[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="195" caption="Rep. Chris Gibson, R-Kinderhook"][/caption]Congressman Chris Gibson has been named to the House Republican Policy Committee, it was announced yesterday, January 27. The Times Union reports that Gibson, who will be at Columbia-Greene Community College at 11:45 a.m. with Assemblyman Marc Molinaro, is considered one of the leading experts on military and veterans issues among the large GOP freshman class. The first-term Republican from Kinderhook in Columbia County has been saying that he hopes to use his military background to benefit the committee. Gibson has also said he hopes to influence House Republican policy on the key issues he campaigned on, including jobs, the economy and an aggressive strategy for energy independence... including reintroducing the idea of nuclear power into the Hudson Valley, probably in Greene County. “I was honored to accept this appointment to the House Republican Policy Committee under the leadership of Chairman Price, and am looking forward to the opportunity to expand the number of issues on which I can have an impact,” the Times Union quotes Gibson saying. The congressman also serves on the House Agriculture and Armed Services Committees.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Bryan D. Geel, 26, is facing 17 felonies for allegedly breaking into houses in the towns of Ghent, Chatham, Canaan, and the village of Valatie. Photo by police."][/caption]A Chatham man was arrested Wednesday, January 26, after allegedly breaking into 17 residences in a two week period. He was caught, said authorities, after he burglarized the home of someone who knew him and called police. According to reports on the case in the Register-Star and Times Union, Columbia County sheriff’s deputies responded to a 911 call from a 15-year-old girl who had called after a pick-up truck she didn’t recognize came up her driveway and Geel allegedly entered her house. Police say she hid under her bed until the intruder left. Soon after that incident the State Police responded to another Ghent residence where Geel was surprised by a homeowner who recognized him while the suspect was going through kitchen cabinets. Geel was later picked up in Chatham and was taken to the State Police barracks in Livingston. Bryan D. Geel, 26, is now facing 17 felonies for allegedly breaking into houses in the towns of Ghent, Chatham, Canaan, and the village of Valatie. All the crimes occurred during the day, said police. The police said Geel has been cooperative and has admitted to the crimes and said he was looking for prescription drugs, among other items, during the break-ins. The suspect has been charged by the State Police with nine counts of second-degree burglary, a class C felony. The Sheriff’s Office has charged Geel with seven counts of second-degree burglary and one count of attempted second-degree burglary, a class D felony. He was arraigned in Ghent Town Court and remanded to the Columbia County Jail without bail pending further court action. Geel is scheduled to reappear in Ghent Town Court Jan. 31 at 2 p.m.

The indie-rock festival All Tomorrow's Parties, which was held at Kutshers Country Club in the Catskills for the past three years, is moving on to Asbury Park, NJ next summer, according to reports throughout the media this week, and picked up locally at both the Watershed Post and Daily Freeman. "This is a huge blow for the Borscht Belt," WP said of the shift, and an old name for the Sullivan County part of the Catskills where ATP was. "Just last summer, a new investor attempted to revive Kutshers with an infusion of new cash and some much-needed improvements to the crumbling infrastructure." Last summer, ATP attracted 2,300 people for a bill that included Sonic Youth, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, and films and music curated by Greene County landowner Jim Jarmusch.



According to the New York Times, Kutshers outGreene County attack monkey dies peacefully of cancer-of-the-way and moldy charm stopped being so charming to ATP's organizers last summer, who noted that “It was a little bit beyond the pale.” Economics, the paper of record added. was also a factor. Kutsher’s location off the beaten path, and its relatively small concert capacity, meant that costs were high and the potential return was low. Its total capacity was 3,000, but last year only 2,300 people attended. By contrast, the Convention Hall in Asbury Park holds 3,600 people, and the Paramount 1,600. Next year's festival has been announced for the last weekend in September and will be curated by Portishead.

Later, in an update today, the Watershed Post noted a newly uncovered e-mail that refers to ATP holding $one million in debt, much of it to Kutshers, as part of its reason for the New Jersey move.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="200" caption="Benjamin, the "Greene County Attack Monkey," as seen in the NY Daily News."][/caption]The Watershed Post brought up a New York Daily News story about Benjamin, the "monkey terror of Greene County," who attacked a guest at the Kaaterskill Bed and Breakfast last summer and then was spirited away to Florida by his owner, who himself fled to South America. Benjamin, both publications say, died of cancer on Monday in a Florida home for difficult primates. "This means he successfully avoided Greene County's halfhearted attempt to euthanize him for biting the face of an Iranian immigrant who was trying to photograph him in his cage at the Catskill bed-and-breakfast," WP reports, adding that the Daily News writes that "the 17-year-old monkey spent his last days getting his face scratched and back rubbed by Jungle Friends workers while enjoying a diet of cooked vegetables." Benjamin's owner, Allen Hirsch, is being sued by the attack victim and could face additional charges from the New York Department of Environmental Conservation -- if he ever returns from Venezuela.

A petition to the Village of Athens demanding that the Village Board’s decision to dissolve the Village Court be put to a public referendum was submitted yesterday, January 28, by justice David Cole, according to the Daily Mail. The board voted late last year by a 3-2 margin to dissolve the court and transfer all its cases to the Town Court. Mayor Andrea Smallwood, Deputy Mayor Herman Reinhold, and Trustee Gail Lasher voted to dissolve; Robert June and Tom Sopris voted against the measure. According to the board’s vote, the court would be dissolved at the end of March, when Cole’s current term is set to expire. Cole, however, has since led the effort to have the decision put before the voters in a public referendum. According to New York State law, any decision rendered by a municipality can be turned over to the voters if a petition is signed by at least 20% of the registered voters who participated in the previous village election. Cole’s petition has 118 signatures. Last year, 1,153 voters participated in the village election. A final legal decision has not been rendered.

Village officials in favor of consolidating village cases into the Town Court say the decision was made because of financial considerations – they contend that last year, the Village Court operated at a deficit of more than $5,000, costing taxpayers money. But opponents say the court is not there as a money maker, but rather as a service to the residents of the village. Many of them say the decision should be up to the voters.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="481" caption="Taconic Hills Central School, in Copake"][/caption]While other school districts throughout our coverage area have been mulling drastic spending cuts and consolidation moves for the coming year, the Taconic Hills Board of Education heard a rare Faculty Association grievance before its regular meeting in Copake on Wednesday, January 26, which the Register-Star's John Mason describes as having gotten some hoping for a new era of communication in the district. Although things didn't start off all that well with Board Vice-President George Lagonia accusing the union of wasting the taxpayers’ money by filing frivolous grievances, and Faculty Association President Kevin Reis exhorting board members to stand up to what he called the bullying tactics of Superintendent Mark Sposato. After a Global Studies Teacher praised the district’s attorney for facilitating the event, however, things started to settle down somewhat and after much discussion, the grievance, which involved the implementation of the Response to Intervention teaching methodology, was tabled until April. That methodology, used in a majority of schools nationwide, as well as in Taconic Hills' elementary school, is a school process used to determine if a student is responding to classroom instruction and progressing as expected.



In the process, a student who is struggling receives additional instructional support provided by matching instruction to a student’s individual needs through a multi-tier instructional model. Each level provides instruction with increased intensity, such as smaller groups or instructional time focused on specific areas. The questions that arose in the district involved where to find the extra time for such added interventions, and one-on-one teaching, which teachers suggested needed additional hires to match rising class sizes. “This grievance comes up not because of compensation or because of AIS not being followed,” the complaint said. “We don’t believe there has been a [thorough] review of the RtI program by the board. This grievance is asking you to formulate whether you need to do that.” Other talk at the meeting compared the administration's communications with teachers as having a bullying tone, which board members said they'd like to see improved.

Astronomical bodies
TIDES Hudson: High, 10:07 a.m./Low, 5:03 p.m.
SUNRISE/SUNSET 7:08 a.m./5:09 p.m.
MOONRISE/MOONSET 2:45 a.m./12.10 p.m.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="175" caption="Hudson Common Council President Don Moore, from city's website."][/caption]Thursday morning WGXC"s "Tell It Like It Is" featured a long interview with Hudson Common Council president Don Moore and Friends of Hudson President Christopher Reed. WGXC's Richard Roth and Alan Skerrett asked about the Hudson waterfront, the LWRP plan, possible new businesses nearby, environmental issues, and other topics for a full 45 minutes. Click here to listen to an mp3 recording, or copy and paste the following url into your computer's media player:
http://www.wgxc.org/media/uploaded_files/2011/01/DonMoore_ChristopherReed_Talkabout_HudsonLWRPwaterfrontplanon_TellItLikeItIs_012711.mp3

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="New York State Senate Districts"][/caption]Redistricting of state Assembly and Senate seats, expected this Spring after final Census numbers get hashed out and released in April, seem poised to present good news to New York Democrats, despite rumblings from the new Republican majority in the State Senate, formally in control of redistricting, to do things on their own and not through a citizen's commission, as previously promised. According to The Capitol, demographers are saying a few things are already clear: minorities are moving to the suburbs of Long Island and Westchester, while upstate districts are losing residents. "Add to that the passage of a state law forbidding prison-based gerrymandering and new rules from the Supreme Court on how states can use the Voting Rights Act to draw districts, and several traditionally Republican districts upstate may have to be consolidated or redrawn." The number of Senate and Assembly districts is not set in stone. While Legislators prefer an even number of districts to avoid giving any one party an advantage, they can always vote to add more. After the 2000 census, for instance, the state added its 62nd Senate district. Legislators of both parties seem likely to put some restrictions on the process. Bills introduced by both Democrats and Republicans for the new redistricting suggest “limits placing incumbents against each other” and “preservation of county boundaries” as possible criteria for any new district map.

Upstate districts will lose a combined 60,000 constituents to changes in prison-based gerrymandering—the process of counting prison populations in the district where they are incarcerated instead of where each prisoner is from. “Most of the prison population—over 43,000 people—are from New York City,” said Dale Ho, Assistant Counsel to the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund. “The next largest chunk are from Long Island, then Westchester. Draw your own conclusions about what that will do to districts in those areas.”

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="200" caption="Plans for Greenport Wal-Mart conversion to Columbia County offices as seen on The Gossips of Rivertown website."][/caption]The future of Columbia County offices, and where they'll end up, is the subject of two blog stories online today that focus on a new Request for Proposals to study the issue that's gone out from county administrators in the past week. Matthew Frederick of Hudson Urbanism reports how, "Two months ago, the Department of Social Services floated a proposal to move most of its operations, currently housed in four separate buildings in Hudson, to an empty Wal-Mart building on Fairview Avenue. The proposal was widely criticized, although perhaps not as much as an earlier proposal to move social services to the Ockawamick School in Claverack. More recently, the county issued a Request for Proposals to attract a qualified firm to formally study its spatial needs and recommend how and where county offices (save for those legally mandated to remain in Hudson) ultimately ought to live." Carole Osterink also reports, in her Gossips of Rivertown, how the Columbia County Capital Resource Corporation (CRC) recently issued a Request for Proposals for "Space Needs Assessment, Programming and Design Criteria Services." "This latest move doesn't mean the Wal-Mart plan is off the table," Osterink writes, quoting the RFP's statement that "The CRC has been investigating one such proposal of purchasing a vacant Wal-Mart store located in the Town of Greenport for a location for consolidated offices. It is expected that this would be an alternative that would be part of this project."

Watershed Post has posted a new video from Delaware County real estate agent Frank Lumia, one of its business underwriters, produced for the environmental news and video website BigGreenTV that explains water pollution by using magic tricks. Lumia is a well-known local magician and entertainer as well as being a real estate broker, and "he has outdone himself to make point source, nonpoint source, and thermal water pollution entertaining with a blues harmonica, a green screen, different kinds of colored sand, a backup band, and several goldfish," according to WP's Julia Reischel. For inventive ways to underwrite programming on WGXC online and on-air, click here...

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Lt. Gov. Robert J. Duffy, former mayor of Rochester, has been pegged with leading the state's promised rethinking of its approach to the business community, including restructuring of its Empire State Development Corp, which is still without a named head. Image from Governor's website."][/caption]Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been pushing the idea of making New York State more business-friendly, and yet The Capitol is reporting that the 10 regional economic councils Cuomo planned to create are not yet formed and his plans to makeover the Empire State Development Corp. are “shrouded in secrecy.” They note that as far as they can tell, Cuomo is trusting Lt. Gov. Bob Duffy, the former mayor of Rochester seen as an Upstate advocate, to oversee the regional councils, and is "intent on moving away from the top-down, New York City-and-Albany-driven models of the past, empowering the regional councils with funding and bond-buying powers, and instilling a sense of competition in the process to encourage growth." Yet the story also summarizes growing worries that the administration's failure to name a new ESDC head, or outline specific changes to its long-criticized policies, is a bad omen of yet another promise that could likely go un-kept. Those are answered, however, by several upstate development specialists who note that such matters will likely stream to the top of the state's agenda following the submission of an executive budget on February 1. The Capital notes several names that have been floated for the ESDC president, including ex-Rep. Scott Murphy, who lost his reelection bid against Republican Chris Gibson last November, and Mike Carey, an economic development official under Rudy Giuliani whose father, former Gov. Hugh Carey, is often credited with helping rescue New York City during the fiscal crisis of the 1970s. But neither man, the publication goes on to say, seems eager to take the job. A Cuomo chairman said only that the name of the ESDC president and the membership of the regional councils would be publicized in “the coming weeks.”

The U.S. Small Business Administration is expanding federal contracting opportunities for women-owned small businesses effective Feb. 4. Kathy Kahn of HV Biz reports that the SBA move is based on analysis in The Rand Report, commissioned by the agency from the Kauffman-Rand foundation and released in March, 2010, which identified 83 industries in which women-owned small businesses are underrepresented or substantially underrepresented. A new set of procedures authorized by the Small Business Act known as The Final Rule will help to ensure a level playing field on which women-owned and run businesses can compete for federal contracting opportunities, while helping achieve the existing statutory goal that 5 percent of federal contracting dollars go to women-owned small businesses. In accordance with the statute, the Final Rule authorizes a set-aside of federal contracts for women-owned small businesses or economically disadvantaged women-owned small businesses where the anticipated contract price does not exceed $5 million in the case of manufacturing contracts and $3 million in the case of other contracts, if certain conditions are met.

Procurement technical assistance centers work with small businesses that have been actively pursuing and getting business for at least one year, is a comprehensive resource for small businesses that seek to market and sell its products and/or services to government agencies – the U.S. Department of Defense, federal, state and local governments and their prime contractors. PTAC acts as a bridge between a government buyer and supplier. Currently, New York's only such centers are in the Metro New York and lower Hudson Valley regions, Rochester, and the northwestern Adirondacks.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="200" caption="SUNY Albany, as seen on its website."][/caption]The University at Albany will double its undergraduate international student enrollment, expand research funding and improve marketing to recruit the brightest high school recruits. An Albany Business Journal story is reporting how SUNY-Albany President George Philip outlined a five- to seven-year strategic plan this week that he believes will take the 18,000-student university to the next level. The school, which has been squeezed by more than $33.5 million in state aid cuts over the past three years, is committed to increasing federal research funding by 50 percent over the next five years. The school has responded to those aid reductions by eliminating 200 jobs through attrition over the past two years and developing a plan to scale back some foreign languages with declining enrollment. But the challenge of overcoming a tough fiscal environment also provides an opportunity, Philip said, who has also helped push through a new school for nanotechnology education in recent years.

The university, which attracts nearly 1,300 international students, including 480 undergraduates, wants that number to grow. The goal in the next five years is to double the percentage of international undergraduate students, which currently stands at 3.3 percent.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has set a time of 1 p.m. next Tuesday, February 1, for the formal release of his first-ever state budget although no place for that release has been formally set yet. According to the Times Union, speculation is that the event will take place om the Kitty Carlisle Hart Theatre in The Egg, the steep-pitched performing arts center just off the Concourse in the Empire State Plaza adjacent to the Capital, where Gov. David Paterson made his budget pitch last year. Final logistics as to the location are likely to be settled today, according to sources.

Paterson’s appearance last year was somewhat bittersweet for The Egg: It got a statewide profile but learned that it would lose $600,000 and have to merge with the New York State Theatre Institute. The Egg ended up getting about half of its funding back in the final budget, while NYSTI’s fortunes took a troublesome turn three months later. The Troy-based children’s stage company went belly-up at the end of the year.

The Hudson City Common Council has received a letter from the former St. Lawrence Cement, now known as Holcim, that the cement company has no plans to sell its waterfront dock property any time soon, despite a resolution passed on the council's part earlier this month to seek purchase of the property. Both the Register-Star and Gossips of Rivertown have reports on the matter arising at a Common Council legal committee Wednesday night, January 26, when Alderwoman Ellen Thurston, D-Hudson3, revealed the letter from Holcim’s corporate attorney to City Attorney Cheryl Roberts. At January’s informal meeting a few weeks ago, Alderwoman Sarah Sterling, D-Hudson1, introduced a resolution which would authorize Mayor Rick Scalera to negotiate with Holcim for the purchase of the company’s waterfront property, based largely on Holcim's grieving of a $4.5 million tax assessment it had received on its deep water port at the city’s riverfront, with City Attorney John Connor calling the company's belief that the dock is actually worth $1.5 million "bogus."

Holcim's attorney wrote that the port property is the “primary means by which aggregate is shipped from the quarry to its customers by O&G Industries, who is currently operating on the property.” It is for this reason, Smith wrote, that it is not likely Holcim would consider selling the port property and the quarry property separately. Separately, the Holcim attorney wrote that the company looked forward to “a continuing and productive dialogue” with the city concerning the draft Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan, which is currently in the hands of the Department of State for review and is expected to be passed in the not-so-distant future.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="200" caption="Windham Ashland Jewett School"][/caption]As a new means of facing dwindling educational prospects in our regional future, based on slipping state aid and rising costs, Windham-Ashland-Jewett board of education members approved a resolution this week that authorizes the district to participate in a Request for Proposal for a “Shared and Consolidated Services Feasibility Study,” ultimately spending money to save money. The Daily Mail reports that in doing so, WAJ joins Hunter-Tannerville and Greenville Central schools in support of the RFP, an idea initiated by the Greene County School Boards Association in early January. It is now anticipated that the county’s three remaining school districts — Cairo-Durham, Catskill and Coxsackie-Athens — will similarly sign onto the RFP, according to Bill Haltermann, president of the GCSBA and a WAJ school board member.

Haltermann said the RFP will be sent out on February 1 with interested consulting firms responding within two weeks, then submitting cost packages to the GCSBA by March 7, setting the stage for an April 30 contract awarding. The general objectives of the study are to research short-term and long-term options that will enhance educational programs while improving the quality, efficiency and scope of current services and reducing operating and/or capital expenses.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Ichabod School Board President Andrew Kramarchyk encourages members of the public to offer input in the formation of the 2011-2012 school budget at a recent Community Forum in early January. A second such session was held this past Tuesday, January 25. Image from ICCS website."][/caption]For nearly two hours, the Ichabod Crane School District's latest Community Forum on Tuesday, January 25 at the High School auditorium in Kinderhook heard over 30 speakers defend their schools' art, music, theater and languages classes in the face of possible cuts and growing deficit problems, including parents, current students, graduates and other district residents. According to the Register-Star, the meeting, which drew about 300 people, was the second in a series of five forums intended to reach a community consensus about where the community wants to see Ichabod Crane headed, and to inform residents about the current budget crisis. Two previous forums took place in 2010. “We’re in new territory that none of us in education have experienced,” said Interim Superintendent Lee Bordick. Enrollment is declining precipitously: The senior class has 183 students, while the kindergarten has 119. The district’s population — 1,961 students — is below 2,000 for the first time. Meanwhile, state aid is declining, and a probable 2 percent property tax increase cap threatens to leave the district with a $3 million shortfall. An 18 percent tax increase would cover this, but even without the tax hike cap, officials want to prevent that scenario and have been speaking about closing one or two elementary schools and possibly cutting kindergarten to half days and getting rid of a pre-K program started in recent years.

The National Weather Service has posted a Thursday's forecast that says it will be partly cloudy and seasonably cold, with a high near 32 and wind from the Northwest between 8 and 12 mph. Thursday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 17. Southwest wind between 5 and 10 mph.

Astronomical bodies
TIDES Hudson: High, 9:04 a.m./Low, 3:59 p.m.
SUNRISE/SUNSET 7:17 a.m./5:06 p.m.
MOONRISE/MOONSET 1:38 p.m./11:34 a.m.

A new report, released with a notable press conference in Albany on January 25, is stating that poor and minority students, including those in rural areas like ours, stand to suffer the most from the expected school aid cuts Gov. Andrew Cuomo has promised. In its study "Unequal Opportunity = Unequal Results," the Alliance for Quality Education claims there is an education funding gap of $788 million between schools with a high percentage of poor students and the wealthiest districts. Higher income schools also spend $37,664 more per classroom each year, the report said. The Times Union reports in its piece about the press conference that the alliance of education advocates are saying that the budget ax should not continue to fall on schools, which took a $1.4 billion hit in last year's state budget, according to its executive director Billy Easton. "Kids lost a lot this year," Easton said. "Kids have been giving for a long time to balance the budget." Legislators and public-education activists have begun pushing back against expected school aid cuts a week before Cuomo has even released his budget, due February 1, and in advance of his proposed 2 percent property tax cap.

The group had few ideas for where the funding could come from because the state is facing a $10 billion budget gap, other than to say that Cuomo should restore the so-called "millionaire's tax," a surcharge on households making more than $300,000, which is set to expire at the end of the year.

The alliance received almost $500,000 in funding from New York State United Teachers and is partnering with the union for activism around the state. More than a dozen legislators from across the state attended the group's media event Tuesday.

The union funds will support rallies, local media events, phone banks and door-to-door campaigns to fight against school cuts. Easton said the goal is to unite educators, parents, clergy, politicians and community leaders around their schools.

About 70 percent of the average school district budget goes to salary, but Easton dismissed any notion that educators could accept a pay freeze to reduce district expenses.

He said it had become "stylish" to pass the cuts on to teachers and that schools would not be able to keep their best employees if salaries were cut any further.

Annual state school aid is more than $20 billion a year, which Cuomo said in his State of the State speech earlier this month translates into the highest per-student spending in the nation. The state Division of Budget says more than 70 percent of state school aid goes to salaries and benefits.