Turco might have gone off half-cocked (no pun intended), but I think she was on to something. Nobody should be walking around an urban area with anything that looks like a firearm.
Governmental budget blues
Last week’s opening salvo from the county read: Beware! A 25 percent shortfall could be looming. Budget officers around the region were already facing some unusually difficult decisions.
Andi Turco-Levin (Photo by Dan Barton)
Compounding the guessing game of predicting revenues and expenditures a year in advance is the state’s mandate that taxes cannot be raised more than two percent without the support of a super-majority of the governing body. The impact of this dictate will vary. In the Town of Ulster, with four Republicans and a Conservative voting, a majority-plus-one is a lock in off-years but problematical in election years. Elect a few Tea Partiers and you’re probably submitting last year’s budget with lots of cuts.
The courts have yet to pass judgment on what many officials see as a constitutional issue. Where does the state, they argue, which can barely control its own finances, get the right to tell municipalities and school districts how much they can tax their constituents? If home rule means anything in New York State, this 2 percent tax cap could be a case of one (this year) and done.
Look for tight-fisted oligarchs like County Executive Mike Hein to be positively rigid when it comes to contract negotiations. For one thing, since Republicans failed to field an opponent he doesn’t need the union endorsements he got three years ago.
Look for Hein and other budget officers to parrot the five-year contract the Cuomo administration brokered with CSEA: no raises for three years, 2 percent a year after that with a substantial increase in the less than 10 percent workers were paying for health coverage. Nothing is automatic when it comes to local contracts, however. Kingston mayor Jim Sottile offered something like the Cuomo plan to city workers a few years ago and almost wound up tarred and feathered. Times now are far different.
Show us the money
So, TechCity may once again be on the cusp of becoming the regional hub of economic development owner Alan Ginsberg promised 13 years ago? Sorry, this is one I have to see to believe.
Be sure to report the whole story – according to Mr. Cahill’s blog, Ms. Turco-Levin was proposing a ban on possession of all handguns (NYS law “firearms”) long guns and shotguns, not to mention BB guns, in the city of Kingston. We all know how far that’ll go.
And yes, gun ownership must be safe and responsible before anything else. That said, it’s also a Constitutional right, affirmed by Supreme Court precedent (in striking down Washington DC’s gun ban) and not a cause for alarm for a law-abiding citizen. The urban population’s concern with gun crime needs to be solved a different way (for example by cultural change) than by banning guns for all. Since then only criminals will have guns, as the old saw has it.
It would behoove all, including Andi, if she were to make a simple statement outlining her current position on the issue. Failing that, it will remain a football in the Mayoral race which will hit spectators and players rather than sailing through the goalposts.