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Gov’s Proposed School Budget Released – What You Need To Know

Here is the press release from the Governor’s office on next year’s proposed budget and what it will mean to school districts across the state. Some points to note:

There has been a 42 percent or $6.2 billion increase since the 2003-04 year in state aid to school districts. In spite of this, the Whitehall School district has raised property taxes over this period.

Next year state aid will be cut between 3% to 13% per district based on need, BUT “school districts have reported over $1.3 billion of uncommitted reserves for the 2009-10 school year, which have been building up over time. Over 87 percent of districts reported unreserved balances in excess of their proposed year-to-year reduction(s)”. This means that while their aid will be cut, the Whitehall district has much more than the proposed cut in reserve. It is the opinion of the Huletts Current that there should be no need to raise taxes at all next year with careful budgeting this year.

While other districts have been planning for this cut for months, the Whitehall Times reported in their December 11th edition that the Whitehall school district has been waiting until the Governor came out with this proposal. In the same edition, Superintendent Watson was quoted as saying; “We are not aggressively moving ahead until then.”

In the days and weeks ahead, we will be releasing a comprehensive plan on how we can make our voices heard in the school budgeting and taxing process this year.

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The Lost Radio Ad – Now Coming Christmas Eve

Radio Ad Coming Soon We’ve gotten so many comments about the lost radio ad for the Hotel that we will be publishing it on Christmas Eve, a day earlier than we had originally told you. So, we’re getting close, but you’ll be able to make it. So plan on pulling up a chair with the whole family on Christmas Eve for some Huletts history and some Huletts fun. Only here on the Huletts Current.

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Be Careful Going Through Whitehall

“I was heading North on Route 22 with my partner. This creature came from the left. I saw it take 2 steps off the road over the guardrails. … I would not have pulled that revolver unless I was afraid.”

Dan Gordon
Retired Whitehall Village Police Officer

Watch the History Channel as they interview numerous people from Whitehall who claim they’ve seen Bigfoot. On dark nights, after a few drinks in the Casino, you might see it also.

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Are They Similar – You Decide?

The original opening credits for the popular children’s cartoon, Scooby Doo, were changed sometime in the 1970’s.

The original 1969 credits can be seen here, the later version can be seen here.

Over the years we have heard a rumor that one of the cartoonists responsible for the more recent version toured Lake George and was inspired by this local house.

While we have no way of knowing if this rumor is true or not, we present a screen shot of the cartoon house here.

We leave it up to you to decide. Is the answer to the question; “Scooby Doo where are you?” – Huletts!

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No Removal of the Foster Brook Sediment Delta This Year

Sad News We are sad to report that the removal of the Foster Brook Sediment Delta will not take place this year. The Lake George Association worked very hard to make this happen but unfortunately they have informed us that because of funding issues and objections raised by the Lake George Waterkeeper, this project will not take place this year. We emailed the Waterkeeper last week to see what their objections were, but so far they have not responded.

These objections were posted on their website from July.

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Technical Update

Just a further update on our technical progress. We have updated our database on the backend to load much quicker. This is also necessary to enable the comments section which will be coming soon. However this has caused our “Contact Page” to throw errors when you send us a message.


However, we are still receiving your comments. Thank you for the positive thoughts and ideas you have passed along. We do not presently have time to answer every comment we have received but know we are working on improving everything.

Our next major milestone will be enabling comments in the week(s) ahead. Trust us, you will like this.

Just know that we’ve got the hampsters running as quick as they can on the wheel right now.

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And You Thought You Went Away for the Winter

Here is a picture of a ruby-throated hummingbird. Out of all the birds that we regularly see in Huletts in the summer, this little bird has one of the longest winter migrations. Right now it’s probably wintering in Central America somewhere between Mexico and Panama.

“As with most of our migratory birds, hummingbirds apparently evolved to their present forms during the last ice age. They were (and largely still are) tropical birds, but as the great ice sheets retreated from North America, they gradually expanded their ranges to exploit rich temperate food resources and nesting space, filling unoccupied niches in the U.S and southern Canada while evading intense competition in the tropics.”

Read about the hummingbird’s migration here.

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A Great Gift Idea

Here is a book which would make a great Christmas gift. While I was researching my book, I was fortunate enough to meet one of the co-writers of this book doing research at the same time. In Stoddard’s Footstep: The Adirondacks Then and Now, photographer, Mark Bowie, faithfully returned to many of the exact locations where Seneca Ray Stoddard shot his historic Adirondack photographs in the 1880’s and took pictures of how the locations look today. It is an interesting photographic time capsule and album, looking at the same exact spots then and now.

Learn More Here

Update: December 16, 2008

We got our first look at this book and in addition to a large section on Lake George, it has two great historical photographs of Huletts.

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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.