Left unsaid was that Gibson, a savvy pol despite limited experience, has to appreciate that taking on a popular incumbent in a state where Democrats enjoy a 5-3 majority, would be akin to charging up Porkchop Hill in a loincloth.
Deadlines
It would appear the Ulster County’s Industrial Development Agency (UCIDA) board is losing patience with chairman Dave O’Halloran’s months-long delay in dealing with one of the hotter political potatoes on the scene. At issue for six months before the IDA is whether Len Bernardo, chairman of the influential Independence Party, is in violation of his 2005 tax abatement agreement with the IDA, for allegedly hiring a fraction of the workers he initially promised. Bernardo, husband of legislature chairman Terry Bernardo, herself an officer in the corporation that built Skatetime USA in Accord, says he never promised any jobs. The IDA wants him to “voluntarily” begin paying about half the estimated $15,000 in yearly property taxes forgiven under the agreement.
A key player in all this is county executive Mike Hein, who raised the subject of Bernardo’s IDA obligations in their 2008 contest for county executive. Which is to say that if the IDA isn’t fed up with this long-running he-said-he-said controversy, the general public should be.
O’Halloran, demonstrably the hardest-working non-paid commission chairman in the county, promises a resolution by the mid-March meeting of the IDA.
Presidential marketing
For those curious about the sale of the community college president’s house in Stone Ridge, advocated by the county executive and approved by the legislature last year, the word is pretty much the same as it is for other high-priced real estate in our area: Patience.
The president’s house, just south of the hamlet on Route 209, has an assessed value of about $700,000, but is on the market for $500,000. College President Don Katt, who used to live there weekdays, says there have been a number of inquiries since the eight-acre property went on the market last December, “mostly from New Yorkers.”
Ah, God bless those deep-pocketed country-lovin’ Gothamites, without whom we wouldn’t be getting even 75 cents on the (assessed) dollar.
Some of the proceeds of the sale will go toward renovating a vacant Victorian-era building on Kingston’s Wurts Street up the hill from the rusty Rondout Creek bridge for use as a facility for homeless veterans.
