SamPratt.com: Counties

139 entries categorized "Counties | Columbia"

March 6, 2010

A power line runs through it?

Plans to lay a 335-mile, 2,000 megawatt transmission line from Canada to New York City and Connecticut were just announced, with a major portion of the line proposed to be buried in the muck of the Hudson River starting near Selkirk and Castleton south to the Bronx.

Calling the project the Champlain-Hudson Power Express, developers at Transmission Development Inc. (TDI) are making a public presentation from 6-8 pm next Tuesday (March 9th) at the Holiday Inn Express at 300 Broadway. The project would involve burying four five-inch-diameter cables in the River, skirting the PCB cleanups now underway north of Albany. A PDF document showing the full route can be downloaded by clicking here.

TDI’s principle backers are The Blackstone Group based on Park Avenue, a major investor in Hilton Hotels, Orbitz.com, Michaels craft stores, and various communications companies. The company has been the subject of several recent controversies, outlined here by CNN. Among other things, Blackstone owns Sea World, where a trainer was recently drowned and mangled by a killer whale. Billionaire CEO Steve Schwarzman also came under fire for his $3 million birthday party in 2007 before the stock market crash.

The Catskill Daily Mail repeats unchallenged TDI’s claim that "neither commercial nor recreational current use of the Hudson River will be affected by the line’s presence." (Note the word “current,” which would suggest it might affect future uses.)

February 25, 2010

Shelter from the Storm

The Hudson Valley Press is reporting that community shelters have been set up in Athens, Taghkanic, Kerhonkson, and Hurley for those without power and needing to get warm. Click this link for details.

[UPDATE: The Taghkanic shelter has closed, evidently because power is restored in most, though definitely not all, of Columbia County.]

Meanwhile, friends in Spencertown report that they are not only without power, but that trying to get through to NYSEG to report their outage is nearly impossible; all they get is a recording. Another friend suggested trying their Clifton Park office at (518) 664-9534. Still another had some success in the past with dialing NYSEG’s (800) number, then pressing the button for “no” when asked if you’re calling about your service address. (Ah, the joys of an emergency in the era of automation...)

Central Hudson (according to the Daily Freeman) is giving out bottled water and dry ice at various distribution points to residents without power in Dutchess, Greene and Ulster counties.

National Grid maintains a Storm Outage page and maps of where power is out, plus estimates of restoral times. But of course those without power probably aren’t reading this.

Any excuse to say “quahogs”

Marilyn Bethany interviewed me about the problems with the plans for the Hudson waterfront at Rural Intelligence—click here to read the Q&A.

But what I’d really appreciate you doing is to click through to Hudsonwaterfront.org and take action right away to help ensure that a greener, more sustainable, and more economically-beneficial plan gets enacted.

February 20, 2010

Signal achievement

The Berkshire Eagle reports that WBCR, the marvellously eclectic and progressive community radio station in Great Barrington, has secured a license to boost its FM signal from 100 to 550 watts. This means that once they raise the funds for the new transmitter, WBCR would reach most if not all of Columbia and Berkshire counties, as well as parts farther east and south... More details are at their website.

February 19, 2010

Save the South Bay, today.

Take action today to ensure that Hudson and the region gets the forward-looking, visionary Waterfront the people deserve:

www.hudsonwaterfront.org

No time for the gory details? Read and sign the online petition:

www.ipetitions.com/petition/hudsonwaterfront

January 29, 2010

Blog ping-pong: South Bay tournament

Below are some points I’m volleying back at Carole Osterink’s Gossips of Rivertown blog, specifically in response to her informative post on the recent Greenport Planning Board meeting about truck traffic to the Hudson Waterfront...

Carole, here are several additional points to consider:

1. Anyone who has lived more than a couple of seasons in Hudson knows that 9G routinely floods just north of Mount Merino, which is precisely where this unnecessary and (I believe) unpermitted truck traffic is proposed. I've seen no mention of the flooding problem in published reports; maybe it was discussed and not reported. This raises the more general issue of emergency conditions: What happens if the road, crossings, or causeway are impassable for days, weeks or months? You can bet that in the absence of requirements from Hudson and Greenport, the trucks would resume their trips through downtown.

2. Speed is another non-trivial issue at the proposed 9G crossing. Even with one’s foot riding the brakes downhill, it is easy to arrive at the entrance to South Bay at double the posted speed limit due to the preceding long, steep incline. Warning signs and flashing lights would not prevent an eventual fatality. Hudson is already the Bermuda Quadrangle of traffic danger, with no route into or out of the City which isn't fraught with riskily-designed intersections.

3. Even those critical of the road plan and LWRP seem to be missing the big picture and allowing themselves to get bogged down in the minutiae of the issue. The root problem is not whether Hudson can get some picturesque piece of industrial wreckage landmarked, or even which “alternative” route is less horrible than the rest. No: The bigger picture is that waterfront plans are supposed to proceed from a long-range vision (articulated via the mundane terms of zoning law). It is not supposed to address short-term transitory conditions and demands of present-day developers, such as the owners of L&B in Queens or Holcim execs in Switzerland. Yet the current document is driven by and obsessed with those narrow, short-term pressures—rather than the broad and positive vision for a greener, more humane and more economically productive Waterfront for which the public asked. This version of what an LWRP should contain was espoused by none other than City attorney Cheryl Roberts and State Coastal expert Bonnie Devine at the outset of the process, before certain Hudson “leaders” caved to defeatist and small-minded political concerns. Those backing this plan want residents to get diverted into obscure arguments about minute details, rather than demanding that the big picture make sense. So we anatomize the finer details of O&G’s plans, rather than demanding that all truck traffic be barred from both the Bay and Downtown... They want us chasing fantasies about railroad relics, rather than demanding a far-reaching plan (one that will stand up long after the names Scalera, Mussmann, Osterink or Pratt are forgotten).

4. Speaking of history, my comments posted here last week highlighted a 1977 Federally-funded County Planning report. That report identified an irreconcilable “use conflict” in South Bay—a conflict between heavy industry and ecological restoration. It advised that Hudson needed to choose one or the other; that at such a unique and sensitive location, the two could not coexist peacefully. Yet that conflict was not tackled in either 1977, or even in 2005, when the Secretary of State issued a clear road map for ending it “immediately.” And still even some progressive voices who should know better bandy about empty buzzwords about “mixed use” and “working waterfronts.” The bottom line is people won’t have picnics, toss frisbees, or open small businesses if waves of noise and diesel exhaust are cascading over the Waterfront.

5. Speaking of Chris Reed, how come there is no notice of the LWRP comment period, meeting times, or a run-down of these pressing Waterfront issues on the front page of Friends of Hudson website? For an organization that claims to be still active— rather than just 2-3 people with a listserve—this seems like a glaring omission. The point of a citizens’ group is first and foremost to mobilize and empower citizens, giving them the tools to participate in a meaningful fashion.

6. In my consulting to citizens’ groups, I encourage discussion of such projects to use the verb “would” instead of “will.” (“The road through the wetlands would be 12 feet wide,” etc.) These projects are potential, not inevitable.

January 26, 2010

Kohl’s to Newcastle

The Register-Star issues yet another poorly-reasoned editorial pronouncement, this time on the question of giving tax breaks to the giant Kohl’s corporation, in the form of a PILOT plan.

Every poker player eventually learns that if the rest of the table knows you never call a bluff, you’re sure to leave the game with lighter pockets.

Yet the Register dismisses out of hand the idea of calling Kohl’s bluff. Nevermind that this is a deep-pocketed company. Nevermind that they are expanding all over the country. Nevermind that companies like Kohl’s will always run up a trial balloon to see if they can get towns to give away some tax breaks, whether they need it or not. Nevermind that if you show some backbone now, they’re likely to come back later with a better offer. Nevermind that the much-touted employment will likely be McJobs that don’t pay many if any benefits, and require people to take two other jobs to survive. Nevermind that Kohl’s wouldn’t even be bothering with doing market research and making time investments here if a PILOT were necessary to be viable.

No, says the paper: Let’s ignore Negotiation 101. Worse than that: Let’s negotiate from a position of weakness. Let’s sit down at the table quaking with fear that Kohl’s might walk away. Let’s not put on our own poker faces, and insist that they use local labor for construction of the store. Let’s not talk about inflation-adjusted payments. And let’s skirt the legalities that say you can’t give away tax dollars to a business which may steal customers from others who aren’t given the same breaks. Instead, let’s pretend this will have zero effect on existing businesses from Peebles to Steiner’s to de Marchin.

Heck, they might even cut into some of Wal-Mart’s business—though you won’t catch me crying for the Walton billionnaires...

January 24, 2010

Sold down the river

Over at Carole Osterink’s new blog, The Gossips of Rivertown,* there are several posts addressing Hudson’s draft Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan now under consideration by the Common Council and New York Department of State.

A little-known fact about the Waterfront is that the southernmost piece along the River was owned by the City until the early 1990s. In an amazingly short-sighted move, Hudson sold this prime real estate for a rock-bottom price to Independent Cement, later renamed St. Lawrence Cement, now known as Holcim.

And to add insult to injury: Several years ago while a member of the board of Clearwater, I was talking with a boat-builder in Saugerties who was repairing the organization’s Sloop. When I mentioned that I lived (at the time) in Hudson, a look of chagrin passed over his face.

“Hudson?" he said. “Do you know that I wanted to move this business to Hudson? I tried to buy that piece of land they had on the river, but they gave me a huge runaround. Then I found out they sold it to the cement company.” (He said the City attorney at the time who headed up the negotiations was Giff Whitbeck, of Rapport Meyers Whitbeck Shaw & Rodenhausen; this would have been during either the last Yusko or first Scalera term.)

So try to imagine what the LWRP would look like today if Hudson had an active-but-low-impact boat-building and repair business on the Waterfront... Imagine how much less “pull” Holcim would have had in its negotiations. And imagine how the presence of such a sustainable business—one which could train local workers in a highly-skilled trade—would add to proposals such as permanently docking the Halfmoon in Hudson.

ANOTHER HISTORICAL ANECDOTE: Years ago I was told by a prominent member of the Columbia County Sportsmen's Association that at the time the City obtained HUD funding to build what became the hulking L&B factory, the Sportsmen were very concerned about the fate of South Bay. In spite of its degraded state, the Bay attracted (and today still plays host to) a remarkable diversity wildlife, and many sportsmen had worked the area during the nearly two decades that ICC was ignoring it.

This sportsman told me that their organization had negotiated an assurance from the City as part of the L&B deal that nothing would be developed south of a certain point, and that markers were placed in the Bay to identify that line. However, once the cement controversy revved up, this source clammed up, as if he'd been told not to talk to any plant opponents.

Anyone with knowledge of whether or where such markers were place (or at least what back issues of local publications might be researched to find out more on the topic) can contact me via email by clicking here. The identify of the source of any such tips received will be kept strictly anonymous.

* The name derives from a 19th Century book of sketches by Alice Neal (not any relation to the 20th Century painter of the same name, to my knowledge). The full text of Neal's book can be read for free online.

Cuts both ways

Writing about Dutchess County town budgets, The Poughkeepsie Journal notes that

“Some cities, towns and villages may have to cut spending or spend rainy-day funds if state lawmakers approve Gov. David Paterson's plan to reduce municipal aid this year by 5 percent.

“On the other hand, some local municipalities were conservative in drafting their budgets in November and anticipated cuts in state aid.”

I’d like to know more about these budget-cutting towns—because here in Columbia County it’s hard to find a municipality that has had the foresight to tighten its belt to anticipate these likely cuts in State aid.

A far more likely scenario in many Hudson Valley towns is that budgets will not be curbed enough to reflect the shortfall. Instead, the deficit will be passed on to local property tax payers, who will see their share of their Town budget jump by several percentage points. This will further encourage the more unscrupulous assessors out there to hike the assessments of political enemies and “outsiders” so as lessen the flack they get for the raise from their buddies.

Two likely spins that one can anticipate from town leaders to deflect budget criticism are:

Trumpet a “reduction of the growth rate” in town spending; or
Announce a budget “freeze.”

Both measures sound responsible at first blush. But these political spins can only pass muster if there is widespread economic illiteracy among the public... For in both scenarios, the actual tax bills of local property taxpayers still go up. In order to keep real-world taxes paid stable, towns need to reduce their total budget by the same amount as the State aid cuts.

January 23, 2010

Go Forth

I’m reliably told that the Silvernail House in Ancram and the Forth House in Livingston (pictured above) are being considered by the New York State Historic Preservation Office for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places.

January 20, 2010

On the waterfront

An Acrobat (PDF) file of comments I filed late this afternoon regarding the City of Hudson draft Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan can be downloaded by clicking here.

The five main points made in the document (which is only a warm-up for more extensive comments to be filed with the New York State Department of State Division of Coastal Resources) are:

The plan is not responsive to the Secretary of State's clear guidance about rezoning the Hudson Waterfront in his key April 2005 ruling on the St. Lawrence Cement proposal;
The plan ignores and contradicts the repeated instructions of the State's Coastal staff advisors not to further industrialize the wetlands of Hudson's South Bay;
The plan is not responsive to overwhelming public input preferring a more sustainable, forward-looking, long-range vision for the Waterfront, choosing instead to favor narrow and short-term private industrial interests;
The plan's “alternatives analysis” for getting trucks off the City’s streets and out of urban neighborhoods is both perfunctory, and based upon false premises.
The plan worsens, rather than resolves, the "use conflict" in South Bay between heavy industry and public enjoyment that was identified more than 30 years ago.

The City could have a far more ambitious Waterfront plan—one which would serve a more diverse group of people over a wider area, providing social, economic and environmental benefits that could make this small City the top destination in the mid-Hudson Valley.

Instead, the plan’s consultant, attorneys and leaders (most notably former Waterfront chair Linda Mussmann of Time & Space Ltd.) turned their backs on the public’s clearly-articulated wishes. They failed to use the many tools provided to them to enact a more visionary and ambitious plan, instead choosing to cave in and cater privately to monied industrial interests.

But the public still has a chance with the State to correct the mess made by certain local leaders’ lack of gumption and integrity. Public input is being accepted by the State through mid-March; I'll post an email address for submitting comments soon:

Comments on the City of Hudson draft LWRP should be submitted by March 15, 2010 to: Kevin Millington, Department of State, Office of Coastal Resources, Local Government and Community Sustainability, 99 Washington Ave., Suite 1010, Albany, NY 12231-0001, (518) 473- 2479

January 15, 2010

The Wrath o' McGrath

Chatham realtor and Carpenter Road resident Marcy Heintz informs me that Judge McGrath (who issued that stiff ruling last week against the Wilzig racetrack) has now ruled against another destructive Columbia County project.

Citizens of Ghent are celebrating a new McGrath ruling against a large gravel mine proposal which had been endorsed by the Town Planning Board in 2009, and which neighbors have been challenging since 2006. (That's a similar timeframe as the Wilzig fight; apparently the judge's two clerks who were on maternity leave are back, and he's turning out great decisions left and right.)

Apparently the basis for the decision rests in the Town's reliance on a shaky opinion from the Ghent Highway Supintendant. A PDF of the ruling in the case, which was successfully litigated by Michael Moore of Young, Sommer in Albany, can be downloaded via the link below:

Click to download McGrath's Ghent Decision and Order

NOTE #1: The decision reveals another tie to the Wilzg case... One of the consultants for the Ghent gravel pit was Nick Demos, who also was one of the "experts" presented to the Taghkanic ZBA back in 2006 by Alan Wilzig back and his then-attorney, Giff Whitbeck of Rapport, Meyers.

NOTE #2: The Ghent town attorney upbraided in the ruling for the bad advice given to the Planning Board? Rob Fitzsimmons, who was similarly involved as Taghkanic's main attorney for the legal wranglings over the Wilzig racetrack.

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