Politics hits village paychecks

In a surprise move last Wednesday night, the New Paltz village board voted to return trustee and mayoral salaries to the levels they were a year ago.  What's amazing is that the reasons for doing so were even worse than the ones that justified voting themselves a raise in the first place.

Check out video of the meeting, which I have cued up to start at 1:55:30, which is when the discussion begins.  Then come on back for some context and analysis.

Recall that back in 2006, after getting a raise from $8,000 to $25,000, Jason West was rebuffed when he asked for the job to be defined as full-time, with a $40,000 salary and benefits.  He expressed at the time that he would have to go back to painting houses, and the village would not get as much of him as it needed.

Somehow, it survived.  West lost an election, and then won the next.  Apparently unaware that the job description and pay rate was the same as it had been, the returned mayor did recall how heavily his request to a second large raise had factored into his defeat, so he got trustee Sally Rhoads to make the pitch for raises all around a year into his new term.

At the time, I denounced the idea of midterm raises, as did some trustees.  Stewart Glenn expressed then, and this past week, the same argument I did:  elected officials know how much the job pays when they're running for it, so they should either put the idea of a raise into their campaign platform, or defer any increase until past the next election.  (A comment on the post linked at the beginning of this paragraph claims that West stated publicly in 2011 that he would neither seek nor accept an increase in pay, but I haven't confirmed that.)

Which brings us to this week, when four trustees voted to strip themselves and the mayor of last year's boost for the coming year, and knock the big job back to a part-time position.  Last year the arguments for the the raises had to do with attracting the right sort of people, acknowledging how hard the jobs are (our village board meets at three or more times a month and spend far more hours doing their jobs than I have ever understood), and so forth.

But this time around, in voting to roll back the reasons, the effectively said it was because they all think Jason West is a lazy jerk.

I'm going to put my cards on the table here:  I don't like Jason West.  I supported his return to office after six months of questioning him to see if he was a better man for his years off, but soon thereafter he decided he didn't have the time to talk to me about village business . . . despite having appointed me to a volunteer board.  When I called him on it, he likened me to a stalker, and when my sewer line was destroyed by village incompetence, he told me to get a port-a-potty.

I read Pride and Politics, Erin Quinn's book about the same-sex weddings (which is apparently out of print), and it was obvious that West did the right thing for the wrong reasons:  he wanted to officiate at a friend's wedding, plain and simple.  To help those friends, he told the village attorney for find a legal justification for marrying them.  Because I'm not a friend, when my family needed help, he told the village attorney to handle me.  (In the end, that decision cost the village close to $9,000, when all I wanted was a couple of days for the DPW guys to put back in what the planning board had illegally allowed to be taken out.)

So as someone who doesn't like Jason West and doesn't think New Paltz needs a man like him, let me state clearly:  the village board was wrong to cut Jason West's salary.  It was wrong for two big reasons:

1. Just like a raise, it may be legal to push the cut through mid-term, but it's completely inappropriate.  Don't change the terms of the employment contract, period.  It's nice to see it rolled back because it was the height of hubris to pass the raise in the first place, but who on earth is going to run for a job if they are committed to four years and have no clue how much they're going to make each year?  Running for office is a balancing act:  can I afford what the position pays, and is it a reasonable trade-off for the power I will wield?  Candidates need to be able to make that determination.
2. It's immature.  I plan on voting against West in 2015, but I don't spit in his face when I meet him on the street.  That's what the board has done, because they don't like him.  He has resisted consolidation efforts, almost certainly to protect his own job, but he's raised perfectly valid points along the way.  If you didn't know who he was when you voted for him, like me, then you'll just have to act like an adult and put up with him for another two years.

Incidentally, this problem is by no means just a village issue.  Sue Zimet shouldn't have gotten a pay raise, either, and when Mike Nielson got one as highway superintendent back in 2010, he sent them a letter telling them to take it back, saying in part, "When I ran for my current position I understood the length of term and compensation provided. Bearing that in mind I respectfully request that the salary of the Superintendent of Highways remain at the current level for the entirety of my current term."

Nielson's letter was never discussed at any public meeting, and his request was ignored.

Nielson also pointed out all of the arguments regarding attracting the best people to the job, and in fact suggested that a higher salary for that position was appropriate . . . for the next term.  That was the only time I have seen an elected official in this town who really cared more about the community than his own political future.  I really hope we can find a way to attract more like him.

Resolving to do . . . SOMETHING

Hector Rodriguez must really be pining for the days when being minority whip of the Ulster County Legislature meant something.  He remembers when the legislative branch ran the show, before that pesky county charter gave a lot of that power to the newly-minted executive branch.  But rather than returning to grade-school social studies lessons to learn what representative are supposed to do (craft legislation, provide a check against the power of the executive), he's spending his time on "memorializing resolutions" designed to create headlines in an election year.

To be fair, most of what the legislature does these days is in the form of resolutions, and a good deal of them are of no legal consequence.  The best-publicized of these was February's anti-SAFE Act resolution, which drew a huge crowd and no small amount of criticism for spending taxpayer money on holding the hearing at UPAC, when Ulster County has no official role in gun-control policy.  That dog-and-pony show came fast on the heels of a Democrat-backed one supporting the new state law, which died a quick death.

Despite the fact that the gun-control resolution was the most expensive, not to mention most visible, in recent memory, there was some justification given for it.  The SAFE Act was passed, like so many state laws, in the dead of night and without any time for public input or meaningful debate.  Legislative Terry Bernardo claimed she wanted to give people a voice in that process, and a number of other counties in the state have done the same.  The people who showed up for that event largely derided anyone who supported stronger laws, even a woman whose son had been shot in the street, but they had their say.

But Mr. Rodriguez has taken politics to a new level of pointless, by crafting a resolution which calls for something which had already happened.  If his measure had passed committee and the full legislature, it would have resulted, I'm assuming, in a strongly-worded letter to the Ulster County Industrial Development Agency telling them to cut off tax breaks to Skate Time 209, owned by Chairman Bernardo and her husband, Len.

The IDA, I'm guessing, would have sent a letter back saying, "Do you read the papers?"

Background on the Bernardo/IDA kerfuffle

The IDA, the same body considering a payment in lieu of taxes for the Park Point project, granted tax breaks to Skate Time 209 back in 2004.  When Len Bernardo ran for county executive in 2007, Mike Hein ran him over the coals about not living up to the jobs promises made for the rink.  It was purely political, targeting just that one business, and it worked; Hein won the election.

Since then, for a variety of reasons including having a lot of free time during the recession and pressure from the state, the IDA has performed a review of every single active application to see if it's living up to expectations.  The Bernardos' business was one of those caught in the net.  IDA members say the rink promised 26 jobs, and the Bernardos say they "projected that many.  They also missed their filing deadline this year, so they aren't providing proper documentation.  TLB Enterprises, the actual corporation, was asked to voluntarily give back future savings of about $8,000 or have all of its remaining tax breaks cancelled.  The Bernardos rejected the offer and their tax breaks were yanked.

Litigation is almost certain, and the betting money is saying that the Bernardos will win in court, but lose in the court of public opinion.

So why this resolution?

Memorializing resolutions, as I've said, are always symbolic.  Our county legislature can't change state gun laws, or keep a mosque from being built somewhere in New York City, or even tell the IDA what to do.  If you agree with one, you say it's about sending a message.  If you disagree, you call it politics and say it's a waste of time.

In this particular case, the resolution is beyond pointless.  The IDA has already taken the action that Mr. Rodriguez is calling for.  What message are you trying to send, when it's a fait accompli?

It's simple:  no one on the streets of District 20 has a clue what Hector Rodriguez is doing to pull his paycheck, and he needs to bolster name recognition in advance of November.  Instead of studying the charter of learning what role a legislature is supposed to perform, he is opting for political masturbation.  There's nothing wrong with masturbation, but I'd prefer he not do it with taxpayer money.

Missing the (Park) Point

One of the many "Tax Park Point" signs around town.

New Paltz, whose residents positively beam when they can collaborate on a common goal, but at the same time are often so eager to fight that they will dress each other down for agreeing poorly, is missing a golden opportunity to bridge a longstanding gulf.

Signs protesting the Park Point project cropped up seemingly overnight this past weekend, and after reading so much about my neighbors' feelings online and in the paper, I was interested in knowing what it was all about.

The website on the signs, parkpointpetition.com, points to a petition to the IDA asking that this mammoth project not be given a payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) instead of paying based on its assessed value.  Woodland Pond, the senior community which was built in a wetland and pays pennies on the dollar of its assessed value, and yet continually cries poverty, is a recipient of a PILOT agreement, which is typically awarded with the reasoning that whatever project is being built will bring in enough jobs and economic activity that the deep discount will offset the loss in property taxes.

I've had a number of people point out that the petition contains grammatical and factual errors and misleading information, and some of them won't sign because of that.  For example, taxing this project won't actually add a million dollars to the school's budget.  School districts and other property-tax authorities decide how much money they need, and then it get divided among us landowners based on how much the town assessor says our homes and businesses are worth.  So an extra million would save the rest of us a few bucks.

It's the savings that are key, here, because the petition is being championed by (gasp!) local landlords.  Property taxes are a big deal for landlords, because they are harder to get around paying.  Income tax deductions are plentiful, and the unscrupulous landlord who collects rent in cash and doesn't report it saves even more, although I imagine at a much higher risk of being audited.

So the group of people which actively opposed the middle school renovations are now arguing in favor of the children.  It bothers some people, but I say, "Who cares what their motives are?"

New Paltz is a community of politically-active intellectuals.  That means that no good deed goes unpunished, because no matter the idea, someone and their friends will think it's terrible and fight you on it, tooth and nail.  Republicans and Democrats.  Village and town.  Landlords and homeowners.  Students and residents.  Farmers and cowhands.  We are always drawing lines and looking for things to fight about, and for me at least, it's tiring.

In fact, I'm getting tired right now just thinking about how I will get taken down a peg for this view.

What matters is that, at this point in time, the bulk of concerned citizens of New Paltz don't believe that Park Point deserves a PILOT.  It's an opportunity for collaboration, but anti-Park Point activist told me, "That ship has sailed."  I urge that friend, and others who are hesitant to work with landlords, to take a step back and consider whether your grudges are what's important today.

And to the landlords themselves, particularly those who wrote the petition, please consider the legitimate criticisms of its wording for what they are:  a desire to ensure success.  Misspellings and poor grammar always undermine the message, especially in a community built around the ivory tower.  Misrepresentations, intentional or not, will both turn off the critical thinkers who might otherwise offer support, and be used by the true opposition against you.

As it happens, I don't believe that the landlords' real concern, that of new competition undermining their ability to make a living, has much merit.  Rest assured, the college will continue to add far more students than it can ever house, even if all of New Paltz is eventually shoved into its poured concrete maw with scrabbling glass pyramids of greed.  In truth, I think building it at all is a terrible idea for this community.

But on the question of taxation, I wholeheartedly agree:  if this abomination is to be built, let it be taxed like the rest of the land in New Paltz.  Fair is fair.

Practice what you preach, please

As I have said before, opponents to consolidation have some good points despite the fact that some of them have their own agendas.  But despite this being a college town, apparently no one in this debate has a clue how to educate.

A letter to the New Paltz Times a couple of weeks ago put forth a beef with the process:  the writers would ask specific questions about the finances, and be told to watch the videos of the meetings if they wanted an answer.  It's not unreasonable to be irritated by that sort of response; it's lazy, it's obfuscatory, and it ignores the fact that residents who didn't have the time to attend those meetings aren't going to have the time to watch them, either.

On top of that, the New Paltz Government Efficiency Project site, which should be the central repository for all of this information, is "undergoing maintenance" as of this writing, and has been for days, if not longer.

I thought the solution to this overwhelming sea of data would be New Paltz Fact Check, the blog set up "in order to inform public discourse, policy, and decision making by providing factual, objective analysis of issues important to New Paltz," according to its about page.  But if there's analysis, objective or otherwise, I can't find it.

What I see instead is a vast number of links and documents, many of which wouldn't be available to the public otherwise.  Internal emails, commentary from a Facebook group, public comments, and letters to the editor all in one place.  It's useful to have all this information in front of me, but where's the analysis I was promised?

The problem of analysis, or lack thereof, plagues both camps during this debate.  Don't we have a college in New Paltz?  Aren't there tenured professors and licensed teachers packed thickly in our voter rolls?  Isn't there anyone willing to step up and walk the voting public through the numbers, rather than just expecting us to wade through gigabytes of data without context?

It's unacceptable to champion either viewpoint in this cause without providing meaningful education to the voters.  It's disingenuous for the "yes" camp to expect the public to support this initiative when largely we don't have the time to dig in to the mounds of data.  It's hypocritical for the "no" camp to complain about this lack of analysis, claim to do something about it, and then just add to the problem.

Voters in this community are getting the message that we aren't bright enough to comprehend this mammoth problem, but the truth is, we just don't have as much time on our hands as the volunteers and elected officials (not to mention the paid consultants) do to wrap our minds around it.

Here's an unambiguous request to any and all who are invested in the consolidation question:  don't insult the voting public, educate us.

No good idea goes unpunished

I first expressed support for unification in 2008 or thereabouts; I have always believed that simplifying our lives by having one less government to deal with made a tremendous amount of sense.

Of course, I wasn't factoring in the human element.

The egos and personalities which strut across the New Paltz stage make it damned near to impossible to come up with a solution that will work.  Much of the information put forth by the pro-unification factions is correct.  On the other hand, many of the concerns expressed by the keep-it-separate crowd are legitimate and should not be dismissed.  It's bloody hard to figure out what information to discuss when there are so many people pushing hidden agendas.

Does our mayor want to keep his job?  Of course!  He himself told me that the village is the largest entity he would be comfortable running, because he can "keep it all in my head," in his words.  He knows every drainage grate, he said to me, and couldn't imagine being an effective elected official on a scale where that's not possible.  So there's no question that Jason West is going to fight tooth and nail against consolidation.

But to suggest that West's information and arguments should be entirely discarded because he has an ulterior motive, or because he is arrogant and condescending, does not serve this community well.  Don't consider the source, just evaluate his rationale.

How about Susan Zimet?  She is unabashedly in support of a merger, and doesn't have any personal stake the way the rest of us do, because she doesn't even live here.  Succeeding in this drive will put a feather in her political cap and, in all likelihood, be used as evidence of her wonderfulness when she pursues higher office.  And pursue she shall:  Zimet has always been ambitious, and returned to town government more because the county legislature lost power in the charter government than out of a burning desire to clean house.

Does this make her positions on unification automatically worthless?  If you consider the source it does, but considering the source does not do justice to the information itself.  Like West, Zimet's talking points and actual data must be carefully looked at, whether you like her or not, whether you trust her or not.

There are other players, as well.  One group makes a logo to support a unified government, another group makes a parody, and suddenly people are talking about consulting attorneys over it.  That sort of talk is shameful, because involving attorneys in a neighborly disagreement squelches free speech.  Many of West's opponents (and Zimet's, to a lesser extent) have used the "fascist" label; the fact that the same people who call their opponents dictators seek to silence the opposition with litigation is sickening.

The fact that this process is inordinately complex makes me fear that no good will come of it.  If you want to ruin a good idea, create a committee to study it.  We created around ten committees, so I'm thinking we really wanted to make this idea unpalatable, or at least incomprehensible to anyone with a day job not dedicated to policy questions.

Unification should be simple.  In this iteration, it's been made anything but, and its supporters are trying to ram it through at breakneck speed without answering perfectly valid questions.  Unless something really big changes, and very soon, I think we would all be better off firing each and every one of our town and village board members and starting over once we've cleaned house.

SUNY puts religions on a (slightly more) even playing field

SUNY New Paltz has announced it will not close for Jewish holidays any longer.  This opens the door to real religious freedom on the campus, and should be celebrated by members of all faiths.

The idea that a public institution, open to all, should close its doors for the sake of an observance of a single faith or group of faiths is one of those traditions that's been carried on for so long that most people don't even question it.  Most peoplewho practice a religion in this country, after all, follow one of the Abrahamic faiths, those which intellectually descend from the Hebrew patriarch Abraham; these include the Judaic, Christian, and Islamic sects, among others.  Among those, Judaism has the smallest number of worldwide adherents, but closing of educational institutions in particular for its most sacred holy days is quite common in some parts of the country.

Closing for a religious observance makes sense in some cases.  I am familiar with a coffee shop that closes for Yom Kippur because it's located in a religious enclave, and the owners recognize that it doesn't make business sense to open up if 95% of the customers won't be showing up.  But generally speaking, shutting down completely because some members of the community will be engaged in observances isn't a sound practice, because it's not practical to close up shop every day that's sacred to some amount of the community.

By electing to close for the holy days of one religion, the college sent a message, intentional or not, that it valued members of that faith differently.  In truth, members of any faith can opt out of work or class obligations for religious reasons; the college is, and should be, accommodating of those requests.  But in a society that takes a long break for Christmas and closes down every autumn for a couple of high holy days, an 18-year-old freshman could easily feel uncomfortable requesting time for Ramadan, Vesak, or Samhain.  Are those days less important, because the student or staff member must make a request?  Not to the adherent, they're not.

Of course, there remains the question of Christmas, which is one of the least important days on the Christian religious calendar, but is given tremendous weight by our society.  (If you're a serious Christian, you're far more interested in the messiah's resurrection than his birth.)  For good or ill, Christmas has been secularized and subsumed by our consumption-dependent economy.  As a minor religious observance it doesn't deserve the "holiday break" it gets any more than other holy days, but as a secular celebration of gift-giving it's probably going to have a special place for a long time.  (Those Christmas traditions which are most commonly trumpeted by retailers, such as the trees, the gifts, the lights, and the carols, derive from non-Christian practices that have been conflated with the messianic birth celebration over the centuries, so other than the confusing misuse of the name, they have nothing to do with Christmas as it was originally intended by Christians.)

I hope that Jewish members of the campus community see this decision as liberating, rather than an affront.  Without the undue weight given to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, observant Jews should feel more comfortable asking for accommodations to observe Pesach, Purim, Sukkot, and other major holidays which never were given to campus closure.  And it should make it much easier for members of other faiths, even more thinly represented than Judaism, to similarly embrace their faiths without awkwardness.

Good job, college.

Lost and found, thank goodness

Word on the street is that Jason West lost, and found, his two cats.

My heart goes out to anyone whose pets vanish -- it carries with it a pall of uncertainty which carries a unique kind of pain.  That he has been in touch with the people who found them no doubt brought with it a tremendous sense of relief.

The cats were found without collars by someone who took them to be abandoned or strays.  By the time they saw the posters around town, they had already found a permanent adoptive home for them, but I've been assured the mayor will be reunited with his furry loved ones. 

West is an apartment-dweller, and likely keeps his kitties inside, so they may have looked bedraggled in short order.  I'm familiar with the litter, and I know that they were allowed outside before he adopted them, which can cut both ways:  it may have made them more able to survive out there, but it certainly made them more likely to look for a way to get back out into the world if he'd attempted to keep them in.  Cats who take to outdoor living often don't want to give it up.

I don't know if they had collars or not when they went missing, but the fact that they were found collarless should serve as warning to anyone with naked, inside pets:  sometimes, they get out.


The fact that this community is full of the sort of people who take in stray animals and care for them is one of the most sincerely nice things about this community.

Hopefully the mayor will have the good sense to buy collars and ID tags now, if he hadn't before.  If the collars were lost, and I've had more than one cat myself who was a brilliant escape artist, there are collars which are nearly escape-proof, but they aren't the cheap ones.  Good thing his board gave him a handsome raise a year into his term of office.