joint letter to the editor 2/20/13, twelve signers

Letter to the editor 2/20/13

Four out of five members of both the Town and Village Boards have resolved to create a public vote in the near future on whether to consolidate the Village and Town of New Paltz into a single municipality operating according to Village government laws. That may or may not be a good thing. Since Villages and Towns operate under completely different systems, there is much to consider regarding how elections would operate, whether it will cost money or save money, how it will affect zoning and planning, whether we have sufficient facilities to combine all departments, what it would cost in construction and renovation if we don't, and how it would impact public and employee safety, infrastructure maintenance, and other required services. And yes, we need to know what it's going to do to our taxes. That's the bare minimum of the information necessary in order to cast our votes.

Unfortunately, after two years of study, we have answers to exactly none of this. We also have been shown a considerable amount of information purported to support claims of substantial savings, but nearly all of it is clearly due to ordinary service cuts that have nothing to do with efficiencies made possible by consolidation, and savings that have already happened with the Town and Village separate. Reviews of emails and videos of conversations between the members of the committee that prepared the financial reports show that in most cases decisions of what to include and exclude were made on the basis of what was likely to "sell" consolidation.

This is not, and never has been about personalities, or about some people being resolved to oppose consolidation no matter what. We have been very specific in our questions, working with the figures brought forth by the study committees. In every case we have been met by "watch the videos," "you don't have the skill to question what we've presented," and flat-out refusal to respond. There have been no substantive answers provided at all. None.

We have started researching the information on our own. We are doing this in a quantifiable, verifiable way that will be open to public scrutiny. Some of this is already available, with official source material, at http://newpaltzfactcheck.com/. As we develop our findings, we will present them at public forums, and we invite all interested persons to participate, challenge, and learn. In the meantime, we encourage all of you to ask these questions, and any others you may have, of the Town and Village Boards.

Mark Portier
Guy Thomas Kempe
Steve Casa
Feebe Greco
KT Tobin
Stephanie Olear
Steve Greenfield
Kathy Preston
Greg Olear
John Logan
Rebecca Rotzler
Keith Woodburn