Hi all...
Goodness what a surprise...
[...that G.O.P. & County Exec want to wait until after the election to let us know how we'll all be shafted...]
Vote row A all the way folks-- don't forget-- when Democrats vote Democrats win!...
[everyone in both parties seems to agree that victories today will be decided by turnout; pass this along!]
Joel
242-3571/876-2488
joeltyner@earthlink.net
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Don't forget-- the first Democratic majority in our County Legislature in 30 years is on line today, folks!...
"Only about 42 percent of registered voters in the county went to the polls in the last local election year of 2007, according to Democratic Elections Commissioner Fran Knapp"(!). [Oct. 25th Pok. Journal]
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20091025/NEWS01/910250355/GOP-seeks-to-regain-majority--Dems-confident-of-control
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From today's paper...
"County Budget Seeks Change, Skimps on Details"
JENNY LEE-ADRIAN * POUGHKEEPSIE JOURNAL * NOVEMBER 3, 2009
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20091103/NEWS01/911030328/County-budget-seeks-change--skimps-on-details
Dutchess County Executive William Steinhaus' 529-page budget proposal includes a lot of changes - to staff, departments and services, but not a lot of details about how those changes will take effect or what effect they will have.
The $398.9 million budget plan, released late Sunday night, would end a clothing tax break, restructure and consolidate two county departments, eliminate 31 positions and lay off 25 more people, reduce services to towns and schools unless they pay for them, and cut funding to the Resource Recovery Agency.
The budget plan has left Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature with questions about how such changes would be enacted and what impact they would have on county services and jobs. Questions to the County Executive's Office, however, were not answered, with staffers saying more details will be released next week in meetings before the Legislature.
Legislature Chairman Roger Higgins, D-New Hamburg, agreed it was a difficult year, but said Steinhaus is passing costs onto taxpayers by charging towns for election costs and road patrols.
"While it's a great way to keep property taxes the same in the county, what it does is increase taxes on the town side," Higgins said. "It's really smoke and mirrors."
Besides the job cuts and the property tax freeze, the 2010 proposed budget includes asking municipalities to pay for sheriff's road patrols on an optional basis, requiring municipalities to share 37 percent of the cost of elections, asking school districts that have sheriff's school resource officers to pay for the service, repealing the sales-tax exemption for clothing and footwear under $110 and notifying the state by Dec. 1, consolidating and restructuring the departments of Health and Mental Hygiene, having fewer crews for the highway division of the Public Works Department and restructuring solid-waste management.
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Recall these in yesterday's papers re: G.O.P. backwards solutions to current fiscal/budget crisis...
"Steinhaus Unveils $399M Budget Proposal, 56 Job Cuts" by Jenny Lee-Adrian [Pok. Journal]
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20091102/NEWS01/911020329/Steinhaus-unveils--399M-budget-proposal--56-job-cuts
"Steinhaus Budget Calls for 25 Layoffs" by Patricia Doxsey [Daily Freeman]
http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2009/11/02/news/doc4aee4c0fe7db0288100601.txt
Just like last year Steinhaus and G.O.P. (again) want to nickel and dime us all to death-- mixed in with an unhealthy new dose of dozens of layoffs (in midst of current recession-- not smart)-- and again Steinhaus/G.O.P. are trying to force towns to pay for sheriff's patrols and elections, again trying to force working families to pay sales tax on clothing and shoes under $110, want cut in funding to DCC-- and even new admission fees at county parks!...(can you say "being nickel-and-dimed to death"?...good)...
My point (as it has been all along) is this-- we can easily avoid at least some of these unnecessary cuts, layoffs, and passing-the-buck to towns-- if we have county legislators with open minds ready to embrace proven innovative cost-savers that have been shown to work in other counties in NYS!...
[and yes-- with respect to Dealy, I specifically mean that we cannot afford demagogues in our Co. Leg.]
The fact is that we could avoid much if not all of the G.O.P./County Exec's horrific county budget "solutions" if we had legislators with open minds (not like Dealy with all due respect) able to embrace--
-- a truly zero-waste approach to resource recovery (as in Austin, Portland, Seattle), Canadian Rx option for county employees and retirees (as in Rensselaer, Schenectady, Albany, St. Lawrence, Lewis counties), joining the Municipal Electricity and Gas Alliance-- as Putnam, Ulster, Sullivan, 20 other counties across NY have done; NYS Association of Counties has strongly endorsed this as well, a bail loan fund for some in our jail now merely accused of nonviolent misdemeanors (as United Way has done successfully in Tompkins County for three decades), campaign finance reform (as in Rockland County), Project Labor Agreements (as in Rockland, Putnam, Orange counties, etc.), electrician licensing (as in Putnam, Rockland, Greene, Orange counties)...
[see http://www.PetitionOnline.com/SaveOnRx http://www.MEGAEnergy.org http://www.OARTompkins ;
http://dutchessdemocracy.blogspot.com/2009/08/re-pay-to-play-in-dutchess-county-brand.html ;
http://dutchessdemocracy.blogspot.com/2009/09/facts-re-plas-electrician-licensing.html ;
http://dutchessdemocracy.blogspot.com/2009/09/dealys-pathetic-attacks-rebutted-below.html ]
One more reason for y'all to ALL get out there, shake a leg, vote today-- and get all you know to too!...
[...unless you truly relish the prospect of unimaginative same-old, same old tax hikes and budget cuts!...]
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7 Innovative Ways to Save $$$ That Dealy, Steinhaus, G.O.P. Oppose (why?)...(we need open minds!)...
[thought last winter's county budget process was bad?...you ain't seen nothin' yet-- we need these now]
1. Canadian Prescription Drug Option for County Employees and Retirees (five counties do now)
Fact: Dutchess County could easily save $1,000,000 a year for local taxpayers merely by allowing county employees and retirees to be reimbursed for prescription drugs they can have option to get from Canada. Schenectady County has been doing this for five years now-- saving over a million dollars annually with this option-- with a smaller number there of county employees and retirees than compared to here in Dutchess County; G.O.P. Rensselaer County Exec Kathy Jimino spearheaded this there; Albany, St. Lawrence, Lewis counties too; see: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/SaveOnRx .
2. Join Municipal Electricity and Gas Alliance to Save Tax Dollars Spent on County Buildings
Fact: Dutchess County could save hundreds of thousands annually on electric bills for county buildings if the county joined the Municipal Electricity and Gas Alliance-- as Putnam, Ulster, Sullivan, 20 other counties across NY have done; NYS Association of Counties endorsed: http://www.MEGAEnergy.org .
[I actually got a resolution passed for this to happen last year; no PoJo coverage; Co. Exec ignored.]
3. United Way Bail Loan Fund Endorsed by Daily Freeman for Some Accused of Misdemeanors
Fact: Dutchess County could easily save $1,000,000 a year with a bail loan fund here for some in our jail now merely accused of nonviolent misdemeanors (even the Daily Freeman strongly recommended this four years ago in response to idiotic, over-the-top G.O.P. attacks on this common-sense idea). Tompkins County's United Way agency Opportunities, Alternatives, and Resources (long supported by G.O.P. and Dems there) saved $466,000 last year alone in boarding-out costs (5300 incarceration days) for taxpayers there-- bailing out 70 there merely accused of nonviolent misdemeanors. Late last month there were still literally 55 inmates here in our own county jail unable to find enough funding in their support network to make bail of $2000 or less (roughly the ceiling for bail loans in Tompkins County). The vast majority of the judges in Dutchess County are Republican; anyone with bail set at $2000 or less is clearly not a serious threat to safety. Dutchess County now spends literally millions of dollars annually housing out inmates to facilities in other counties Often the vast majority of Dutchess County inmates being boarded out are unsentenced (not convicted yet)-- and yes, even Dutchess County Sheriff Butch Anderson recently told me personally he was upset about the increasing waste of taxpayer dollars with so many people sitting in our county jail that used to be bailed out for low amounts by employers or family-- but aren't any more because of the recession: http://www.OARTompkins.com .
90 inmates a day right now are being housed out to jails in other counties-- at a cost of well over $100 a day-- multiply $9000 times 365 days in a year-- that's literally over three million dollars: unsustainable!
4. Clean Up County Government-- Campaign Finance Reform-- Limit Donations from County Vendors
Fact: Literally millions of our county tax dollars are spent annually on county contracts, given to companies (often from outside Dutchess County), who we're supposed to believe it's all a coincidence that they've often repeatedly made very large donations to the County Executive and/or the Dutchess County Republican Committee, according to public records at our County Comptroller's office and our county's Board of Elections. Even the Poughkeepsie Journal has twice now strongly editorialized for this to be addressed with a law here as in Rockland County-- a $100 limit on donations from vendors.
[see: http://dutchessdemocracy.blogspot.com/2009/08/re-pay-to-play-in-dutchess-county-brand.html ]
5. Save Tax Dollars with Project Labor Agreements for Large County Construction Projects
Fact: A March 2007 due diligence report commissioned by our own county's Department of Public Works proved $770,000 could be saved with a Project Labor Agreement for construction at our county's Emergency Response Center & Highway Garage-- yet no Project Labor Agreement happened; note as well-- $3.5 million threshold means only 1 of every 20 county construction projects would be affected.
[see: http://dutchessdemocracy.blogspot.com/2009/09/facts-re-plas-electrician-licensing.html ;
http://dutchessdemocracy.blogspot.com/2009/09/dealys-pathetic-attacks-rebutted-below.html
6. Save Tax Dollars with Electrician Licensing; Fact Is Other Counties Save Money with This Law
Fact: Dutchess County will save tax dollars with electrician licensing legislation-- proven already in Putnam, Greene, Rockland and Westchester counties; see: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/SafeWire .
Re: electrician licensing, as Co. Leg. Bill McCabe has stated many times, out of four house fires in one year recently in Union Vale alone that completely consumed those homes, three of them were due to electrical wiring (not overloaded cords or outlets)-- according to fire chiefs there themselves.
7. Save Tax Dollars with Zero-Waste Approach to Resource Recovery; Create Green Jobs, Cut Carbon
Fact: Zero-waste approach to resource recovery saves tax dollars, create green jobs, cut carbon levels.
"Worcester (MA), Portland (OR), Seattle/King County (WA), Hawaii County, Oakland, and Los Angeles are all examples of communities that have rejected incineration, invested in recycling and composting, and have saved tax dollars as the costs of solid waste management have gone down. This has been accomplished because solid waste has been reduced by diverting materials to the private sector which hire workers, pay taxes and expand the local tax base. For example, Oakland has created over 1000 jobs in the last decade as a result of a rejected incinerator there and investing in recycling and composting. Austin, Texas in l986 rejected an incinerator and invested in recycling and composting. They lost $22 million when they cancelled the plant-- but saved $120 million over the 20-year proposed life of the plant." [Institute for Local Self-Reliance President Neil Seldman-- http://www.ILSR.org ]
[see recent Daily Freeman on this:
http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2009/10/10/news/doc4ad00d40ad833049659457.txt ;
http://www.midhudsonnews.com/News/2009/October09/09/DC_GRTF-09Oct09.html ]
Fact: The current costs for our Resource Recovery Agency are out of control-- over six million dollars to be paid this year on top of $11 million to be paid by system users. This adds up to a total cost of $125/ton-- much higher than any other publicly owned incinerator of the same size in the state (usually about $85/ton)-- and unlike all other publicly owned facilities, these costs do not pay off all of our county incinerator's debt; this debt goes on well after the incinerator's service agreements.
Fact: I led investigation of our county's Resource Recovery Agency this year-- and move to put $4.7 million of their budget into a special line in the 2009 budget-- to have only as little as possible allocated.
Fact: Ten years ago in a column I wrote for the Taconic Papers I exposed how $53 million was being flushed down the drain by our county's Resource Recovery Agency by refinancing our county incinerator through First Albany Bank without going proper Request for Proposal bidding-out process.
Fact: I voted in 2007 with Democratic Caucus against wasting millions of tax dollars by extending life of Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency bonds to 2027.
[and why did Dealy lie @ 9/23 debate saying the Green Ribbon report calls for shutting down DCRRA?
and why did Dealy lie @ 9/23 debate saying the Green Ribbon report calls for 2 new landfills in county?
see: http://dutchessdemocracy.blogspot.com/2009/09/dealy-lies-3x-in-debate-fact-is-green.html ;
Green Ribbon report here-- http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/assets/pdf/BK142669916.PDF ]
Recall these great investigative exposé pieces from Pok. Journal's MB Pfeiffer over last several months:
May 10th: "Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency: Inefficient, Expensive, and in Debt"
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20090510/NEWS01/905100344&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL
May 31st: "Resource Recovery Agency: Padded Budgets or Solid Plans? County Subsidy Total is $5.4 Million More Than Needed Since '03"
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?Dato=20090531&Kategori=NEWS01&Lopenr=107060002&Ref=AR
July 12th: "No Bid Deals Might Add to Agency's Financial Trouble"
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20090712/NEWS01/907120337
Fact: Zero-waste expands tax base in private sector-- "On per-ton basis, sorting/processing recyclables alone sustain 10 times more jobs than landfilling or incineration." [Institute for Local Self-Reliance]
[see: http://www.ilsr.org/recycling/recyclingmeansbusiness.html ]
Fact: More than two thirds of the materials we use are still burned or buried, despite fact we have technical capacity to cost-effectively recycle, reuse, or compost 90% of what we waste.
[see http://www.StopTrashingtheClimate.org ]
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Fifteen MORE Ways to Save Tax Dollars in Dutchess County (re: $50M budget gap; avoid tax hike!)...
1. Robust system of home care for seniors-- not institutionalization (avoid nursing homes if possible)
[ http://www.NYSenior.org; http://www.ADAPT.org (this came up at recent Taconic Resources forum)]
2. Health benefits consortium for towns, cities, and villages with county to save on employee costs
[see: http://www.tompkins-co.org/news/detail.aspx?ContentID=1111 -- as in Tompkins County; see:
http://www.tompco.net/legislature/highlights/20090217.html ]
3. Home Heating Oil Cooperative to help homeowners save on heating oil (as in Town of Cortlandt)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/nyregion/westchester/28oilwe.ready.html
4. Keep lever voting machines (19 counties passed resolution since mine passed last Dec.)
[see: http://nylevers.wordpress.com/ http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/save_ny_levers help Andi]
5. Dutchess County Green Homes Program to make energy-efficiency retrofits, solar more available
[see http://www.LIGreenHomes.com ; http://www.CambridgeEnergyAlliance.org -- as in Babylon, L.I.]
6. Sustainable Energy Financing Districts for solar panels on homes (assessment on tax bills: Berkeley)
[ http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/mayor/GHG/SEFD-summary.htm ; http://www.PetitionOnline.com/SOLAR ]
7. TimeBank for area-- bartering network for community so unemployed folks with skills can find work
[see http://www.TimeBanks.org ; http://www.WoodstockTimeBank.org ]
8. Follow recent Northern Dutchess Alliance recommendation for "Community Reinvestment Report"
[see: http://www.northerndutchess.org/images/NDABlueprintWeb.pdf (see p. 82); banks accountable]
9. Reform county investment policy: make banks doing business w/county to report home loan policies
[see: http://www.co.rockland.ny.us/Legislature/LNews/09/021709.pdf (Rockland passed unanimously)]
10. Save tax dollars spent on services for homeless by keeping families in homes (and not foreclosed)-- with a pre-foreclosure mediation program similar to the extremely successful Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Diversion program in Philadelphia (over 80% effective in keeping homeowners in houses).
[see: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/us/28philadelphia.html ; http://www.ACORN.org ]
11. Save tax dollars by investing in quality pre-kindergarten-- literally $17 for every $1 invested
[see: http://www.fightcrime.org/ny/nyissue_earlyed.php , http://www.winningbeginningny.org ]
12. Save a million dollars annually with bail loan fund for some accused of nonviolent misdemeanors
[see http://www.OARTompkins.com -- United Way agency in Tompkins has safely done this for years]
13. Save tax dollars: community-based intervention for low-risk youth-- as in Orange, Rensselaer Co.'s
[see: http://www.fightcrime.org/ny/jjevent.php , http://www.dys.ohio.gov/dysweb/ReclaimOhio.aspx ]
14. Save tax dollars housing homeless to keep out of jail, hospitals, mental hospital-- as in Westchester
[see: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/House1st , http://www.PathwaystoHousing.org ]
15. Save tax dollars to cut recidivism: job training, counseling, drug treatment Brooklyn, Lancaster, PA
[ http://www.petitiononline.com/comalert http://www.petitiononline.com/jobcourt http://www.PYHIT.com ]
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