Roger Hannigan Gilson wonders in the Times Union why it took so long for public officials to notify the people of Valatie that there was a toxic chemical in their drinking water. In October last year, results showed Valatie's Well No. 4 exceeded the state's maximum level for the chemical PFOS and the well was immediately taken offline by the state Department of Health. But residents weren't notified until Jan. 31 by the village of Valatie, over three months later. A Columbia County press release was not released until Feb. 2. Valatie Mayor Frank Bevens said he followed the guidance of the Columbia County Health Department. "That notice went out when we were told to send the notice out," Bevens said. But couldn't Bevens have released the information sooner? "Our thought was to do what we were told to do," he said. Columbia County Environmental Health Director Maggie McBroom said residents were not informed for three months because, first, the Village of Valatie had to get a press release template from the state, something that could be accomplished in an afternoon. McBroom also said the press release needed approval from the state and county Health Department, something that could be accomplished in a matter of days. "There's a little back-and-forth with proofreading and whatnot," she said, explaining how "a little back-and-forth" took three months. Read more about this story in the Times Union.

Ted Remsnyder reports for Columbia-Greene Media that Greene County Public Health is ending COVID-19 testing. Officials say people have not been turning out to twice-weekly testing clinics at 370 Mansion St. in Coxsackie on Mondays and Wednesdays. “It’s that (low turnout) and the distribution of home kits,” Greene County Administrator Shaun Groden said. “That will probably be our last one.” The last public COVID-19 testing clinic in Greene County ever? “If things turn around and all of a sudden things look worse, then absolutely they could resume,” Groden said. The announcement came with another: two more COVID-19 deaths in Greene County. The deaths were a woman in her 90s who was unvaccinated and had comorbidities, and a man in his late 80s who had been vaccinated and had received a booster shot but who also had underlying health issues. Read more about this story at HudsonValley360.com.

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Ted Remsnyder is reporting for Columbia-Greene Media online shopping and retail sales totaled more than $1 billion in Greene County in 2021. Online sales fueled the county’s 12th consecutive year of growth in sales tax revenue. According to the Greene County Economic Development Corporation, the county surpassed its sales tax payments from the state by $6.5 million in 2021, over the level recorded in 2020. The impact of online shopping on sales tax revenue grew in 2018 when a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowed taxes to be collected on the receiving end of online sales instead of where the products were shipped from. “It’s a game-changer,” Greene County Administrator Shaun Groden said. “The sales tax now is applied to the receiving address, not the shipping address. Previously, when you went online [in New York] and you ordered your sneakers and it came from someplace like Philadelphia, there was no sales tax. But if you went to the mall or Walmart, there would be sales tax. ..." Groden said, “When you throw in the pandemic, for many months the malls [were] closed. But the federal stimulus money was being pushed out to stimulate the economy. So people still bought their sneakers; they just went online to do it. They did more shopping and they did it online. ...” Groden noted that sales tax is the county’s single-largest revenue stream. Read the full story at HudsonValley360 [dot] com.

Jeanette Wolfberg is reporting for The Columbia Paper public school enrollment in Columbia County has fallen to its lowest level in more than 40 years. But the decline is in line with the reduction in the total county population under the age of 18. THE county’s six school districts counted 6,267 enrolled students for the 2020-21 school year, 3.9 percent lower than the enrollment of 6,521 during the previous year. The overall enrollment countywide is 44.5 percent less than the 12,127 students enrolled during the 1976-77 school year, the first school year included in the state Education Department’s current public data set. Enrollment in the Columbia County schools declined every year since 1997-98. Between 2010 and 2020, the county population under age 18 dropped by 16.3 percent. That’s almost as much as the loss of enrollment between 2009-10 and 2019-20 of 17.4 percent. The state defines school enrollment for a year as the number of students counted in October. Read the full story in The Columbia Paper.

 MidHudson News is reporting at a news conference in Kingston on Mon., Feb. 7, Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said there is currently an interview process taking place to name a new sheriff for Dutchess County. Sheriff Butch Anderson died in September and Undersheriff Kirk Imperati, a registered Republican, was named Acting County Sheriff. Dutchess County Sheriff’s Deputy Adrienne Licari is currently being vetted for the position. Licari, a Democrat, is the daughter of Wappinger Democratic Committee Chairperson Robin Licari. “We have individuals that are being interviewed,” said Hochul.  “There’s a process — very strong vetting — background vetting that goes on and we interview people,” she added. Hochul explained that she recommends a candidate to the Senate for approval. "We want to make sure there is someone who has permanent authority in that place as soon as possible, so the process is very much ongoing," Hochul said. Just last week, Republican Imperati announced he would run for sheriff in the upcoming election. Imperati was interviewed to be appointed with Hochul’s staff in November. He said, “I told them that I am not a political person and I am willing to help everyone.” He said he would appreciate it if the governor allowed him to remain in the position until the voters decide who they want to fill the position in November. Read the full story at MidHudsonNews [dot] com.

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Luis Ferré-Sadurní reports for The New York Times that on Feb. 3 a Republican-led group of voters filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn New York’s new congressional maps as unconstitutional. Democratic lawmakers in Albany last week approved district lines that would favor their party election's for the next decade. “This court should reject it as a matter of substance, as the map is an obviously unconstitutional partisan and incumbent-protection gerrymander,” said the lawsuit, which was brought by 14 voters. The lawsuit that claims the redistricting “brazenly enacted a congressional map that is undeniably politically gerrymandered in their party’s favor” was filed in State Supreme Court in Steuben County, a Republican stronghold in the state’s Southern Tier. The courts, however, have never turned down a map approved by the Legislature. "The state courts are really going to be really reluctant to overturn a state legislatively enacted plan," said Jeffrey Wice, who heads the New York Census and Redistricting Institute. “The question is whether the court will reject 50 years of precedent and reject the plan." Read more about this story in The New York Times.

Joshua Solomon reports in the Times Union that Gov. Kathy Hochul is proposing a subsidy for farmers, so they can pay there workers in the same way that grocery store employees are compensated. Currently, most workers in New York get overtime pay after 40 hours, but farmworkers do not receive extra wages until they reach 60 hours of work. Last month the state's Farm Laborer Wage Board voted to slowly lower the threshold for overtime from 60 to 40 hours over the course of a decade. Farmers claim they do not have enough money to pay workers for the hours they are employed, and faced with Hochul's subsidy proposal claim they would not be able to make it to the end of the tax year for reimbursement. "While we appreciate the governor's proposal, we hope to continue the conversation with her to find the best possible outcome," New York Farm Bureau spokesman Steve Ammerman said in an email. "Ultimately, we are asking for her to maintain the 60-hour threshold so a tax credit would not be needed." Those standing up for the right's of workers have a different view. "The Department of Labor must prevent another generation of workers from suffering by accepting the wage board’s recommendation, and with Gov. Hochul’s dollar-for-dollar refundable tax credit, there is no reason that the overtime threshold cannot be lowered to 40 hours in 2024, eradicating this racist Jim Crow policy once and for all," New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman said in a statement. Hochul's office says the subsidy would cost taxpayers $130 million annually. Read more about this story in the Times Union.

Nick Reisman reports for New York State of Politics that 84 Assemblymembers and 39 State Senators are backing a bill to boost wages for home care workers. There are 12 Republicans on that list, making it one of the most bipartisan proposals in Albany. “There is a real shortage of home care workers because more and more people can't go into that line of work," said Assemblyperson Richard Gottfried, the lead sponsor of the legislation. "We need to enact fair pay for home care so home care workers can be adequately paid, so people can get the care they need without either having to go into a nursing home or forcing a member of the family to give up their career.” Gov. Kathy Hochul raised the issue in her State of the State address last month, so the bill should see little resistance this year. Read more about this story at New York State of Politics.

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Natasha Vaughn-Holdridge is reporting for Columbia-Greene Media some parents of students enrolled in the Ichabod Crane Central School District are threatening to sue Superintendent Suzanne Guntlow for following the state mask requirement. Several people who addressed the board during its February 1 public meeting spoke about the legal action they plan to take. “The papers that were served basically are indicating the possibility of a legal action...,” Guntlow said. “And we as always would work with our school attorneys to respond to any claim, which we feel has absolutely no merit.” School districts across the state have been advised to follow the guidelines issued by the state Education Department until the appeal of a court-ordered stay is resolved, Guntlow said. “I know that there’s individuals who are very vocal that want us to discontinue the mask wearing, but its not a local decision. Unfortunately for every person that wants to remove the masks there’s another person that wants us to continue that practice,” she said. Several of the public who spoke during the meeting were members of Unmask Ichabod Crane, a Facebook group started by Darrick Williams. Williams, at the meeting last week, said he did not start the group to cause turmoil. Instead, he said, it was started for concerned parents who feel masks are a health issue, whether mentally or physically. Several speakers threatened to sue Guntlow personally if she did not reject the state-required mask policy. “In my opinion, this is child abuse, whether you agree or not at this point doesn’t matter,” parent Rick Lawrence said at the meeting. Another parent, Krishna Culver, said, “I’m tired of the rhetoric, I’m tired of hearing about all of the clinics that you’re offering to 5-11-year-olds,” Culver said. “Anyone in our community has a doctor and they can go get vaccinated if they want to and they can bring their child. It is not your job to be giving us this information and I would like it to stop. ...” Jessica Brown accused Guntlow of violating her oath of office and the constitutions of New York and the United States. “Unmask our children now,” Brown said. Read the full story at HudsonValley360 [dot] com.

Nick Reisman is reporting for State of Politics in his bid for the Democratic nomination for governor, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams was endorsed February 4, by the progressive nonprofit Citizen Action. Williams said he believes the endorsement, in addition to other support nnounced last week, will help build some momentum behind his campaign in advance of the state Democratic convention, which begins February 16. "I believe people are just now starting to begin, over the next four to eight weeks, starting to pay attention to this race, so getting this momentum at this moment in time couldn't be a better time period," Williams said. "It's going to begin to send a message of a very real alternative to the way things have been operating for a long time." Williams is challenging incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul for the Democratic nomination. Hochul also faces a challenge from U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi. The party primary is scheduled for June. Citizen Action New York President Ivette Alfonso said, "We really feel that it's important that we have someone in office who really champions those values and is not beholden to the real estate interests, to the pharmaceuticals, to the hedge funds and really put forth the voice of the working class people in this state." Williams last challenged Hochul in a primary for lieutenant governor in 2018. He has since been elected New York City public advocate; Hochul was elevated to the governor's office in August. Williams is pledging to make the state more equitable and address issues ranging from climate change to criminal justice. "We really have to lean into a vision of who we have to vote for," Williams said. "I keep hearing people want to go back to normal from before the pandemic. Normal didn't work for most New Yorkers, so what I want most New Yorkers to realize is we can't go back to normal. We shouldn't go back to normal." Read the full story at nystateofpolitics [dot] com.

The Berkshire Eagle is reporting Second Street Second Chances, an initiative to support formerly incarcerated people in Berkshire County, Mass., was awarded a $240,000 grant from the commonwealth on February 3. Berkshire Community College intends to start the program, as "a one-stop facility that will offer comprehensive wrap-around support services, case management, and workforce training opportunities to formerly incarcerated individuals in order to reduce rates of recidivism in Berkshire County," according to a statement. The college will work on the program with the Berkshire County Sheriff's Office, the county jail, as well as the house of correction, to "provide integrated support services that will help to provide the encouragement, motivation, basic life skills, and life-long learning educational opportunities to former inmates as they seek to successfully re-enter their communities as productive citizens." The state announced the funding through the Community Empowerment and Reinvestment Grant Awards, which were given to 62 organizations in 17 different cities and towns, according to a statement from state officials. Read the full story in The Berkshire Eagle.

Today's daily news update.

Natasha Vaughn-Holdridge is reporting for Columbia-Greene Media the Columbia County Department of Health on February 3, reported four new COVID-related deaths. The four people were residents of nursing homes, Columbia County Department of Health Director Jack Mabb said. Three of the four died in the nursing home. The fourth died in hospital. “We have one nurse whose job it is to periodically look at the obituaries because what we don’t find out is if someone dies with COVID in a nursing home, we may not find that out,” Mabb said. The four deaths occurred over the past couple of weeks. The youngest of the four was 78 years old and all four had comorbidities, Mabb said. They were all vaccinated, but Mabb did not know if they had received a booster shot. Nursing homes and assisted care facilities are not required to report COVID-related deaths to the county department of health, Mabb said. Three of the deceased had been residents at Ghent Rehabilitation and Nursing Center and the fourth was a resident at Livingston Hills Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Mabb said. The latest deaths bring the total in Columbia County to 133 since the beginning of the pandemic, with 18 deaths reported since the beginning of this year. “When you look at individual deaths, you’ve got seniors in a nursing home that are very vulnerable,” Mabb said. “It may not be the primary cause of death but it really contributes to it....We seem to have more deaths lately, maybe it’s the wintertime and other complicating things. The flu could be making its rounds, but some of these folks don’t have a chance.” Mabb said the county had 41 new positive cases as of February 4. At this time in January, the number of new daily cases was in the triple digits. “I think for the month of February, we may stay around 30 to 40 cases a day,” Mabb said. Read the full story at HudsonValley360 [dot] com.

Brendan J. Lyons is reporting for the Times Union a federal judge on February 4, gave final approval to a $65 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit against Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, Honeywell International and 3M and DuPont Co. for polluting public and private water supplies in and around the village of Hoosick Falls. The approval begins a 30-day period for someone to file an appeal challenging the settlement, but the ruling by U.S. District Senior Judge Lawrence E. Kahn noted that no none of the settlement class members have objected to the terms and no opt-out requests have been received. Kahn had previously called the settlement "fair, reasonable and adequate." The settlement is expected to secure cash payments and long-term medical monitoring for thousands of property owners and residents of Hoosick Falls. The case was filed in 2016, in U.S. District Court In Albany. The complaint accused the three companies of playing roles in the decades-long pollution of the community water supplies, which are contaminated with the perfluorinated chemicals used at various factories in the village. The settlement is intended to compensate residents for the potential health consequences of their exposure to the chemicals, the potential loss of property value, and to provide a system of early detection for any related health issues in the years ahead. Read the full story in the Times Union.

Andrea Macko is reporting for Porcupine Soup firefighters from multiple departments responded the night of February 3, to a fire at the County Waste and Recycling facility in South Cairo. The call went out at 6:30 p.m. for reports of smoke coming from one of the buildings at 465 Ross Ruland Road Extension. Cairo Fire Chief Raymond Feml said two garbage trucks, a service truck and a building are a complete loss. It is believed that one of the garbage trucks caught fire inside a garage and the flames spread, setting the building and two other vehicles on fire. The blaze remains under investigation. Feml said no injuries were reported. The Cairo Hose Company, Round Top Fire Department, Leeds Hose Company and Catskill Fire Company, as well as Cairo Ambulance, Greene County EMS and the Greene County Fire Investigation Team all responded. Houston-based County Waste provides waste management services to residents, businesses, and contractors in Greene, Columbia and Ulster counties. Read the full story at porcupinesoup [dot] com.

Here is this week's WGXC Congressional Report, tracking the votes, statements, positions, and campaigns of the representatives and candidates for the 19th and 20th Congressional seats in New York. Current Democrat Reps. Antonio Delgado and Paul Tonko vote with the positions of President Joe Biden 100 percent of the time, according to the fivethirtyeight.com website. Click here to listen to this report.

The world is in its third year of a deadly virus that has taxed healthcare workers like no others. At the same time, some members of Congress, including Paul Tonko locally, have signed on to a letter to get the federal government to cap nurses pay. HealthAffairs.org reports that, "An unprecedented number of nurses are retiring early and exiting the workforce or quitting their hospital employment to return as employees of staffing agencies." Tonko and the other representatives see rising wages for nurses as a problem. "We are writing because of our concerns that certain nurse-staffing agencies are taking advantage of these difficult circumstances to increase their profits at the expense of patients and the hospitals that treat them," the letter to White House COVID-19 Response Team Coordinator Jeffrey Zients says. The almost 200 Congressional representatives signing on to the letter are a mixed lot, with far-right figures such as Elise Stefanik, conservative Republican Liz Cheney, centrist Democrat Tonko, and liberal Ilhan Omar all in favor. Nurses, however, mostly do not want their salaries capped. There is evidence that nursing wages are up, like in many other fields with high demand for workers. The American Health Care Association last year sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, urging the FTC to protect consumers from anti-competitive and unfair practices regarding agency staffing. Tonko, who represents all of Albany County and other parts of the Capital District, was not joined by Hudson Valley Democrats Antonio Delgado nor Sean Maloney in signing the letter.

Rep. Antonio Delgado on Jan. 30 joined those calling for a ban on members of Congress trading stocks while in office. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat from Virginia, and Rep. Chip Roy, a Republican from Texas, last year introduced a measure to ban members of Congress from trading stocks after revelations that several Republicans used insider knowledge during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic to buy stocks in companies likely to do well through the outbreak. The bill got little traction until Democrat Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, came out against the proposal. That incited support, from both sides of the aisle. There is now a similar bill in the Senate, and momentum to pass something. The bills would require members of Congress, their spouses and dependent children, to place their stocks in a blind trust while the member is in office. Lawmakers often have access to privileged information, and these bills would attempt to quash efforts to make money on that insider knowledge. "This is a bipartisan, bicameral effort that I am proud to be a part of. Members of Congress should work to represent their communities, not to turn a profit," Delgado said in a Jan. 30 Tweet.

Colby Itkowitz and Adrian Blanco report in the Washington Post that New York Democrats unveiled the redistricting maps for Congress on Jan. 30, and the proposal boosts the chances of Democrat Antonio Delgado in the 19th Congressional District. Democrats could win an additional three seats in Congress if the plan is voted on and signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul later this week as expected. Delgado's 19th Congressional District adds Binghamton and Utica under the plan, moving the district from one that President Joe Biden won by 1.5 percent, to one where Biden won by 10 points. That comes at a bit at the expense of Democrat Paul Tonko's 20th Congressional District, which moves from a Biden plus-20.5 district to one where Biden won by 17.3 points, as parts of Albany County switch to the 19th District. New York lost one Congressional seat in the latest Census count. A 10-member, supposedly independent commission where eight members were appointed by partisan legislative leaders, could not reach a decision on district lines, so the legislature has taken over the process. “This is not a good night for New York Republicans,” said Blair Horner, executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, which opposes partisan gerrymandering from either party. Democrats and Republicans had differing opinions on the redistricting proposals. “I’m thrilled with the maps that have come down, they listened to the public input the commission received, and I think that’s reflected in these maps,” said David Imamura, the Democratic chairman of the redistricting advisory commission. Nick Langworthy, chairman of the New York state Republican committee, said, “These maps are the most brazen and outrageous attempt at rigging the election to keep Nancy Pelosi as Speaker.” Read more about this story in the Washington Post.

More information continues to come out about the proposal for Congressional redistricting from the New York legislature, including maps of what could be the new districts. The biggest changes locally include in Rensselaer County, which was previously entirely in the 19th Congressional District, but would now be split in half, with the everything above North Greenbush, Sand Lake, and Berlin switching to the 21st Congressional District, currently represented by Republican Elise Stefanik. Albany County was previously all in the 20th Congressional District, now represented by Democrat Paul Tonko. The new proposal moves Albany County towns Coeymans and Bethlehem from the 20th District, to the 19th District, currently represented by Antonio Delgado. Schoharie County moves entirely from the 19th to the 21st Congressional District under the proposal. And only the northwest corner of Dutchess County remains in the 19th Congressional District, with the rest of Dutchess County moving to the 18th Congressional District, now represented by Sean Maloney. Redistricting occurs every ten years after the Census, and an independent redistricting commission was supposed to do that work. But that body was designed by the legislature to be toothless, so when they failed to agree on new district maps, the legislature took over, proposing these maps. Republican Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, who is running in the 19th Congressional election this year, called the the redistricting process led by Democratic state lawmakers "a scam to begin with.... The Democrats in the Legislature wanted to control the outcome," he told reporters Jan. 31. "At the end of the day, I'm hopeful the courts will step in because this is a blatant effort to gerrymander for no other purpose." The New York state constitution states, “Districts shall not be drawn to discourage competition or for the purpose of favoring or disfavoring incumbents or other particular candidates or political parties.” But the courts have never turned down a map approved by the Legislature. "The state courts are really going to be really reluctant to overturn a state legislatively enacted plan," said Jeffrey Wice, who heads the New York Census and Redistricting Institute. But even if the courts agree to the new maps, that does not mean they are fair. "The lines are so heavily gerrymandered they will be non-competitive," Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause/NY, said in a statement. "It's a major disservice to the voters, who were first denied any hope of a truly independent process ten years ago when the so-called Independent Commission was conceived." The legislature plans to vote on the proposal later this week.

The Daily Freeman reports that Rep. Antonio Delgado had $5 million more in campaign funds then Republican challenger Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, in their 19th Congressional District election. Molinaro must defeat Republican Brandon Buccola in a June primary to face off against Delgado, who so far does not have any challengers from his party. Delgado ended the year with $5,480,936.71 in cash on hand, according to the Federal Election Commission. Molinaro, who began his campaign in September, had $423,619.64. Delgado is completing his second term after beating Republican John Faso in 2018. Both candidates live in Dutchess County, with Delgado in Rhinebeck and Molinaro in Red Hook while serving his third four-year term as Dutchess County Executive. Read more about this story in the Daily Freeman.