervisor. Neid’s major accomplishment? The Town of Richmondville lost a hardworking and experienced advocate in exchange for a Republican who never even claimed to take a different position than Bernocco on the wind turbine issue.

The latest controversy concerning the firing of a part-time Richmondville clerk for supposedly political motives, is a continuation of this tradition.

Neid, Airey and SVW would have you believe that Kathleen Johnson, a part-time Richmondville Clerk was the victim of some heinous attempt to silence critics of the Town’s allegedly pro-windmill policy. This would be laughable if it were not such a travesty, and if the Times-Journal didn’t pick up on it and blow wind in the story’s sails.

I’m not going to say whether this person was fired for a good reason or not. However, if we’re going to start believing in outlandish conspiracy theories, we might as well put it out there that Kathleen Johnson may have deliberately sabotaged her own employment in order to smear the Town of Richmondville.

More likely however, is the possibility that this is one more delusion of grandeur on the part of Neid and Airey, fancying themselves the targets of some corrupt conspiratorial plot.

The most laughable element of this, is the idea that there is some “cabal” or group of insiders in Richmondville capable of performing such feats of political intimidation. Consider: there have been few more vocal critics of the wind policy change than Richmondville Village mayor Kevin Neary, a Democrat.

Why doesn’t SVW ask Neary if the firing of Kathleen Johnson has caused him to fear retribution from the evil conspirators?

Is there really a conspiracy in Richmondville? No, just a bunch of loudmouths with WAY too much time on their hands. I won’t deny them their fun and games, let them have it. I just felt like it was time for a reality check.

Local Landlord Reduces Carbon Footprint by Cutting Tenant’s Heat

2008-01-16T21:00:00.000-08:00

Editors note: In light of the new legislation being proposed by the Village of Cobleskill to increase inspection of rental apartments, we decided to shine a positive light on some of Cobleskill’s model landlords. With each new edition, Slums Along the Mohawk will showcase a Cobleskill Village landlord whose citizenship and vigilance is truly making a difference.

Mark Raymond is the owner of an apartment building on Campus Drive in the Village of Cobleskill. He’s one of the landlords who has questioned the need for increased registration and inspection in the Village of Cobleskill. Raymond has never believed in government regulation and has always felt that the free market was capable of solving problems on its own.

This Winter, Raymond decided to do something to address both the mounting challenge of global climate change and skyrocketing fuel costs. Raymond has voluntarily decided to cut back on the amount of heat his tenants use. As a landlord who pays for his tenant’s utilities including heating costs, Raymond is in a good position to reduce consumption of harmful fossil fuels on his properties. And the best part? This relies on entreprenuerialism, NOT government fiat.

However, if Village officials get their way, daring entrepreneurs willing to think outside the box, such as Raymond would be prevented from trying such new ideas. Instead of being able to make decisions about how best to manage his properties, the new law would effectively place Cobleskill Codes Enforcement officials in charge of these decisions. Raymond asks slyly, “how can I help stop global warming by depriving my tenants of heat during the wintertime with Mike Piccolo breathing down my neck? It’s like their deliberately out to stifle innovation”.

Raymond say’s he’s been watching his tenant’s fuel consumption rise in recent months and decided that their wasteful ways were directly contributing to global warming and rising oil prices. Rather than merely complain, Raymond decided to do something about it. The best part: who’d have guessed that doing what’s right for the environment and the economy would be personally profitable? Mark Raymond, that’s who.

That’s why Raymond is our “Model Landlord” for this issue. Keep up the good work!

John Sweeney: The Lindsay Lohan of Upstate Politics?

2008-01-16T20:58:00.000-08:00

As I heard the facts of the story come in on the radio (the night of drinking at a strip club and the attempt to stiff the cab driver), I thought for sure I was hearing about the latest drunken misadventures of Brittany or Paris or Lindsay Lohan. But this isn’t California, this is Upstate NY and apparently nobody is having as much wild and crazy fun around here as former Congressman John Sweeney.

Last November, Sweeney plead guilty to driving while intoxicated, blowing a .18 (more than 2x the legal limit of .08). He paid a $1000 fine and lost his drivers license for six months, hence the need for a cab ride to and from the Double Vision Strip Club in Clifton Park.

Past incidents of impropriety involving Rep. Sweeney include alleged domestic abuse, a night of drunken carousing in 2006 at a Union College fraternity house and a car accident in 2001 in which he downed a power line causing several homes to lose power including a ski resort which left a number of skiers stranded on lifts.

Now I’m not here to judge Rep. Sweeney; what he does in his own private time is his own business. If he wants to give Axl Rose, Courtney Love and Brittany Spears a run for their money as to who’s the bigger public disgrace, that’s his deal. My main concern is that this behavior will get worse and worse until someone gets Sweeney the help he’s desperately crying out for. I’m half-expecting to open up the Times-Union and see a giant naked crotch-shot of Sweeney getting out of a limo. Does he have a sex-tape floating around the web yet? Has he gone anorexic and shaved his head?

Again, it is not my intention to judge the man, but wouldn’t the roads (and Internet pornography) be a lot safer with Sweeney in a rehab program along with kindred spirits Paris, Brittany and Lindsay?

Village Officials say Nothing Can be Done to Address “Can’t-Do Attitude”

2008-01-16T20:39:00.001-08:00

A recent Times-Journal editorial (1-9-2008) criticized the Cobleskill Village Board for its slowness in implementing the downtown improvements called for in the Hyett-Palma study. The editorial attributed the inaction to a “can’t-do attitude” on the Village Board.

In response, several Village Board members agreed with the assessment but explained after much consideration that there probably wasn’t much they could do to get rid of the “can’t-do attitude”. When asked to elaborate further, Village officials said they were unable to.

However, the Village Board later changed its tone and assured residents and the press that they were confident that they could easily engage in bickering, stonewalling and political stalemate for the foreseeable future.

Nevermind the Hyett-Palma Study, here’s the “Slums Along the Mohawk Downtown Enhancement Study” for Cobleskill

2008-01-16T20:34:00.000-08:00

I know the Village blew something like 30 grand on the Hyett-Palma Study, but I’m willing to give them a better blueprint for action right here, right now, free of charge.

The Slums Along the Mohawk Downtown Enhancement Guide
Executive Summary

Cobleskill is a Village with assets (a great park in the center of town, a lively college student population and a lot of great Downtown businesses). However, it is not without its problems. Chief among these, are a group of developers anxious to see the Village dissolved in order to gain access to the Village’s water and sewer services and surround the Downtown area with suburban sprawl.

Here’s how the Village should respond to these threats and proceed with an economic revitalization of Downtown Cobleskill.

1. Abandon discussions about dissolving the village, instead initiate plans to incorporate as a city, the threat alone will force Town officials to the bargaining table as they will be afraid to lose Village tax revenue.

2. Create a “Downtown improvement fund” which will be used to subsidize private façade improvements and public streetscape improvements. This fund will be supported by entering into “community benefits agreements” with Town developers who want access to Village infrastructure and services. This recognizes the need for balanced economic growth on the periphery as well as Downtown.

3. Relocate Village Offices to Downtown Cobleskill. My advice would be to look into renting out or purchasing the now-vacant Advance Auto building on West Main Street. The buildings’ ample space would allow for court proceedings, board meetings and extra space for various other governmental or non-profit agencies to locate. Perhaps the Village can negotiate to have the Town locate offices there as well, in exchange for water and sewer services for some (tastefully designed and compact) residential developments in the Town.

4. Work with SUNY Cobleskill to increase awareness about Downtown Cobleskill among college students. Better advertise existing Schoharie County Public Transportation Shuttle Routes downtown, limit SUNY shuttles to Wal-Mart.

5. Create an Online Community Bulletin Board geared toward young people letting them know what Downtown has to offer (restaurants, bars, musical performances, Arts in the Park events, library events, etc.)

6. Increase # of Housing Units in Downtown Cobleskill. The Village should set as a goal, the renovation and eventual occupancy of every structurally sound residential unit in the Downtown area and pursue grants (such as Restore NY) to fund this.

7. Establish Strict Guidelines for Chain Stores in Village. Every effort should be made by Village planning personnel to ensure that future commercial developments are pedestrian friendly, architecturally compatible with the Village and do not take away from the overall image of the Village. One case in point is the proposed “Rite-Aid” on East Main Street. If this development is not going to be prevented, the Village must at least make sure it does not become an eyesore. Parking should be IN BACK. The Village should limit the setback so that there is an entrance off the sidewalk. Architecturally, the new Rite-Aids and the proposed office building should form a coherent façade rhythm with the existing auto parts store already on the block. Future developments of a similar nature should follow a similar formula.

8. The Village Should Build a Skate Park/Youth Recreation Center in Downtown. The Village should immediately begin looking for places in the Downtown area in which to locate a skate-park and youth recreation center. Such a facility could be used as an anchor to attract young people from around the county to Downtown Cobleskill. The facility could also be used as a venue for all-ages musical performances, educational workshops and other such events. While we’re on the subject of young people using Downtown, it is important that the Village view young people as potential assets, not loiterers.

9. Increase/Build Pedestrian Infrastructure. The Village should begin looking into creating a pedestrian plan for downtown that uses garden trails or bike trails to connect residential areas both to Downtown, the Fairgrounds and various natural resources near the Village such as Cobleskill and Mill Creeks.

10. Work with the Fairgrounds. The Village should establish a committee to work with the fairgrounds to increase the number of events held on the fairgrounds during the year. Currently, the fairgrounds is an extremely underutilized asset. It is used for the Schoharie County Fair for a week in August (beginning in 2009, the fair will last 2 weeks), the American Motorcycle Jamboree and a small number of other agriculture-related events. What about large concerts, renaissance fairs and other kinds of outdoor conventions of a non-agricultural nature? I’m sure I don’t need to point out that increased fairground activity would have significant spillover effects for Downtown business.

11. Clean up Side Streets. If you drive down France Lane, Railroad Avenue or Center St. (to name a few) you’ll notice plenty of abandoned structures. The Village should begin efforts to redevelop these properties, preferably using state funds (Restore NY). Buildings which can not be adaptively used should be demolished and replaced with compact, well-designed affordable housing.

12. Improve Appearance. In and around the Downtown area, there are numerous unsightly properties. Every effort should be made to make the owners of these properties aware of available subsidies to help improve their appearance. If this doesn’t work, the Village should undertake and implement a “Landscape Plan” to cover up unsightly properties, particularly the homes on East Main Street, and the sea of crumbling parking lots south of the Central Business District (on Division, Center and Railroad Streets).

While some of these action items overlap with those contained in the Hyett-Palma Study, most are my own. If I were to overthrow the Village government, I guess this would be my “12-Point Plan”.

Of course, the Village Board is free to use these recommendations without paying me $30,000. All I want is a cooler town to loiter in.

Anti-Windmill Group Explores New Strategy in Richmondville: Get Rid of Wind!

2007-12-24T11:13:00.001-08:00

Frustrated by the fact that their persistent criticism is falling on deaf ears at Town meetings, Richmondville’s anti-windmill activists have decided to investigate alternative ways to stop Reunion Power from erecting industrial wind turbines. Joe Bloe, a resident of Dodge Lodge Road, whose property lies adjacent to the proposed turbine site, has proposed that residents go right to the heart of the matter and stop the wind from blowing in Richmondville altogether.

Bloe said, “I’ve never been a particular fan of the wind anyway. There have been many occasions when I’ve come outside to find patio furniture strewn all over my yard”. Other residents in the Dodge Lodge Road area expressed similar complaints about wind. “I’ve always hated wind”, Will Gust explained. “Now this whole wind turbine controversy gives us a reason to do something about it once and for all”. It seems Richmondville anti-windmill activists have reached a consensus: get rid of the wind, and the wind power companies will have no choice but to go somewhere else.

The question then becomes, how does one actually prevent wind from blowing? Rob Reid of Against the Wind, a not-for-profit 501(C) organization dedicated to fighting wind power in Schoharie County say’s the solution’s pretty simple. “We’ll just erect several clusters of 250-500 gigantic high-powered fans in several locations throughout the town. Depending on which way the wind is blowing on a particular day, we’ll just flick on one cluster of fans to blow in the opposite direction of the oncoming winds. This will stop the wind dead in its tracks. No wind turbine would generate a single watt of power in this situation.”

Reid recently pledged to a group of supporters that “we will destroy our natural resources before we allow some out-of-state company to come in here and exploit them”.

Cobleskill Town and Village Should Go Their Separate Ways

2007-12-24T11:12:00.000-08:00

With many small towns abuzz with talk of “consolidation” and “sharing services” it may seem counter-intuitive to propose that Cobleskill’s Town and Village move further apart, but here’s why I think it would be better that way. No, I’m not proposing that we physically pick up the Village of Cobleskill and move it up to the Town of Carlisle. What I’m proposing is that the Village officially remove itself from the Town’s political jurisdiction by incorporating itself as the City of Cobleskill.

The Town and Village simply have too many irreconcilable differences to make consolidation a wise move for the Village. The Village needs to focus on reviving its downtown business district. The Town simply wants to use Village water and sewer services to develop more sprawl. The Village has a well-developed public infrastructure that it has invested in for decades (water, sewer, etc.). To simply allow the Town of Cobleskill to have the benefit of that investment is unfair to Village taxpayers and ratepayers. What’s more, it seems like the Village has a lot more to bring to the table here: a municipal water system, a sewer system and a police department for starters. What does the Town of Cobleskill have to “share” in exchange for these services?

The Times-Journal has sought to frame the issue in terms of eliminating duplication of services. In an editorial, the Times-Journal asks: “does Cobleskill need two offices, two sets of clerks, two planning boards, two heads of government and separate Town and Village boards to get daily duties accomplished”? The Times-Journal makes it sound like we’re talking about some vast legion of entrenched overpaid bureaucrats. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The Planning and Zoning Boards are staffed by volunteers and cost taxpayers nothing. Therefore, reducing the number of planning boards and ZBAs from two to one would have a taxpayers savings of ZERO dollars! The Village Mayor’s office pays an $8,000 dollar a year salary. Haven’t you ever heard the saying: two heads are better than one? For that price, we could throw in a few more! Clerks make a little more, but perform a wide variety of functions. Cobleskill’s Village clerk is much more intimately aware of the Village’s processes and operations and can be a valuable asset, why get rid of that? Eliminate the Village boards (planning, zoning and Trustees) and you are ceding an incredible amount of community control to the Town of Cobleskill. Why? So greedy developers like the Galasso’s can pick the bones of the Village?

Why is it that most of the debate seems to focus the spotlight on the Village government as unnecessary when it is the Village that has made the investments to establish and maintain the services that the Town now wants access to? I’m not saying there should be no sharing of services, but let’s look at other options before we hand over the whole Village to the Town.

In my view, incorporation as a city is the right option for the Village of Cobleskill. First off, to those of you thinking that Cobleskill is too small to be a city, let me just say, there is no minimum population required for a community to incorporate as a city. In fact, if Cobleskill became a city, it would not be the smallest is New York State. The City of Sherrill has a population of 3,109. Cities like Little Falls, Salamanca and Mechanicville all have a population of around 5,000.

Incorporating as a city, would politically and legally remove the Village from the Town. Presently, Village taxpayers pay taxes to both the Village AND the Town. If the Village became a city, residents would no longer owe taxes to the Town. A similar level of services would still have to be provided, but now the Village/City would have more control over how that money was spent and how those services were provided. This of course would eliminate any potential discrepancies over how the Town budgets and spends “Town-inside-Village” revenue. The problem in Cobleskill is not necessarily duplication of services, but the de facto obligation of Village residents to fund services that they do not use. Even aside from the above-mentioned discrepancies, the Village has to be losing some money on the taxes its residents pay to the Town. We need to know exactly how much of the Village’s share of town taxes actually benefits Village taxpayers and how much doesn’t. If the Village could use this money to cut taxes or increase spending on Downtown development, this alternative must be explored.

The best part, however, is that the very idea of the Town losing Village tax revenue will change the bargaining balance of power between the Town and Village on a whole bunch of issues (at the very least).

At the county level, the Village/City would now get its own representation on the County Board of Supervisors who could in turn be an advocate for bringing county funds back to the Village. At present, the Village is represented at the County level by the Town Supervisor. Can this person be expected to adequately represent the interests of the Village when Town-Village relations go sour? This would allow for a better opportunity to direct a more appropriate share of the Village sales taxes (which are collected by the County) back to the Village itself. A County Supervisor representing solely the village/city of Cobleskill would be able to focus all of his or her time on bringing back county resources, as they would not serve simultaneously as a Town executive.

Downtown Cobleskill needs to be focusing on rehabilitating streets and facades and finding ways to bring back businesses. We should be looking for ways to empower the community to do this, not ways to cut its legs off and serve it up to another municipality.

Downtown Cobleskill is an entirely different animal than the Town of Cobleskill and requires (at the very least) a separate municipal corporation to provide for its needs and future development. I believe we should look into reincorporation as a city, and at the very least we should rule out dissolution or consolidation with the Town.

I’ll admit, I don’t have all the answers on this subject (in fact, I haven’t been able to find anyone who does), but it certainly warrants more attention and exploration than it received at the Village’s recent public meeting on the subject of consolidation and sharing services.

Central Bridge to Explore “Pay-as-you-Poop” Sewer System

2007-12-24T11:10:00.001-08:00

Inspired by a new law being talked about in the Village of Cobleskill that charges residents for garbage pick-up according to how much they throw away (pay-as-you-throw), Central Bridge Sewer District officials have raised the possibility of employing the same principle to resolve the hamlet’s long-standing sewer development challenge.

Instead of simply developing a sewer system and charging sewer district residents a flat rate, this new program would charge sewer district residents on the basis of how much “material” they discharge from their homes. John Crapser of the Central Bridge Sewer District explains how the system would work: “each home in the district would be fitted with a special toilet that weighs the contents of the toilet before every flush. A charge would be assessed to that home based on the monthly weight of outgoing sewage”.

According to supporters, this program provides an incentive for residents to cut down on unnecessary bowel movements, to make alterations to their diets to encourage lighter stools, to use less toilet paper and best of all, to compost their own fecal material. “This will increase the general health of the public AND be beneficial for the environment”, Crapser explained.

However, Joan Hotaling, a 450-pound mother of eight, thinks this plan will unfairly penalize her household. At a public meeting, Hotaling estimated that she defecated on average four times a day and insisted that her stool probably weighed more than that of the average person due to the amount of fat and grease she consumes. Angry and frustrated, Hotaling claimed she would be forced to leave Central Bridge if the community started charging her “by the pound” to process her bowel movements.

At this point, a rather svelte-looking individual stood up and shouted, “good riddance”! “Why should I have to pay so you can shit like an elephant”, he screamed, drawing wild applause from the audience.

A few members in the audience claimed to have already lived in a “pay-as-you-poop” city. They explained how at first it was confusing but after a while they began having bowel movements outdoors in order to fertilize their garden. “Once we started doing it the ‘natural way’ our sewer bill was cut in half”, they explained.

Another potential plan, which also received support, would involve selling residents special bags into which they would defecate and then deposit at the local sewage treatment plant. Whatever plan is chosen, it appears that Central Bridge is tired of the old ways of doing things and is ready to try something new.

Wal-Mart Worries about Aesthetic Impact of Lowe’s Home Improvement Center

2007-12-24T11:02:00.000-08:00

“We chose the current Wal-Mart store location over ten years ago because of its natural beauty” say’s Wal-Mart District Manager George Deitz. But now a proposed Lowe’s Home Improvement Center in Cobleskill, NY threatens that very natural beauty. The Lowe’s store will tower over Wal-Mart on a nearby hill, dwarfing the 12-year old big-box store, bathing its newly rehabilitated concrete façade and vast parking lot in a sea of hazy yellow phosphorescent light. This “monstrosity” as Dietz calls it, threatens to darken Wal-Mart with its shadows during the day and blind the store with its lights during the night.

“This suburban sprawl has got to stop” Dietz laments. “When we chose this location, there was nothing here but farms, now there’s car dealerships, gas stations, a Dunkin’ Donuts, and now Lowe’s. It’s like Wal-Mart is being swallowed up by ugly suburban sprawl”.

The real tragedy, according to Dietz, is that Wal-Mart just finished remodeling the interior and exterior of its Cobleskill store. The Wal-Mart exterior just received a major facelift in which its familiar blue and gray was replaced by a more humble and Earthy brown and tan. But Dietz asks, “Who will enjoy looking at Wal-Mart’s exciting new façade when there’s an ugly, behemoth, big-box store looming over it”?

A long-time Wal-Mart employee recounts memories of sitting outside on breaks in the smokers’ shack looking out upon the rolling pastures of the farm just over the hill. “It was just so relaxing, it literally helped to recharge me to go back to work”. But now Wal-Mart employees will look out of their smoking shack and see a dizzying whir of traffic and blinding phosphorescent lights.

A local historic preservation group has issued a scathing critique of the impact that Lowe’s would have on Wal-Mart. They are urging the Town and Village to work together to make sure that the proposed Lowe’s does not adversely impact enjoyment of Wal-Mart’s striking concrete façade.

According to Dietz, “That’s all I’m asking for. We just spent a ton of money painting our entire building brown and tan so that it would be more of a pleasure to look at, and we don’t want to see a Lowe’s come in and spoil that view for everybody”.

Howe Caverns Sabotages Tourism Promotion Program

2007-11-26T16:32:00.000-08:00

At a recent county budget hearing, representatives of Howe Caverns criticized county funding of the Schoharie County Chamber of Commerce’s tourism promotion program. Howe Caverns sales director Sascha McRae was quoted as saying “the Schoharie County Chamber of Commerce has quite simply lost their way”. McRae threatened to withdraw Howe Caverns from the Chamber’s “I Love NY” matching funds program.

McRae and others claimed that they were unhappy with the way the Chamber has been handling issues recently. However, it is clear what is really going on: Howe Caverns’ new ownership is seeking to sabotage efforts to promote the Caverns.

Why would Howe Caverns want to sabotage itself? The answer is simple. Last year, the world-famous tourist site was purchased by Emil Galasso, President of Cobleskill Stone Products. This company owns most of the land surrounding Howe Caverns and operates a large-scale quarry on this very land. Within the caverns is something more valuable than a tourist attraction. The caves are filled with extremely valuable pharmaceutical-grade limestone.

Galasso has pledged to run Howe Caverns as a tourist site for at least ten years. However, if for some reason the cave tours are unprofitable, Galasso can begin making a case for closing down the cave to tours and opening them up to mining. What better way to begin laying the groundwork for making the case that the tours are unprofitable than to sabotage efforts to promote the caverns? At this rate, Galasso will be blasting away at that mountain before those ten years are up.

Your Official Guide to Illegal Dumping

2007-11-26T16:23:00.000-08:00

Are you tired of The Man telling what you can and can’t throw away and what kind of garbage bags to use? Well don’t just shrug your shoulders and toe the line like everyone else. Stand up to The Man and make a statement by illegally dumping your trash around town!

By now you know the problems Cobleskill Village residents have been having lately. You put out a bag of garbage or two expecting it to be gone the next morning, only to see that it’s been torn open, inspected and left behind because it contains cat litter or too many aluminum cans or god knows what. But don’t worry, there’s a solution to this problem: simply leave your trash somewhere else and make it someone else’s problem.

Here’s what you do. Wait until it’s late at night, gather up your trash and take a ride on down to town. Drive slowly down one of the side streets (Division, Union, etc.). When you are certain that nobody is watching you, have someone quickly throw the bags out the back door of the car and then drive off.

However, if you’re too shy to dump your trash Downtown, you can always find a secluded area somewhere. Some good places that come to mind include the area by the railroad tracks by the fairgrounds, or at the end of one of the side streets off MacArthur Ave. I would suggest simply leaving your garbage anywhere on the street. However, putting the garbage in a business’s private dumpster is fine too. Some dumpsters may have locks, but most don’t. Be discrete if you choose this option. Make sure to keep your bag out of the view of the business proprietors in case they happen to be watching.

Of course you’ll want to make sure that there is no incriminating evidence in the garbage bags such as any mail with your name or address on it.

By now you’re probably wondering: “okay that explains what to do with the bagged garbage, but what about that old TV or air conditioner that the garbage men didn’t take”?

Well, this is easy. Simply bring the bulk item in question to one of the county’s many unofficial garbage dumps off rural roads. These areas are not “official” dumps but they have nonetheless been used as dumps by residents for decades. Find a desolate rural road, preferably at the top of a ravine; this way when you dump the stuff it will at least fall out of view somewhat. It’s probably better to find a location that has already been used as a dump, this way it will attract less attention to your specific garbage. However, feel free to start a new dump if you want.

Certain specific items lend themselves well to particular methods of disposal and you should keep these in mind. For example, old tires can simply be rolled down any hill. Old computers and other electronic equipment can simply be dropped off at a local repair business. Just give them a fake name and phone number and never come back for it. It’s their problem now! You should be able to use this method for large appliances as well. For the financially savvy illegal dumpers, it may be possible to pawn off certain items on the local charity/thrift store. Old mattresses, couches, refrigerators and washing machines can simply be donated (on the pretense that they work and are salable, of course) for a potential tax credit. However, let’s not put the cart before the horse. For the time being, simply focus on getting rid of your garbage and not getting caught.

So there you have it. You no longer need to stand idly by and watch the garbage men tear apart and rifle through your family’s garbage. This is just one more way for The Man to break your spirit and run you down. Now YOU can choose your garbage’s destiny. Dumping our refuse whenever and wherever we please is our god-given right as Americans!

Cobleskill is for Swingers!

2007-11-26T16:13:00.000-08:00

Those Schenectady swinger soirees are back in the news again. In case you haven’t heard about this, there is a bed-and-breakfast in Schenectady that for several years has been hosting sex parties for local swingers. When local residents first got wind of what was going on, they complained to the City and attempted get the parties shut down. However, to the dismay of local residents, the City of Schenectady has been unable to stop the parties because the people hosting them aren’t actually doing anything illegal. Well duh!

As I was reading about these parties in Schenectady, I began wondering how something like this might go over here in Cobleskill. After some serious consideration, I believe these swinger parties would really liven up the area and contribute a lot to the local social scene. Admittedly, I’m not big into the whole swinger scene myself, but I think swinger parties could be a major draw to the local area. You may scoff, but I seriously think I’m on to something here. We could be talking about a major marketing ploy. If we played our cards right, we could draw sex swingers from throughout Northeast New York and transform Cobleskill into a world-class swingers paradise.

The State of Virgina markets itself similarly (Virginia is for Lovers). We could take it a step further and proclaim that Cobleskill is for Swingers! Every town needs a gimmick if it is to attract tourists. Cooperstown has baseball, Saratoga Springs has horse racing, why can’t Cobleskill have swinger parties? Local bed-and-breakfast owners could start getting the ball rolling right away by advertising in the adult section of Metroland and on the internet. This could be the answer to Schoharie County’s economic development problems. C’mon people, let’s make it happen!

What is Camp Cass and Why do People Want to Keep it Closed?

2007-11-26T16:09:00.000-08:00

This was the question that burned in my mind after a recent road trip through southeastern Albany County. A little research on the subject revealed Camp Cass to be a residential rehabilitative center for delinquent youth run by the NYS Office of Children and Family Services. Apparently, residents in the Rensselaerville area of Albany County were alarmed because a student escaped the facility, robbed an elderly couple and took off with their car. My response: so what?

Am I the only one who can appreciate the irony of this? Rural communities have long benefited (almost parasitically) from the location of prisons and the jobs they provide in the local economy. Is it any surprise that mostly white rural Republicans take such a tough stance on law and order issues?

I had to laugh when I read about the teenager who broke out, robbed an elderly couple and stole their car. What do you expect? Rural conservatives have benefited from crime and punishment for far too long. Crimes are committed in inner cities and then the criminals are convicted and sent to rural prisons which provide jobs and economic stimulus to local economies that thrive on incarceration. It’s about time that these rural areas had to start experiencing the negatives associated with the prison-industrial complex that they have so richly benefited from.

If you ask me, Camp Cass should be open for business with no input from the local residents whatsoever. Rural conservatives should not be allowed to bury their heads in the sand and ignore the consequences of the tough-on-crime policies that they so vehemently support. To residents near Camp Cass, I say, start fitting your windows for bars and look into getting a guard dog, because it’s time for your just dessert.

Democracy Inaction

2007-11-07T13:28:00.000-08:00

As expected it looks like Town of Richmondville voters decided to take out their anger on incumbent Supervisor Betsy Bernocco for her role in the recent wind turbine controversy. Unfortunately for Richmondville voters, the guy they just elected, John Barlow, has the exact same stance on the wind turbine issue as Bernocco. But people were frustrated and someone had to pay, I guess. To me, it looks like the voters traded an incumbent with an accomplished record and history of service for someone who barely campaigned for the job, and who didn’t even pledge to stop wind turbines from being developed. Way to go, Richmondville!

In the Village of Cobleskill, incumbent Rebecca Burgos-Thillet was trounced by former Mayor Bill Gilmore in a race for Village trustee. Naturally, this doesn’t bode well for Mayor Sellers and Deputy Mayor MacKay, both of whom seem to be bearing the brunt of criticism over some recent problems that seem to be beyond their control. Gilmore’s win –a huge 80%- will likely lead to his running for re-election as Mayor in 2009. Unfortunately, for Sellers and MacKay, the Times Journal has decided that anything from now until 2009 that happens to go wrong in the Village of Cobleskill will be blamed on Mayor Sellers’ youth and inexperience.

In the Cobleskill Supervisor’s race Republican Roger Cohn defeated Democrat Bob Strother. This is a disappointment. Hopefully, Cohn will not continue the entrenched position of outgoing Supervisor Mike Montario who essentially refused to consider any sharing of services with the Village unless they agreed to extend water and sewer services to Lowe’s. For two years, Montario held the process hostage because he apparently believed that the Town of Cobleskill was entitled to Village services. Strother had a lot of great ideas for improving participation, town-village negotiations, and helping Downtown. But the election of Roger Cohn seems like voters are saying they want more of the same. Hopefully I’m wrong.

A Do-Nothing Mayor?

2007-11-07T13:26:00.000-08:00

In several recent editorials, the Times-Journal has taken Cobleskill Mayor Mike Sellers to the woodshed for his performance. After missing a Village board meeting due to a family crisis, The T-J demanded that Sellers “get a grip”. A week later, another editorial admonished voters not to expand terms from 2 to 4 years, because if a “do-nothing candidate” like Mayor Sellers settles in voters will have to wait twice as long to get rid of him.

Aside from the fact that these represent scurrilous ad hominem attacks that fall below the standards of professional journalism, they completely distort and misrepresent reality. First of all, the Sellers’ administration is not without accomplishments. Here are a few:

-Sellers refused to support extending Village water and sewer service to fuel sprawl outside the Village
-He and Sandy MacKay applied for and received a grant to study sharing services with the Town responsibly
-He reversed the skateboard ban
-He has helped increase the vitality of Downtown by creating a new crafts market and supporting other events

So far, that’s not so bad. I think it’s far easier to make up a simplistic narrative and stick with it than actually representing the situation fairly and accurately. The Times-Journal is just practicing bad journalism. Sellers has two more years to go before he finishes his first term, if he builds on his accomplishments and goes a few steps further, I think he could be responsible for turning around Downtown Cobleskill.

In the next two years, Sellers should get to work on making Downtown façade and streetscape improvements happen. He should also be taking a proactive role in getting the county to take control over the Guilford Mills plant from its current delinquent owner. One easy issue is bringing the Village Hall back downtown. This should have been done two years ago. Of course, negotiating with the Town to possibly create a combined town/village office building downtown would be a far better option. What about that long overdue skate-park?

Sellers has his work cut out for him. But if he accomplishes these things, Gilmore will have a very tough time getting elected Mayor again in 2009, if not, it’s going to be Gilmore part 2. Then you’ll wish we had a do-nothing mayor!

Smoking a Civil Right?

2007-11-07T13:25:00.000-08:00

I don’t like to focus on these kinds of statements, but I will in this case, because the Times-Journal saw fit to put it on its front page. In the lead story in their Oct 24th issue, covering the proposed smoking ban in village parks, the Times-Journal featured this quote from a concerned citizen “I’m a smoker, but I’m a responsible smoker. Please respect my civil rights.”

Up until now, I had no idea that smoking was a civil right. I had no idea that smokers huddling outside of a hospital were actually having their civil rights trampled in violation of the constitution!

After checking the constitution though, I couldn’t find any references to smoking. However, if the Times-Journal printed it, I’m sure it’s accurate.

Talkin' Trash

2007-11-07T13:23:00.000-08:00

The Village of Cobleskill’s new contract with Vet’s Waste Hauling and the new restrictions that go along with it belong in one place: the trash. Unfortunately, Vet’s Disposal would probably go through the bag and decide for some reason to leave it behind.

The solution: write a new law covering residential, apartment and commercial waste and remove the restriction requiring clear bags and no bulk items. Unless the Village is going to drastically reduce taxes, there’s no justification for reducing services in this manner. Collecting the trash is a basic municipal function, this shouldn’t even be an issue!

Fact and Fiction in Drivers License Debate

2007-10-17T22:19:00.000-07:00

Why are certain county clerks in NY vowing to disobey Governor Spitzer’s law allowing undocumented immigrants to get drivers licenses? Like all opposition to illegal immigration, it’s a matter of firm principle: illegal immigrants did not follow our laws and thus came here illegally!

Other county and state officials are jumping on the bandwagon because they know that the vast majority of Americans are extremely ill-informed and quite likely bigoted in their view of immigrants (legal or illegal) and the potential of pandering to that ignorance is limitless.

State Senator James Seward, Assemblyman Pete Lopez, County Clerk Indica Jaycox, Board of Supervisors Chairman Earl Van Wormer and Sheriff John Bates lined up at a recent press conference to issue the standard canned condemnations of illegal immigrants. Are there so many illegal immigrants in Schoharie County that all of our officials and representatives must speak out in this manner? Maybe it's just election-year politics. Nothin' gets the voters excited like some good old fashioned nativist fear-mongering.

Despite the hue and cry over the issue, there are good reasons for the law and the facts support it. Here are some examples of the widespread distortions of reality on this issue.

“This plan makes it easier, far easier, for driver’s licenses to fall into the wrong hands, like those of potential terrorists,” said Kathleen Marchione, the Saratoga County clerk who is the president of the New York State Association of County Clerks.

Yes, but the 9/11 hi-jackers did not need drivers licenses to board planes on 9/11. They were here on visas and could have gotten on the planes using their passports, which all of them had. If anything, having official drivers licenses will allow potential terrorists to be tracked bringing them out of the shadows, if they’re dumb enough to get one and use it. The claim that this law makes us more vulnerable to terrorism is simply not true. Further, despite the concerns of a few county clerks across the state, the 9/11 commission did not recommend denying licenses to unauthorized immigrants.

But instead of discussion based on facts, this is what you get from Republicans in the age of Bush and the Patriot Act:

Senator Vincent L. Leibell, an upstate Republican, declared that under the proposal, Osama bin Laden could obtain a driver’s license in New York.

As for the benefits of the law, statewide insurance costs could drop by as much as $120 million dollars a year (only about 15 dollars per person). However, if an undocumented immigrant crashes into you or your car, whether or not they have auto insurance could determine whether or not you actually see any money for your injuries or property damage.

There’s also the argument that by issuing drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants they will be forced to take road tests and written tests which will make roads safer. In all fairness, there’s been no research demonstrating that this will in fact make roads safer. But I’d personally wager that we'd all benefit by having all drivers taking the time to learn the rules of the road before they get behind the wheel. Maybe a provision that undocumented immigrants take drivers ed or defensive driving courses before getting the license would help to ensure that this actually does increase safety.

Regardless of the facts surrounding this issue, there’s simply way too much noise. We have a political climate that thrives on fear and suspicion, and this just gives politicians a license to pander. A recent Siena Poll shows that over 70 percent of New Yorkers oppose this law. Oh well, according to polls, half of America still believes America actually found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The 'Grader' Good in Richmondville

2007-10-17T21:58:00.000-07:00

Eric Sperbeck wants to be Richmondville’s Town Highway Superintendent. With a Masters degree in education and a previous stint on Richmondville’s Village Board of Trustees, Sperbeck believes he has the experience and the dedication necessary to oust incumbent Keith Althiser in this November’s elections.

Sperbeck is careful not to attack the job of current highway department crew members but he points to plenty of administrative issues that offer room for improvement. Sperbeck criticizes the way the Town handled the sale of an aged and mechanically failing highway department grader. The grader was sold to the Town of Root, who then made a small investment to do the mechanical work necessary to repair it. However, since then, the Town highway department has been renting a grader at a monthly rate that has now exceeded the small investment made by the Town of Root. Clearly, Eric Sperbeck is someone who will work on behalf of Richmondville taxpayers for the greater good, or should I say, the ‘grader’ good.

Then there’s the Town garage, a facility that is literally collapsing into a stream below it. What has the current leadership done to prevent this? Sperbeck also expresses an interest in seeking out grants, addressing overtime issues and looking into sharing services with other communities.

Some may say that highway superintendent elections are not all-important. But I believe that few things are as important as partaking in our civic duty to choose those officials which are closest to home. Being highway superintendent requires tough decisions about how much salt to use, how deep to make the ditches on the side of the road and the appropriate diameter of culvert pipes.

I’m not urging Richmondville voters to choose Sperbeck or Althiser. I am urging voters to go out and spend at least a few days thoroughly researching their Town’s highway superintendent candidates. There’s really nothing much at stake, aside from the very foundation of our democracy.

Thank You for Not Passing Another Stupid Law

2007-10-17T21:51:00.000-07:00

This week, the Cobleskill Village Board thought better of proposing an ill-conceived ban on smoking in Cobleskill’s parks. With skateboarders just recently winning back the right to skate on village streets without getting their name in the police blotter, the Village went straight back to the drawing board with another bad idea with which to harass and ticket village residents.

For the record, I do not smoke nor do I particularly care to be in the presence of people who do. But when I think of this law I have nightmares of finger-wagging do-gooders barking in people’s faces about what’s right and wrong, and this to me is far more irritating than second-hand smoke. I have no problem with banning smoking indoors. Smokers have no business puffing away blowing second-hand smoke in someone’s face in a contained area. But outside, if I confront you about your cigarette smoke I’m risking a punch in the face. And that’s fine with me.

As for setting an example for children, this is perhaps among the dumbest and scariest reasons for passing a bill imaginable. Children are not precious little artifacts to be sheltered from every possible danger that exists in the real world. Nor are they particularly benefited by policies that suck all the fun out of life.

Another dimension to this issue, is the question of who has the right to use Cobleskill’s parks. Banning smoking seems very much like an idea born of middle class concerns about children and safety. Meanwhile, smoking seems to be a practice concentrated among working class and poor people. I doubt village officials are consciously pushing the ban for these reasons. Nonetheless, these tensions are real and a ban would seem to have the largest impact on the so-called ‘wrong elements’ considered undesirable by middle class soccer moms and do-gooders. For all these reasons and more, the smoking ban was a bad idea. The Village has better things to do and park-users don’t need another annoying law to comply with. The Village’s parks are over-regulated as it is.

Cobleskill: Home of the Ultimate Fighter!

2007-10-17T21:14:00.000-07:00

Okay, so Ultimate Fighter Matt Arroyo doesn't live in Cobleskill anymore, but he hails from Cobleskill and I for one am proud of that. Plus, I think a lot of our problems would be better solved through Ultimate Fighting Championship-style events.

Village Board meetings would be vastly more entertaining if the issue of town-village consolidation was decided by a kickboxing match between Trustees Marc Galasso and Carol McGuire.

Garbage men bidding for contracts? No, I don't think so. Make them face off in the ring.

Cancel all elections right now and tell Roger Cohn and Bob Strother to begin physical training. The next supervisor of Matt Arroyo's hometown should be determined by blood, sweat and Brazilian Ju Jijitsu.

Angry Residents Sound Off at "Informational Meeting" in Richmondville

2007-09-30T21:00:00.000-07:00

After attending the informational meeting on the proposed installation of wind turbines in the Town of Richmondville, I’ve decided to focus a debate or two on the nature of opposition to wind power rather than the pros and cons of wind energy in general.

After witnessing the outpouring of emotion and resentment toward Town Board members, County Planner Alicia Terry and representatives of Reunion Power I had mixed emotions. Some of the opponents' complaints were well-articulated and made substantive points criticizing the process as it has been unfolding in Schoharie County. On the other hand, the overall mood of the meeting was hostile. Many in the audience issued demands for policies that were impossible and nonsensical, injected rude and sarcastic comments during the presentations of Reunion Power representatives, and quite obnoxiously and insistently made statements that were patently false. When Reunion Power project manager Steve Eisenberg attempted to correct erroneous statements he was told to essentially sit down and shut up as he already "had his three minutes".

Many in attendance were nearly outraged by the fact that Reunion Power had already seemed to be discussing details and negotiations without going to the public first. But how else should the process work? If you’re a wind power firm you have to start by finding places where the wind is likely to generate sufficient energy. It is only logical that you then must have a specific location in mind before you begin the process of negotiating with the Town Board over permits and tax policies and such. Reunion power has to know that that an area has an available wind resource before it begins dealing with the public and Town officials about a possible development.

One resident suggested that there should be a bidding process to allow for competition between different companies. This seemed to be accepted by the crowd until the Town’s attorney Marvin Parshall was forced to explain that it was not the Town’s job to “solicit companies”. People were supportive of this idea, but it made no sense. What would the company be bidding for? Reunion Power will pay a fee or lease agreement to the private landowner, not the Town. If the landowner wishes to seek alternate bids or offers, he’s completely free to do so, or not to. There’s no need for the Town to seek bids, as they can either choose to tax this development at the Town rate or accept a payment-in-lieu of taxes. Either way, there would be no need for bidding. Bidding is for public contracts, where a company is providing a service and the Town or Village is bidding for the lower price for that service.

Then several in the audience called for the Town to enact a “moratorium” on wind turbine development. This prompted County Planner to attempt to explain what a moratorium was. Moratoriums are used to stop something that is currently legal and regularly taking place. For example, if the Town was seeing a great deal of residential development, which was perfectly legal under the zoning code, but potentially a problem for the local infrastructure, then you could institute a moratorium to stop building. You can’t put a moratorium on a building category when it’s not even an allowed use yet. If you want the Town to not adopt the wind law, then advocate against that. But a moratorium makes no sense.

Then there was a commonly repeated assertion that wind energy is not “green” except of course in the sense that it profits wind energy developers. But to suggest that wind energy is not a “green” alternative to coal-fired plants, oil-fired plants, and nuclear power plants is truly absurd and has no basis in fact whatsoever. Based on the current fuel mix in New York State, over the 20 year-lifespan of the average 1 MW wind turbine, that one turbine can be expected to displace 55 million pounds of carbon dioxide, 200,000 pounds of sulfur dioxide and 75,000 pounds of nitrogen oxide. These substances are responsible for global climate change, air pollution and numerous respiratory and other illnesses when they are present in concentrated amounts. Plus, wind energy developments use far less land than conventional electricity generating methods. The footprints of coal-fired plants, including the plants themselves, the mining operations and transportation systems required, are far larger. But there is also the potential that by producing more electricity through renewable resources such as solar, hydro, wind, and geothermal, we can use electricity for more things including powering our cars and heating our homes, further displacing fossil fuels, which not only lead to climate change but to costly military adventures abroad.

Why then, do many repeatedly claim that wind energy is not “green”? I suspect that many come from a conservative political orientation which is unsympathetic to environmental causes in general and rather than admitting that they don’t care about the environment, they would rather tell themselves and everyone else, that wind energy won’t have any effect on the environment anyway. They often preface their considerations with some statement like, “I’m all for green power but…” or “I consider myself an environmentalist but…”. The reality of the situation is that paying lip service to the environment has become politically correct, and a lot of people do not want to have to deal with the liability of being seen as someone who doesn’t give a damn. In fact, many of these same people are suspect of the reality of global climate change and believe it to be a hoax. They believe in conspiracies that have “big wind” interests trying to scam naïve environmentalists in order to make a buck. So the idea that wind energy is not “green” is in fact a little white lie.

All this being said, I can not fault a community for asking tough questions about the impacts of a large-scale industrial wind-energy development, and some did in fact have valid concerns. For example, one woman brought up the health effects of blade-induced light flicker on people with epilepsy and other disorders. This is a real concern and it is the Town’s job to work with Reunion Power and residents to come up with a law that prevents these problems from negatively impacting people. Then there’s the concern over the destruction of view sheds. This is a reasonable complaint, but it should not be overdone. Setbacks can be implemented to minimize the visual impact of these turbines, and they should be established as part of an open and participatory process, but the fact that a few homeowners will lose a good view and possibly take a hit in their property value should NOT be a deal-breaker. If you are someone who will be individually affected, I can understand your opposition, but let’s be honest, eminent domain-projects take place all the time and they result in people actually losing their homes. The effects of wind turbines on a view shed are highly subjective and qualitative and should not be the reason for preventing the development of wind turbines.

Another resident brought up the question of taxes versus a payment-in-lieu of taxes. According to the speaker, assessing the project at the Town rate and taxing at that rate would yield a much higher amount of revenue than a payment-in-lieu of taxes would. I won’t repeat the particular numbers that this individual cited, as he could be pulling them out of you-know-where for all I know. However, the point is an important one. I see no reason to trade a higher amount of taxes for a lower payment-in-lieu of taxes. Reunion Power was trying to sell the idea of a PILOT, but that’s to be expected. I think the Town needs to heavily consider this. The Town of Richmondville does not need to host this wind farm and should not be extending sweet-heart deals to any companies.

After the meeting, a local group set up to fight the wind power development (Schoharie Valley Watch) was attempting to make an issue out of the Town’s failure to appropriately publicize this meeting. Personally, I think the Town could have done a better job at getting the word out and yes, advertising on the sign outside the firehouse would have helped. However, to suggest that the Town was attempting to conceal the fact that a meeting was being held is totally ridiculous. First of all, the meeting was being held in the Village at the Village fire house. Richmondville Village Mayor Kevin Neary, who was present at the meeting and spoke out vehemently against the project could have personally put up the necessary signage or had someone else do it, at any time during the week. No, it's not the job of the Village Mayor to notify the public of Town meetings, but then again if the Town really was trying to keep the public in the dark, Mayor Neary had ample opportunity to do something about it. I can see how SVW would seize on this, but I would bet that it was just an honest oversight by a Town board that was under a lot of stress. These kinds of tactics just show how little groups like Schoharie Valley Watch have to offer by way of substantive arguments. What’s more, if the Town didn’t tell people about the meeting, someone sure did, because the place was packed. If any more people showed up they would have had a hard time finding a place to stand. With the emotions running as high as they are, I could just as easily see someone removing the lettering from the sign just to have the something to bash the Town about. Thanks SVW...Thanks for taking a debate about our country's renewable energy future to such a pathetic level of pettiness and stupidity.