Rick Karlin reports in the Times Union that. nine towns in Schoharie County are suing New York state about new rules on how solar farms are taxed. The state's standardized taxing method includes a large discount, that the town's say costs them millions of dollars of school and property tax revenue. Solar developers say the different assessment was devised to make the solar farms economically possible to create less-polluting energy. Last week State Supreme Court Justice Christina Ryba's temporary restraining order halted, at least temporarily, use of the new assessment method. Arguments will be heard later this month. “Hopefully it can be resolved soon,” said Anne Reynolds, executive director of the Alliance for Clean Energy, which represents numerous solar farm developers. The Schoharie County towns of Blenheim, Carlisle, Cobleskill, Conesville, Esperance, Jefferson, Middleburgh, Sharon, and Summit are part of the lawsuit. “The real crux of this lawsuit was that they didn’t follow the State Administrative Procedures Act,” said Dylan Harris, the lawyer representing the towns. The municipalities want to protect their tax revenue, and the solar farms want to be economically successful, and the court will decide between the two positions. a href="https://www.timesunion.com/business/article/Solar-farm-tax-battle-lands-in-court-17142399.php">Read more about this story in the Times Union.

Today I was joined by farmers, educators, & nutritional experts at a press conference in announcing my bill (A.9990) to put NY-produced whole & 2% milk back in schools. Call your state Assemblyman and Senator and tell them to co-sponsor the bill and vote to bring back whole & 2%! pic.twitter.com/w4YNjsCGtX

— Chris Tague (@chrisWCtague) May 2, 2022

On May 2 Chris Tague, who represents the 102nd district in the New York State Assembly, held a press conference about a bill of his that would allow schools to purchase whole and two percent milk that’s produced within the state. Tague argues that that two percent and whole milk is healthier than fat free and one percent milk. But ten years ago the federal government believed otherwise, banning whole milk nationally — and therefore in all of New York state — in 2010. So Tague's bill (A.9990) is political theater, since New York law would not supersede federal law.

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Nick Reisman is reporting for State of Politics on May 2, the two remaining candidates for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor rebuked the effort to change New York's election law in order to remove Brian Benjamin's name from the ballot, calling the effort an unfair change to the rules midway through the election season, and a sign of sloppiness in state government. "This is the messiest election that anyone has seen," said former New York City Councilmember Diana Reyna, the preferred running mate of U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi. "I think everyone can agree with that." The measure will make it easier to remove a candidate from the ballot if they are facing criminal charges. Benjamin was Gov. Kathy Hochul's lieutenant governor, but resigned last month amid federal bribery and fraud charges. He has suspended his campaign, but his name remains on the ballot. If Benjamin's name is removed from the ballot, the state Democratic Party's committee on vacancies will then formally begin the process of selecting a new candidate. Progressive activist Ana Maria Archila, the preferred running mate of New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, also knocked the bill, the product of a negotiation between Hochul and lawmakers who had been reluctant to take it up. "New Yorkers deserve free and fair elections, and that means elections where no one can change the rules of the game at the last minute," she said. The legislature barely passed the bill May 2, with many Democrats joining Republicans in opposition, and Hochul signed the bill into law. Read the full story at nystateofpolitics [dot] com.

Melanie Lekocevic is reporting for Capital Region Independent Media the Coeymans Town Board last week voted unanimously to award a $200,000 project to State Telephone Company to install high-speed broadband service in an underserved part of the community. Partial funding for the project will come from COVID-19 relief funds the town was awarded by the federal government, The broadband expansion project will bring high-speed internet to 70 properties along Starr and Bushendorf roads. The town issued a Request for Proposal for the project on April 7 and last week opened the three bids that were submitted. In addition to State Telephone, bids were received from Mid-Hudson Cable and Spectrum. The three companies were comparable on several criteria, but there were differences. Among the biggest difference was the cost for consumers, both the monthly fee and installation costs. State Tel was unique among the three providers, offering free installation, Town Supervisor George McHugh said. McHugh said there was also a difference between the three companies in the monthly cost all customers would pay for the broadband service and State Tel was the lowest at $59.95. Board member Stephen Schmitt presented the resolution approving State Telephone for the project to bring high-speed broadband service to properties on Starr and Bushendorf roads. The resolution was unanimously approved. Read the full story at TheUpStater [dot] com.

Noah Eckstein is reporting for Columbia-Greene Media a march and day of awareness for missing and murdered indigenous people will take place the evening of May 6 in Hudson. The event is sponsored by Forge Project, a private native-led art, culture and decolonial education initiative in partnership with Radical Indigenous Survivance and Empowermen, or RISE, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the education, dissemination and evolution of indigenous culture. Candice Hopkins, executive director of the Forge Project, said, “Our role at Forge is to raise awareness across the United States creating an understanding that this part of the Hudson Valley has been a place of displacement of natives." Indigenous women and girls are murdered at a rate 10 times higher than other ethnicities, according to Native Women’s Wilderness, a group that supports indigenous women. Many tribal nations consider the kidnapping and murder of indigenous people an epidemic, with some even considering it to be a form of genocide. The event will begin at the Henry Hudson Riverfront Park at 5:30 p.m., May 6, and conclude at Hudson City Hall around 7 p.m. During the event, remarks and chants will be offered for the purpose of raising awareness for those who go missing or are murdered. Read the full story at HudsonValley360 [dot] com.

In popular culture, the wireless, untethered charger for a phone is like a hovercraft, something long promised, but never delivered. Last week, though, Wi-Charge founder and chief business officer Ori Mor gave an interview to TechCrunch where he claimed that Belkin would release a specific, “center-stage consumer product” to charge phones remotely later this year. But the next day, however, Belkin spokesperson Jen Wei said nothing is imminent. "Currently, our agreement with Wi-Charge only commits us to R&D on some product concepts, so it’s too early to comment on the timing of viable consumer products," Wei told Ars Technica. "The Belkin method is to thoroughly investigate technology viability and perform deep user testing before committing to a product concept. Here at Belkin, we only launch products when we confirm technical feasibility backed by deep consumer insights." What we do know about that research and development is that Wi-Charge's technology has a small, mounted transmitter plugged into an AC or DC outlet to "convert electricity into safe infrared beams," the company's website says. The transmitter sends up to one watt of power to devices holding a Wi-Charge receiver within a 40-foot range and line of sight. The radio wave receivers then turn that light into power to charge phones and computer notebooks. Infrared waves are electromagnetic waves that have frequency range around 300 GHz, and can only travel a short distance. A Belkin official makes clear this cable- and pad-free wireless charging technology is coming soon, just not right away. "We are excited to uncover the full potential of Wi-Charge’s unparalleled over-the-air wireless charging technology,” said Brian Van Harlingen, the CTO at Belkin. “The future of charging has been transitioning from wired to wireless for years now and we anticipate over the air wireless charging to accelerate this evolution."

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Andrea Macko reports for Porcupine Soup that five Greene County residents died last week from COVID-19. Greene County officials did not release the ages, known comorbidities, and vaccination status of the dead. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still lists Greene County as low risk for coronavirus. Locally, the CDC lists Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga, and Schenectady counties as high risk, and Columbia, Delaware, Schoharie, and Ulster counties at medium risk. New Omicron variants are largely to blame for the latest outbreak. “Epidemiologically, it doesn’t appear as if we’re seeing more severe disease in places that are having more cases. So, we are not anticipating more severe disease from some of these sub variants, but we are actively studying it," said CDC Director Rochelle Walensky. Read more about this story at Porcupine Soup.

MidHudson News reports that in November, the budget carrier Norse filed paperwork to fly between Newburgh and Oslo starting in the summer of 2022. Now, though, Norse officials have moved their plans away from New York Stewart International Airport to JFK in New York City. “As one of the leaders of the Stewart Air Service Development Committee, this is disappointing to say the least, considering that we are working tremendously hard as a coalition to improve the traffic in and out of Stewart and show the value of the airport and the surrounding area and all it has to offer both domestically and internationally,” said Orange County Chamber of Commerce President Heather Bell Meyer. “To say that this is disappointing is an understatement.” Read the full story in MidHudson News.

Roger Hannigan Gilson in the Times Union digs through the court documents in the beating case of Harold Handy, a mechanic, hurt so badly at a July 4, 2020 party at the Kinderhook home of a Columbia County sheriff's deputy and her gym-owner husband he ended up in the intensive care unit at Albany Medical Center. Most of the charges against the law enforcement agents at the party were dismissed in late December 2021 by Columbia County Judge Richard Koweek. The dismissal "hinged on defense attorneys' arguments that Handy's injuries were not severe enough to justify the gang assault or felony assault charges," Gilson writes. Handy was put in the intensive care unit at Albany Medical Center on a ventilator with a concussion, a fractured eye socket, and scratches and cuts all over his body because of the attack. Deputy Kelly Rosenstrach and her husband Alex Rosenstrach, and IRS law enforcement agent Bryan Haag and Cory Gaylord, a contractor all largely escaped any penalties for the beating of Handy. In court documents, Handy said he was first "attacked by Alex." Another witness said Rosenstrach and Gaylord were firing guns at the party just before the beating. But now the four defendants only have a single felony charge: unlawful imprisonment, which carries a maximum of four years in prison. No trial date has been set for the case. Read more about this story in the Times Union.

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The campaign to shut down the Norlite hazardous waste incinerator intensified on April 30 when several hundred people rallied at the Governor's Mansion to call on Hochul to shut down the facility. WOOC's Mark Dunlea was there to hear from Alexis Goldsmith of Lights Out Norlite; Poet D. Colin; Tasheca Medina of Equality for Troy; and Kriti Sharma of the RPI Sunrise Movement.

Bill Williams is reporting for Columbia-Greene Media two massive brush fires, burning at the same time, blackened almost 17 acres of woodland in Gallatin on April 29, said Taghkanic Fire Chief William Hilscher. Fifteen fire companies fought the fast-moving fires for more than seven hours and smoke from the fires could be seen for several miles along the Taconic State Parkway. The first fire ignited at about 1:11 p.m., on property at 59 New Forge Road, when a property owner was burning cardboard in a fire pit. The fire jumped the pit and spread into the woods, Hilscher said. The fire consumed a garage on the property, as well. When the Taghkanic Fire Company arrived, firefighters realized the scope of the blaze and officials immediately requested mutual-aid assistance from neighboring fire departments. All available manpower was requested to the scene, as well as brush-fighting equipment and utility task vehicles, which could maneuver through the wooded area. Just before 2 p.m., while crews were fighting the first fire, a second large brush fire was reported in the area of 852 New Forge Road #2. That fire was accidentally started by a company using logging equipment in the woods. A piece of that equipment may have struck a rock, causing sparks to start a fire in the surrounding leaves, Hilscher said. Wind was definitely a factor in both fires. “We’d get the fire out in one area, and the wind would just kick it up again,” Hilscher said. The National Weather Service in Albany had placed the area under an elevated brush fire risk that day and the day before, due to low relative humidity and gusty northwest winds. The fires were located about one-quarter mile off the road and spread much deeper into the woods, Hilscher said. The second fire was extinguished first, at about 5:22 p.m. after it blackened 2.3 acres, Hilscher said. The first, larger fire, was put out at approximately 7:52 p.m. That fire scorched 14 acres, Hilscher said. Fourteen fire companies assisted Taghkanic, as did the Northern Dutchess Paramedics, Greenport Rescue Squad, state police, and the Columbia County Fire Coordinator’s Office. New York's burn ban continues through May 14. Read the full story at HudsonValley360 [dot] com.

Brenda J. Lyons is reporting for the Times Union state Senate leaders introduced legislation late April 29, that would remove former Lt. Gov. Brian A. Benjamin's name from the June primary ballot following his recent indictment on federal corruption charges. Benjamin, appointed lieutenant governor by Gov. Kathy Hochul in September, resigned in the wake of his indictment. The criminal charges include allegations that Benjamin lied on the forms used by State Police to review his background. His criminal case threw the Democratic primary off course because under state law there is no mechanism to remove a nominated candidate from the ballot this late in the process. The bill introduced last week would change that by amending state election law to allow a candidate to decline their nomination and have their name removed from the ballot, if they are convicted of or charged with a misdemeanor or felony. Hochul's and Benjamin's names will appear on separate tickets but the optics of having Benjamin's name still on the ballot when there are multiple challengers in the primary, including for lieutenant governor, has concerned the governor and her advisers, according to sources. The legislation introduced in the Senate, if signed into law by the governor, would still require Benjamin to sign a written declination to have his name removed from the ballot. Read the full story in the Times Union.

Melanie Lekocevic is reporting for Capital Region Independent Media concert organizers are looking to present a series of festivals at Magic Forest Farm in Coeymans Hollow in June, but they have yet to receive permission from the town's joint planning and zoning board of appeals. The series would span five weekends from June through October, with 250 to 1,000 attendees expected each weekend. Magic Forest Farm, located on Bucks Ranch Road, describes itself as an agritourism destination that is both a sustainable farm and a space for camping and events, such as music festivals. Event promoter Spencer Lavoie from 4Life Entertainment presented the plans for the series at a public hearing April 27. Nearly all of the concertgoers will camp at the site each weekend, with some of the staff and musicians renting nearby lodging, Lavoie said. Several residents present at the hearing said they were concerned about traffic; Lavoie said plans are in place to regulate traffic impacts. Neighbors of Magic Forest Farm also expressed concerns about noise levels. Resident Allan Defazio said he was worried about the scale of the events, and that campers and concertgoers would leave the property, wandering onto neighboring properties. He is also worried about how waste and water supply would be handled. The proposal was sent to the Albany County Planning Board, which returned recommendations for traffic control and an emergency evacuation plan, including a medevac helicopter landing zone should the need arise. Town Supervisor George McHugh filed an appeal charging that the festival series would require a use variance rather than a special-use permit. He said the latter would apply to a campground, but the focus of the public hearing was on concerts. The public hearing was adjourned until May 25. At the May 9, meeting of the planning/zoning board of appeals, the board will consider McHugh's appeal, deciding on whether a special use permit or a use variance is appropriate. Read the full story at TheUpStater [dot] com.

Aaron Mak reports for Slate about spam robocalls. Do you remember the National Do Not Call Registry beginning in 2003? Do you remember the last time you received an automated phone message? Do you remember the last time you read about some robocall scam targeting local seniors? The federal government has definitely not eliminated the scourge of robocalls. In March, there were 4.3 billion robocalls made in the United States, according to the spam-blocking company YouMail. There has been a lot of online finger-pointing lately at Ajit Pai, the industry-friendly chair of the Federal Communications Commission during the Trump administration. Pai did not support a 2015 anti-robocalling rule from the Obama-era FCC that would have expanded the definition of an “autodialer” to include any device that had the capacity to make robocalls, even if they weren't modified to do so. The plan passed without Pai's support, but in 2018 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit struck it down, saying it was too broad. Pai did not appeal the decision, but celebrated, describing the 2015 rule as “yet another example of the prior FCC’s disregard for the law and regulatory overreach.” But Margot Saunders, senior counsel at the National Consumer Law Center, argues the court decision did not lead to record numbers of robocalls. At play, she said, “were very esoteric issues that had much more to do with the legality of non-scammers like debt collectors.... Chairman Pai wasn’t particularly aggressive, but you can’t lay the problem at his door,” said Saunders. “There is no proceeding that he failed to appeal that would have made the difference in this, in my opinion.” Saunders instead says phone calls now go through multiple providers, instead of just one, which makes stopping phone scams more difficult. Mak ends the story asking Saunders if there is any one person who could be blamed for so many robocalls now, and she replied, “Alexander Graham Bell.” Read more about this story in Slate.

Here is this week's Hudson Valley Congressional Report from WGXC, tracking the votes, statements, positions, and campaigns of the representatives of the Hudson Valley in Congress and the candidates who want to replace them. Current Democrat Reps. Antonio Delgado, Paul Tonko, and Sean Maloney vote with the positions of President Joe Biden 100 percent of the time, according to the fivethirtyeight.com website. Republican Elise Stefanik voted with Biden's positions 18 percent of the time. Click here to listen to this report.

Nick Reisman reports for New York State of Politics that New York's highest court on April 27 voted 4-3 to reject the congressional and state Senate maps drawn by state lawmakers this year as unconstitutional. Now the scheduled June party primaries maybe altered as new district lines need to be drawn. The New York Court of Appeals found "the enactment of the congressional and Senate maps by the legislature was procedurally unconstitutional, and the congressional map is also substantively unconstitutional as drawn with impermissible partisan purpose, leaving the state without constitutional district lines for use in the 2022 primary and general elections." Republicans brought the court challenge, claiming the new districts favored Democrats and violated the state's constitutional ban on partisan redistricting. "We are confident that, in consultation with the Board of Elections, Supreme Court can swiftly develop a schedule to facilitate an August primary election, allowing time for the adoption of new constitutional maps," the majority opinion stated, suggesting a new election schedule. Read more about this story at New York State of Politics.

Chris Churchill reports in the Times Union that a spokesperson for Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik has denied that the Congressional representative was behind leaked recordings of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy criticizing Donald Trump and other GOP lawmakers after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. The recordings showed McCarthy lied when he denied wanting Trump to resign after he encouraged a coup, and did little to stop a riot on the nation's legislature. Stefanik had been tied to the leak online without any evidence by political observers who thought she had the most to gain. The online guessers suggested the third-ranked GOP leader Stefanik could take over the top spot if McCarthy was forced out in embarrassment. Alex deGrasse, Stefanik's spokesperson, gave a good reason Stefanik could not have leaked the call. "Congresswoman Stefanik was not even in leadership at this time and was not even on these calls," deGrasse wrote in an email. "Nor were any of her staff. She wasn't even elected to House Republican leadership until months later." The phone call in which McCarthy said he wanted to ask Trump to resign and suggested a few Republican wing nuts had endangered the country with their rhetoric was on Jan. 10, 2021, four days after the coup attempt. Stefanik did not ascend to her third-ranked position until four months later. So she likely was not on the call of top Republicans with McCarthy. "There is zero truth to the rumor," deGrasse said. "It is a fact that she (Stefanik) was not on or aware of any of these calls referenced." Read more about this story in the Times Union.

Just after New York's highest court threw out the Democrats gerrymandered district maps on April 27, Republican NY-19 Congressional candidate Marc Molinaro used the news as a chance to attack the opposition. But he also made a false claim with no basis that his Democratic opponent, Rep. Antonio Delgado, master-minded the redistricting process so he could beat Molinaro. That claim has not been proven anywhere, by Molinaro, or any news report. "Antonio Delgado and the Democrats in Albany sought to disenfranchise voters through a corrupt deal," Molinaro's statement April 27 said, in part. Molinaro did not provide any proof of his claim, and no news story exists linking Delgado to the redistricting process. State legislators decided on the new districts, and Congressional representatives have no formal role in the process.

WNYT reports that the FBI has opened an investigation into the 2018 Schoharie limousine crash that left 20 people dead, and Rep. Paul Tonko wants some credit. Tonko says investigation announcement comes after he sent a letter, demanding a response to claims that FBI involvement allowed the unsafe limo to stay on the road. The rumors claimed Prestige Limousine Owner Shahed Hussain received special treatment from the FBI because of his previous work as a confidential informant. The FBI wrote Tonko back, saying, in part, "The FBI shares your concerns about this tragic limousine crash that claimed the lives of twenty people. In recent months, concerns have been raised about this incident and whether there was any FBI involvement in the investigation. As a result, the Director ordered that the FBI further review the matter. A review was promptly commenced by the Inspection Division and is ongoing. Therefore, the FBI is not in a position to provide further information at this time." Read more about this story at the WNYT website.