No Country For Sane Men: May 2013

News That Matters

News That Matters
Brought to you (Almost Daily) by PlanPutnam.Org

Telling it like it is for 10 years and counting...

Good Wednesday Morning,

Things we will not talk about:

Greg Ball.
The Sheriff vs the DA vs maturity.
The Sheriff losing the perspective of innocence before guilt.
The no-show job Maryellen Odell tried to get an aid at the county golf course.
The continuance of the "temporary" increase in the county sales tax rate.
John Wilkes Booth.

Here we go! (It's been a while so I may be a tad rusty.)

The Brainless Dead have taken over and they're in charge of our towns and county. The war was over before we even knew we were in one. The winners are mindlessly doing dumb things much worse than bumping into walls and eating annoying people from Georgia while the losers hope their own brains will be sucked out of their heads before they explode from the shock and awe of a county overrun by zombies.

Here's an example:

In Kent, the town board, led by Supervisor Kathy Doherty, decided to ship sewage from a large watershed with a lot of votes and dump it into a much smaller watershed with many fewer votes. It's always safe politically to shit on the little guy during an election year.

The Kent town board also voted 3-2 to place a cell tower on Smokey Hollow Court that is literally in the front yards of the homes there and, as you can imagine, over their strenuous objections.

Who were the two who voted against? The two guys on the board who are up for re-election this year: John, the other Green(e) and Lou Tartaro. Naturally. When you know that a bad law you want to support has enough votes to pass you can vote any way you want and claim you give a damn.... about getting re-elected. Being that you can't prove a negative and that they're zombies, I'll have to take their word for it.

So, who will benefit from this cell tower? You will! Well, for about 45 seconds as you pass by on Route 301. But when residents protested, Supervisor Doherty played her "public safety" card saying that when the power goes out how will those people call 911 if they have no cell service?

Funny thing that they've survived all these years then. And based on their opposition they don't seem to mind. But they do mind 100 feet of towering steel emanating radio waves - and you should mind that the board shoved this thing down their throats. If they can get away with it in Kent they can get away with it anywhere.

But wait, it gets better in the Town of Lakes...

Several months ago the County legislature wanted to pass a resolution that would ban the use of hydrofracking waste fluid on all roads in the county for snow removal purposes and for disposal in our sewage treatment plants. Apparently that unknown chemical brew melts snow and prevents freezing. The resolution was based almost word for word on Westchester County's resolution which passed with no problems. But being Putnam County the towns of Kent and Patterson sent a letter to complain based on "home rule" grounds and guess what... they sent the exact same letter! Oh, "Patterson" was scratched out and "Kent" written in with blue crayon on Kent's letter, but otherwise they were exactly the same, word for word.

As our County legislature has the backbone of a decomposing squid they changed their resolution to bypass towns and to include only county roads and facilities and urged the towns to pass their own resolutions. So (and you know this was coming...) where are those resolutions from Kent and Patterson? Best as I can tell, with emails to Kent town hall and checking the website, it does not exit. Does this mean Kent intends to use such a pollutant on the roads come winter? Who knows? The town ain't talkin'. And if you should try to complain to Supervisor Doherty you'll only get a voice response... if you're not being told that information was wrong in the first place. But there's still no resolution. So until there is one, Kent may very well desire to use this radioactive crap on her roads come winter.

Considering that Supervisor Doherty is up for re-election this year and the scuttlebutt is that Bob Bondi in drag could win if he ran, I'd say we start saying good bye to the current supervisor.

And talking of Bob Bondi, that darling of the FBI and state handouts, that brings us to the county level and that's where the Zombies have really won. I don't even know where to start...

Okay, Peekskill Hollow Road. Quite some time ago the peeps down on PHR convinced the county not to widen the road to superhighway dimensions and then successfully fought for the road to be included in a historic district. All that is good. But then they asked for a through-traffic weigh limit so that the 18 Wheelers and asphalt and rock-carrying trucks that ram down that road at incredible speeds be banned expect for local delivery. County highway commissioner, Pena, told those nice people, NO WAY. He might not have used those words but, well, in essence he did.

Putnam Valley and the County legislature have both passed non-binding resolutions in support of this sensible precaution to safety and wear and tear on PHR but the County Highway Commissioner steadfastly refuses. He makes all kinds of claims that bend credulity to the breaking point when all he has to do is post the damned signs. But he will not. He said it would violate the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. He said he didn't have the authority. He said, heck, he said 'no'.

What we need to know is who is he listening to. It's clearly not the people who live on and near that road, and it's not the towns nor the county legislature because other county roads have such weight restrictions. So just who is it that has his ear and what do those people have to do to get him to act? Maryellen doesn't seem to care either because she could probably snap her fingers and say, "Make it Happen!". So whoever has got Pena's ear also has Maryellen's.

Package Pavement? Nah. Couldn't be. Nope. Not ever.

So yeah, in a moment of clarity the legislative zombies at Chez 40 Gleneida did something purposeful but that was probably just after they finished devouring the brains of eastern Europeans living in Mahopac whose work, student and tourist visas expired when Bush was still president - so they were adequately sated. But once the stupor wore off and there were no more Estonians to eat, the County Executive decided that your outdoor recreational experience would be enhanced by commercial advertising.

According to a Tax Watch article by David McKay Wilson in last week's NY Journal News, a company called "Bike Path Country" intends to suck the country right out of the rail trail by installing markers every 1/2 mile with advertising on it along all 36 miles of the former Put Line from Yonkers through Carmel and into Brewster. I mean, you don't want to get lost and you do want to Eat At Joe's, right?

From the article:

"In Putnam, there’s a 50-50 split, under a contract getting drawn up in Putnam County. Bikepath plans to charge Putnam trailway advertisers $200 to $400 a month for ads on informational signs and mile markers – installed every half-mile. The company has political connections in Republican circles. Its vice president, Rich O’Keefe, served on the Carmel Town Board, where his sister, Suzi, an aide to state Sen. Greg Ball, now serves."

From the Bike Country website:

"Bike Path Country has the ability to offer all different types of signage and placement options to municipalities and sponsors. Our goal is to make sure that the signs stand out from the environment in an unabtrusive [sic] way, and also add value to the end user. Each sponsors' advertisement will contain a GPS tagged QR code that can launch Mobile Apps, Mobile Ready Websites, Mobile Ready Videos, Directions, Texting Programs, and more."

I wonder who gets the WIFI contract?

Well, it's a terrible idea but government will sell it to you as a cash cow for maintenance of the trail. The way I figure it, a few extra dollars couldn't hurt but we might first apply it to Tilly Foster where we're being bled dry by another contract the county law department drew up once-upon-a-time.

The artist Banksy had this to say about such things:

"Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It's yours to take, re-arrange, and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock that someone just threw at your head. You owe the companies nothing."

The argument in favor is that no one leaves the bike paths to shop at nearby stores but damn if I can remember a time I was out on a hike and thought, "I really need some rubber cement!" or, "I think I'll buy a house!", or, I really should buy a new vacuum!" or, "If I buy a jeep I won't have to bicycle this damn trail anymore!"

According to the Tax Watch article, Putnam Planning Commissioner Anthony Ruggiero says that the signs will be a real asset to the county. “It will be very positive,” he said. “I know there was concern with sign pollution. But I think the signs are tastefully done.”

Who the hell cares? We hit the trails to get away from the internet and TV commercial spots and ads, ads, ads, ads... like the ones over there on the right-hand side of this page - regardless how "tastefully done" they are.

(With that said, shop at our sponsors! Shop today! Shop early and frequently and bring your friends!")

Look, people get out on the trail to get away from the noise and commercialism that has taken over our lives and even a little-bitty advert every 1200 feet is an annoyance. Why not slap advertisements all over the county Veteran's Park with the (non) church on Gipsy Trail? Why not put up an "Eat at Red Rooster!" sign at the 12th hole at Putnam National? Why not rename the county office building the "Verizon County Center"? If the county wants to earn money from advertising revenue I'm sure there are many more appropriate places than the rail trail.

While I wish the Party-connected company well, if the county hasn't properly budgeted for maintenance of the trail then they're as shortsighted as any zombie could be.

So here's a compromise that's win-win for everyone. Let Bike Country purchase kiosks to place in each parking lot and place their advertisements on those and "share" that revenue with the county. In this way the company gets to earn profit off of something you do not want and the county doesn't have to go crying to the state about unfunded mandates every 1/2 mile.

Call County Executive Maryellen Odell and tell her that if the county hasn't budgeted appropriately for maintenance of the trail before they took on the project that you'd gladly give up one day of the Sheriff's patrol to pay for it. It's probably not even that much. (But be warned - she will pull out charts and sheets and pictures and graphs and numbers as large as she can count without taking her shoes off to scare you into changing your mind. Don't.

Ms. Odell's number at the county office is: 845 808-1000 and her county email is: PutnamCountyExecutive@putnamcountyny.gov

Lastly, we get to our Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney. Mr. Maloney ran as a "Bill Clinton Democrat" (his words) and he sure as hell tries to prove that each and every day, being the best Republican the Democrats can buy.

Just last week his zombie addled cranium voted not only to cut $20 billion in nutrition support for America's most needy but then voted to remove the President from the decision-making process so that Canada could sell tar-sands oil to China via the Keystone XL pipeline thus helping America's least needy. I swear, he must have been partying in that car with Stephen Katz. Whatever they were smoking must have been really, really good.

Anyway, SPM's actions these past few weeks are pissing a lot of people off. Democrats never learn that the only way they get elected in this area is with the help of a hard-core progressive crowd that will hit the streets, pound doors, donate money and make the calls necessary. We lost John Hall because the moment he was elected Chuck Schumer swooped (is that a word?) down from Democrat heaven and replaced John's brain with a little tiny bit of Bill Clinton's. It wasn't enough to get Hall more oral sex, but it was enough for him to turn "right" and lose his core supporters which opened the door for the crass, rude, tea bagger with the red dress that replaced him. No, not Stephen Katz! Nan Hayworth. Sheesh.

The same is going to happen to Mr. Maloney if he's not careful. If I were him I'd be in serious damage control mode right about now. HR676 anyone?

Next time out, the Game of Thrones edition.

The image of the sign for the rail trail that is not the sign for the rail trail (don't ask) is from the NYJN website via electronic link and accompanied the article.