Some Words From Lord Monckton . . .

From WorldNetDaily: Thatcher adviser: Copenhagen goal is 1-world government

'Global warming' to be used as 'pretext' for 'change'

"At [the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in] Copenhagen this December, weeks away, a treaty will be signed," Lord Christopher Monckton told a Minnesota Free Market Institute audience on Thursday at Bethel University in St. Paul.

"Your president will sign it. Most of the Third World countries will sign it, because they think they're going to get money out of it. Most of the left-wing regimes from the European Union will rubber stamp it. Virtually nobody won't sign it," he told the audience of some 700 attendees.

"I read that treaty and what it says is this: that a world government is going to be created. The word 'government' actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity.

"The second purpose is the transfer of wealth from the countries of the West to Third World countries, in satisfaction of what is called, coyly, 'climate debt' – because we've been burning CO2 and they haven't. We've been screwing up the climate and they haven't. And the third purpose of this new entity, this government is enforcement." . . .

Monckton argued that President Obama will sign the Copenhagen treaty at the December meeting, without seeking a two-thirds ratification of the treaty by the Senate, or any other type of Congressional approval.

"So, thank you, America. You were the beacon of freedom to the world. It is a privilege to stand on this soil of freedom while it is still free," he continued. "But, in the next few weeks, unless you stop it, your president will sign your freedom, your democracy, and your humanity away forever.

"But I think it is here, here in your great nation, which I so love and I so admire – it is here that perhaps, at this eleventh hour, at the fifty-ninth minute and fifty-ninth second, you will rise up and you will stop your president from signing that dreadful treaty, that purposeless treaty. For there is no problem with the climate and, even if there were, an economic treaty does nothing to [help] it."

View the complete video along with Monckton's slide presentation which present the data that refute Mr. Gore and the UN on climate change.

Should Incompetence Be Rewarded?

OD's View: Leaders must find help to fix sewer system

. . . The total tab officials say is necessary to prevent pollution of the Mohawk River: $158 million. Government leaders searching for funding so far have come up empty, and that would mean adding an additional $600 a year to every user’s sewer tax bill.

That’s not acceptable. While taxpayers will have to shoulder some of the cost to upgrade this necessary service, leaders at the state and federal level will need to do what we elect them to do — find grants and/or other revenue sources to help.

The problem is the sewer district’s aging infrastructure. During heavy rain and snow melts, storm water floods into the sanitary system and forces raw sewage into the river. In 2007, the sewer district was slapped with a consent order by the state Department of Environmental Conservation requiring that problems along the Sauquoit Creek line be fixed by Oct. 31, 2014. . . .

This editorial is so far off the mark that it is not funny. While the area's aging infrastructure is an expensive problem that every community will eventually have to deal with, it is not 'the problem' here. 'The problem' here that will cost $158 million to fix was a VIOLATION OF LAW.

When the Federal Government set up the Clean Water Act, it recognized that older communities (such as Utica and our Villages) that had combined stormwater-sanitary sewers could never afford to retrofit their systems to the modern standard of separate lines for sanitary waste and storm water. Looking at the cost-benefit ratio, lawmakers allowed for Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) to exist that would spill very dilute waste from these older systems into the river during severe rain events as opposed to backing it up into people's homes. Over time, these older systems would gradually be brought under more stringent standards, hopefully at a pace that the communities could afford. The law made an exception to preserve the finances of older communities.

However, that exception was lost when the County allowed new separated waste lines to connect to the older systems. While these actions permitted Oneida County and certain suburban jurisdictions to greatly expand their tax bases with new 'growth' on the cheap, they also resulted in the Yorkville CSO being reclassified as an illegal Sanitary Sewer Overflow. Now because they no longer qualify for special treatment under the Clean Water Act, suburban jurisdictions must now bear the cost that the law had hoped they would avoid. The Villages, unfortunately, which saw relatively little 'growth' will now bear the brunt of these costs.

Those running our County sewer system, and suburban planners, should have seen this coming. Either they were blind to it, or they were more interested in fostering 'growth' than environmental protection. Regardless . . .

Is it appropriate to expect grants to pay for local incompetence? That is what The Observer-Dispatch seems to be asking for. . . .

And is it appropriate that we the public who will pay for this keep the same people in charge? That is something we need to decide between now and November.

New Hartford Tax Hike in NYM . . .

N.Y. Mills residents in New Hartford face 700% tax hike will be the story in Tomorrow AM's OD . . .

Why?

New York Mills residents don’t pay for New Hartford police service, and for years, town savings have been used to offset other town costs that the village residents do pay for. . . .

In 2004, the New York Mills Police Department added a fourth full-time officer, and the village requested that its residents become exempt from paying for New Hartford town police, Mowat said.

That was about the same time the town began using massive infusions from its main rainy day fund to balance its budget.

But the main general fund couldn’t be used to pay for the town’s $2.5 million police budget, because not all town residents used the service.

It could, however, be used for services such as clerk’s office activities, town legal fees and parks. That’s also the portion New York Mills residents’ taxes went toward.

Year after year, the majority of the portion of the budget that New York Mills residents contributed to was paid for out of town savings.

Now that the town has burned through almost all its savings, New York Mills residents are no longer shielded from the costs.

New York Mills Mayor Robert Maciol called the increase “very unfortunate.”

The OD makes it sound like the Town is carrying what should be the Village's burden. That is simply not true. In fact, with the addition of the 4th police officer in NYM, it was no longer legal for NH to continue to bill NYM residents for the Town's high-flying police department. [See Town Law §150]. The fourth officer was a good move on the part of the Village.

In so far as the impression is given that NYM residents have gotten away with something the last few years, it really is the other way around. Why should NYM residents, e.g., be paying for storm water management in the Woodberry Road area of NH? But they do.

What services do NYM residents in NH get from New Hartford that they do not already get from the Mills? Nada, niente, nicht, rien -- no matter how you say it: NOTHING. Anything available from NH is a duplication. All NYM residents get from NH is another governmental mouth to feed.

A few years ago some concerned residents wanted the Village to explore secession from both Towns and to form its own Town (if only to get away from paying for duplicate services). After a couple meetings with Town officials where about all the Towns could offer as justification for their taxes was to let the Village borrow pieces of equipment on occasion, the idea went away . . . perhaps after the Town's in-Village tax rate dropped.

Now that the Town plans to sock it to NYM, it may be the time to resurrect the idea of NYM becoming its own Town . . . Why should NYM pay NH for services NYM already provides to itself?

As Clear As Mud . . .

That is the feeling one gets from reading the public-relations-firm concocted press release of Oneida County's "citizen-based" steering committee's recommendations on how the county should pay for the projected $158 million sewer project needed to comply with the DEC Consent Order.

"According to Steve Devan, Oneida County Commissioner of Water Quality and Water Pollution Control, the recommendations include additions to the 2010 Sewer District budget, as follows:

1. The addition of $630,000 in the operating budget to fund district-wide project costs.

2. A consumption-based fee assessed on sewer district users residing in the nine communities tributary to the Sauquoit Creek Pump Station. The fee is expected to raise $1.2 million to fund a capital project debt service account to begin repairs mandated by the Consent Order.

The Committee has recommended that the $1.2 million amount be raised from a consumption-based charge of $1.05 per thousand gallons of water used, per account. This component affects the Villages of: Clayville, New Hartford, New York Mills, Oriskany, Whitesboro, Yorkville; and the Towns of New Hartford, Paris, and Whitestown. The repairs for those nine communities are expected to total approximately $79.2 million, the preliminary engineering data shows.

A second phase of the project, if needed to further reduce the overflows that go into the Mohawk River from the sewer system, would invest approximately $79 million more in district-wide repairs and improvements to the system. The additional amount would be required if the initial work at the community-specific repairs does not yield enough improvement to fully satisfy the Consent Order’s requirements for overflow reduction. Preliminary engineering estimates have placed the total costs of needed system repairs at $158 million at today’s costs."

This professionally produced press piece tells the truth (presumably) ... but not the whole truth.

It distracts us by first recommending that $630,000 (about 0.4% of the $158M total price tag) be added to the operating budget without telling us who will pay for it or identifying what "district-wide" project costs there will be.

It distracts us again by recommending that $1.2 million (about 0.8% of the $158M total price tag) be raised from a suburban sewer user fee without disclosing How was this figure arrived at or what portion of the debt service it will pay for.

After you've gotten through the above trivialities, it then tells us that $79.2 million (about 50% of the $158M total price tag) will be needed for "community-specific" repairs -- Without telling us who will pay for it. Will this come out of Town taxes and Village taxes, or some other mechanism to be determined by whom? Will Village residents be forced to pick up Both a Town share and a Village share? Who will determine that?

Lastly, it tells us that $79 million (50% of the $158M total price tag) will go for "district-wide" work "if needed" without identifying who would pay for it, what "district-wide" work would be appropriate to remedy a violation that occurred only on the Sauquoit line/overflow, or how likely this work would NOT be needed; or recommending a funding mechanism for it.

Here we have a very artfully done press release that does a great job of hiding the facts.

"District-Wide" is a synonym for "Utica pays." Utica residents, again, will wind up paying for a huge chunk of this suburb-county law violation -- carrying the water (literally!) for the suburbs. When will elected Utica representatives wake up and start looking out for the best interests of their constituents?

And in this case, representatives of the Villages better look out for their residents, too. The Yorkville Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) was allowed to exist for many years under an exception to the Clean Water Act that recognized it would be financially impossible for older municipalities (here, our Villages) to retrofit their old systems to bring them up to current day standards. That CSO now has to be shut down becaue of County and primarily Town of New Hartford law breaking. The County and Town of NH increased their tax bases by allowing improper sewer connections-- causing the Villages to now have to spend $millions because they lost their right to use a CSO.

The recommendations of the sewer committee are merely a whitewash and continuation of the current administration's favoritism for suburban Towns at the expense of Utica and the Villages.

Pity the Village Residents . . . and Maybe Utica, Too.

Residents of the Oneida County Sewer District woke up this morning to Sticker Shock on the cost of compliance with the DEC Consent Order.

While the Observer-Dispatch notes that the Town of New Hartford tops the list in terms of absolute costs, less obvious is the potentially ruinous impact to the residents of Villages when their smaller populations are taken into consideration. This becomes apparent when per capita costs are calculated. The Village-Town split is quite striking, even in the New Hartfords where the per capita cost in the Town is less than one-half of the cost in the Village.

The per capita calculations for Village Residents, however, could turn out to be conservative when you consider that Village Residents are also Town Residents and could be made to pick up the per capita costs of their Towns as well -- like they already do for things like highway maintenance and storm water management. Conceivably, the per capita cost in the Village of New Hartford could wind up being $4255 (the sum of the per capita Village and Town costs)!

Let's add insult to injury by considering how these costs were incurred: the violations of the law which led to a Consent Order. The law was violated when separated sanitary waste lines -- PRIMARILY IN THE TOWNS -- were connected to a Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) which made the CSO illegal. The CSO was previously permitted to exist to accomodate the Villages' combined sewer systems. Now that it is illegal, it is the Villages who are forced to pay. But who benefitted from the illegal sewer connections? Mainly the Towns which greatly expanded their tax bases.

The OC Sewer District Advisory Committee will be making recommendations in a few days on how to pay for this mess, so it will be interesting to see how much cost shifting there will be from the "guilty" to "innocent" parties. If the past is any indication, Uticans could get stuck with paying for some of this.

Knowledge Is (Still) Power. . .

The lack of “basic skills” is a recurring topic of conversation among employers and the general public. Almost daily we encounter people who cannot make change, follow a recipe, fill out forms, or write in an understandable way – even among some college graduates! Eighth grade graduates used to have the knowledge and skills to cope with everyday life: balance a checkbook, use measurements in household projects, fill out a tax return or employment questionnaire, read the newspaper, write letters, know how our government works, and vote in an informed manner. High school graduates used to be prepared to enter the workforce, or to continue with specialized studies in college. Two generations ago, graduation from 8th grade or a high school diploma could be depended upon to guarantee these levels of competency -- but no more. Today classes are smaller, use of technology is greater, teachers are better paid (the equivalent of engineers and lawyers in government service), and a greater percentage of local tax dollars go to education. It is counter intuitive that, with all of today's advantages, we often find graduates lacking 8th grade competencies. How did we get to this point? What are the implications for the future?

Although parents bear the primary responsibility for their own children's education, as a society we have entrusted education of the next generation to a “system” composed of teachers, administrators, and bureaucrats at the local, state, and national levels, and academics in the teacher colleges and universities. They determine what is taught, when it is taught, how it is taught, and the environment in which it is taught. We assume that the knowledge goals of 40 years ago are at least the minimum of what is still expected today, but the assumption would be wrong. I submit that changes to the education system over a period of decades have caused the results that we now find so unsatisfactory.

How the “system” has changed was brought into focus for me by an incident several years ago while serving as a school board member. Parents asked me why their seventh graders had spent four weeks in science class studying the soles of sneakers. Being a former science teacher, their question made me curious, too. I suspected the project somehow tied into the syllabus and requested a copy of the lesson plan, expecting a listing of the specific concepts the students would learn. What I received, however, contained no such list. Essentially, the plan said that the students would learn to design sneakers for fashion, form, fit, and function. The students' work looked like it came from a class in advertising and marketing rather than 7th grade science. Not sure where this fit into 7th grade science and thinking about the many concepts which could have been taught in those 4 weeks using traditional methods, I questioned the value of the project at a board meeting. The Director of Instruction informed me that this was an "award winning" (Science Teachers Assn. of NYS) project, and produced a checklist to show that the project met the state's new "higher" standards because the students were (paraphrasing from one of the standards) "using science to solve real-world problems.” This led to my discovery that the state no longer promulgated formal syllabi, which were very detailed descriptions, similar to a textbook, of exactly what concepts should be taught. Instead, the state encouraged teachers to use its new standards as guides in lesson preparation.

Review of the new standards made clear that they were performance standards rather than knowledge standards. Students would be assessed on their ability to do things in a certain way rather than on what they knew. “Knowledge” had been devalued in favor of “performance.”

The devaluation of knowledge and emphasis on performance can be traced to the wide-spread acceptance of the educational philosophies of psychologists John Dewey and Jean Piaget. These emphasize “learning by doing” and “child-centered” approaches (essentially, children pursuing their own interests) rather than the traditional approach of instructors directly delivering the knowledge that society expects the next generation to have. While the works of Dewey and Piaget provided important information on how the human mind acquires knowledge and develops intelligence, the practices that followed failed to address the function of the education system to transmit core knowledge within society. Over time, acceptance of these philosophies resulted in rejection of the authority of the teacher as the source of knowledge, rejection of rote learning, and rejection of standardized curricula. In their place, the system has substituted group activities, projects, students teaching each other, and community work, which reduce the teacher's role to a mere facilitator. It also introduced a plethora of specialized studies at increasingly earlier ages.

While “learning by doing” has its place, it is an inefficient method for transferring knowledge. Should an entire class period be devoted to experimentation with the hope that the students will re-invent the wheel, understand why it works, and avoid erroneous conclusions along the way, or should the correct concepts be presented and reinforced directly? Are the lessons "child-centered," or are they focused on those things society expects them to know? Which approaches are more likely to result in the greatest number of students learning what is intended or necessary? The constantly evolving and experimental teaching approaches are labor intensive and expensive, necessitating small classes and teacher assistants or aides to ensure that students stay on task and behave. With several thousand years of civilization behind us, if society has to depend on the next generation constructing for itself necessary knowledge through projects, group activities, and pursuing their own interests, the job simply will not get done.

Many students have difficulty attending to learning through activities. As each grade passes, the gap between the best and worst students widens, making a class increasingly difficult to teach. Some of these students get placed into Special Education, labeled as "disabled." Worse, they may be put on drugs such as Ritalin to make them attend. Others wind up in an “Alternative School,” labeled as “troublemakers” because they have become disruptive. Alternative school students are often three or four years behind their peers academically by the time they reach middle school. How could they be expected to attend to lessons that, to them, are being taught in a language that has become foreign? Two generations ago, Special Education was reserved for the truly handicapped: those who were hearing or visually impaired, or who had missing limbs. Structured and direct teaching prevented attention deficit disorder from becoming an issue. Alternative schools were unheard of. There was certainly no need to isolate such students and banish them to the BOCES “gulag” on Middle Settlement Road and have taxpayers pay through the nose to do it. Today the Special Ed population has virtually exploded and alternative education is commonplace.

Performance is often a function of maturity, natural ability, and cultural upbringing. Standards based on performance are somewhat subjective. When the grades are handed out, are the students being rated on what they have learned -- or sorted by who they are? How much heartache, frustration, life-impacting labels, and spending could be avoided by school systems taking the more traditional approach of direct instruction and assessment of knowledge?

Since internalizing core knowledge has been devalued, students have been trained to depend on others, on "experts," on the Internet, etc. for the knowledge that they may need. It has been many years since children from third grade up have been given calculators to do math, and now the Board of Regents wants to introduce them to kindergartners. Since math skills require years of practice to become second nature, is it any wonder why students have lost their abilities? Students who take the earth science Regents now are given an 8-page set of "standard reference tables" -- much of which used to be memorized by students 40 years ago. Since students cannot "look up" an unfamiliar word or concept in the middle of a lecture or conversation, they will miss the point of the discussion. While students may now be practiced in working together in groups, what can they contribute if they bring no knowledge to the table? While the Internet and "experts" can be helpful, how can one be sure if the information is "good" or applicable unless one has an adequate store of background knowledge to weigh the new information against? One cannot have “critical thinking” without core knowledge. By depriving students of core knowledge and fostering dependency on "things" that can be changed as easily as "find-and-replace" in Microsoft Word, we are setting them up to be manipulated by whomever is in charge of and controls the information flow. This threatens our way of life.

Children's education has become burdened with specialized (if not irrelevant) material at earlier and earlier ages that distracts and takes time away from the traditional material they are expected to know. It makes sense for students to take specialized courses in college and graduate school (because they are assumed to already have a solid foundation), and a handful of electives in high school (because they are assumed to have mastered the basics). However, having "magnet" schools at the elementary level or requiring high school students to pick the equivalent of a major on entering 9th grade (as in Utica's Millennium Project), dilutes the curriculum. When students at the "multicultural" magnet school study each other's customs, it is time away from drilling times tables, phonics, or spelling. People are well intentioned when they advocate providing students with laptops, robotics study, or requiring students to participate in community service or "school to work" programs, but what will be sacrificed for these specialized experiences? Is learning Microsoft Word more important than mastering the rules of grammar? Does it make sense to require students to learn the intricacies of a computer that will be obsolete in ten years?

Specialized studies at too early an age threaten creation of a modern Babel. Society's loss of a body of knowledge held in common is our loss of the lingua franca needed to communicate higher level ideas between generations, professions, and disciplines. What kind of future can we expect when our society has lost the ability to communicate with itself?

Students were once told that “Knowledge is Power” to encourage them to stay in school. Now we need to tell our educators to put knowledge back into schools, to make it worthwhile for students to stay there.

[This article was originally published in the September, 2009 "Utica Phoenix." Be sure to pick up the October Phoenix to read "The Ominous 4th Branch of Government," now available.]

Global Warming: The Truth Will Set You Free . . .

We have been asked to accept higher electricity prices (and will probably have to take more powerlines) in Upstate NY from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, supposedly to combat Global Warming. Now we will have to accept more economic impacts on a national level from "Cap-and-Trade" (though they are changing the name of this scheme to be distracting) again to combat Global Warming.

Every time you turn on the TV it seems, another "sign" is presented that Global Warming is upon us.  

But what you don't hear are stories like this one from World Climate Report:  Antarctic Ice Melt at Lowest Levels in Satellite Era.

It apparently is "too inconvenient" for the media to report that Antarctic Ice is melting (during the southern summer) at its lowest rate in almost 30 years.  If you mentally draw a line on the chart, you can see a downward trend over the time period.

Folks, you will find more skeptics among geologists because they have studied the "rock record" that spans eons of time. When present day data is placed in context, climate permutations seen over the last century are not that alarming.  

But the public has been alarmed . . . because the public has been given only the information that favors the POLITICAL views of those who would control the world's economy for their own self interest.    

The Truth will Set You Free.

This Region Is Done For . . .

New Hartford officials can't (or won't) figure out how to cut their budget without cutting services.

We've heard this same old song over and over again. Meanwhile, we can find money to keep a superfluous call center going, find money to extend water and sewer lines for particular developers, move to a bigger (but not better) airport that has no scheduled passenger service, pay millions for "job creation" while the total number of jobs dwindle. . . . . On and on and on . . .
The taxpayers get hit up for more . . . but have less to show for it.

This region is done for unless Drastic changes are made in the way we govern ourselves. NH is run only for the benefit of Developers and other "takers." Utica, meanwhile, has turned into a freak show. And the same stories are repeated multiple times with varying degrees of incompetence in all the other area towns and villages and at the county level.

We have far to much government -- far too many people sucking off the public teat -- and far too may people to have to keep an eye on. There needs to be (1) massive reorganization with consolidation and (2) removal of all financial incentives to those making the rules (ie all legislators, town, village and city councilmen etc).

If there were no pay and benefits for legislative types, many of the scum we have occupying office won't bother to run. Most of those left would be volunteering their time in the interest of their communities -- and will not likely be controlled by the "powers that be" because there will be no loss of pay/benefits to be threatened with.

Consolidation would reduce the number of slots that we would have to find volunteers to occupy, and reduce the number of legislative bodies for us (and the media) to watch. Consolidation should be aligned with our population centers -- Greater Utica, Greater Rome, and, perhaps Boonville. These centers would provide all the typically municipal services that are centered on those communities -- including water and sewer -- which require a dense population to maintain. County involvement in any of those services would devolve back to the enlarged municipalities. Towns would be eliminated and the county would take over with bare bones government to ensure public order.

Elected officials won't do this because their existence will be threatened. This has to be something that the people have to start talking about and demanding.

Without massive reductions in governmental costs, this region has not a prayer of "enticing" jobs to come in --- and not a prayer of surviving, much less growing.

800% Tax Increase in NYM!!??

You read that right:  

New Hartford Town Taxes in New York Mills are going up not the 54% reported by the O-D, but 800%.  

To those poor souls (and you WILL be poor after this is over) who live in the NH section of NYM, your town tax rate for next year, unless there are more cuts, will be $1.22 per thousand vs. the $0.15 per thousand you paid this year.

It's my understanding that Ms. Krupa will be holding public meetings on this soon.  

Frankly, this is one affected person who WILL NOT attend.  I've done my share of circulating petitions,  going to Town Board meetings, participating in advisory groups . . . and it has been a waste of time because when it comes time to vote, NYM residents vote for their friend or neighbor or party or the person whose ethnic ancestry matches theirs rather than on where the candidate stands on ISSUES.

Perhaps this is because NYM residents -- and residents of this entire area -- don't really understand the issues. This could be because they are too busy working trying to make ends meet -- or because they mistakenly rely on the Observer-Dispatch's framing of the issues. Whatever the reason, they need to wake up, make it their business to understand what is happening, and make themselves heard . . . en masse.  And for that to happen . . .

Things need to really hurt.

What the - - - -???!!!

Just when it started to look like New Hartford would take over Utica's place as regional laughingstock, we get this scene out of city hall . . .

Council Gone Wild

Was that really a knife that the councilwoman grabbed?

Want to know why the WHOLE REGION has gone to the dogs? Look no further than its elected officials.

The Chickens Come Home to Roost . . .

• 54 percent tax hike possible for New Hartford
• State auditors to review New Hartford's books

"As costs went up, the town had not made gradual increases in taxes to offset them, and had used savings instead."

What an outrageous thing for the Observer-Dispatch to suggest that "gradual increases" in taxes would have been appropriate.

With all the new construction taxable properties in New Hartford have increased. New Hartford now is believed to have the greatest amount of assessed valuation of any municipality in the region . . . believed to be even bigger than the City of Utica (but with 1/3 of Utica's population).

With assessed valuation significantly increasing while the population holds steady TAX RATES SHOULD BE GOING DOWN, NOT UP.

The New Hartford Police Department would buy one less new car, a savings of $23,000.

Big deal. But . . .

Police Chief Raymond Philo said he would fight to bring the police car back into the budget.

“You don’t want to diminish public safety in any community,” Philo said. “It’s the basis for quality of life and economic development. You don’t want to diminish it.”

While public safety is a primary function of government, Chief Philo is one of the biggest reasons why spending in New Hartford is out of control. When he appeared at a Town Board meeting a few months back to push for a new Town Courthouse, he commented that New Hartford should have a courthouse that "reflects the Town's affluence."

The entire Town Board and several employees and other officials reflect Chief Philo's arrogance ... not only on spending, but on other issues as well. Town government has been operated to benefit those who are "connected" and not the public at large. The "proof is in the pudding."

The public will welcome an Audit by the State Comptroller's office. . . Hopefully it will lead to an Investigation by the State Attorney General's office.

What a TerribleTangled Web We Weave . . .

Things just seem to get more complicated every day with the New Hartford Business Park. Now The Town is planning on eliminating the separate Business Park review panel.

This is a good thing. It takes an unnecessary complication out of the system. Now that the Town is no longer the owner of the Business Park, there is no reason to treat development of the Business Park any differently from any other development.

That said, it now (hopefully) should be apparent that no proper environmental impact statement was ever made for the development that is now being proposed and has partially been completed.
NHBP is now privately owned, no longer designed to be a manufacturing site, and now contains additional land. It is totally different in concept from what was proposed in 1999 when the original Environmental Impact Statement was done.

Before approving of any additional construction, the Planning Board needs to demand an Environmental Impact Statement from the developer addressing issues both on and off the site . . . including a potential school bus garage on land the developer traded to the school district in return for the district's support of a PILOT/TIF scheme.

The Town meanwhile, needs to do an environmental review for another change to its zoning code to add the site of the Hartford to the Business Park, and to change its review procedures, and probably needs to explain why the 1999 EIS for the original zoning change is no longer valid.

New Hartford hopefully has learned that things can get really complicated when you take shortcuts.

But What About the Environmental Impacts?

Per Today's OD: Unused developer fees spur other problems. Again, the story is about what has happened to all the Fees In Lieu of Mitigation collected by the Town of New Hartford from developers over the last 15-20 years. Where was the money? Does the Town have to return the money? When does the money have to be returned? Where are the agreements that specify the when or where about collecting, spending and returning the money?

Money, MONEY, MONEY . . . Typical New Hartford Fixation.

Why isn't anyone raising a stink about the ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS that those monies were intended to mitigate? Why isn't anyone raising a concern about the PEOPLE who may have been affected by the unmitigated environmental impacts from New Hartford's development?

Just Askin . . .

Wake Up Call for Gov. Paterson? . . .

The buzz at the AP is that President Obama is requesting Gov. Paterson to withdraw from the NY Governor's race,  feeling that NY is too important a state for the Democrats to lose and that Patterson won't be able to carry it off with his plummeting approval ratings.

Paterson's ratings were very high when he first took office -- when he was using rather conservative-sounding language about how the state's financial house was not in order and that spending cuts were needed.

Paterson's positive ratings became negative when his actions did not match his rhetoric. After he settled in, he became like all the other big-government big-spenders: Cow-towing to powerful interest groups, buying votes with special programs, jacking up all sorts of fees to pay for it all, spending cuts being more window dressing than real (e.g. mandating printing on both sides of a sheet of paper), telling people how they should live their lives (i.e., they were too fat and required a soda tax), and parroting the line out of DC.

I believe that our governor learned something about New York's problems during his many years in the State Senate, and that the bitter-medicine he tried to make us take when he first took office reflected that experience.  

After Paterson got in, he became subject to the same pressures as his predecessors -- and handled things in the same way. Even though he has been doing all the things his party stands for, like a pawn, the King demands that he must now be sacrificed for the good of his party....

Will the Governor wake up and govern like he knows he should, or will he keep playing the game that has led this state to ruin?

See NYCO for another take.

A Long Time Coming . . .

"State 'evaluating' audit possibility for New Hartford" reads the O-D Headline. We can only hope that an audit comes through. While the local media just recently seems to have taken an interest in what might be going on behind closed doors in New Hartford, those of us following the day-to-day action know that things have not been right for years.

Republican council members Christine Krupa and David Reynolds did not directly address the Comptroller’s Office comments in their e-mailed responses to the O-D’s questions.

Krupa said the town’s fiscal problems related directly to the elimination of the town comptroller’s position in 2001.

“I believe that each member of the current Town Board recognizes the need for an experienced municipal finance person, and will ensure that we have one on the payroll, should that particular qualification be absent in the next town supervisor,” she said in an e-mail.

No, Ms. Krupa. NH's fiscal problems have nothing to do with eliminating a comptroller ... because NH's problems are way beyond fiscal.

NH had the best financial "advice" that money could buy -- to the tune of about $150,000. Taxpayers still don't know what they got for this expenditure . . . . and we still see the fiscal problems.

What about The Hartford Building somehow being approved by the Business Park review board when the building was located outside the Business Park? A comptroller would have nothing to do with that decision . . . but someone obviously benefited from the decision.

What about all the storm water problems that seem to plague the Town in areas of new developments? A comptroller would have nothing to do with those either ... but some people obviously were benefited when these developments were approved with insufficient storm water mitigation ... while others have been injured.

And why did the Town Board close the Storm Water Management Group's meetings to the public right after someone started asking questions why Taxpayers were being required to fix problems that were traceable to specific developments?

No, Ms. Krupa. NH's fiscal (and other) problems have nothing to do with eliminating a comptroller. Rather, they are the result of a government that has become arrogant and corrupt.

Grassroots Movement?

Per the OD a coalition of Mohawk Valley Community Action, RCIL, MVCC, Catholic Charities, Utica Safe Schools Healthy Students, and other organizations plans to combat poverty.

Sounds benign enough. Who does not want to combat poverty?

One major goal will be to educate the public and get rid of misconceptions that the only people dealing with poverty are “lazy” and on welfare, she said. There are many people who work very hard but can’t get by on what they make, Turner said.

Another effort will be to conduct voter registration campaigns to give people more of a voice in changing their own struggles, she said.

Huh?

How do "misconceptions" keep people poor? How will "voter registration campaigns" get people jobs?

Training people for jobs and working to create an environment where jobs can flourish will help combat poverty . . . But that is not what is being proposed here.

The inclusion of Utica Safe Schools Healthy Students made me take notice. If you can remember back to 2002, this organization was born under rather opaque circumstances and had some rather disturbing plans (since removed from the UCSD website). (Note: This organization was created under a Federal Dept. of Ed. Program that was promoted by both Presidents Bush and Clinton).

“We’re trying to create almost a movement – a grassroots movement . . .”

The coalition members want to “create a sense of urgency and almost outrage” in order to motivate people to bring about the necessary changes . . .

"Outrage?" Over What? "Necessary Changes?" What changes?

No, this is NOT a "grassroots" movement. All these organizations are funded by GOVERNMENT with OUR TAX DOLLARS . . . And they will use our tax dollars to promote public outrage -- a/k/a public intimidation!

The objective here is anything but combating poverty. The program is geared to (1) ensuring a steady flow of taxpayer dollars into the coffers of friendly not-for-profits, and (2) influencing the political process.

The ultimate goal is to give the Government more control over People, rather than the other way around.

Squirrelly Dealings . . . and a Nut to Crack

The news -- in some parts of the media at least -- has been abuzz about ACORN, that community activist organization caught with phoney voter registrations during the last election, and, just last week, stung by a couple freelance journalists posing as a pimp and prostitute by offering advice to them on how to illegally avoid payment of income taxes and conceal human trafficking.

With the adverse publicity, the Census Bureau late last week severed its relationship with ACORN, which had been enlisted to play a key role in the 2010 decennial count.

Now the US Senate has voted overwhelmingly 83-7 to block ACORN from receiving grants from the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development. Even Sen. Schumer voted to block ACORN from the funds.

Among those 7 who opposed the provision: NY Freshman Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

Matt Canter, a spokesman for Ms. Gillibrand, responded in a statement of his own that “while Senator Gillibrand finds the actions of certain Acorn employees to be reprehensible and will ask Acorn leaders for a full investigation and plan to prevent any further abuse, the truth remains that thousands of New York families who are facing foreclosure depend on charitable organizations like Acorn for assistance.”

But do thousands of New Yorkers depend on crooked organizations like ACORN? The legislation was only about cutting off ACORN and not "charitable organizations" in general. Gillibrand's vote, thus, can only be interpreted as a vote in support of ACORN.

Ms. Gillibrand styles herself as an Upstater . . . Somehow I don't think her stance on this issue is going to win her any Upstate supporters

A Tale of Two Cities . . .

There is a great article this month in Governing Magazine contrasting Niagara Falls, New York with Niagara Falls, Ontario: How Bureaucracy and Bickering Brought Down Niagara Falls. Anyone from New York who has been out that way recently has envied the gleaming high-rise skyline of the Canadian side above its well-manicured parks and gardens, and wondered why the New York side couldn't look even half as good. Even with a world-class tourist attraction AND a casino, the New York side still looks like a dump.

The explanation for the difference, of course, is the way we govern ourselves in this state. The article explains not only the plight of N'Fls, NY, but Utica, NY as well.

“I sometimes get the feeling,” says one Canadian official who spends a lot of time on the New York side, “that the state plan for economic development in the region is to employ people as economic developers. You’ve got all these people doing economic development, but there’s not a lot of actual development.”

That seems to sum things up here, too. We need competent leadership both locally and in Albany, but don't have it.

Whitestown Water Wondering . . .

Per the OD, people in Whitestown want to tap into a Rome water main that passes right by their houses on the way to Camelot Village in Westmoreland, but Rome is hesitating. Per the article, Whitestown's engineer was waiting to hear if Westmoreland or Camelot wanted to be reimbursed for the cost of installing the waterline. Councilman Sullivan thinks that neither should be reimbursed for work already completed.

“There’s no validity to that idea,” Sullivan said. “You can’t charge people after the fact. I really don’t see a lot of reasons why this shouldn’t move forward.”

This sense of entitlement from a Whitestown official is disturbing! After Westmoreland does all the work, why should Johnny-Come-Lately Whitestown expect to get something for nothing? But "Something-for-Nothing" is apparently part of Whitestown's "M.O." . . .

The Rome Sentinel gives this interesting tidbit:

[T]he town has been collecting a water fee from the residents along the route, so there is money set aside to pay for access.

People have been paying Whitestown for Something, but Getting Nothing.

The Winter 2008 Whitestown News gives the scoop:

The Town Board has been working to develop a cost-effective way to fund the installation of public water mains for Town residents along NYS Route 233 and the westerly end of Suttliff Road. Several years ago the Town Board and Camelot Village negotiated an equitable agreement to share in the construction of water mains extending from the Whitestown Business Park to NYS Route 233. However, the continuing disagreement between the Mohawk Valley Water Authority and Canal Corporation has prevented the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation from issuing a Water Supply Permit necessary to allow the MVWA to provide water service to Westmoreland (and Camelot Village). Camelot Village and the Town of Westmoreland recently negotiated an agreement with the City of Rome to supply water to Camelot Village. Westmoreland will construct water mains along NYS Route 233 within NYSDOT right-of-way from the Rome/Whitestown line to Camelot Village . . .

What appears to have happened (and I invite Whitestown officials to set the record straight if I misunderstood something) is that Whitestown and Westmoreland had entered into a sharing agreement that fell through when MVWA was unable to secure a permit from DEC to supply the water that would go into the pipe... but Whitestown has gone forward and billed the residents anyway. Why is Whitestown still collecting money? Where has this money gone?

There is more to this story . . . more to question that is . . .

Contrasting the MVWA vs Rome supplier situations raises an interesting question: If a DEC permit was needed for MVWA to supply Westmoreland, would not one also have been required for Rome to supply Westmoreland? 6 NYCRR Part 601 (DEC's Water Supply Regulations) §601.3 requires a permit before agreements for water supply are entered into -- as well as several other circumstances that seem to apply here. However, searching the Environmental Notice Bulletin turned up no water supply permit application for Rome to supply Westmoreland.

Did Camelot Village/Westmoreland secure a permit from DEC to obtain water from Rome? Or did Rome secure a permit from DEC to supply water to Westmoreland?

If there has been an application for a DEC permit, it would appear that ECL 15-1521 could be used by DEC to force the issue of Rome supplying Whitestown.

Lastly, doesn't it seem a bit odd that Westmoreland can just up and ram pipes through Whitestown (with State DOT cooperation) and Whitestown has no right to say anything about it? This story seems stranger the more you think about it.

Government serves whom it wants to serve -- but it's usually the "little people" who pay their taxes and pay their fees who wind up taking the pipe.

FILM Flam in New Hartford . . .

New Hartford is apparently "confused" about where to spend $3.3 million of "Fees In Lieu of Mitigation" collected from developers over the years.

Strikeslip is confused about where the Town got the legal authority to collect such fees in the first place. There is nothing in the State Environmental Quality Review Act that authorizes anyone to take money in lieu of mitigating an adverse environmental impact. A review of the New Hartford Town Code turned up nothing that authorizes the Town to collect such fees.

Concerned Citizens have been led to believe that the Town is relying on Generic Environmental Impact Statements as providing the legal authority to enact a voluntary FILM.

Since when does a Generic Environmental Impact Statement confer legal authority? That idea is simply PREPOSTEROUS. Town officials need to trace the source of such a notion because this is simply wrong. Towns can only do what State Law allows them to do. Municipal Home Rule law allows the Town to take state authority and confer it upon itself under certain circumstances, by enacting its own law. A GEIS is not a law.

Unless there is a provision of the New Hartford Code that I overlooked, there is neither a State law nor a local law that authorizes collection of Fees in Lieu of Mitigation. In other words, the collection of such fees is illegal because it is unauthorized.

What seems to be going on, however, may be worse than that "merely" being illegal . . .

SEQRA is clear that adverse impacts must be mitigated to the maximum extent practicable. The Town may refuse to issue permits if it determines that impacts are not sufficiently mitigated.

There are three possible things happening, none of which are acceptable. (1) The Town is using its authority to require mitigation to extort "voluntary" contributions from developers as Fees In LIEU of Mitigation. (2) The Town is actually allowing degradation of the Town environment -- unmitigated adverse environmental impacts -- by accepting Fees in LIEU of Mitigation. (3) Those running the Town haven't a clue what they are doing.

Are the Developers being FILM Flammed -- or the Residents?

There's more from NH Online.