A few thoughts for a frigid Sunday:

GASD Budget 2010-2011

A nice piece on the upcoming district budget for next year (here). What’s curious is that the dire tone of today’s piece sounds markedly different than the peachy tone in this piece (here). How did we get from A to B? Here’s a sampling from the December 18, 2009 piece:

“Based on everything I’ve been told by the superintendent and our business office, we look to be in really good shape for this upcoming year,” said DeRossi. “It’s looking like despite the cuts and such that are being made, we’re going to be in pretty decent shape. I feel that the raises were not exceptionally large raises like last year when I voted against them.”

And here’s a sampling from today:

One year after the district was forced into a contingency budget, the GASD Board of Education now may be forced to also endure a 5 percent cut in school aid from New York state, and faces a budget that could require severe cuts to valuable school programs and staff.

“I don’t think we’re looking at improving anything,” said board member Kevin Bechtel. “You know that there’s cuts coming, and you don’t know how large the cuts are. We’re more in a defense mode rather than an improvement mode, keeping as much of what we have as we possibly can.“

And of course, magnet schools get touted as improving district scores even while the very first magnet school, McNulty, is on the Schools in Need of Improvement. I’m tired of bringing out the scores but the issue of magnet schools needs to be considered differently. The district chose the magnet program approach versus non-magnet schools not based upon academic outcomes but upon financial outcomes. I’d argue that different programming would leave us with better scores in the district and not leave us with a lottery approach on where you send your kids to school should you choose to live here.

Cranky Old Guy

That would be me. The emerging meme reflected here is that we have an influx of younger voices entering the civic discourse. On that point, I think the more better. Let me be a bit of a curmudgeon however: I do not think being young necessarily means that that you embrace or advocate new or innovative ideas. I hear some young voices but the ideas are older than me sometimes by a factor of two. I think the age of the idea matters more than the age of the person with said idea. We do not have a shortage of young people, we have a shortage of young ideas and a willingness to be bold and innovate around new ideas. Young people don’t leave here because they lack ideas but new ideas here are welcomed with distrust and contempt.

Now get off my lawn you pesky kids!

Not utterly surprising but with the sales tax news getting worse(here) and the drop of sales tax increase (here) means one thing: property taxes taking a significant hike.

And let me see if I can get this straight from the story (here) on graffiti: the cleanup of graffiti is utterly intractable, too complex of a problem for a meaningful policy. Of course we can’t ask the city to clean it (more taxes!) and we can’t ask property owners to clean it (more fees!). So let’s just do nothing but gripe about the problem, after all, excessive handwringing and gnashing of teeth is one policy we have no problem embracing.

We’re in a pickle if we can’t even figure out a graffiti policy much less complicated things like policies to drive economic growth here.

Utterly hosed.

Somehow percentages starting with 8% and 9% are all the rage of late  (from story here):

The council have approved the initial project list but have yet to allocate funding for the list as well as several recently added requests. The list includes about $4 million in borrowing for general fund-related projects, $200,000 for water projects, $80,000 in sewer projects and $440,000 for golf-course related projects. The list would have an 8.25 percent increase in taxes for 2010-11, but several items were cut on Thursday, including halving the $1 million request for demolition, removing a diesel four-wheel-drive truck with a plow for the Department of Public Works and spreading a request for two plow trucks over two years.

Oh, and by the way, don’t mention the golf course finances: the public demands no accountability or profitability from the operations of the golf course. The public can finance it but we can’t demand accountability for said  financing. Nor should we question what ever happened to the rather detailed plan and analysis developed by the Union College MBA students. That would be untoward. Move along kids nothing to discuss here.

Just released statistics on Montgomery County from GCAR (here).

Tomorrow, January 26th, is the date for the public hearing on the sale of the former Walter Elwood Museum on 300 Guy Park Ave.

From what I can glean, the building has an offer of $80K from a developer who plans on a proposed use of a day-care center. As the public hearing is tomorrow, I’d expect some public information or disclosure on the property but in my review of the GASD Web site, I can only find a mention of a public hearing.

Of course, the sale and closure of the museum draw a collective yawn from the community. I mean who cares what happens to an architecturally significant building on the National Register of Historic Places? Who cares about the impact on the local neighborhood? Who cares about the selling price? Yawn…

I’m not able to attend tomorrow’s hearing but let me offer a few questions and observations:

1) The property was listed at $325K and is proposed to be sold for $80K. Why such a deep discount to the listing price?

2) The building is 11+ thousand square feet meaning the proposed sale works out to roughly $7 per square foot. This strikes me as extremely low. What is the justification?

3) What specifically are the uses of the building other than a day-care center?

4) The listing touted the availability of a large lot for off-street parking. What is the proposed usage of the attached green space?

5) THe building is on the National Register of Historic Places. If the current owners received federal grants related to NRHP, there may be restrictions on changes to the building. Did the GASD receive such funding?

I should not be surprised, but I always am, at how undervalued architecture remains here. We worship a new box store on Route 30– yay Walmart SuperCenter– and turn a blind eye to what happens to significant pieces of architecture and the fabric of our local neighborhoods.

Yawn…

Local Restaurateur Tony Centi garners some well earned recognition (here).

The Recorder opines on the AIDA board shakeup(here). The political tea leaves are easy to read on this one.

A second op-ed on the capital campaign for the Mohawks (here).  Here is what I find intriguing on the Mohawks success: why is it working? Or let me ask it in a snarkier way, you mean retail and commercial development is not the only engine in a local economy? Whodathunk!

An informative story in the Leader Herald on the governors budget, union negotiating power and local school district responses (here).

The Leader Herald opines against the sales tax increase (here).

Here is a breakdown of the impact on GASD School District Aid from the proposed Executive Budget:

Overall change in State Aid is down $565K excluding Building and Building Incentives. If you include Building and Building Incentives, then aid to GASD falls $1.0 million.

Using last year’s school tax levy of $19.1 million suggests that the baseline increase on property taxes is roughly 3% ($565K/$19.1M) to 5.2% ($1.0M/$19.1M).

Of course, the usual caveats apply: assumes the executive budget above, assumes no increase in district spending or no decrease in district spending, and most importantly, the overall tax increase will vary by city and town.

The numbers above are from here.

I think the story is the Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance. I’m not diggin’ the decision in terms of impact on campaign finance and the amplification of money into the political process :

Supreme Court Decision on Campaign Finance (here)

Jonathan Turley Analyzes the Decision (here)

Locally, the economic numbers look grim:

Sales Tax Shortfall in the City (here)

NY State Unemployment Reaches 26 Year High (here):

New York State’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate climbed over the month from 8.6 percent in November to 9.0 percent in December 2009, matching a 26-year high, the State Labor Department reported today. The number of unemployed state residents increased from 832,200 to 868,600 over the same period.

Montgomery County at 9.7%.

Here’s the cycle: rising unemployment, lower consumer spending, reduced sales taxes, rising taxes to offset reduced sales tax revenue, less income for consumer spending, reduced sales tax, and on…

But hey, the answers for this area’s  economic woes are retail growth. Let’s make that our mantra; it’s worked out so well so far.

Repair of Amsterdam Water Tank — $800k (here)

Recorder Editorial on SOTC (here)

County Sales Tax Proposal (here) –did someone say 10%

Lookout for Man Exposing Himself  (here)

County Sees Drop in Sales Tax Revenues (here)