Roger Hannigan Gilson is reporting in the Register-Star under the city of Hudson's proposed 2017 $13.4 million budget taxes are slated to increase by nearly 2 percent, less than the state-mandated cap of 4.7 percent. The plan also calls for a 2.5 percent increase in spending over the previous year. Additional spending includes $27,000 set aside for Common Council legal counsel, a new position. Resident Steve Dunn said at a recent public meeting he favors the new position. "You should have your own attorney who’s accountable to you all," Dunn said to the council, "and you set the priorities, not the mayor." Former Mayor Richard Scalera disagreed, calling the additional expense "a slap in the taxpayers’ face." He pointed to city law which gives the mayor the authority to appoint an attorney for the council. He asked Mayor Tiffany Martin Hamilton if she would waive that right and leave the selection up to the council. Hamilton agreed to waive the law. The budget also includes the acquisition of four new police cars and the hiring of a fourth dispatcher for the Hudson Police Department. The police vehicles will be leased from the Ford Motor Company, not purchased. The lease agreement would be more affordable than buying the cars outright and will also cover a "lot of the maintenance," Police Commissioner Martha Harvey said. Other increases include a 21 percent boost to cover more staff hours and programming at the Hudson Senior Center and $100,000 for the Fire Truck Capital Reserve Fund. Common Council will vote on the budget November 30. Read the full story in the Register-Star.

Nick Olivari writes in the Register-Star about two Ghent residents with opposing views on potential changes to the Columbia County Airport. After months of discussion about extending the runway and then a grant for safety improvements for one of the hangars, the Federal Aviation Administration last week requested a wildlife study. Lifetime county resident Catherine Gallo lives in Hudson and works for Richmor Aviation at the airport. Gallo spoke in support of the facility at a recent Ghent Town Board meeting. She said complaints about the airport have heated up with the stream of new arrivals. "The airport was here first and we hadn’t had any complaints from neighbors for years." Gallo said. "What do they think, 747s will come in here? A Gulfstream is the biggest we have," she said. Judy Rusk, moved to Columbia County from Bangor, Maine, and has been a resident of Ghent for eight years. Rusk said, "I don’t mind the airport; we don’t want the airport to go away. We just don’t want it expanded and we would like an accounting of how does it play into the county as regards money coming and going." Rusk is also concerned about the environment. "Do we really want all these planes burning fuel in the air," she said. Read the full story in the Register-Star.

Casey Seiler is reporting at Capitol Confidential a group of Hoosick Falls residents held a press conference at the state Capitol Mon., Nov. 21. They said too little has changed in the Rensselaer County community to address the PFOA contamination crisis since June. Monday also marked one year since the federal Environmental Protection Agency told residents not to drink or cook with the water from the village system. The residents were accompanied by representatives of Environmental Advocates and Citizen Action. During the press conference, the residents presented a report card that gave Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state lawmakers failing marks on setting a new statewide safety limit for PFOA, and for overall government accountability and transparency issues. They also gave officials incomplete grades for establishing a rigorous bio-monitoring system for residents and the search for a viable new water source for the community. “If my child brought home this report card, she’d be grounded,” said resident Michele Baker. The residents said the Cuomo administration has fallen short in its outreach by providing helplines that were insufficiently staffed. “We stand before you exhausted and angry, because New York State has failed us,” Baker said. To see the Kyle Hughes (NYSNYS.com) video of Hoosick Falls resident Jennifer Plouffe talking about the questions of transparency and leadership, go to the WGXC Newsroom at wgxc [dot] org. To read the full story go to Capitol Confidential, a Times Union blog.

Daniel Zuckerman is reporting in The Daily Mail two fires in Palenville happened within six hours of each other, between Saturday night and the early hours of Sunday morning. Palenville Fire Department Chief Chip Spring said a brush fire started by a campfire was reported a little before 11 p.m., Sat., Nov. 19. Fueled by high winds, the fire eventually engulfed a shed, he said. Spring said the shed was a total loss, but no one was injured. Another building that housed a radio studio suffered minor damage as a result of the fire. The second blaze occurred on Malden Avenue in Palenville at 4:20 a.m., Sunday. “It was a fully involved structure [fire],” Spring said. The home was gutted, but no one was injured. Spring said that fire was started when paper towels fell onto a lit stove. Both fires are under investigation. Spring said the two incidents were unrelated. “It was a coincidence,” he said. Read the full story in The Daily Mail.

William J. Kemble is reporting in the Daily Freeman Ulster County lawmakers expect to hold a public hearing next month on a new law that would require pet sellers to check the animal abuse registry before an animal is sold. “It’s part of a two-part local law from last year,” said county Chairman Ken Ronk. Part one created the animal abuse registry, Ronk said. “If you’re convicted of an animal abuse crime you go on this registry for 15 years and you can’t buy a [cat or] dog," he said. Part two is the pet dealer licensing law. That measure would prohibit licensed pet dealers from selling a dog to someone on the registry. Any stores or breeders that sell nine or more dogs or cats a year, or breed three or more litters of dogs or cats are subject to the new law. The law also addresses the minimum standards of care for animals being kept by pet sellers, in both indoor and outdoor facilities. Read the full story in the Daily Freeman.

Chris McKenna is reporting at The Fray Sen. Charles Schumer has announced his support for a year-old bill that would provide compensation to social-security recipients to help offset their stagnant income. The SAVE Benefits Act, introduced last year, would have provided one-time payments of approximately $580 to recipients of social security, disability payments and veterans' benefits after it was learned payments would stay flat because inflation was so low. Only Democrats supported the bill, and it went nowhere. Interest in the proposal was revived last month when the latest inflation calculations showed benefits next year would increase by only $5 a month. Schumer said in a press release, “Millions of New York City seniors, veterans, and individuals who are disabled, need and deserve a fairer amount of money in their Social Security checks to help pay for the ever-increasing cost of rent, medicine and groceries.” Advocates argue the COLA formula is unfair to seniors because it undervalues the economic factors that have a direct impact on them, like medical care and housing. The flat COLA touches a lot of households in the region. As of January 2016, approximately 140,000 residents, or more than one in five, in Orange, Ulster and Sullivan counties, received some form of federal benefits. Read the full story at The Fray at HudsonValley [dot] com.

Local weather forecast:

Today: A chance of snow showers, mainly before 9 a.m. Partly sunny. High near 36. Tuesday night, partly cloudy. Low around 26.

FORECAST FOR THE NEXT TWO DAYS
WEDNESDAY: Mostly sunny. High near 39. Wednesday night, a chance of snow, mainly after 1 a.m. Mostly cloudy. Low around 27.
THURSDAY (Thanksgiving Day): Rain and snow likely before 1 p.m., then a chance of rain between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m., then a chance of rain and snow after 4 p.m. Cloudy. High near 37. Thursday night, a chance of rain and snow before 10 p.m., then a chance of freezing drizzle. Cloudy. Low around 31.

Sunrise today: 6:55 a.m.
Sunset today: 4:27 p.m.
LENGTH OF THE DAY: 9:32 hrs.

PUBLIC MEETINGS


Today is the fourth Tuesday of the month.
WGXC suggests calling ahead to confirm time and location.
All numbers are in the 518 area code unless otherwise noted.

CANAAN Zoning Board of Appeals, 7 p.m. at Town Hall, 1647 County Route 5, Canaan (781-3144).
CATSKILL Planning Board meeting, 7 p.m. at Town Hall, 439 Main St., Catskill (943-2141).
COLUMBIA County Board of Supervisors County Government Committee meeting, 5 p.m. at 401 State St., Hudson (828-1527).
COLUMBIA Economic Development Corporation Board of Directors meeting, 8:30 a.m. at 4303 Route 9, Hudson (828-4718).
GERMANTOWN Town Board meeting, 7 p.m. at Town Hall, 50 Palatine Park Road, Germantown (537-6687).
GREENPORT Planning Board meeting, 7:30 p.m. at Greenport Town Hall, Town Hall Drive, Hudson (828-4656).
GREENVILLE Planning Board meeting, 7 p.m. at Town Hall, 11159 Route 32, Greenville (966-5055).
HUDSON Development Corporation meeting (tentative), 12 p.m. at 1 N. Front St., Hudson (751-1044).

Jeffrey Eisenach, the head of the President-elect's telecom transition team, has now been named to the Federal Communications Commission transition team for Donald Trump, further leading speculation that he will be nominated for FCC chairman. Eisenach, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, an elite Republican think tank, would certainly end net neutrality, and, previously worked for Verizon, he has supported other mergers. So his views on the AT&T merger with Time-Warner might be different than his boss, who has spoken against the merger. Eisenach, “has been supportive of all the deals in the last few years, including the AT&T/[T-Mobile] and Comcast/Time Warner Cable deals,” according to a recent investor note from the analyst firm New Street Research. “Either there's going to be mass tension within his team, or he's going to sit back and let the [establishment conservatives] have their way — in which case, all of his campaign rhetoric on blowing up Comcast and AT&T was just cheap talk,” Hal Singer, an economist and senior fellow at the George Washington Institute for Public Policy, told the Washington Post. Beyond the chair, the FCC shakeup is unknown -- Republicans have blocked Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel's renomination for the commission, and if she does not get a full senate vote, she will leave when the new Congress is seated in January. Traditionally, the leader of the opposition party -- in this case New York Senator Chuck Schumer -- would nominate another Democrat to fill the seat on the FCC, with the president's nomination of a new chairperson flipping the vote 3-2 to the Republicans. But Trump has said he will not follow convention in every case, so it is hard to tell if Schumer will get to nominate a Democrat, or not.