letter to the editor from nikki nielson

To the New Paltz Community,

In the late winter/ early Spring of 2009, I worked with Town and Village officials and community leaders to develop the grant application to study the best structure and services that the New Paltz government could provide. That grant led to a feasibility study, discussion, analysis, and ultimately to the decision of whether to move forward with a "new" New Paltz. This discussion was not new four years ago - it has been a part of the fabric of our community, and an underlying tension in New Paltz across generations, spanning several decades.  

The grant application acknowledged our community's strengths and weaknesses, showing Albany that we knew this was going to be a tough process to undergo. The goal (the  quotes that follow are direct text excerpts from the application we sent to the state, and the basis for providing the funding) of the project was to "help the public distinguish between fact and rhetoric in order to develop and contribute informed opinion and participation."  This understanding was to be achieved through "discourse [that] will now have the benefit of an actual, organized research process and concrete, measurable facts."  We also promised that "[d]issent [would] be an acknowledged component of the discourse and will not serve an impediment to the process."  What we hoped to deliver was "the most responsive, productive and cooperative structure possible."

What we did not anticipate was that our community's currently elected representatives would railroad the process to meet their preconceived presumed outcome, silencing the community's questions when the questions would not produce an answer that fits their vision of a predetermined result.  I am greatly disappointed that those responsible for upholding the tenets of the process have dismissed the inquiries of community members and silenced other elected and appointed officials who have been asked to account for identified savings from consolidation.  Even though the current slate of elected officials were not signators to the original grant application, they assumed the duties and promises made in our original application.

We envisioned that when citizens sought to be involved in the process -- at any stage, even those coming quite late to the game -- they would be welcomed, their concerns and questions addressed and answered, and in so doing, the process would have the legitimacy necessary for implementation. As it is, more than a few of our elected officials have actually already moved or are planning to move outside the municipality, and none of the consolidation proponents have promised to run for reelection when their terms are up,ensuring that they will not be around to be accountable for the cost savings they claim to have found but which they can not - or will not - substantiate with the promised "concrete, measurable facts." They are no longer stakeholders, or no longer will be, despite their assumption of a critical role in moving this forward.

I admit that I am agnostic on consolidation in general.  Intuitively, I think that it could be done well, although to do it well would require tough choices about employment of members of our community and the services we could deliver (or not), choices that are absent from the current public dialogue.  It does not make any sense to underestimate the intelligence of the voters, to hide behind vague budget items,  or to dismiss any hint of informed opinion and participation.  The current approach inhibits the public's ability to distinguish between fact and rhetoric.  This is not the most responsive, productive or cooperative New Paltz possible.  It is a classic and epic fail of a laudatory vision for what could be, if only the elected officials were forthright, and had faith in the electorate they serve.

Best regards,

Nikki Koenig Nielson