Patriot 246 Writes Letter in Opposition to UCIDA's Assumption of Pilot, I Agree

Ulster County, New York's UCIDA

G. C.; LCSWR

                                                                                    PO Box ...

                                                                                    Glasco, NY 124..

                                                                                    August 14, 2012

To:      Michael Hein

Ulster County Executive

Terry Bernardo Chair

Ulster County Legislature

All Legislators of Ulster County

244 Fair St. Kingston, NY 12421.

Re: Ulster County Industrial Development Agency’s proposal for PILOT responsibility

Dear Mr. Hein, Mrs. Bernardo, et al.: 

This letter is to address the many concerns we have regarding the UCIDA’s proposal to assume responsibility for PILOT (Payment In Lieu Of Taxes) for housing projects including: “affordable, workforce, senior and dormitory.”

I represent a citizen action group and was among several dozen people who attended the UCIDA’s public hearing on August 1 who are opposed to such a change for reasons enumerated below:

1. Of primary importance is that if UCIDA’s proposed change is passed it would bypass town government and town government is most local and closest to the people it represents. In effect UCIDA would provide the opportunity for a developer to by-pass a town’s regulatory process and impose itself upon a town which may not want, need or be able to afford such housing projects. We are in agreement with the town of Saugerties which rejects and strongly opposes the proposed amendments to the Ulster County Industrial Development Agency’s Uniform Tax Exemption Policy. This practice would make government yet one more step further from its citizens.

2. There is no valid reason that the UCIDA needs to grant housing PILOTS in order to fulfill its mission of industrial development. There is no need for this type of housing on behalf of the local residents and past housing projects have attracted out of town developers and non residents to Ulster County for which Ulster County residents have had to support. One example is the “affordable” housing project in Woodstock which residents believed would be for local struggling artists only to find that now it is being filled through the use of a lottery system which includes all residents of New York State. New York State has long been known as the welfare state and Ulster County is preferred for many reasons as an easier place to obtain benefits. These types of housing projects result in increased strain on the local property tax paying citizens who bear the burden, thus making it increasingly difficult for residents to continue to live independently. Anyone traveling through the hamlets, villages or towns of Ulster County will readily identify that there is an overabundance of vacant housing and most landlords report having a current vacancy rate of over 50%.

3. At the August 1, pubic hearing the UCIDA chairman stated that one advantage of having the UCIDA would be enforcing that the developer/ owner pay their taxes. We don’t need the UCIDA to do that because there is already one in existence.  It’s in existence for every property owner and it’s called the property tax auction. Why not use the law that’s in place and apply it to all in a fair manner?

4. The UCIDA’s proposal contains a specific ridiculously low dollar amount for a 25 year period which the owner would pay in taxes with “affordable housing” being the least amount and dormitory housing being the highest. So although the UCIDA claims that there would be uniformity in PILOTs it is common knowledge that college towns such as New Paltz and Stone Ridge (Marbletown) would be the Dormitory locations while towns such as Saugerties would be allocated the "Affordable.” Furthermore, it is unreasonable to set a dollar rate when no taxpayer is given such an advantage especially as most are bracing for hyper-inflation. Even under the NY State Tax Law 581A tax payments are reassessed periodically.

5. In taking the PILOT decision making process from the towns, those making the decisions are accountable to no one. The UCIDA staff is voluntary and not elected. While they may have to answer to the County Executive or County Legislature, the citizen’s voice is further removed and barely audible. One such example is SACRED (Saugerties Assertive Citizens for Responsible Economic Development) which has requested more than once to meet with the County Executive but that request was denied.

6. Conglomerate housing, for which the UCIDA is proposing to grant PILOTs, while consistent with plans for United Nations Agenda 21 and ICLEI, is not environmentally friendly, nor mentally, physically or spiritually healthy. Its mission is to eliminate single family homes and have all humans living in conglomerate housing. These housing projects demolish many acres of land, cause strain on existing water and sewage systems while causing current housing structures to be abandoned due to financial strain on a single family homeowner. It alienates people from a free-flowing daily communion with nature; it is contrary to self-sufficiency and independence and promotes dependency and alienation from the land and the means to sustain oneself.

7. Conglomerate housing, (called euphemistically workforce, affordable, dormitory or senior) is contrary to integration. It creates a ghetto and structures by which its residents are categorically classified and identified. While it may make it easier for residents to be located by agents of control, it deprives humans of individuality. Children residing in such structures are readily identified by the required characteristics to reside there. Residents, by definition of their housing, are labeled as poor, working poor, old, sick, etc. and prevented from true integration into the existing community. It deprives residents of their individual rights and they must meet routine inspections and their behavior must be acceptable to the rules of the conglomerate housing authority. For example residents may not be allowed to play musical instruments such as saxophones or electric guitars.  

Formerly known as housing projects, which were by all definitions were failures and came to be identified with poverty and an inability to move forward, these old ideas come to us camouflaged with new labels.

The UCIDA has no need to grant PILOTs for housing. The proposal is destructive and it is poorly designed. The UCIDA should not be given the ability to usurp power from the towns or to grant PILOTS for any type of human habitation but should keep its focus on promoting industry rather than control of human beings.

Sincerely,

GC, LCSWR

SACRED Member

UCIDA’s assumption of PILOT serves no other purpose than to squelch democracy and support its corruption. Shame on you.

PO Box 130

West Shokan, NY 12494

August 15, 2012

Mr. Mike Hein

Ulster County Executive

224 Fair Street

Kingston, NY 244 12421.

Dear Mr. Hein:

I am writing in opposition to UCIDA's assumption of responsibility for the payment-in-lieu-of-taxes program.  Centralization's efficiencies are illusory, for they are non-existent in the long run.  Ulster County does not need public housing and it certainly does not need decisions about zoning or tax subsidization made at the county level. 

If you are seeking efficiencies, then I suggest that you abolish UCIDA.  It claims to support economic development, but Ulster County has lagged the rest of the country economically precisely because of UCIDA and a long list of other failed government programs.  If a doctor prescribes a cure, it fails, and he continues prescribing it, then he is guilty of malpractice.   If politicians prescribe a cure, it fails, and they continue prescribing it, then they are engaging in Ulster County and New York politics.

 

In my lifetime more New Yorkers have fled this state than have remained.  Put another way, a higher rate of New Yorkers have fled New York than fled the European tyrannies from which my ancestors escaped to come to New York.  They have fled New York because of programs like UCIDA.

Public housing does not promote industrial growth or economic progress.  It amounts to public subsidization of slums.  Cluster housing, especially in rural areas like Olive, where I live, harms the environment; it is ideologically motivated  and serves no public purpose.  You aim to centralize it in order to shield decisions concerning developers like RUPCO and Steve Aaron from public scrutiny.   UCIDA’s assumption of PILOT serves no other purpose than to squelch democracy and support its corruption. Shame on you.

Sincerely,

Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.

Carl Paldino Takes out Alphonse D'Amato

 Former New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino sent this e-mail to former New York Senator Al D'Amato. Paladino is wrong.  D'Amato isn't a fraud; slime can't be a fraud. 

From: Carl Paladino
Date: June 29, 2012 12:32:12 AM EDT
To: "adamato@parkstrategies.com" <adamato@parkstrategies.com>
 

Al, keep your nose out of WNY politics or I will expose your underbelly. You are a spineless fraud and you're going down with Skelos. Did you have fun at Andrews $50k party? You are such a low life parasite. It's all about money and you could care less about the people and republican principals. What are you going to do when I tell the people that you were the prime mover of Andrew's gay marriage bill so he could pound his chest as the most powerful governor the state has ever known and you could have access as a lobby for the big buck clients you extort.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

From: Carl Paladino
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2012 6:12 PM
To: Carl Paladino
Subject: FW: Al D'Amato, the predator

Al, the following is typical of the many comments that I received in response to my earlier e-mail to you.

I was asked by many the reason for my e-mail.  It’s simple and really gets to the heart of what is wrong in New York State.

Al D’Amato, in concert with his surrogates Dean Skelos and George Maziarz were approached last year by Andrew Cuomo and his minions to make a deal.  Cuomo wanted to show everyone in the State that he could do anything with the complicit New York State Republican led Senate with RINO Dean Skelos at the helm including getting legislative approval for the extreme left issue of gay marriage.  Getting that law passed would allow Cuomo to pound his chest Tarzan style and also would allow Cuomo to payback the gay community for their 2010 unwarranted but effective bashing of my candidacy.  

In return D’Amato, the prime mover of the effort, would get access to Cuomo on initiatives that he needed for his lobbying clients who pay big bucks.  

Anyone who thinks that the holdup of the Marcellus shale drilling permit has anything to do with the merits being argued in public is a fool drinking cool-aid.  It’s all about Mr. Green showing up at the doors of the likes of D’Amato the lobbyist.  “Quid pro quo” is denying upstate 25,000 jobs at $75,000/year.  How sick is that Al. 

Knowing that Skelos and Maziarz (with his special inclination) were spineless and could not vote for the bill, the cabal picked 4 republican senators (Grisanti, Alessi, McDonald and Salland) and promised  they would each get $500,000 in contributions from the gay community and future favors from the cabal including campaign support.

Freshman Senator Grisanti from Buffalo intended to do the right for his constituents when he got in office.   Cuomo, Maziarz, Skelos and D’Amato brought heavy pressure on him to sell out and at the last minute he threw his integrity under the bus, broke his promises to the people who donated to his campaign and voted for the law. 

I believe that if Mark came out and told the truth about what happened to him and revealed the hypocrisy of the  cabal’s complicity the people of his district would be forgiving, but that will not happen because the cabal continues to stroke and intimidate him with false hope.

Antony C. Sutton's America's Secret Establishment

Antony C. Sutton's America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull & Bones. Waterville, Oregon: Trineday LLC, 1983, 1986, 2002.

How many books go into third editions?  This one, which Kris Millegan reprinted in 2002, is worth reading.  I attended a libertarian-oriented cocktail party in Manhattan this summer, and one of the attendees, a respected educator who, as a young man, met Ayn Rand and, as a grown-up, helped the Soviet Union transition to a freer economy, recommended Sutton's book to me.

I don't, as a rule, believe in conspiracy theories.   Apparent conspiracies arise from subjective paranoia,  prejudice, or mischaracterization of a pattern as a conspiracy.  This may not detract from the theory's value because insights about a pattern can be useful even if the pattern does not bear the C-word's weight.  For instance, James Perloff's Shadows of Power, which does not claim that the Council on Foreign Relations is a conspiracy (it is not), presents a useful narrative. In the case of America's Secret Establishment, Sutton, a respected historian who spent years with the Hoover Institution, claims that Skull and Bones, the Yale secret society, is one.

While Sutton shows that it does qualify, the broad trends that Sutton describes aren't attributable solely or even mostly to it;  he overstates its importance.  Nevertheless, Sutton's work is useful not only as a discussion of an idiosyncratic, secret, elite group that seems to have furthered the financial aims, sometimes illegal, of a subset of its members, but also, and more importantly, as a discussion of how America's elite became enamored of statism, has manipulated public opinion by creating the illusion of a two-party system with a fake liberal-conservative dichotomy, and has established a crony capitalist system based on economic regulation and control facilitated by the fake dichotomy.    Sutton's book, written in 1983, is prophetic as the American state becomes increasingly corrupt, dysfunctional, and totalitarian.

When Sutton wrote the first edition, George H.W. Bush was vice president. Since then, Bush and his son, both Skull and Bonesmen, have been presidents--to ill effect.  Written before the first Bush presidency, the book shows that Bush's use of the phrase "new world order" comes directly from Skull and Bones's history.

Many of the names in Sutton's narrative have aged, but they have been pivotal in the creation of the 21st century's deteriorating America. These include McGeorge Bundy, W. Averell Harriman,William F. Buckley, and Daniel Coit Gilman. It is not clear, though, that the old-line WASPs whose ancestors arrived here in the 1630s have the same panache that they had even twenty years ago.  Today, people like the Waltons, the Kochs, Buffett, Soros, and Bloomberg dominate the upper echelons of the Forbes 400; not all of them are as vulnerable to the kinds of manipulations that Sutton describes by which Skull and Bones insiders got control of key foundations and furthered the aims of progressive education via non-Skull-and-Bonesmen like John Dewey.

Moreover, the Order of Skull and Bones, to which Sutton refers simply as "the Order," seems to have increased its diversity by the 1980s, although names like Taft (including the Order's founder, Alphonso Taft, Grant's Secretary of War, and his descendent, William H. Taft,  president and US Supreme Court chief justice) continue to appear.  This presents a problem for Sutton's model because he asserts that the old, monied names that have dominated American foundations and the formation of its educational system view even the Rockefellers as upstarts.  If so, then what is the deeper meaning of an Order that has not only included six Bushes over a century, but in recent years also has included names like Shapiro, Nguyen, Moscoso, Meyer, Gottheim, Grossman, Ruiz, Jimenez, Mehta, and Sarnelli, according to Sutton's list of the Order's members at the end of the book?

What is valuable about the book is Sutton's philosophical probing of the Hegelian model behind progressive education, the support foundations have given to various soft totalitarian causes, and American support, via Order-related banks like Guaranty Trust and Harriman Brothers, for the nation's putative opposition--the Nazi and the communist movements, both of which received essential funding from the Order-related banks.

The concepts of  Hegelian state worship and managed conflict that Sutton explores and says have been characteristic of the Order also have been characteristic of the entire Progressive movement, including not only the Order but also a large swath of Americans including Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson--as he transitioned into support for Progressivism. Progressives came from the University of Wisconsin, and virtually every other university, as well as Yale.

Sutton is wrong that Kant and Hegel are closely linked, especially with respect to state worship.  Kant's categorical imperative is liberal; it requires that humans be treated as ends in themselves. However, Kant in some ways represents a transition to statism, as does utilitarianism from Bentham on.  Von Mises is wrong that utilitarianism is necessarily individualist.  The 18th and 19th century versions mostly were, but in Mill there is a transition to a more socialistic utilitarianism which we also saw in recent years in the Chicago School's and Judge Posner's support for bailouts of incompetently run investment companies.

Intellectual histories of 19th and 20th century America, studies of the histories of American universities, and studies of the transformation of the American economy show that there was a widespread transition from individualism to Progressivism and collectivism  in the 1890s and that part of the reason was that Americans like Richard T. Ely were educated in Germany, where collectivist ideas, including Hegel and the related German historical school of economics, were taught.  It is not surprising, then, that the elite of the elite, Yale's handpicked members of the Order, have also advocated Hegelian, Progressive,  and soft totalitarian ideas.  In the case of Ely, Sutton neglects to mention that marginalist economists like John Bates Clark wrested control of the American Economics Association from Ely.  In the end, this point may not have mattered much because marginalism is consistent with conservative versions of Progressivism.

Sutton's book is valuable because it traces in incredible detail one sub-group within the Progressive movement, the Order's, criminal financing of both Bolsheviks and Nazis and because Sutton gives a valuable philosophical interpretation.  Progressivism and the Order adopted a Hegelian dialectical approach to political strategy whereby they support both sides (both liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, communists and Nazis) in order to achieve a totalitarian synthesis that neither side, both of which are manipulated, anticipates.

The book is extraordinarily useful in showing that the claims of Progressivism about helping the poor and being democratic were always lies; from the beginning Progressivism had totalitarian aims.  Today's America is increasingly reflecting those aims.  As a recent Rasmussen poll showed, only 14% of Americans believe that their descendents' futures will be better than theirs.  Might they consider that they are responsible for voting the likes of Kennedy (McGeorge Bundy,  Harriman), Harriman, Roosevelt, and Obama into office--and that the decisions that the American Establishment has made, and for whom the average voter pulls a lever each election day, are the reasons  that things are going down hill?

Paradox inside an Enigma: Engage Mid-Hudson's Puzzling Kickoff

I submitted this piece to The Lincoln Eagle early this morning. 

Newburgh, NY, July 30--Lincoln Eagle exclusive.  About 200 people, mostly town-and-county-level politicians and bureaucrats, descended upon the Newburgh campus of Orange County Community College to participate in Engage Mid-Hudson's kickoff.  Engage Mid-Hudson is one of 10 regional sustainability groups that Governor Andrew Cuomo has funded through the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). The mid-Hudson region extends north from Westchester through Rockland, Putnam, and Orange, to Dutchess and Ulster Counties.  Co-chairs David Church, planning commissioner of Orange County, and Thomas Madden, commissioner of community development and sustainability for the Town of Greenburgh, led the meeting. 

Assemblyman Frank Skartados, representing the Newburgh (100th) Assembly District, offered a few opening remarks. He thought that Engage Mid-Hudson is out to streamline government.  A paradox became evident a few minutes later when Mr. Church divulged that Governor Andrew Cuomo had spent $100 million to fund the 10 regional sustainability groups (according to NYSERDA's website the booty was split evenly across the 10 regions).  I asked Mr. Church whether the aim of streamlining government is consistent with eight-digit slush funds.  Mr. Church's answer was that the endowment reflects the voters' will, even though the senior elected official present, Mr. Skartados, had just expressed a preference for streamlining government. Also, since the majority of New York residents in my lifetime have fled the state because of excessive costs and mismanagement, it is difficult to know whose preferences Mr. Cuomo has in mind: waste's victims or its progenitors. 

A second paradox followed.  Engage Mid-Hudson bills itself as open to public opinion, but a number of pro-freedom activists were present, and they called out questions during Mr. Church's talk.  Mr. Church handled the disagreement well, but several members in the audience began to berate the pro-freedom activists.  One, whom one of the freedom activists alleged is the owner of a green development firm that stands to profit from Engage Mid-Hudson, suggested to Mr. Church that the freedom activists be banned from future meetings.  It would seem that owners of businesses that stand to directly profit from Engage Mid-Hudson should be required to identify themselves at the beginning of meetings.  It seems as likely as not that Engage Mid-Hudson is just one more Democratic Party scam, like Maurice Hinchey's green development follies and Barack Obama's bailouts.   

A third paradox became evident when Mr. Church announced six working groups, including one for economic development.  Herb Oringel, an IBM retiree and chair of the economic development consortium, claimed that Engage Mid-Hudson could bring jobs to the region. Activist Glenda Rose McGee asked what kind of jobs could a tax-based bureaucracy like Engage Mid-Hudson create.  The question was a good one.  Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson explains why the broken window fallacy, an economic fallacy that has re-gained currency under the Bush and Obama administrations, is incorrect.  Government cannot make work by breaking windows.  The reason is that to pay for the broken window repair someone must be taxed.  The taxed money reduces private sector demand.  By advocating government spending and higher taxes, groups like Engage Mid-Hudson destroy legitimate jobs, jobs that satisfy legitimate market demand, and replace them with jobs that reflect the needs of politicians and special interests.  

Mr. Oringel's response to Ms. McGee was not reassuring. His chief example of jobs creation was the turning of Sing Sing Correctional Facility into a tourist attraction.  I would feel better if a private developer were to take the project because Mr. Oringel's IBM experience has not prepared him to assess market risk of this kind. For example, might Steve Wynn be willing to take gambling up the river? Engage Mid-Hudson and Governor Cuomo don't know. Since they are not going to invest their own money, they don't care in the same way that Steve Wynn would. There is little difference between Mr. Oringel's project and window breaking. 

In a question-and-answer period Ms. McGee raised a further point: regional sustainability plans are likely a pretext for more intensive intervention and regulation. In particular, the Towns of Woodstock, Olive and Saugerties have seen proposals for the construction of unneeded planned housing projects tightly linked to sustainability plans.   

I raised a question as to Engage Mid-Hudson's identity.  I asked whether it is a government organization or a non-government organization.  Mr. Church said that it is neither. This was a fourth paradox because if Engage Mid-Hudson is neither a government nor a non-government organization, then it does not exist and it cannot cash NYSERDA's $10 million check. Tsk, tsk--a Zen-like conundrum any green business crony can ponder.

Rife with paradox the meeting was unpersuasive.  What is the purpose of Engage Mid-Hudson beyond providing funding for crooked, green businesses?  In Canada and elsewhere NGOs have been used to subvert republican governmental structures and regulatory authority. In the tradition of New York's honest graft, are we to expect just one more deal in the Plunkitt tradition or a more serious incursion on republicanism?