Hugh Reynolds: Where’s George?

My prediction is that Amedore will run. With Rob Astorino waging an upstate campaign (there are few Republican votes in the big city) based on hot-button issues like repealing the Safe Act, economic deprivation and mandate relief, the tide, even in Democratic districts like the 46th, will probably be running toward the GOP. It could be Amedore’s last chance at a State Senate seat.

Here and there

It was the late great Shandaken supervisor Neil Grant who said, “There’s no law west of Boiceville.” But now it seems the Boiceville Inn, what with the election of Olive son and proprietor John Parete as county legislature chairman, has become something of the western county office building. If it weren’t for Parete, who else would schedule a county seminar on healthcare at the Boiceville Inn, a country bar and grill more than 15 miles from the county seat owned by the chairman? The seminar is scheduled for this Thursday night, weather permitting.

The columnist Reynolds.

Last year Parete’s Boiceville Inn hosted an Independence Party candidate reception, attended by among others, congressman Chris Gibson and New Paltz supervisor Sue Zimet. Parete gets grief from some Democrats for hosting a rival party event, to which he retorts, “I didn’t host anything. They rented the place.”

This time, he’s the host because “nobody else was doing it, talking about the impact of the health care act.” He hopes the legislature’s public health committee hosts similar events around the county. Committee chair Craig Lopez, a Republican, is scheduled to attend.

New Paltz government leaders seem to be taking a hard line with the Park Point developers in terms of taxes to be paid on the $50-million student housing project. Developers recently upped their offer on taxes from about ten percent of full payment to around 30 percent. Supervisor Zimet, in a recent communication, says the town will not “negotiate” with developers, whom she and other town board members consider disingenuous at best. Reading between Zimet’s lines, an art unto itself, it seems to me that 50 percent might be the tipping point, plus a new sewer plant for the village.

Apologies and thanks to our sharp-eyed readers who picked up a key mistake in last week’s feature on the McEntee family. Jervis McEntee, the painter, was born in 1828, not 1831.

And finally, condolences to the Guerin family of Kingston on the passing of matriarch Helen Guerin, 90, last week. Helen, along with her late husband Ken, was a founder of the Guerin family insurance agency. Their son, John Guerin, who operates the agency, was state assemblyman from 1995 to 1998. The couple had five children.