Election Season Already

It's been a while since the last post, I know. Some things are brewing, others are history. MOSA and economic development are the hot topics at the moment, and there is much to come on both fronts. I hope to have more to say about both soon.

Right now, a lot of effort is being directed at the November election. Campaigns are being planned, parties are maneuvering for position, candidates are hitting the bricks. All 14 County Representatives are up for election, as they are every two years. As far as I know, I will have no Republican opponent; someone may choose to run on a third party line.

I've been out on the bricks myself, collecting signatures on the petition which will allow me to run on the Democratic ticket. As in the past, I have enjoyed chatting with those of you whose doors I have knocked on, and I really appreciate your interest in the process of democratic governing, and in the issues facing Otsego County specifically.

I needed 34 signatures on my petition for inclusion on the Democratic ticket; I got over 50, partly because it's always nice to have more than you need in case you make a mistake, and partly because I enjoyed getting out and meeting you again. I'll be out collecting signatures again this month, as I have been endorsed by Sustainable Otsego, and will be running on their ticket as well as the Democratic ticket.

Sustainable Otsego (SO) isn't a political party; it's a grassroots organization dedicated to sustainable practices in all areas of life. It's been a leader in the anti-fracking movement in this region. In 2011, SO became certified to endorse candidates for office, and currently it is endorsing five County Representative candidates, including myself.

I certainly agree with most of what SO stands for; I believe that sustainability is the right choice not only for the environment, but for many other facets of our lives: economics, food, healthcare, transportation, energy policy, etc. In addition, a sustainable approach may be absolutely necessary in the longer term, as climate change and diminishing hydrocarbon reserves force us into difficult choices.

Speaking of the long term, one of the things I especially appreciate about SO is that they – actually, we – have developed a platform for Otsego County candidates to run on. This puts them out ahead of the Republicans, who have no platform, and the Democrats, who are working on one. Here it is:

A TEN POINT PLAN FOR OTSEGO COUNTY   

• Support Home Rule to protect our communities and the rural lifestyle of Otsego County.
• Promote farm-to-market agriculture.
• Preserve Otsego County's pure water, our most important asset, for residents, businesses, and agriculture.
• Find low-interest credit for local businesses and homeowners.
• Aim at net zero-energy practices and renewables to save money and reduce greenhouse gases.
• Explore joining scores of other NYS communities who have municipalized their electric grids to lower costs for homeowners and businesses. 
• Bring a state-of-the-art broadband internet system to everyone in Otsego County. 
• Establish a county-wide sustainable comprehensive plan. 
• Ensure that local tax policies do not increase income inequality. 
• Support a sustainable Town of Oneonta Southside Municipal Water Project to increase business and tax revenues.

You can read a lot more about SO and sustainability in general at their website: sustainableotsego.org

What Will Work?

As you are no doubt aware, economic development consultant Sandy Mathes spoke with the Board of Reps last Wednesday about economic development in general, and developing Otsego County in particular. He repeated his message to business leaders in Oneonta a few days later, and the Daily Star summarized it here.

I found some of his thoughts compelling – actually, most of them – and any concerns about his message that I had were the result of my reluctance to government jumping into an alliance with business, to the benefit of the latter. I don't believe that government exists to serve business (“The business of America is business”), but to serve the people. Sometimes serving business achieves this goal, and sometimes it leads us further from it. Also – I'm a little concerned about this, but I'm not exactly sure why.

Overall, Mr. Mathes told us that we need to market ourselves wisely, consistently and aggressively. Can't argue with that. He also, when asked, emphasized that long-term planning and prioritization was crucial. First the towns, villages and city: then the County should assess those plans, see what commonalities they have, see who wants to opt into aggressive economic marketing and who doesn't, and then create a county plan designed to take everyone into consideration.

A comprehensive plan like this – a long-term, time- and energy-intensive process, involving everyone with a stake in our county's future – has long been a goal of mine. I think it's essential for any organization to know what its priorities are, and what goals it's pursuing. When that organization represents citizens, it's doubly important. There's not going to be any substitute for aggressive marketing if we really want to address economic development, but if we don't have general agreement about what that means, and where we want to go with it, we'll be tripping over each other from the very beginning, and we won't get anywhere.

Tax-Free NY

I just returned from a presentation by Robert Megna, Director of the New York State Division of Budget, at SUCO's Morris Hall. He was here to present the Governor's Tax-Free NY initiative, an attempt to create new jobs by carving out tax-free zones within or adjacent to SUNY facilities statewide (this includes community colleges). The idea is that any business that was new, or expanding, or diversifying, and was thereby creating new jobs, could locate on or near a SUNY facility and enjoy ten tax-free years. In the words of the Governor's press release: 

Tax-Free NY will entice companies to bring their ventures to Upstate New York by offering new businesses the opportunity to operate completely tax-free – including no income tax for employees, no sales, property or business tax – while also partnering with the world-class higher education institutions in the SUNY system. 

That's a pretty good deal. The idea behind it is that companies can take advantage of the proximity to a SUNY campus. This, the thinking goes, would be beneficial in a number of different ways, but especially in that there would be easy access to a well-educated workforce. Each campus would establish their own plan to implement this program, and would choose companies to participate based on this plan. Retail and financial product companies, according to Mr. Megna, were probably not ideal for this plan.

There is much more to come on this. There are lots of questions, of course. Companies can locate on campus or 'adjacent land,' this phrase does not, apparently, mean what you think it means: 'adjacent' can mean one or two miles away (for instance, downtown Oneonta). 'Adjacent' land that these companies occupy becomes state land, and is taken off local (for instance, city and county) tax rolls.

Initially, this sounds like a kind of inverse unfunded mandate for city and county:  instead of requiring us to spend more, it requires us to raise less revenue. When I asked Mr. Megna how the affected localities would join in the process and have a say regarding their lost revenue, he didn't, frankly, think that this was a very important issue. Of course, if the program is wildly successful, and incubates great economic growth, it won't matter. 

Mr. Megna used the old Empire Zone process as an example of an economic stimuls plan that didn't work (it was too easy to game the system: companies could benefit from the tax break but not create any economic benefit), and, on a number of occasions, noted that the Tax-Free NY planners had learned from the Empire Zones's mistakes.

Let's hope we're not listening to another presentation, in another ten years, about a new plan that has learned from the mistakes of Tax-Free NY.

It's A Different World

I've been thinking about economic development lately, since Carolyn Lewis, our Economic Development department head, gave her notice last month. There's general agreement that, as we look for a replacement for Carolyn, that we need to take a much more aggressive and collaborative – and expensive – approach to economic development in Otsego County. Carolyn agrees, and has made some suggestions for the Board to consider, going forward.

I'll have more to say on this soon, probably in posts about Sandy Mathes's presentation on Wednesday, and the Governor's 'Tax-Free NY' proposal, which eliminates many taxes for new jobs created on or 'adjacent to' SUNY facilities. 

But all this (as well as graduation season) got me thinking about my older son, who has almost finished a bachelor's degree at a good private school in NY. One semester before graduation (he was scheduled to graduate this December) with a degree in Computer Science, he left school and took a job in San Francisco, as the first employee of a well-funded internet startup. He's making about what I made when I was first promoted to district-wide adminstrator. 

He's got a list of idols – role models – in his field, as most of us have had at one time or another. What's interesting about this list is most of the names on it – starting with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs – never finished college. The guy he's working for – the guy who founded the company and secured the funding – is 20 years old and did not finish college. The same is true about the many successful, busy, happy geeks he has run into in the month since he's been there.

So we have a huge, successful, vibrant, creative, entrepreneurial subculture creating great wealth and changing the culture of the world with tecnology, and many (most?) of them did not do what, for generations, we have assumed you had to do to create world-changing technology.

How does that inform us when we start to ask about economic development in Otsego County? The Governor has connected job growth in New York to the SUNY system, and he may be right (more on that soon). But are we making any purposeful forays into the (admittedly unfamiliar) world of 21^st century technology, where the rules we've used for centuries have been left behind? The world has changed, friends. We need to change with it or be left behind. Dylan was right: “He who isn't busy being born is busy dyin'.”

Ingraffea on Fracking

If you weren't at the Foohills production center on Thursday night to listen to Dr. Anthony Ingraffea talk about methane gas, you were, apparently, the only one. Everyone else was there – the house was packed, standing room only. It was a fact-dense, but user-friendly presentation with slides that lasted a little over an hour, followed by Q&A. He began with data and pictures describing what kind of well density is necessary to profitably exploit the Marcellus or Utica shales (very dense, with sprawling well-head infrastructure); then he laid out the data regarding pipe leakage in wells, and gas leakage during drilling and transport (about 5%-8%), thus putting to rest the 'clean energy' myth, especially considering that methane is dozens of times more effective in trapping heat in the earth's atmosphere than carbon dioxide. He ended with a proposal, which his team will present to Governor Cuomo whenever the Governor has a moment, setting forth a plan to move energy production in New York State away from hydrocarbons and toward renewables, perhaps reaching 100% clean energy production in 30 years.


Sound crazy, this last bit? As crazy as the billions-of-dollars infrastructure explosion and large-scale exploitation of the environment and the political process necessary to get only 20% of the methane out of the Marcellus in a profitable manner? The more I learn what it takes to do the latter, the more I think the former is the rational choice.


Anyway, if you did miss the event, it was recorded, and I'm working on getting a link up here on the blog. Until then, you can watch Dr. Ingraffea's presentations on YouTube: just type 'Dr. Anthony Ingraffea' in the YouTube search bar, and take your pick.  Here's one I've watched to get you started.



By the way, I'd love to includ a link to the Daily Star's article about the presentation... but there wasn't one (online, at least). Where were you guys?

MOSA Future

Actually, there's no future for MOSA, at least in Otsego County; it seems that that bridge has been burned. But what's the future of solid waste disposal in Otsego County?

There are a number of suggestions regarding how to extract ourselves cleanly, and without unnecessary expense. Simply asking for a re-do, or taking MOSA to court without objective evidence of the true value of the properties, don't seem like good alternatives. The former has already been done, and MOSA has been particularly unresponsive. The latter will be expensive and uncertain – and Otsego County will, essentially, be paying 40% of MOSA's court costs, as well as all of ours. There may be a way to let the free market determine the properties' value; more to come, if that turns out to be a fruitful avenue of investigation.

More important than all this, at least in the long run, is the question of whether Otsego County should be in the trash business at all. There are those on the Board who answer this with an emphatic “No!,” and those who feel that leaving it all to the free market would encourage monopoly and put a lot of local trash haulers out of business.

A year or so ago, the Board indicated its interest in pursuing a combined public/private approach, where the County retained some control over the transfer station and established fees which leveled the playing field. If this were the result, fees would be designed so that the County would break even. Our consultant in this area, Hans Arnold, has told us that this approach would be economically feasible.

He has also said, when I asked him, that he didn't think that completely privatizing solid waste disposal in Otsego County would mean the loss of any jobs or the demise of any small businesses. But there was a mighty long pause before that answer.


So that's where we are at the moment. We actually have to look at all the options, talk about them, and decide relatively soon, so that we can proceed with the complex process of extracting ourselves from MOSA and replacing it with something – or nothing.

Karen Sullivan, the Director of the Planning Department, will be preparing a training for those of us who don't have extensive knowledge and experience in this area. I'll pass on what I learn, and, as always, please let me know what you're thinking.

“Our Community Salutes”

The Board met in regular session today, primarily to approve the membership of the LDC that is tasked with selling the Manor. One other piece of business was conducted: we approved a resolution to join municipalities across New York State in proclaiming May 18, 2013, as “Our Community Salutes Day” in Otsego County. This designation honors High School graduates who have enlisted in the armed forces.


The resolution itself is full of high-flung language, asserting that they are “patriots” and speaking of “the selflessness and courage they are demonstrating in the defense of their country.”


I've spent the best part of 40 years working in the public education system and a whole lot of that time was spent working with High School students (and their families) who, for many reasons, were not going to get to go to college when they graduated. Many of these kids pursue acceptance in the military in the same way that valedictorians pursue acceptance at Harvard – and I think these kids may get the better deal. The structure, training and travel they'll experience will certainly have a substantially positive effect on their lives.


So I joined the Board in extending my “support, gratitude and best wishes,” and I do wish them all the best. And I also wish all the best to those who won't have days to honor them.


I've never quite understood our need to focus all our patriotic attention on those who serve in the military. Patriotism is more than preparing for, and fighting wars. There are millions of other Americans (including graduating High School students) who serve their country in other ways, making the country strong and resilient – a better, safer, healthier place to live. Law officers and emergency service personnel come immediately to mind. Their jobs are always as dangerous, and often more dangerous, and they serve selflessly and honorably. Teachers and nurses also serve serve their country, and have a significant effect on the lives of those Americans – young and old, sick and well – who they serve. The list can go on: people who devote their lives to service of some sort, in jobs that are hard and demanding and often thankless, and don't make them rich.


So Godspeed and God bless, to those kids heading off to the military this summer, and thank you. And also to all the others who look forward to a career in service to their country.

MOSA Past and Present

It seems that the next big challenge for the County Board is going to be the series of decisions that have to be made about MOSA, the regional solid waste authority, named for its three county members: Madison, Otsego and Schoharie.

Otsego County has been trying to extract itself from MOSA since before I came on the Board, mostly, as I understand, because the contract which binds the counties together requires that each provide a fixed tonnage of trash (GAT, or guaranteed annual tonnage) to the MOSA landfills in Montgomery County. If a county does not achieve its GAT at the end of the year, it pays a fee commensurate with its shortfall; this is why you get a solid waste user fee most years – to pay the GAT shortfall.

Trash tonnage, it seems, has not lived up to expectations, at least in Otsego County. In addition, those who are informed about these things assert that there are many haulers who are not bringing their trash to the MOSA landfill, for economic reasons. This is illegal, as a result of Otsego County's membership in MOSA, but it's hard for landfill operators to determine where a particular load of trash came from. And it's not in the interests of an out-of-MOSA landfill operator to turn away a paying load of trash because it came from the wrong county. Thus, the GAT remains unfulfilled year after year.

The economics of solid waste disposal are complicated and I don't intend to lay them out in detail (at this point, I probable couldn't, anyway). Long ago, when sanitation (or lack of it) was a major health issue, local governments became involved for the good of all. Today, it's not necessary, and in New York State, no local municipality of any type is required to be in the solid waste business (although every municipality is required to have a law regarding separation of recyclables). MOSA made sense decades ago, when it was established, but it doesn't now. 

To add to the confusion, the MOSA administration has been completely unwilling to cooperate in Otsego County's extraction. Our county owns 40% of MOSA, and so is entitled to that proportion of the assets. MOSA took a year and a half to do an appraisal – an epic feat of foot-dragging – and then apparently over-valued the two transfer stations in Otsego County (Oneonta and Cooperstown). Since these two facilities would revert to Otsego County once we left MOSA, their value would be subtracted from the full cash value of MOSA, so it's to MOSA's advantage to over-value them.

And finally, the MOSA agreement which binds the three counties together in the regional authority expires on April 30, 2014. If there's one thing that the Board seems to agree with, it's that Otsego County will be out of MOSA on May 1, 2014, if we can't get out before. And what then?

This post is long enough; I'll comment about the possible future(s) of solid waste in Otsego County soon.

Home Rule

Fracking is a highly political issue, as is any issue that involves a conflict between economic and environmental forces, and in case we've forgotten that, the NY Court of Appeals recently upheld the home-rule actions of the Town of Middlefield, here in Otsego County, and Dryden, between Cortland and Ithaca. As I understand the court system, the only way to change this decision would be to appeal to the US Supreme Court.

So municipalities (in New York State, at least), have the power to decide what kind of industry they will allow within their boundaries. Sounds like a simple position, and it certainly makes sense, but politics does funny things to sense. You may remember the County Board vote supporting home rule last year, when a large minority of the Board voted against the ability to choose for ourselves. 

But now that there's some stability to the notion of home rule here in NY, the rules, so to speak, change. Some have argued that the decision gives Governor Cuomo some political breathing room to approve fracking, ending the years-long statewide moratorium, since municipalities now have the right to decide otherwise.  Others suggest that the gas industry will be less willing to develop drilling strategies in an region that is a checkerboard of differing regulations.  The decision will certainly take some of the pressure off state regulators who, if the NY experience is anything like other states, will not be given the resources to ensure any kind of quality oversight.

I think it's a win for democracy – the kind of democracy that most of us participate in and feel comfortable with: local government. Neighbors and fellow-townspeople will get together to decide what's best for them. They'll know their town, and take their local knowledge into account. They can change their mind if they want. 

Gas and oil companies will survive and flourish, regardless. I have little patience for the argument that we can't make it more difficult for corporations to do their jobs. Inflexible companies will wither, and resilient companies will make adjustments and succeed – just as they have for centuries. Under no conditions is it acceptable to relinquish our autonomy in order to protect the profits of ultra-wealthy international corporations.

The LDC Vote

Today at the Board Meeting, the Board voted to establish a Local Development Corporation and transfer the ownership of the Manor to that organization. The County retains a firm grip on the finances and operation of the Manor, and the LDC's sole purpose is to sell it to... well, we hope to the bidder who represents the highest quality of care in their current facilities.

I offered an amendment to the resolution which separated the creation of the LDC (which would remain in the resolution) and the transfer of the Manor (which would be struck from the resolution). There was a fair amount of debate on this amendment, but it failed, with only John Kosmer and myself voting for it.

I had originally argued that the LDC's mission should include submitting their final choice to the Board for a vote (before the Department of Health process started), so the Board could take responsibility for the choice, like many of us had promised to do. It turns out, according to County Attorney Ellen Coccoma, that this process would trip us into a 215 situation – it would be seen as Board action to sell the Manor, and as such we would have to sell to the highest bidder, full stop.

I'm still not convinced that the 'highest responsible bidder' means what many think it means – 'responsible' equalling 'able to pay' – but I had to go with our attorney's advice, given the time constraints.

The amendment that I did offer – separating the creation of the LDC from the transfer – was an attempt to do the same thing: to allow the Board to vote on the LDC's final choice of buyer. I offered the amendment for two reasons. First, as you know, I'm concerned about the Board giving up its right to take responsibility for the final sale. This would allow the Board to transfer the Manor to the LDC for sale after the successful bidder had proven that it had a high-quality track record. Second, I thought that we needed to have a public debate on this, if for no other reason than to honor those members of the public who have spent as many months working on this issue as we have. I think it's important to note that in all the public comment sessions and public hearings on this issue, only an infinitesimal percentage of those who participated were in favor of the sale and/or the LDC. The LDC/transfer separation was a legitimate solution offered by many of the public, and today it got a hearing.

The final vote on the full resolution was 11-3, with Keith McCarty, John Kosmer and myself voting against. I think we need to sell the Manor – there are no alternatives left, it seems – but I am unhappy with the LDC process, especially the fact that it takes the responsibility from those of us who were elected to exercise that responsibility.