Dear Nieces and Nephews, what’s interesting about the activities
of some of our elected officials is what they actually release to the public.
Take for example, the recent press releases from the now infamous Stevie
Thunder (Steve Neuhaus) regarding jobs at the casino in Sullivan County.
05-12-15 Neuhaus rolls out first step of plan
to bring jobs to Orange County through Montreign Resort Casino
In this press release he announces that he is revealing the
first step in his plan to bring those Sullivan County jobs to Orange County
residents. (And while he does that, the people of Sullivan County are going to
sit on their hands and watch) Nowhere in the press release does he actually
reveal the plan or at least the first step. He does make vague references to
minorities, women and veterans, which seems to be a quota of sorts. Steve makes
nice-nice with the casino VP, Charlie Degliomini, who might know Langdon Chapman,
the not-too-present Orange County Attorney. (Maybe Langdon IS getting that
casino job!)
STEVE SAID: “I think
that we have an opportunity to set a goal for 1,000 jobs for Orange County
residents at Montreign, We have the workforce in place and I look forward to
this plan developing and flourishing.”
How, Steve, How? Is this part of your 1000 jobs in a 1000 days? You never explained that one either.
Big meeting too! For this announcement, with other politicos
there.
Still no idea what that plan is.
All for show.
And then today:
05-13-15 Legislation
would give Orange County role in large annexations
But think about this: a County Executive who answers to all
of the voters in OC including the block vote of the Village of Kiryas Joel,
making an impartial decision in regards to annexation. Do you feel confident
ceding power to the county government in this way?
Couple this with the parallel SEQR, it gets even more
interesting. On its face, the $200k for a parallel SEQR seems good. That is, If it is not a ruse to justify increased sewer capacity (a miracle) at the Harriman
plant; which would benefit that one expanding community greatly. Never mind
that there are people in private residences in Monroe, Woodbury etc. who have
been waiting for years to “hook up”. They won’t mind if someone else jumps the
queue in front of them. They can continue to use their septic tanks and still
pay taxes to support the sewer district.
But even if this county participation was a good idea, even
if it passed both houses, it would not take effect until a future date and this
507 annexation would not be affected. Too little, too late.
All for show
CE Neuhaus' comments on providing construction jobs for the new casino is nothing but hot air. Men working on these sites often are hired in crews from out of state and work and live at the site. Sometimes they don't see their families for weeks. These are not 9-5 jobs and no one will have time to travel on a bus every day. Does this man have any clue. And if I was in charge of this construction I sure as heck would hire local if I wanted to keep the peace in Sullivan Cnty.
ReplyDeleteAnd it is ironic that this pic at the end was posted. Latest article in Mid Hudson News:
http://www.midhudsonnews.com/News/2015/May/14/KJ_annex_OCL-14May15.html
Nearly had an accident when I read this one. CE says good idea if legislators vote Yea or Nay. Best buds Karl and Larkin to the rescue.
Hey Steve did you forget that Sen. Willy Larkin, got you FIRED from your position in Walden then Deprospo told Jim Taylor to FIRE YOU. Guess u have a politicans short memory.
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to judge anyone's motives here, or the chances of success of the legislation. No one reading this was born last night. What I will say is that the County Legislature is the right body to oversee this. Simply put, it will be the last to go completely under the influence of the Bloc vote. Legislators are elected by districts that are for the most part far from this fray, yet watch their tax dollars get sucked in. Towns that still have control of their own boards have nothing to fear from another layer of oversight at the county level. It is only in a town that has lost its board to Bloc voting or corruption that the county is likely to reach a different decision on an annexation than they did.
ReplyDeleteWith all due respect to Nephew Dan, the legislation as proposed is basically trying to do something that is contrary to the NYS Constitution, which is exert legislative control over the state.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it is somewhat naive to think that legislators in other districts will not succumb to the block vote in the future, especially considering the property owned by the real estate arm of KJ,
When did you and Karlapolooza become friends?
As I've been saying for the last year, the county legislature should be the lead agency in the SEQRA process for the reason I've stated above. I've been there. It has to do with the affected territory language in SEQRA. That is where our hope of useful legislation lies. That is where the focus should be. Lets say that Skoufis' legislation had been in place before the annexation and the DEC had picked the Town of Monroe instead of KJ as Lead Agency based on the KJ record. So what? KJ controls that board too. We need a mechanism that will move that control out of the Bloc controlled boards. As for my friends, that list is kind of short lately. I welcome every step, no matter how small, by every elected official, in the direction of stopping this illegal annexation. We can all judge motives at later. For now, I say that if you don't let people come to you, they won't.
ReplyDeleteI am hopeful that the Skoufis legislation can delay annexation from surrounding towns, but I am fearful that we are fighting with a two year strategy against a bloc with a 100 year strategy.
ReplyDeleteThe only way to stop a board that is corrupt is to remove them from office like they did in monticello. Dont make a state wide law that will hurt everyone just because of monroe.
ReplyDeleteOk Mr. Anonymous, I'll bite. How would a state law that gave the County Legislature the right to petition to become lead agency when one municipality seeks to annex land from another that would change either by more than 10% or by more than 100 acres, (The change in SEQRA that should be perused IMHO) hurt everyone? If you think this is only a Monroe problem then I don't know what else to do. In my Assembly election, I won the vast majority of the Conservative Voters outside of KJ. Brabanec won inside 80 to 1 I think. He won the line by 30 or 40. On the Republican line I won the vast majority of voters outside of KJ. He beat me inside 800 to 3. He won the line by 300 votes. The vast majority of Democratic voters picked Crystal Serrano as their Candidate. KJ picked Tutini. Tutini won the primary. Your Republican and Democratic candidates to represent 8 or 9 towns were picked by the bloc vote of 1 village. Wait till this annexation happens and the bloc goes from 7000 to 25000. KJ will pick every candidate, in each party, for every office from congress on down. Monroe problem? You sure?
ReplyDelete