The Times-Journal Misses Mayor Sellers

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

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.

PAYT a mixed bag

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.

How Wal-Mart Short-Changes Communities

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

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.

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

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

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.

Cobleskill’s Main Street at a Crossroads

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?

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.

Downtown deserves grant

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.

Lying in the Weeds

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

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.

The Case against Sharing Services

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?

Downtown Cobleskill Can Be More than a Parking Lot

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.

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

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.

Village Limits

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

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

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.

What to do with Newberry Square

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.

The Real Truth About Economic Development is No Mystery

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.