The columnist Reynolds.
“I advocate for clean air and clean water, which is good for everyone,” she said. “I’m not a lobbyist. I don’t lobby anyone and I don’t get paid to do it by anyone.” Clearwater, which is based on the Rondout in Kingston, does lobby, however.
Not to roil the waters, but Greene the advocate differs from New Paltz Town Supervisor Sue Zimet, who is paid $10,000 a year to lobby for Brooklyn-based Frack Action, an anti-fracking organization. And all this time we thought Zimet was battling frackers out of the goodness of her heart. Kudos to New Paltz Times columnist Paul Brown for digging that tidbit out of Zimet’s official mileage vouchers approved by the town board.
As for Greene peace, Parete really ought to offer the olive branch.
Break for SUNY Ulster students
As a farewell bone to students, retiring SUNY Ulster President Don Katt and his bean counters are trying “really hard” to avoid a tuition increase in next year’s budget, he says.
Really? Ulster’s annual tuition increases, imposed in the teeth of a lingering recession, have been an embarrassment and unhelpful in restoring a struggling local economy.
Last year, amid outcries from county legislators, County Executive Mike Hein ordered a $120,000 shift in the SUNY Ulster budget to avoid what would have been the seventh straight year of tuition increases. Before erecting any statues to Hein on the Stone Ridge SUNY Ulster campus, let’s not forget the executive froze the county’s share of funding to the college for the first six years of his administration.
Katt says he’s working within familiar parameters in compiling his last budget. The legislature increased state aid by $100 per fulltime student, as opposed to the $250 the state Regents recommended. High-school graduations are “slightly down” and everything else is up. A public hearing on the proposed budget will be held at the college on June 10 at 6:30 p.m.
In other college news, a new college president will not be officially introduced at commencement exercises on May 20, as some, including myself, might have had hoped. The presidential search committee has whittled applicants down to about a dozen, says Katt, who is not directly involved. Three to five will be designated for final interviews and campus visits in early June. Katt, 68, wraps up a 47-year career SUNY Ulster on June 30.
Here and there
As expected, the harassment case between New Paltz town councilmen Dan Torres (the plaintiff) and Jeff Logan (the defendant) has been adjourned until the first week in June. Fortunately, a visiting town judge rejected as unwarranted Torres’ request for an order of protection. Doing otherwise would have made town-board business awkward, if not difficult. With the problems New Paltz is facing, the town board will need all hands on deck.
Mayor Shayne Gallo. (Photo: Dan Barton)
Rookie Saugerties county Legislator Chris Allen seems serious about running for state senator on the Democratic ticket next year. Already he’s seeing potential rivals behind every other tree. He’ll face a primary against former state senator Cecilia Tkaczyk in a presidential year. And Republican George Amedore will be no pushover. Short-term, Allen needs a landslide re-election in order to convince district leaders he’s Senate timber.
Kingston will not celebrate “Sinkhole de Mayor” around the infamous sinkhole on Washington Avenue next month, sadly. Hizzoner dancing the cucaracha in sombrero and bandolier would be quite a sight. But repairs won’t be completed, if even started, by the fourth anniversary of the road’s collapse in July.
The former Bank of America building on Broadway, once the centerpiece of Shayne Gallo’s Midtown revival — he wanted to put a police station there — is on the market for $375,000, says Murphy Realty boss John Murphy. He reports a few nibbles.
Not for nothing, but I counted 15 (ground-floor) vacant stores on Broadway in Kingston during a spring morning stroll from East Chester Street to Albany Avenue last week.
I think it’s good that Andrew Cuomo went to Cuba. Now he knows what real upstate deprivation looks like. Cuomo, a vintage car buff, got to see a rambling wreck on every corner in Havana, along with crumbling buildings, people in rags. Just like upstate. But perhaps I exaggerate.
Much has been made of the state spending $53 million to create (so far) less than 100 jobs in its Start-Up New York promotion. But critics may be missing the point. That Start-Up TV blitz during the last three months of last year’s gubernatorial campaign for governor was clearly designed to save only one job. Cuomo’s.
