Chris Allen, Saugerties freshman, may have a future on Dancing With the Stars. Allen, after voting for the legislation, switched sides and voted to sustain Hein’s veto, citing “bickering” by fellow legislators as his reason.
Dave Donaldson, a congenitally progressive Democrat who teamed with the 10-member GOP minority (and three other Democrats) to elect Democrat John Parete chairman over the vigorous protests of the Democratic majority, doesn’t always seem comfortable with his Republican bedfellows. Turning to the nearby press table as debate on the veto override wound down, Donaldson murmured, “Hard to believe Republicans are the reformers in this legislature.”
Speak for yourself, John
Legislature chairman John Parete is the kind of guy who likes to start conversations on public issues because talk sometimes leads to action. Sometimes Parete should speak for himself.
Case in point. At last week’s county legislature meeting, Parete advanced the idea of establishing taxing districts to support emergency medical units around the county. Parete said he wasn’t talking about raising anybody’s taxes, though of course that has to be part of the conversation. He claimed he wasn’t for or against what he was proposing. He just wanted to start a conversation.
And he has. But sometimes talk is cheap. Taxing districts for special purposes, be it to fund volunteer fire companies, lighting, water or sewer districts, or libraries are nothing new. They’re a kind of user fee that voters impose upon themselves.
Some taxpayers who don’t read much might grumble about being taxed so bookworms can to their thing, as would those with outhouses in sewer districts. But emergency services are matters of life and death. Who would seriously argue against paying a few dollars a year, maybe even a hundred, to assure that highly trained EMTs will be there when needed?
It’s good that Parete raised this issue, undoubtedly after discussing it with EMT units struggling to make ends meet. It would be even better if he stepped forward as county chairman as an advocate.
Parete, Legislator T.J. Briggs (a member of the Ellenville Rescue Squad) and EMS board Chairman Lou Klein will host a public discussion on the proposal at Parete’s Boiceville Inn on Route 28 at 6 p.m. this Thursday.
Freddie foiled
Other than winners, Ulster town Republicans didn’t announce the results of last week’s party caucus, reportedly out of deference to losers.
Good luck with that. About 300 votes were cast. That’s material for lots of leaks. As Ben Franklin once observed, the only way to keep a secret between two people is if one of them is dead.
According to reliable sources who asked not to be identified, three-term incumbent Jim Quigley trounced challenger Fred Wadnola, a former town supervisor, by a count of 183-114. Party-designated clerk candidate Linda McDonough was buried 208-75 by challenger Sue Greavy. Wadnola and McDonough had been endorsed by the town’s GOP executive committee.
Greavy, who some say is related either by blood or marriage to half the Republicans in the town, got a boost from a ringing nominating speech from former town clerk Jason Cosenza. Incumbent councilmen Joel Brink and Eric Kitchen, fresh from hospital beds, were also nominated.
The rap on Quigley was that he had changed his mind a couple of times this year about seeking another term. The lingering question is whether he’ll complete his next term. Last week’s vote of confidence from rank-and-file Republicans may convince him to stay the course.
Republican party leaders groused that Quigley, who campaigned door-to-door in blistering heat and sent out a mailing just before the caucus, should have gotten even more votes. Wadnola, they said, barely campaigned at all. The non-campaign he ran in the May school board elections had similar results.
Town Democrats didn’t even bother to caucus. Thus the majority party in the town will be offering their majority no choices this fall. Rocco Secreto is the only Democrat on the five-member town board. Party leaders pledge to do better in 2017.
Addiction to local politics can be more destructive, but sometimes it takes years to see the full effects of this destruction. Thus, preventive strategies are not presented, and closing the barn door after the horse went out isn’t very effective either. Mix addiction to local politics with another serious addiction such as alcoholism, and you can have a type of trouble that even “horse” can’t replicate–and the effects can last, through last wills and testaments–through succeeding generations. I see however from the other publication, that they are making Saugerties High School into a disseminator of mental health industry propaganda from NYU. Lovely–as if this area was not already challenged in terms of how we treat each other, or how the folks from NYC come up here with their mental schmental industry pill addiction, so as to prop up what little economy is left here on the altar of supposedly doing good. But–enrollment in the Democratic Party soars, so Dems feel that “Bern” way more than for Sanders.
I know, some people may think I am on my “high horse” when I say that here, but that’s only because they haven’t walked in my moccasins, put on my spurs, or saddled up that horse like I have.
Let me expound upon that prior comment as well. The mental illness industry(which is what it is and the concept it promotes)is far too lucrative to entrust a decent concept like mental “health” to. This is especially true of government funded agencies, which typically have little to no incentive than to promote more government incompetence–and we are living in an era of genuine “medical kidnap” as a matter of government and medical industry collusion, all for the Almighty Dollar to be gained by the industry, of course.
Seriously reform–and I do mean seriously–the mental illness industry, top to bottom, to make it into something that has so much as a decent SHOT at promoting mental health in some affirmative and effective manner–and THEN I listen. Before doing so–it is only more of the same industry-driven hogwash.
The most effective tool at promoting wellness and an anti-drug addiction/anti-addiction culture is most certainly not the mental illness industry(which promotes a drug culture, only in a different way and different drugs). Instead, the most effective way yet found to accomplish this is through Al-Anon and Narc-Anon. But the INDUSTRY doesn’t PROFIT from Narc-Anon and Al-Anon(at least not directly, and getting those bucks is what it’s all about). And whether you privatized the mental illness delivery system that used to be entirely publicly financed previously or not, the same problem remains, which is piss-poor delivery system design and piss-poor philosophy and economics driving the INDUSTRY.
Viewing the history of Psychiatry itself is an “awakening” fit for the term:Walter Freeman and his lobotomy machines, electroshock machines, insulin shock “treatments”, straightjackets and other restraints and various and sundry skullduggery. Much of that has been replaced, say the true believers, by relatively “humane” treatments(defined as “less of a torture”, just ask Judy Garland, oh we can’t…the industry did her in, shucks…)so on this basis we’re just supposed to accept all this skullduggery for profit in the name of the Almighty American Dollar Portfolios, in a system devoid entirely of science. P.T. Barnum famously said “a sucker is born every minute”, and these days, instead of going to the circus, these folks support the mental illness system in all its glossed up, puckered up, lipsticked up, unscientific skullduggery, and therefore gee, because there is an addiction problem, bring back that old pig, put lipstick on him, dress him up, roast him, and serve him for Christmas such that, well, once that’s done, it’ll feel just like Christmas, right? Now aside from all that, addiction is a genuine issue, a serious problem, and certainly can be considered as a bona fide concern of public health. I just wish that the underlying system, ie, the mental illness system, was well equipped to handle it even with the funding. It isn’t. And that’s the biggest problem of them all!!