SamPratt.com: 5 posts from September 29, 2013

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5 posts from September 29, 2013 - October 5, 2013

October 4, 2013

Saturday in Spencertown: 4 pm

I will be interviewed by Michael Singer this Saturday at 4 pm at Spencertown Academy, on the topics of Columbia County politics, land use and environmental issues, as part of their Conversations With Neighbors series.

Tickets ($15) are available online at this link; get directions via Google.

in Events, Politics | Columbia County | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 3, 2013

There’s gas in them hills

Abandoned farm, Columbia County (NY).

in Agriculture, Photographs, Towns | Clermont | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 2, 2013

Proposed Transco power line route through Columbia County

Transco’s public notice turned up this morning; excerpted below is the Columbia County portion of their proposed new power line route:

The Proposed Edic-Pleasant Valley Line departs from the proposed Knickerbocker Substation and proceeds to the south along the 100-foot-wide ROW of the double-circuit Schodack-Churchtown #14 and Greenbush-Hudson #15 115 kV lines. Approximately 2.2 miles south of the proposed Knickerbocker Substation, the line passes into Columbia County and continues in a nearly straight line due south through the Town of Stuyvesant for a distance of approximately 8 miles. After crossing into the Town of Stockport, the line turns to the southeast, crosses U.S. Route 9 and Kinderhook Creek, and again turns due south. The line continues in a southerly direction generally parallel to and approximately 1 mile to the east of U.S. Route 9. The line crosses a small portion of the Town of Ghent less than 1 mile west of the Columbia County Airport. The line continues to follow the 115 kV ROW through the Town of Claverack, passing about 2 miles to the east of the City of Hudson. After crossing Route 9H the double-circuit #8 and #T7 115 kV lines join the ROW just north of the Churchtown Substation. The 150-foot-wide ROW the line is in remains with this configuration of parallel double-circuit 115 kV lines for the next 12 miles through the Towns of Livingston (8.3 miles), Gallatin (1.2 miles), and Clermont (0.7 mile). The total distance in Columbia County is approximately 30.8 miles.

The full notice is online at this link. A second company, NextEra, is also supposed to have submitted a different proposal yesterday.

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Claverack’s special counsel goes AWOL

In an unexpected and inexplicable new twist, the lawyer hired by the Town of Claverack to make its case at last week’s cringe-making hearing to remove firefighter Nathan Chess from the planning board suddenly appears to be off the case.

A leaked email sent to special counsel Dionne Wheatleigh, who conceded drafting most of the brief attacking Chess that was signed by Supervisor Robin Andrews, yielded this automated response yesterday afternoon:

I have retired from RWGM. All of my messages are being forwarded to Elayne Gold.

For further assistance, please contact Karen Pelland at 518-464-1300 ext. 406

Thank you,

Dionne Wheatley

Roemer Wallens Gold & Mineaux LLP

At the hearing, Wheatley certainly did not appear to be of retirement age, leading one to suspect an inapt choice of words. A second message sent yesterday evening from Wheatley’s account appeared to be hand-typed, not automated:

Please be advised that as of 9/30/13, I will no longer be with the firm and thus will not be accessing email. Emails to this email address may be viewed by another colleague for a short time. Additional communications such as the documents from Mr. Chess and the hearing transcript should be mailed to me as indicated below.

The second message is even more difficult to parse: Why would follow-up materials related to the hearing be mailed to Wheatley, if she is “retired” or “no longer... with the firm?”

Where does the Town’s heavyhanded campaign impugning Chess’s character stand, if their attorney who spent months preparing their case has decamped? Getting a new attorney up to speed on the endlessly byzantine and not-terribly-convincing line of argument crafted by Wheatleigh with Andrews would seem both time-consuming, and costly. Reportedly, one of the firm’s partners has been assigned to the matter, at least for the moment.

in Law, Planning & Land Use, Towns | Claverack | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 1, 2013

Bassin calls on County to table airport plan

Following his letter last week quizzing Columbia County economic development czar Kenneth Flood, Ancram Supervisor Art Bassin has now followed up with a call for his fellow Supervisors to table a long-debated but little-understood plan to use eminent domain to expand the airport. Bassin’s latest appears in full below.

In talking to many of you about the airport over the past few months, I get the impression most of us do not support the airport eminent domain plan, or the "plan" to spend $8 million to $13 million of public money on the airport.

I also get the impression from you that most of us, and most of our constituents, would like to see the effort to expand the safety zone stopped until we get the facts on what exactly the FAA will do if we do not expand the safety zone, and what impact, if any that will have on Richmor or the county in the future.

And even if the FAA tells us they will require us to shorten the runway if we do not expand the safety zone, we have seen no evidence that a shorter runway would have a negative economic impact on Richmor or the County worthy over spending $600,000 to $700,000 of public money in an eminent domain procedure to prevent.

So that we can make an informed decision about this eminent domain issue, I plan to introduce a resolution at the October 9th BOS meeting that will table any further action on the eminent domain process until we get answers to the questions I raised in yesterday's email.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments about this proposed resolution.

Thanks.

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