U.S. Rep. Chris Gibson. (Photo: Dan Barton)
Tourist trains will be allowed on the Boiceville-to-Mount Tremper run. Tracks beyond Phoenicia to Highmount will be taken up, sold for scrap and replaced by trails. Revenues from scrap, lately depressed by the glut of imported Chinese steel, will be used to offset the millions necessary to create trails and amenities.
For trail advocates, it’s a happy ending. For rail enthusiasts, after bucking the relentless power and purse of county government, it’s an inevitable result.
Late break
A trio of county legislators, currently on the outs with the administration, has requested a “short-term renewal of the Catskill Mountain Railroad lease” owing to the fact the county probably won’t finish its review of RFPs by the announced May 20 deadline. Legislators Rich Parete, Dave Donaldson and Manna Jo Greene contend “it is extremely important for the tourist railroad to run continuously with no break in service due to the RFP process.” They are looking down the tracks at least six months: “An extension would allow CMRR to plan 2016 summer Polar Express events [which now run in winter].”
Apparently PD&G (catchy name for a railroad?) hasn’t been getting the loud signals from the executive branch. The Catskill Mountain Railroad is dead, kaput. It will not be given a lease on life. Nor will this resolution. Casey Jones had a better chance.
Gibson gone, again
I have to believe that decorated retired Army colonel Chris Gibson must have been one hell of a tactician during his four combat tours in Iraq. He’s just full of surprises.
Last January, Gibson surprised almost everybody by announcing he would not seek a fourth term. Then he surprised us again by flirting with a run for governor in 2018. Sounded serious, too, calling Democrat Andrew Cuomo a bully and a tyrant. (I thought he was talking about figures closer to home.) Now he tells us he’s done with politics, and at 52 (next Friday) will settle down as a visiting professor at Williams College in western Massachusetts, a scenic drive across the Berkshires from the Gibson ancestral home in Kinderhook.
Gibson, who holds a doctorate in history, once taught at West Point.
Official reason was family considerations, which I’m sure he considered. But I’m guessing this keen tactician judged a Republican running for governor against any Democrat in blue-blue New York was, like the one in Nijmegen back in ’44, a bridge too far.
Financially, Gibson won’t be holding fundraisers to pay off campaign debt like some others. In fact, he says he’ll return donations to supporters for his quixotic gubernatorial run, even though that’s not required by law.
Gibson’s Army pension (which he didn’t take while in Congress) is in the $65,000 range, with a congressional pension of at least $50,000. He earned it.
Looks like Hein took the kid for a ride. I hope the Legislature and Common Council have enough sense to strike the section that requires the 1% be passed. They have no control over that and it is completely irresponsible of them to allow that to be part of the financial survival of each and every municipalities in the county. That along with the cap on revenue, (which is also questionable), and the bus merger (which will never happen) make this a bad deal. The only people who will like it are the people in the Legislature who are looking for ways to stick it to Kingston. If Donaldson, Berky and Loughran support it, they should be voted out next time because the do not have the best interest of Kingston heart.
I think I should have reviewed my previous comment for typos before posting. Feel free to delete the previous comment and use this.
I am absolutely shocked at either how uninformed you are or how you have intentionally misrepresented the situation between the County and CMRR. I understand this isn’t a news column, but I expect some pretense of objectivity.
The reason that CMRR backed down and settled has nothing to do with “the locomotive of Ulster County government” – whatever that is supposed to mean. CMRR settled its suit because it realized, belatedly, that it never should have even brought the suit against the County. It was a bad decision with little upside. First, on the facts, CMRR didn’t have a case against the County. Second, looking at the forest, rather than the trees, it made little sense to litigate with the County when a) the lease expires at the end of May; and b) CMRR wants to be considered as a future tourist train operator for the County.
As for the costs to the taxpayers that you harp about- it was publicized that as part of the settlement, CMRR was reimbursing the County’s legal costs. Perhaps you wrote your column prior to that information being available.
I confess to being disappointed in your writing – as a child growing up in Kingston I admired it. I find it now mostly poorly written, biased conjecture. I am sad to think and write this. I look to the press as holding government accountable; but instead I see merely snarky commentary, pandering to those who are simply negative, with little of constructive value offered. You are one of the reasons that so many people are uninformed or misinformed. Just as many people wrongly think Iraq was responsible for 9/11; you have people thinking the County sued the CMRR when in fact, the CMRR sued the County. You have people thinking the County is kicking CMRR out, rather than the 25 year lease is expiring. People think the tracks that CMRR ran on are being ripped up, when in fact more rail will be available for tourist train operations under the Compromise,
You have a role and a duty and you are failing your readers. Hold government accountable, but don’t take tear it down with cheap shots and half truths.
Also, the request for proposal was not postponed to an indefinite date. Proposals were originally due 5/6, but at the request of a prospective bidder, the deadline was extended to 5/20.
Facts please.