The views and opinions expressed in our letters section are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Hudson Valley One. You can submit a letter to the editor here.
Revised letter guidelines:
Hudson Valley One welcomes letters from its readers. Letters should be fewer than 300 words and submitted by noon on Monday. Our policy is to print as many letters to the editor as possible. As with all print publications, available space is determined by ads sold. If there is insufficient space in a given issue, letters will be approved based on established content standards. Points of View will also run at our discretion.
Although Hudson Valley One does not specifically limit the number of letters a reader can submit per month, the publication of letters written by frequent correspondents may be delayed to make room for less-often-heard voices, but they will all appear on our website at hudsonvalleyone.com. All letters should be signed and include the author’s address and telephone number.
Two idiots hunt for brains
Donald Trump Jr. and Kyle Rittenhouse kicked off with a baseless claim on the Trump scion’s “Triggered” podcast. And the interview with Kyle Rittenhouse went south in a hurry.
Rittenhouse in 2021 was found not guilty of homicide after killing two unarmed racial justice protesters in Wisconsin in 2020. He argued self-defense. Talking with Trump Jr., Rittenhouse said the case had been “scary” because, without offering any evidence, he’d been “up against these George Soros-funded prosecutors.”
“Was that what was going on?” asked the eldest son of former President Donald Trump. “Were these guys getting some sort of backhanded donations?” “I guarantee it,” was how Rittenhouse confidently responded. Then he immediately backtracked, saying: “I don’t know for sure; I don’t know for 100 percent fact. But I guarantee. I’m sure of it.”
Rittenhouse has an elevated sense of his importance, doesn’t he? As if Soros doesn’t have anything better to do. Stop blubbering Killer Kyle, you’re a little dipshit. That kid looks like a marshmallow. A marshmallow that kills people.
George Soros kicked my dog once. Also, Soros made my milk go bad. And remember that time I once got fries at Mickey D’s and they gave me a medium instead of a super-size? It was Soros.
Here’s a MAGAt joke… A homophobe and an anti-Semite walk into a Trump Jr. podcast… “Waaaaaaah, George Soros’ fault!”
The indoctrinated “Cult of Stupidity” gets more paranoid and ignorant by the day. It’s amazing how he went from “I can’t say for sure” to immediately… “oh I definitely know.” Contradiction is the name of the game with these types of conservatives — today’s f’n Trumpublican Party in a nutshell.
Must be nice to have someone or something to blame for all your self-made problems, knowing that a percentage of the country will believe your conspiratorial bs or whatever you say.
Neil Jarmel
West Hurley
Balance of power between genders
I went to an all-gender restroom, but disappointingly, there were only two genders there.
Sparrow
Phoenicia
No tax increase and running for office again
I am reapplying to be appointed to my current municipal manager job (aka Village of New Paltz Mayor.) I will finish my second four-year term on December 31, 2023. I started on the Town Planning Board in 2012, and also served on the Board of Education simultaneously, before mayor. If I’m reelected, the new term would be through December 2027, my 15th year doing this type of work.
Since our administration took office eight years ago in 2015, Village of New Paltz property taxes are lower. We lowered the tax rate once and kept it flat six times. We are proposing another 0% change for our eighth budget for FY 23/24 that would start June 1, 2023.
The Village Board of Trustees has set a public hearing for March 22, 2023 for this proposed 0% tax increase budget. The tentative budget is available for review at villageofnewpaltz.org.
Our tentative FY 23/24 budget includes a cushion where we propose using up to $160,300 from unassigned fund balance. For last year’s, we also budgeted using up to $185,300 from unassigned fund balance, but we expect to finish this year on May 31, 2023 using none of the unassigned fund balance. It is expected to hold steady with at least $711,000, which would represent about 22% of our annual expenses. Our plan for FY 23/24 would be to set aside this cushion of $160,300, and again work hard not to use it.
It is important to include some cushion when budgeting but government must walk a careful line reserving adequate fund balances for emergencies, without unnecessarily taxing residents. Maintaining unnecessarily large reserves would be equivalent to imposing a forced savings plan on our residents.
Mayor Tim Rogers
New Paltz
Not self-dealing
At a recent Woodstock Town Board meeting, a Town Board member wrongly and hurtfully accused some of Woodstock’s finest volunteers, Kirk Ritchey, Judith Kerman and Jeff Collins, of self-dealing because they are on Woodstock’s Housing Oversight Task Force (HOTF) and are also building the Woodstock Housing Alliance (WHA), a volunteer organization to help housing in Woodstock.
Google says self-dealing is when a person with a fiduciary duty to a company takes action to gain personal benefit, instead of acting for the benefit of the company. Examples include inappropriately enriching oneself by using company funds as a personal loan or ignoring a duty of loyalty to an employer to assume a deal or opportunity for oneself. Self-dealing is not happening within HOTF or the WHA.
I served with Kirk as he expertly led the Woodstock Comprehensive Plan Committee, providing Woodstock with its first Comprehensive Plan in 60 years. The Comprehensive Plan identified that Woodstock needs affordable housing, so Kirk co-chaired Woodstock’s newly formed Housing Committee, identifying an array of housing initiatives to help Woodstock address its housing crisis. Kirk has a leadership role in bringing many of those initiatives to reality, including co-chairing the HOTF as we advance Woodstock’s zoning law recommendations, and founding the WHA. Kirk is a volunteer in each of these capacities. He should be applauded, not demonized, for volunteering 6+ years of his expert project management abilities to make Woodstock a better place.
Besides HOTF, I served on other committees with Judith and Jeff, who both also continually demonstrate their terrific talents, volunteering significant time for years, making Woodstock a better place.
There has been no self-dealing with any of these volunteer activities handled by Kirk, Judith or Jeff. Thank you, to each of you, for all you have done for Woodstock and all that you continue to do. Woodstock needs you. Thank you!
Laura Ricci
Woodstock Town Council Member
Neil’s been duped
In response to Neil Jarmel’s letter of March 8 entitled “Pesky ninety-nine luftballoons,” his conclusions about the Chinese spy balloon were derived, no doubt, from his highly questionable “news” sources at CNN, MSNBC, etc. who, as we all know, are the right arm of the Democratic party, “progressives” and radical lefties.
Neil says about our government and the Chinese balloon that “we monitored it, jammed its sensors, gained intel on its capabilities, waited until it was out of range where a crash could cause civilian harm, and only then did they shoot it down.” This led to the false conclusion that it was okay to let it cross the entire U.S. as it traveled over many military installations because Neil believed it had been rendered harmless. He was also led to believe that the only safe place and time to down it wasn’t until it spent one-and-a-half weeks passing over the entire U.S. The reality and facts clearly showed that we had at least two safe zones to down it, over Alaska and Montana, BEFORE it could collect ANY data over all the military sites over which it spied.
In fact checking Neil’s impressions, a couple articles indicated that we did TRY to electronically jam the Chinese equipment to keep it from transmitting back to China. Notice the word TRY, instead of saying we were, in fact, SUCCESSFULLY able to jam the equipment. It goes on to say that security was also increased at sensitive military sites IN AN ATTEMPT to shield them from the balloon. Notice the IN AN ATTEMPT phrase rather than we were, in fact, able to SUCCESSFULLY shield the military sites from the balloon.
After citing Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s accurate statement that, first, Biden refuses to defend our borders and, now, refuses to defend our skies, Neil couldn’t resist the temptation to segue into an inconsistent and disconnected trip into his Trump land with his apples to oranges comparative comment “Trump refused to defend our Capitol.”
Neil thinks the “MAGAts” are in a permanent “lost it” state when the unquestionable reality is that Biden and his “informed ‘leaders’” have totally and permanently lost it when it comes to caring, at all, about our national security.
John N. Butz
Modena
Explore setting up a public power system
What do the following New York State communities have in common? Akron, Andover, Bath, Brocton, Endicott, Fairport, Freeport, Green Island, Hamilton, Lake Placid, Massena, Plattsburgh, Rockville Center, Silver Springs, Tupper Lake and Watertown?
All of these communities receive their electricity service through community-owned power companies that are run by a board of their residents. For additional detail see: www.publicpower.org.
Over time, the rates Central Hudson has charged have sky-rocketed while service has declined. With the current billing system problems and massive amount of customer complaints, perhaps it is time for Ulster County to consider a feasibility study to explore setting up a public power system.
Glenn Gidaly
New Paltz
Explanation needed
McKenna appointed to the position of deputy supervisor a non-elected individual, continuing the tradition set in place by the previous town supervisor. This deputy supervisor is not a member of the town board but has the authority to run meetings in the supervisor’s absence and is encouraged to voice opinions on topics of discussion. My question was then and is now, why isn’t an elected member of the town board appointed to that position? Could there be an ulterior motive? It appears to me that a town board member would have more knowledge and be in a better position to handle any emergencies that should arise if the town supervisor were not available.
Howard Harris
Woodstock
Democrats’ suicidal march
The Democratic party, sometimes justifiably, has offered itself as the defender of Medicare, the country’s deeply popular program of health care for seniors and people with disabilities. Many Republicans, historically suspicious of the “socialist” programs of Social Security and Medicare, consistently look for strategies to chip away at the foundations of both. When President George W Bush in 2005 pushed for at least partial privatization of Social Security, the American public rebelled and his proposal was buried.
In 2023, we see an accelerating movement toward privatization of Medicare. And who is currently leading the charge? Democrats — that’s right, Democrats — though in a far more under-the-radar movement than in 2005. Both Republicans and Democrats can be blamed for the decades-long progression to the fact that about half of American seniors now are insured with Medicare Advantage (MA) plans rather than traditional Medicare (TM). Critical to understand: Medicare Advantage is NOT Medicare. Most MA plans are owned by big for-profit insurance companies who have shareholders’ interests to consider. How are patients’ interests likely to fare with that competition? You decide. MA plans can work well for those who stay healthy, but when serious problems arise, denials of treatments often emerge and MA companies cherry pick healthier applicants. They also “upcode”: send to the government dubious diagnoses that provoke additional reimbursements.
Now, the Biden administration has inexplicably advanced a program created by Trump’s White House, called REACH (bit.ly/3ZVcSty). This year it authorizes 132 provider networks (many owned by big insurers) to set up agreements with the government, which allow them to take 25% of unused funds in a contracted amount for profit. Contrast this scheme with Traditional Medicare, whose baseline administrative costs are set at 2%. Remember those shareholders’ interests weighed against patient care? (bit.ly/3Zxd5DJ)
If Democrats don’t put a hard stop to this spiraling privatization of Medicare, they will find it impossible to run in 2028 or 2032 as defenders of Medicare. Their slogan: we saved Medicare by turning it over to for-profit corporate monoliths. Is that a slogan they want to run on? Democratic politicians, beware.
Tom Denton
Highland
Here’s what I said
It seems that I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole. In my first letter I took umbrage with Mr. Civile putting words in the mouths of Biden voters and also that I didn’t like his long song parodies. So what happens? He puts words in MY mouth in the form of a long song parody! I’d make one up too, but I’m no Randy Rainbow.
As for Mr. Butz, I did NOT say we all had the right to have our letters printed in HV1. And I COULD come up with a list of Trump’s failures as president, but that would take more than 300 words and we all know what they are anyway.
Patricia Porter
Highland
Voice From the railroad bridge
Driving to Kingston on Route 213 mid-afternoon, approaching the railroad bridge above the highway, my wife and I watched a train going a hundred feet over us. The train carried huge tan and green military vehicles.
On the way home after shopping, we went under the same railroad bridge and I saw how rusted the steel was towering over us and the uncleared undergrowth reaching into the arms of the tower above. I imagined the tonnage that this bridge just carried.
The railroads and other infrastructures made by our ancestors in the last 250 years are becoming archeology, read about in history books or told in stories by aging grandparents. But, what’s not read or listened to is what happened inside our ancestors’ when their feet and hands were in the mud and blood making this country — things like the invisible connections in small towns that might be called continuity or community. Folk received help quietly to navigate poverty, local tragedy, death, burial and protection from those they lived near. If you grew up there, you eventually learned that sometimes there was a backup. But, if passing through town, you’d never see or feel the undergrowth on which these small communities floated.
Unfortunately, railroad bridges and small towns are now memories of older adults, which is a remnant of times before the computer age. Yet, in the net of the internet, where face-to-face human interaction, politeness, courtesy, respect, honor, manners, responsibility, consideration, compassion and kindness get caught and replaced by money and power, our desperate need for attention without consequence is satisfied.
Every generation sings its swan songs. So imagine a couple of high-tech elders coming to the end of their computer age. What would they say driving home on Route 213 after shopping? Or will they have had everything delivered by drones?
Larry Winters
New Paltz
For your awareness, Part II
Previously in a letter to the editor, I listed two important organizations for seniors over 65 collecting benefits — Social Security and Medicare. They are the AARP and the NCPSSM. These two organizations consistently fight and have fought for and won numerous benefits for seniors as well as preventing attacks from materializing on them.
The GOP is the biggest threat to our benefits today. In addition to the above two organizations, various authors have so stated. Mike Lofgren’s two books, The Deep State and the Party is Over; Antony Sutton’s book, America’s Secret Establishment and C. Wright Mill’s book, The Power Elite, are just a sampling of the literature out there.
Lofgren states “the GOP cares over and above every item on its political agenda about the rich contributors who keep them in office.” And this is why tax increases have become an absolute Republican taboo. Mills states, “the very rich have used existing laws, have circumvented and violated existing laws and have had laws created and enforced for their direct benefit.” The NCPSSM has stated this concept numerous times.
Just recently, President Biden stated he wants to or they have passed or are proposing a law taxing the billionaires. This is a common complaint of the NCPSSM, over and over again and again, is that if the very rich and the corporations would pay their fair share of taxes, there would be a big reduction in the national debt. But no, the GOP wants to put forth agendas cutting our/my benefits, eventually eliminating them.
It all goes back to the 1886 Supreme Court Act, Santa Fe County v Southern Pacific Railroad. This act created the corporation and took them out of the tax regulatory of the states. Railroad entrepreneurs, E.H. Harriman, John D. Rockefeller, could and did run their rail lines across states and not pay any taxes to the states at all. In a future article I will discuss the ramifications of this on the Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s.
Robert LaPolt
New Paltz
Hurley highway garage wisdom
How fortunate we are in the Town of Hurley to have a supervisor who is paying close attention to the town’s infrastructure needs. Supervisor McKnight’s wise and measured counsel on siting of a new highway garage is a case in point.
The prior administration had planned to award a more than $300,000 contract for engineering and design of a new highway garage. This planned expense was without requiring any appropriate planning for best use of the town’s 100-acre parcel on Dug Hill Road where the garage most likely will be sited.
Fortunately, before taxpayer money was spent on site prep and engineering, the present Town Board has unanimously approved Supervisor McKnight’s call to have the town planner take a detailed and intensive look at the entire property. The planner will report on the property’s geology, wetlands, wildlife and any additional factors that would affect the best siting of the new garage.
Once again, Supervisor McKnight has shown her responsible leadership on an important issue facing Hurley. The siting of a new highway garage is perhaps the most consequential and expensive decision the town will make for the next decade, so we need a smart approach to get it right. Proper planning and careful oversight will greatly benefit the town and its residents.
It’s curious as to why the previous supervisor was in such a hurry at the end of his term to sign an engineering contract for a new highway garage without first requiring appropriate planning for the best use of the town property. It makes us wonder if any special interests were at play in the rushed decision.
Our thanks to Supervisor McKnight and the Hurley Town Board for insisting on comprehensive planning to determine the best use of the town’s property and best practices for siting and building a modern state-of-the-art and environmentally sound highway garage.
Tobe & Meg Carey
Glenford
County finance woes
Recently, our commissioner of finance resigned after being accused of financial misdeeds by a not-for-profit organization he served as treasurer.
No one knows if the ex-commissioner of finance engaged in any financial wrongdoing pertaining to county funds, but it is known that it will cost tens of thousands of dollars to find out if he did. And it didn’t have to be that way.
Since taking office County Comptroller Gallagher has been unsuccessful in getting the financial information she needed from the ex-finance commissioner, information which our ex-county executive either told him or allowed him to withhold.
While the comptroller has subpoena power, the executive controls the budget. When the previous county comptroller ticked off the executive, his budget was significantly reduced.
Last October, Comptroller Gallagher went before the Charter Revision Commission with a list of amendments she wants to add to the Charter which would rectify the situation — amendments that would ensure that financial transparency goes beyond campaign promises.
Those requests are currently being worked on by the Revision Commission and should be included in a referendum which will be voted on in November.
The county comptroller is the taxpayer’s watch dog. It’s imperative that we remove the barriers that prevent her from doing her job.
Thomas Kadgen
Shokan
Tame the fossil-fuel monster
The science is clear, and so is the moral imperative.
We must bring down the curtain on the trilogy of deception playing for decades — first to deny climate science, then to cast doubt on the solutions, and now to delay their fruition.
Just like the tobacco giants, they knew for decades that their product caused mortal harm, yet they promoted it while hiding its dangers, gaining footholds into millions of homes.
The footholds are now chokeholds, and we can’t breathe, for our lungs are not made for the toxic slew from burning their fossil gas that leaks whether it’s on or off, disposing babies to asthma and the elderly to dementia. The piped poison into our homes claims thousands of lives and causes countless illnesses. This violence of fossil fuels on our bodies, on our children, on our communities, must end.
Millions of menacing tentacles of the fracked-gas monster intrude deep into our homes, oozing methane and sucking away our health, only to bamboozle us into using our own money to keep feeding the parasitic monster. The monster of greed must be tamed, and its antics restrained.
Make no mistake, fossil fuels are going down. The best of climate science tells us that the difference between fossil fuels going down without us, or taking the rest of humanity down with them could be a mere decade.
So, Governor Hochul, Speaker Heastie and Leader Stewart-Cousins, New York must stay steadfast in its resolve to fully meet the targets of its Climate Act — a law, not a suggestion — without delaying or diluting real solutions.
For the rest of us, this is a fight for our lives that we must win. We have no choice. We must fight like we’re fighting to stop a nuclear war. The stakes are almost the same.
Eve Morgenstern
Beacon
Join the family! 
