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Hold the Salt

With all the recent snow, it seems like the perfect time to discuss other options for salting the roads in the Lake George basin. Salt runoff is one of the primary pollutants reaching the lake.

Here is a product called Magic Salt, which bills itself “as less corrosive, biodegradable and environmentally friendly,” than regular salt. Here is a .pdf file of an area coated on one side with regular salt and coated on another side with magic salt. Notice how the grass is burned on the regular salt side.

Here is a product called Ice B’Gone® that is made of a molasses-like liquid that can be mixed with regular rock salt. It “contains no algae-forming phosphorus”.

These are the types of products that will bring us into the future. There are most likely many others. We’ll bring to your attention a new technology that is being studied in Maryland that can lengthen the life of an existing drain field with plain old regular air.

You never thought salt was so cool.

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Keep Eating Those Pancakes

One of the most interesting local industries, especially in winter, is the maple syrup business. Most maple farmers have been in the business for generations. This is a short video from Maple Land Farms in Salem, located in southern Washington County, about how maple syrup is processed.

If you ever want a fun thing to do with children in the winter, take them to a maple syrup farm. There are a number in Washington County and Vermont and they usually have tours. There is nothing like the sweet smell of maple syrup being processed in winter.

This video shows the production of pure maple syrup. Look closely at the containers you buy, because many of the large brands use only a small percentage of real maple syrup in their products. Local maple syrup is usually 100% pure.

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Two Signs Tell History

On December 13, 2008, an unveiling ceremony was held for two new historic signs, erected by the Washington County Historian’s Office, in Huletts Landing and the Town of Dresden. The signs tell the story of the famous French and Indian War event, the Rogers’ Rangers Trek, that took place in Huletts Landing in 1758. One sign is located at the southern rest area, on Rt. 22 in Dresden, and the other sign was placed in the Washington County Park at Hulett’s Landing.

Capt. Robert Rogers led his rangers up Lake George to Hulett’s Landing where over a period of three days they hauled their five boats over the mountains to Lake Champlain.

The signs go into detail of how this tremendous effort was accomplished. Participating in the unveiling were Commissioner Paul Loding of the New York State French and Indian War Commemoration Commission, Dresden Town Historian Agnes Peterson, Washington County Deputy Historian Loretta Bates and Washington County Historian Dona Crandall.

Bravos to Dresden Town Supervisor, Bob Banks, for helping to secure the funding.

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Take the Bull by the Horns

This is a good start for next year’s Washington County budget. However, the county needs to do alot more.

Every state with low taxes and a climate favorable toward business is doing better in this rough economy.

That said, Washington County needs to do more:

The county needs to undertake a comprehensive review of every position in the county with a goal in mind to reduce the County’s payroll by 10%.

The county also needs a committee or person whose primary goal is to attract business to Washington County. There are major conferences every year run by manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, etc. and Washington County needs to be there and be wooing businesses and employers to our county.

Innovation and growth comes from the private sector and the government needs to remember this.

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How is Washington County Run?

With the recent votes by the Washington County Board of Supervisors on both the budget and the beach, I though it would make an interesting post to explain how Washinton County is governed.

There is no County Executive in Washington County. The County is run by it’s Board of Supervisors with each Supervisor having a weighted vote in proportion to their town’s population. Out of the 17 Towns in the County, Kingsbury is the largest with a population of 11,171 and Putnam is the smallest with a population of 645. Dresden is the second smallest town with a population of 677. Every 10 years, after the federal census, these numbers change. A simple majority of 2067 votes is needed for most issues. Special circumstances require a 2/3 majority vote. I contacted the County and got the weighted voting table for each town and supervisor. As you can see, Dresden is at a disadvantage because of our low population.

Town Weighted
Vote
Argyle
268
Cambridge
158
Dresden
50
Easton
167
Fort Ann
269
Fort Edward
423
Granville
457
Greenwich
352
Hampton
65
Hartford
167
Hebron
131
Jackson
126
Kingsbury
711
Putnam
48
Salem
197
White Creek
248
Whitehall
295
Total
4132

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What the heck is a Stromatolite?

Do you know what a Stromatolite is? I didn’t until I read chapter 19 in Bill Bryson’s book “A Short History of Nearly Everything” – which I found highly interesting.

Well a Stromatolite is one of the first complex living organisms that arrived on the scene about 3.5 billion years ago; which is quite a long time ago considering the earth is only 4.5 billion years old.

The interesting thing is that I found a press release from the NY State Museum which tells us that the Adirondacks a few billion years ago were teaming with them. Some of the more complex ones have been found in present day Washington County.

“New York has the oldest animal fossils in the eastern United States – dating to a time that takes eight zeros to express. The (museum had an) exhibition … of these, a star-like trail discovered in Washington County. (NY has) fossils that are even older, stromatolites made by blue-green bacteria living more than a billion years ago in the seas of what are now the Adirondacks.”

Next time you’re out for a walk, you’ll know what to look for.

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Tax Report Card

With the 2009 year almost upon us, one of the topics the Huletts Current will be addressing in the weeks ahead will be the taxing policies of the jurisdictions that we find ourselves part of. Today we release our “historical report card” for the tax and spend policies for the Town of Dresden, Washington County and the Whitehall School District.

The Town of Dresden over the last 30 years has established itself as a “low tax” Town that works very hard at keeping expenditures low. For the past two years running, the Town Board has cut the amount of money raised from taxes and Town taxes have actually decreased. A few years ago during a state audit, the Town Board members actually came to the Town Hall and counted certain assets like chairs, etc., themselves! For this the Town of Dresden gets an “A” for their wise stewardship of our tax dollars over the past 30 years.

Washington County has been more of a “mixed bag” with its historic taxing policy. We give it a “C+”. Over the last 30 years spending has continually grown, but much of this is because federal and state mandates have been imposed on the counties with no corresponding state or federal aid. However, Washington County needs to do a lot more in terms of attracting business and “growing the tax base.” Recently computer chip manufacturer, AMD, has announced a major new facility in neighboring Saratoga County. The southern towns of Washington County are poised to grow with this facility located nearby. Hopefully, this will attract businesses and residents to Washington County.

The Whitehall School District’s tax and spend policies over the last 30 years have been an unmitigated disaster for the taxpayers of the District and earn it a solid “F”. They have driven almost all business from Whitehall with their excessive spending. This is part of a “Letter to the Editor” that I wrote to the Whitehall Times a few months ago. “I went back to the 1970’s and looked at the budget for the Whitehall school district and compared it to spending for this current school year. For the 1974-1975 school year, the entire budget was $2,443,937 and the amount raised from property taxes was $704,000. Enrollment was right around 1100 students. For the 2007-2008 year, the entire budget is $12,960,569 and the amount raised from property taxes is $4,805,069. Enrollment is 900 students. That means that over the last 33 years, the total budget increased 430% and the amount raised from property taxes increased 582% while enrollment was falling by 200 students! These increases far outpace both inflation and the Consumer Price index for this period. The amount of the budget raised from property taxes went from 28.08% of the budget to 37.07%. “

The members of the school board are elected for staggered terms in May. We will be informing you this year as we get closer to the election about which candidates are committed to cutting taxes and who is not, because we can no longer sit on the sidelines while our money is spent like this. “F’s” make the Current move.

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Dresden Town Meeting – Monday Night

The regularly scheduled meeting of the Dresden Town Board was relatively quiet on Monday night (12/8/08). Supervisor Banks did reiterate that even if funding for the Washington County Beach was cut from the Washington County Budget, the Town would find a way to keep the beach open.

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County Defeats Reduced Funding for Beach

Give Bob Banks credit for trying, but another attempt to fund the Washington County beach failed today. Washington County uses weighted voting based on population so the beaches were closed because larger towns voted against it. This does not mean that the beach will be closed this summer though. Many supervisors are still open to ways in which it can be kept open. We will keep you updated in the days ahead.

Read about it in the Post Star.