Issues big and bigger fill Orange County plate By KATHY KAHN

“We are at war and terrorism hasn’t gone away.”

The speaker was Orange County Executive Edward A. Diana, who nonetheless also addressed more quotidian concerns development, taxes, education, and then some at the county chamber of commerce’s midyear meeting at Wallkill Country Club recently.

Diana touted improvements Orange County has made to minimize risk and maximize protection. Among them: the new emergency training facility opening in Goshen in early 2008. “There will be no better facility in state of New York,” he said.

The county also opened its own police academy in New Windsor and used $3.5 million to renovate the fire training facility in Goshen, which Diana says is month ahead of time and on budget. “We are going to do everything possible to make sure we are safe.”

Diana addressed both the purchase of Camp LaGuardia in Chester and the state Legislature’s commitment to the new State University of New York’s Orange campus in Newburgh.

For 84 years, Diana told his audience, Camp LaGuardia has been a single men’s homeless shelter that could hold up to 1,000 people at capacity.

Diana said the county purchase of Camp LaGuardia from New York City for $8.5 million was done “on a handshake. Ask anyone who lives around Camp LaGuardia if the quality of life hasn’t gone up for them. Walk into Chester and go into Shoprite. You’ll see the difference.”

But it doesn’t mean he doesn’t “have a heart for the homeless … We opened a homeless shelter in Middletown and plan to use a $2.7 million grant to refurbish the former Middletown Psychiatric Center.” He’d just like to see New York City keep its homeless at home and for something positive to happen with the 260-acre parcel. “And we will do something with it. We will make money on this,” promised Diana. Forty of the acres are zoned commercial and “we are going to put it to good use.”

Diana said the county “has no intention of losing money on the Camp LaGuardia deal and will maximize its potential and keep it on the tax rolls.” The homeless shelter is now closed, and New York City will turn the keys over to the county July 1.

Diana, a former teacher in the Minisink Valley School District before turning to politics, is an unabashed advocate of higher education, especially of SUNY Orange and its plans to build a new campus in Newburgh. Saying the new $90 million jail caused controversy when being built, Diana hoped “by building a college we may never have to build a bigger jail.”

The full-fledged campus “will not only meet the need to educate the future work force,” said Diana, “but we have $30.8 million from the state; $10.5 million from the Kaplan Foundation; and $10 million from the Maple-Key Bank building, which took a reduction in taxes. We’ll bond the remaining $30 (million) to 40 million, and then we’ll look to the city of Newburgh for help. We need that parking lot and the through street.” Middletown’s SUNY campus will also see upgrades, including the new Gilman Center for International Education.

Parklands weren’t overlooked. The county plans to move its entire parks operations to the refurbished Thomas Bull Center at Thomas Bull Memorial Park in Montgomery, breaking ground in summer 2008. Diana said the county has not forgotten southern Orange: the Gonzaga property, a former Jesuit retreat straddling Monroe, Blooming Grove and Woodbury, will be developed, he said, and promised “a 2-acre fenced-in dog park will be included.”

Water, sewer and other key infrastructure concerns need to be addressed, particularly in the fast-growing southern portion of the county. Diana is ready for “parochial thinking to come to an end … It’s time we worked together as a region to solve these problems.”

He said the Drury Lane connection between I-84 and I-87 and Stewart International Airport “tripled in cost due to special interest groups who didn’t want it to happen.” The new road, which will be completed by the end of 2007, has tripled Stewart’s “catchment area” from 1.7 million to 3.6 million people, making it very attractive to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and to airline carriers who want to reach a broader base of passengers.

And: “We need a mix of housing. Our problem is getting the concept accepted by the people who don’t want it. McMansions are not going to help us keep our work force in the county, nor is it possible for the so-called ‘average’ worker a nurse, an office worker or municipal worker to live here if we continue on this path.

“Further, we need to find a way to reform property taxes.” He said 78 per cent of the tax burden on the real property taxpayer is the school tax, and hoped Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the state Legislature will act upon and come up with a solution. “I’m not the guru, but I believe through a combination of sales, income and property taxes, we can make distribution more equitable.”