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Columbia County adopts budget with no increase in levies, but jump in sales tax

Dec 09, 2010 2:11 am
The Columbia County Board of Supervisors meeting Wednesday evening was recorded by Victor Mendolia. It includes adoption of a budget with increase in Columbia County sales taxes. Click here to listen to an audio mp3 file of the board meeting and votes, or copy and paste the following url into your computer's media player:
http://data.wavefarm.org/2010/12/ColCtyBdofSupemtg_120810.mp3

Before the vote, the Supervisors held a Public Hearing on the Proposed Columbia County budget. Click here to listen to an audio mp3 file of the public hearing, or copy and paste the following url into your computer's media player:
http://data.wavefarm.org/2010/12/PublicHearingonProposedColCtybudget_120810.mp3

Martin Roby also recorded the meeting, and has excerpts broken down on his web page here.
Pledge.mp3 (1.6M)
public_comment_budget_2010_december.mp3 (21M)
resolution_flurry.mp3 (17M)
roll_call.mp3 (1.7M)
sales_tax_discusion.mp3 (43M)

Supervisor Elizabeth Young, R-Taghkanic, was absent from the meeting. Those who voted “yes” on the sales tax resolution included: Art Bassin, D-Ancram; Jeff Braley, R-Austerlitz; Richard Keaveney, R-Canaan; Jesse DeGroodt, D-Chatham; Robin Andrews, D-Claverack; Raymond Staats, D-Clermont; Reggie Crowley, R-Copake; Lynda Scheer, R-Gallatin; BOS Chairman Roy Brown, R-Germantown; Larry Andrews, R-Ghent; Ed Nabozny, I-Greenport; Art Baer, R-Hillsdale; John Musall, D-Hudson1; Bill Hallenbeck, R-Hudson3; William Hughes, D-Hudson4; Bart Delaney, R-Hudson5; Kevin McDonald, R-Livingston; Margaret Robertson, D-New Lebanon; Leo Pulcher, R-Stockport; Valerie Bertram, R-Stuyvesant. Voting "no" on the sales tax resolution was Pat Grattan, R-Kinderhook, and Ed Cross, D-Hudson2. Register-Star's Francesca Olsen writes an article about the vote here.

Five supervisors voted “no” on the $5,579,000 Columbia County budget: Grattan, Crowley, Cross, McDonald, and Hughes. Supervisors who voted “yes” included: Bassin, Braley, Keaveney, DeGroodt, Robin Andrews, Staats, Scheer, Brown, Larry Andrews, Nabozny, Baer, Musall, Hallenbeck, Delaney, Robertson, Pulcher, and Bertram.