“It’s only an offer until you negotiate. It’s not like Wal-Mart where you fill out an application and they hand you a blue vest.”
Townsfolk may have mixed emotions about their mercurial supervisor. On one hand, many (according to Quigley) are happy to have going forward a government leader who put their finances back in order and ruled with a firm hand. On the other, they have to be concerned about whether Quigley’s heart is really in this job any more.
Pass the meatballs
I wandered into a meeting of the under-publicized Ulster County Public Safety Advisory Committee to discover that emergency communications is still an issue. I had thought Peter Stuyvesant had figured that one out long ago. I did find out that Undersheriff Frank Faluotico, a committee member, makes the best meatballs next to his sister’s.
It was my own fault for being at the wrong meeting at the wrong time. I thought it was a meeting of that special committee on police services, the one some people suspect is designed to eliminate the sheriff’s road patrol. Faluotico’s attendance was a clue, but alas, a false one. The meatballs served at last month’s meeting were real enough, I was told.
Created by the legislature in March in response to concerns about public safety coordination from recent natural disasters, the committee meets monthly on issues, problems and would-be solutions. Though it makes for great cocktail-party conversation, I’ll bet that different people will be hashing out the same subjects a decade from now.
Bits and pieces
Feeling bullish, Hurley Democrats have endorsed a full slate for town office, except for highway superintendent. Former Woodstock town supervisor Tracy Kellogg will head the ticket. By now, Kellogg, who ran unsuccessfully for town board a few terms ago, knows that Hurley ain’t Woodstock. But, it’s getting closer. Democrats now outnumber Republicans in the town and are thicker than stumps in West Hurley.
I like Congressman Chris Gibson’s stand on invading Syria, though I don’t think the unspecified “economic sanctions” he advises will have much effect. Gibson, a retired Army colonel, knows war, having lost men in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan during active duty service.
Fifty years ago, the Kingston school district gave newly chartered Ulster County Community College an abandoned elementary school for a dollar a year (for four years). This year, the school district sold an abandoned elementary school (Sophie Finn in Midtown Kingston) to the college for $300,000. Doesn’t it all come out of the same pockets?
This just in. Comptroller Auerbach and wife Judi announce the birth of their second grandchild, Benjamin Wallace Auerbach, son of Corey Auerbach and Meg Stevenson of Buffalo. Big Ben hit the scales at just under eight pounds on Monday.
Ben’s parents have a talent for brightening grandfather’s campaigns. They got married during his 2008 campaign.
