Hugh Reynolds: Fooling with fueling

The columnist Reynolds.

Gallo turned up the heat recently in charging Noble with acting unethically. According to the mayor, a resident hard by the infamous sinkhole on Washington Avenue engaged Noble the plumber for an emergency repair — reportedly at a cost of $183 — for a problem caused by the sinkhole. The city has apparently agreed to pay such bills, which for long-suffering residents is the very least they deserve. The resident, City Planner Sue Cahill, submitted Noble’s bill to the city and was paid. In effect, Noble was paid by the city, which Gallo considers a conflict. He says Noble should have either recused himself or done the work for free. He has a point, however tainted.

That this incident occurred during the summer of 2013 (not last year) indicates political motivation by the mayor. This is after all an election year and the mayor knows voters’ memories are short.

For his part, Noble, as adept at city-hall politics as anyone, and with a clear understanding of Gallo’s proclivities, should have anticipated that signing the back of that city check might have had unpleasant consequences.

As the orderly conduct of city business is at issue here, it remains for the top dog, the mayor, to pursue at least a truce in what has become a public embarrassment. It must be dismaying to Kingston residents that their two top elected officials do not speak to each other.

Ellenville million

How does that old story go? We ate beans three times a week, slept four to a bed and had holes in our shoes. Then came the depression!

Post-casino Ellenville is like that these days, its stores empty, streets deserted except for the occasional pedestrian. Crime and drugs remain rampant. Unemployment is three times the overall county level. A casino at the nearby abandoned Nevele Hotel would not have cured those ills, not right away, but it might have been a beginning. There was hope.

But the casino didn’t happen, and it’s not going to happen. It was a pyrrhic victory for Ellenville and its environs to see four casinos rejected in Orange County in favor of the lone approval in Sullivan.

Meanwhile, Plan B was announced in the county executive’s state-of-the-county speech last week. Legislation authorizing casinos in New York allows for a million-dollar cash consolation prize to advance economic development in those areas rejected by the gaming commission, like Ellenville. Thus the “Ellenville Million.”

The plan, according to Ellenville Regional Hospital Director Steve Kelley, a member of the five-member regional development authority recommended by Hein, is to leverage the casino money, “rather than give it away.”

“We have some places in Ulster County that are doing very well,” Kelley said. “Places like New Paltz, Saugerties and Woodstock, uptown and downtown Kingston, are vibrant. You won’t find an empty store. Come to Ellenville and you can take your pick. We hope to attract people to come here.”

Kelley, a Kingston Hospital alumnus, led the revival of Ellenville’s hospital, which he says has been profitable for the last 10 years. He believes the county “did everything it could” to promote the Nevele project. Essentially, the Nevele promoters were betting on the next card, tentative approval by the gaming commission, in order to lock down their financing. But the rules of engagement were clear: no secured financing upfront, no casino. Of late, Nevele developers have been talking about Hollywood money and the like. Talk, as Ellenville has ruefully discovered, is cheap.

Ellenville Million has a nice ring to it, though it sounds like a drop in the bucket compared to what might have been. It at least gives the appearance of something being done. The million-dollar committee expects to hold its first meeting next week.