County leaders confab with chamber BY LYNN WOODS

County leaders confab with chamber
BY LYNN WOODS

From left: Sheriff P.J. Van Blarcum, county Legislators Wayne Harris, Richard Gerentine, Susan Zimet, Glenn Noonan, Hector Rodriguez, Alan Lomita, and William Farrell, president of the Southern Ulster County Chamber of Commerce.

Jobs. Housing. Development. County payrolls. All important and all on the political docket, if not exactly the stuff of the silver screen. But Ulster County is covering that angle, too, with talk of turning the old county lockup into a movie set.

Six Ulster County legislators and county Sheriff P.J. Van Blarcum sat on a panel and answered questions at the Southern Ulster County Chamber of Commerce’s 2nd Annual State of the County Dinner, held June 26 at the Garden Cathay Resort, in Plattekill. The panel followed cocktails, live jazz performed by The Essentials, dance performances by students attending Madeline’s Dance Center, in Marlboro, and a three-course meal.

The legislators were Wayne Harris (R,C,I-Clintondale), Richard Gerentine (R,C,I-Marlboro), Susan Zimet (D-New Paltz), Glenn Noonan (R,C,I-Gardiner), Hector Rodriguez (D-New Paltz) and Alan Lomita (D-Rosendale).

In the opening comments, Lomita noted improvements in fiscal responsibility, including a more efficiently managed county fleet of vehicles, a proactive county attorney, and the hiring of a county administrator who is responsible for scrutinizing new county contracts. “Before, not one was scrutinized, and we had the problem with the new jail,” which is millions of dollars above budget, he said. Oversight by the new administrator would prevent the same mistake from happening again.

But he also said the failure of the state Legislature to approve a county measure that would have given the legislature power to introduce a new mortgage and bed tax for an additional $4 million in revenues put pressure on the county legislature. “Two-thirds of the county budget is mandated. The remainder is spent on road control and social services,” he said. Without the anticipated $4 million from the tax, he said, getting the necessary funds will result in some “difficult decisions.”

Noonan took issue with Lomita’s view that the county had improved the management of its budget. Regarding the fleet, he said, “Plenty of vehicles are being abused and misused throughout the county.” Although 29 county employees were laid off last year, the county has hired them back “and we have five more employees this year than last.”

Taxes have continued to increase, although last year’s 7 percent increase was obviously an improvement over the 39 percent increase the year before. “I don’t see reforms,” Noonan said. “The finances haven’t changed.”

Asked what the county was doing to provide affordable housing, Rodriguez said communities need to step up to the plate to require affordable housing in their development plans. More money is needed to create incentives to private developers to build housing that is truly affordable, he said, noting many projects create units that rent for $1,000 a month, which is “not affordable” to seniors subsisting on their Social Security checks, which many are.

Harris noted that “we need more tax credits from the federal and state governments” to create incentives for groups such as RUPCO to construct more affordable senior housing. Part of the solution is providing services enabling seniors to stay in their homes, such as county bus transportation, he added.

Van Blarcum said his office was looking for new uses for the old jail, two of which are incarceration for federal inmates and as a film set for movie companies. Rodriguez said it was the hope of the legislature to get a private user “to use the jail facility, which could result in a $3 (million) to $5 million annual payroll.” This summer, the jail is being used as one of the art venues for the Kingston Biennial Sculpture show, with a sculpture placed in each cell, noted Zimet.

Asked their opinion on Assemblyman Kevin Cahill’s bill to eliminate funding of schools through property taxes, the consensus was that “a plan is better than no plan,” in Harris’ words. Zimet noted that similar legislation has long been proposed, but nothing gets done. “We need some type of compromise bill,” she said. “We need to do something.” However, Harris acknowledged the complexity of the problem, “in terms of the number of school districts, their various needs and the fact that funding of New York City schools is so different” compared with the rest of the state.

Van Blarcum responded to an inquiry about the state of law enforcement in the county. Although the number of patrol cops has remained consistent since the 1970s, “on the corrections side we’ve added a lot. We’re incarcerating more prisoners, but you won’t see us ask for a lot (of funds). You’re getting a good bang for your buck.”

Another question touched on open space initiatives. Rodriguez said that several town preservation boards, in partnership with county planner Dennis Doyle, had been “successful in putting dollars toward purchase of development rights,” although he said a farmland preservation plan needed to be updated at the county level. Efforts also needed to be made to funnel more state dollars to Ulster County for open space preservation.

Rodriguez said the planning boards of Plattekill, New Paltz, Marbletown and Gardiner have been “proactive” in getting zoning in place to protect open space. “The reality is we have to accept growth in certain areas and show flexibility. As residents we need to preserve our heritage around us.” He noted that Ulster County is one of the few counties that has set up a special department of environmental protection.

Asked their opinion about the recent initiative to expand insurance benefits to domestic partners of county employees, Rodriguez and Zimet said “it was the right thing to do” and that the county might have been subject to litigation if it hadn’t passed the initiative. Also, with only a few couples qualifying for the coverage, Zimit said the measure had virtually no impact on the budget.

Regarding library funding, Gerentine said funding was cut back dramatically and he would be agreeable to increased funding. Lomita said that “57 percent of the money we give to outside agencies went to the library.”

Asked whether the $90,000 earmarked for the investigation into the cost overrides of the new jail were a good use of taxpayers’ money, Noona said no. “We knew the outcome before we started (the investigation),” he said. “It won’t make a difference.”

His was the lone voice of dissent. Other legislators said it was important to get to the bottom of what went wrong in what was the largest county project ever. “We’re a government, not a business,” said Lomita. “We overspent by $15 million. The taxpayer deserves an answer.”

Rodriguez added the cost of the investigation “is minimal” given the overall sums that were misspent. “This was our largest and most prolific projects,” he said. “We need more information to prevent another one from happening in the future.”

Support for small business comes from the county’s revolving loan fund, which has approved $300,000 for small businesses in the past year. Ulster County Planning Board executive director Dennis Doyle, who was among the attendees, got up briefly to speak about the Main Street “quality communities” initiative. The state is working with 10 Ulster County towns, each of which is the recipient of modest grants, to conduct “cluster analysis” on such topics as the type of businesses that are desirable and how federal dollars can be used to optimize transportation improvements and good land-use policy. Doyle noted that Ulster County’s current population of 182,000 was slated to grow to 265,000 in 10 years. Currently 95 percent of residents work outside the county, so transportation planning is of vital importance.

On the subject of IDA (Industrial Development Agency) funding reform, Rodriguez said, “Ulster County did some OK projects (using IDA funds) but also some that were not very good.” By implementing prevailing wage requirements, “the county decided to forgo some projects not providing good jobs. We want quality jobs.”

Noonan noted that “only one company in the last year and a half came through the IDA. We’ve had no projects in the last 18 months.” Rodriguez countered that there were “projects in the pipeline” and that the prevailing wage provision meant that “we’ll have better projects.”

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