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Candidate Interviews: Coming this Month


This week, I will begin my interviews with candidates running for town wide office in November 2009. Four candidates are running for two seats on the Dresden Town Board up for election this year. I sent different questions to all of the Town Board candidates and I told them I would post them in the order I received them back. The questions were written entirely by me and cover a variety of topics. My short interviews should not be your only source of information but are designed to encourage a discussion on the issues affecting us this year. I would recommend that you seek out all of the candidates and make an informed decision. I offered to run a picture of each candidate with their answers to my questions, but a picture was not required.

We are fortunate to have 4 qualified and interesting candidates running for the two open seats on the Town Board this year. All of them should be commended for running and getting involved.

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Bits of Everything

Post Star Editorial on Making the APA Pay

Sound familiar?

“The agency’s staffers can read. They knew they were twisting the law beyond any legitimate shape, but they pushed ahead anyway, in bad faith.”

It’s not just happening in Huletts. The APA is taking unjustified positions in other areas also. For this they’ll most likely pay. Literally. Read the Post Star editorial here.

How Do You Spend You Day?

The NY Times has this neat interactive graphic which shows how different groups of people spend their day. Cool.

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Enviros Can’t Take Truth: Try to Change What Happened

I just got off the phone with the Post Star reporter who will be doing a story over the weekend about the whole Foster Brook saga. The reporter told me that the APA spokesman who they interviewed made the assertion that the APA went out of their way to accommodate us.

As the landowner of where the dredged material was going to be put, I can say that is completely untrue.

They weren’t cooperative on their site visit when they alleged the material was waste and both the LGA representative and I argued with them on the spot.

They weren’t cooperative when the DEC told them their interpretation was wrong and in conflict with theirs.

They weren’t cooperative when I wrote to them on August 18th and told them that if they continued their interpretation; “we doubt we would be able to file this permit and/or allow our property to be used for accepting the dredged materials.”

They weren’t cooperative when we asked to see a draft permit leading up to Labor Day so we could update the community on what was happening. They waited until Tuesday, September 8th, after everyone had left for the weekend.

They certainly weren’t cooperative when they issued the draft permit, which attempted to declared our property a “waste disposal area” and place other ridiculous conditions upon us. (Don’t be surprised by this, but they weren’t cooperative with the Post Star reporter either, refusing to release the draft permit to him, but don’t worry I did.)

If you want to know the truth, they weren’t cooperative at all. They hoped that by springing a permit on us at the last moment which we told them we wouldn’t accept, and which the DEC told them was wrong, they would blow up the deal entirely for at least another year and maybe permanently. They didn’t expect that the LGA would find another location to accept the materials. That’s the truth.

No where in this whole saga did they care about the environment.

They certainly didn’t care about the tiny smelts who can’t run up the stream anymore because they’re being blocked by the delta.

They didn’t care about 100 dump trucks going over the mountain to a site 10 miles away as opposed to our site less than a mile away.

The only thing they cared about was their extreme anti-people agenda which we just told you about. This is a perfect example of why a high level state official told me these radical environmentalists, “have no credibility left with anyone”.

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Somedays You Just Need a Drink (of Soda)

This is a happy video with John Nese, a retailer of small and unusual soda brands. He is the proprietor of Galco’s Soda Pop Stop in LA. His father ran it as a grocery store, but when it came time for John to take charge, he decided to convert it into the ultimate soda-lover’s destination. He explains everything you ever wanted to know about soda.

He has a very interesting perspective on recycling laws (which starts at 9:34 into the video). He claims they weren’t written with either the consumer or environment in mind.

It’s a little over 12 minutes but it’s a charming video that will teach you something about soda. He’s the type of guy you once found in every small town.

If you now want to try some of his unique soda brands, this is his website.

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Enviro Smackdown: Foster Brook on Again

I am happy to report that I just spoke to the Lake George Association and the Foster Brook project is on again. The Town of Dresden will be accepting the dredged materials and while this will add additional cost to the project, the project will be starting within days. No one sees any need for the Adirondack Park Agency to be involved.

The DEC should be amending the dredging permit and any delayed work will get done.

While I will be working on a more complete report in the days ahead, there are some heroes and villains in this story.

Many thanks go out to all of you for contacting the Governor’s office. It did help. Secondly both the Lake George Association and the Town of Dresden deserve worthy praise for their efforts to see this project through. The Town of Dresden understood what was happening and quickly stepped up to the plate. Finally, the DEC understood the importance of this project and was cooperative throughout.

To those sad people at the Adirondack Park Agency, who claim they are “environmentalists” but are nothing more than people unfriendly-elitists, shame on you. You know where you can shove your definition of “waste”. I was told by one official that these so called “environmentalists” “have no credibility left with anyone”. You can expect some eye-opening stories about the hypocrisy of many in this crowd over the next few months.

I’ll have another update soon.

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Foster Brook Halted Again – APA Stops Project

Do You See Waste or Gravel?

Sadly, I have to report that the Adirondack Park Agency has thwarted the removal of the clogged mouth of Foster Brook. The Adirondack Park Agency is sticking to an interpretation that is in conflict with the Department of Environmental Conservation and common sense. While the DEC has issued the permits to start dredging, there is no place to put the dredged material. As one of the owners of the parcel where the material was going to be put, I wanted to tell you first hand what is transpiring and why we have had to pull out of the project.

I was informed by the Lake George Association in the middle of the summer that the DEC had issued the permit to dredge Foster Brook. I posted that news here.

We have always wanted this project to proceed and, in this regard, we offered to allow the dredged material to be put in our gravel pit to save the LGA money. If they couldn’t use our pit, the LGA was looking at a substantial cost increase in moving the material over the mountain. They approached the APA and asked if a permit was necessary for the dredged material to be put in our gravel pit.

The APA conducted an on-site inspection during late July/early August. The APA sent two staff members to see the site where the material was going to be placed. During that meeting, one staff member asserted that a permit would be needed because the dredged material, being removed from Foster Brook, was “waste”. We later learned that he was instructed to make this interpretation by a supervisor.

Both the LGA representative and myself thought this interpretation was wrong. The DEC had previously tested the material and found it to be “clean fill”. We went ahead and applied for the permit in good faith, but I also wrote a letter to the APA which clearly indicated we did not accept their terminology and we did not consent to it being called “waste”. I said, in no uncertain terms, if the APA wanted to continue calling the material waste, we could not go ahead and let our property be used to place the dredged material.

I copied this letter to the DEC and the Governor’s office because both the APA and the DEC are executive agencies of the Governor’s office. On August 21st, the DEC called and told me our interpretation was correct and that the APA was in error to call the material “waste”. The DEC official was quite clear that, if gravel was defined as “waste”, almost every driveway throughout the Adirondacks would now have “waste” on it. The DEC official further told me that it was the DEC’s position that an APA permit wasn’t needed in order to put the dredged material in our gravel pit.

We repeatedly asked to see a draft permit from the APA during the week leading up to Labor Day. Only today did we receive a draft permit which attempts to assert jurisdiction under Section 810(d)(16) which applys to waste disposal areas. In addition, the draft permit tries to assert other conditions which we cannot agree to. In my opinion, this has been deliberately done, by some radical environmentalists at the APA, with the knowledge that we would not accept these conditions and that the project would not proceed. The most radical elements of the environmental movement see this delta as a wetland being created and do not care that private property is being impacted by flooding. Also remember that the DEC permit requires that the dredging be done by Ocrober 1st, so any delay is a full fledged effort to stop this project from going forward.

I am very disappointed that, after numerous years of work by many people, our good faith offer to allow the material to be put in our gravel pit has been met by one of the most outlandish interpretations ever made by the APA.

An interpretation such as this, which contradicts another state agency, has most likely been made in the Governor’s office. Either the Governor has specifically allowed this interpretation to be made or he is simply allowing the Adirondack Park Agency to run his administration. If you would like to call or email the Governor’s office directly you can contact him here. You can ask to speak to his secretary, Mr. Lawrence Schwartz.

Unless the Governor intervenes and corrects this interpretation or another site can be found to put the dredged material, the Foster Brook dredging will not take place this year.

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Off to Prison

With so many people traveling yesterday and the weekend behind us, I thought it would make an interesting story to learn more about the Great Meadow Correctional facility in Comstock, which you can see from Route 4.

Great Meadow is an all male, maximum security, NY state prison. As of September 3, 2008 it was home to 1,663 inmates. When Great Meadow opened in 1911 it was the fourth prison for adult males constructed in the state of New York. The postcard below dates from the 1950’s.

Until the Great Meadows Correctional facility was built, New York prisons had been named after the places where they were built. No one knows how Great Meadow got its name, but it may have been named after the huge plot of land that the prison sits on.

In 1924 construction of a 3,000-foot wall was begun by the inmates. Four years later, they successfully finished walling themselves in. The wall encloses just over twenty-one acres. With the completion of this wall, Great Meadow became a maximum-security facility.

The wall has a moat/pond on one side and dense forest on the other, so if someone gets over or under the wall, it’s no easy escape into the surrounding area. The courtyard is always lit and guards always man the watchtowers.

Some other facts about life inside include:

Visitors go through the main doors with the flags in front. You will be buzzed through another door into the waiting area. You fill out the usual paperwork and present your id. If it is your first visit to a NYS prison, you will have to fill out a personal info sheet. You then take a seat in the room. The room has restrooms and its own vending machines. From there you will be allowed to enter.

There are two industries at Great Meadow. Metal Furniture Manufacturing, where office furniture, beds and security screens are manufactured. The other is Cleaning and Personal Care Products Manufacturing.

All prisoners there are felons, and most are serving sentences for violent crimes.

A prisoner can buy a small black-and-white television from the prison commissary and then pay for a very basic cable television connection. They can only listen to music through headphones.

The inmates can have 2 visitors on weekends at once – 4 per inmate during the week.

There are 717 employees and the cost of care is approximately $56.89 per day

Inmates spend a good portion of their day in a 5-foot-by-8-foot cell. Some are double-bunked, two to a cell.

Prisoners are given permission to go to work, school or the infirmary. As they move from cell block to cell block or pass the central rotunda, they flash their passes to show they can be out of their cells.

Correction officers only carry weapons in very extreme cases, and for the most part are unarmed.

Cameras and personal items are not allowed inside so you won’t see any pictures of inside the prison.

While NY has the death penalty there has not been an execution since 1976. There is currently a court ordered moratorium in effect. Many of the prisoners are serving life sentences there.

It certainly is the type of place that you’d see in the movies, except it’s a lot more ominous in person.

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An Endorsement Not to Endorse

There’s that old saying that voters don’t start paying attention to campaigns until after Labor Day. So in that regard, I was asked if I would be endorsing candidates in the upcoming town election.

My response is a resounding; “No”.

I have never been a big fan of endorsements and I know that the readers of the Huletts Current are an intelligent group of people capable of making up their own minds.

In an effort to keep you informed though, I will be submitting personalized questionaires with unique and varied questions to all of the candidates and I will present their answers (or lack thereof) here. However it’s going to be up to you to form your own opinions and decide how to cast your vote.

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What is Old is New Again


The metal cross that adorned Our Lady of Angel’s Church in Whitehall, has been repaired and now overlooks Our Lady of Angel’s cemetery.

Previously, I had linked to this Post Star story which told about local parishioners salvaging and repairing the cross which sat atop Our Lady of Angel’s Church in Whitehall. In the picture that ran with that story, you can see the cross sitting on top of the church as it was being demolished.

I am happy to report that the cross was re-dedicated on August 22nd and now overlooks Our Lady of Angel’s cemetery.

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It was a great …

picnic
talent show
race
golf match
weekend!
summer!!!!

Thanks to everyone for making it happen. To those who are traveling, have a safe trip home.

Happy Labor Day 2009.

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School Tax Bills Received


More local property will go on the market soon because people can’t afford their school tax bills. Out of control spending by the school board is causing property owners to sell their parcels.


If you are a property owner in Huletts, you just recently received your school tax bill for 2009-2010. I had two calls this week from people who have decided to put their homes up for sale because they can no longer afford the school taxes. One person told me; “I just can’t pay my school taxes. I have to sell.” I will continue to post pictures of businesses that have closed and cease to exist in Whitehall. The school board’s continued policy of overcharging, putting the funds in reserve accounts and spending on capital improvements, while enrollment is plummeting is a complete outrage.

Whitehall’s steep decline is a testament to this flawed tax and spend policy.

What can be done?

1.) Have committed tax-cutters run for the school board and tell the school board members how you feel when you receive your tax bill. Ask questions. Why isn’t spending tied to enrollment? Why are businesses closing and for-sale signs appearing everywhere? You can be sure the board hears from the education establishment when setting the budget. They should hear from the taxpayers also. Here is the board of education that sets the budget. Only one person comes from Dresden.

2.) Understand the taxing policies of the school district. Know how the equalization rate effects our school taxes. What is this? By law, equalization rates are used to apportion taxes in taxing jurisdictions that cross municipal boundaries. These taxing jurisdictions are usually school districts.

The tax levy for the Whitehall school district is spread over the five towns it serves. Whitehall, Dresden and parts of Granville, Hampton and Fort Ann make up the district.

In a perfect world, all would pay the same tax rate based on their property being assessed at market value. However, because individual towns decide when their property will be reassessed, some towns are assessed at 100% of market value while others are not. NY state thus sets an “equalization rate” to apportion taxes equally among towns with different methods of calculating their assessment rolls.

The total tax levy for the district this year is $4,829,164.

This is where it gets a bit complicated and we need to put our thinking caps on.

Dresden has a low equalization rate of 45.53 % because we have not done a reassessment for a long time. So while the Dresden tax roll shows that Dresden has $129,001,445 in taxable property, NY State after applying the equalization rate calculates that the total assessed value of Dresden property is $283,332,846. Dresden thus pays $2,713,201 of the tax levy or 56.1% of the Whitehall school budget.

Whitehall’s equalization rate is 100% because they reassessed the town recently and went to 100% valuation. Their taxable property is carried at $196,081,028 and they pay $1,875,903 of the tax levy or 38.8% of the Whitehall school budget.

Hampton also has an equalization rate of 100% but their total assed value for the property within the district is only $23,410,183. Thus they only pay $223,724 or 4.6% of the Whitehall school budget.

Fort Ann has an equalization rate of 100% but little property served by the school distinct. Assessed property is $2,166,122 for a tax levy share of $20,724 or 0.4% of the Whitehall school budget.

Granville has an equalization rate of 77.51 % but has relatively little property within the district. The taxable assessed value of their property is $678,200 so Granville pays only $8,379 of the tax levy or 0.1% of the Whitehall school budget.

Should Dresden reassess and go to 100% of full value bringing our equalization rate in line with Whitehall, Fort Ann & Hampton? Only if you believe the town-wide assessment is too high and your assessed value is too high. How can you figure this out?

On your tax bill there is a column marked “Taxable Value or Units”, take that number and divide it by .4553 (Dresden’s equalization rate) and that is what NY state considers the full or fair market value of your property.

Taxable Value or Units on Tax Bill / .4553 = what NY says your property is worth.

If you think that this value is higher than what you would sell your property for, you would probably want your property to be reassessed.

If you think that this value is lower than what you would sell for, you probably don’t want your property to be reassessed.

I am not advocating for or against reassessment at this time but I want people to understand the issues involved. Because Whitehall is a town in significant decline and Dresden is not, this imbalance will most likely continue. We need to consider strategies that will work to lower taxes for all.

If the Town of Dresden was to reassess and the new town-wide total came in at an amount above the adjusted total of $283,332,846 that NY state says our property is worth (as adjusted by the equalization rate) we would pay an even higher share of the Whitehall school tax budget.

If the Town of Dresden was to reassess and the new town-wide total came in at an amount less than the adjusted total of $283,332,846 that NY state says our property is worth (as adjusted by the equalization rate) we would pay a lower percentage.

At its core, this issue is one of overspending by the Whitehall school board, the assessed value of property is only a way of spreading the taxes around.

I’d like everyone to try this calculation and give me your feedback. The bottom line is that in return for paying 58.1% of the school budget, Dresden gets very little in return. When you have one town paying this large a share with practically no representation, and a school board hell bent on destroying their own community through poor tax and spend policies, you have the situation we are all in today.

Sadly more people will end up selling because of the short-sighted policies of the Whitehall school district. That is the real tragedy.

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Saturday Quote

“My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it. I never did like to work, and I don’t deny it. I’d rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh—anything but work.”

Abraham Lincoln

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But Can It Swing a Golf Club?

This is a really cool video which shows the tremendous advances in robotic technology. This video demonstrates a high-speed robotic hand bouncing and throwing a ball while also doing other cool things. Watch it twirl a pen, knot a rope and catch a cell phone.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KxjVlaLBmk