Few will be surprised by the list of policies pursued and enacted by county executive Jen Metzger over her first year in office. From plans to handle all Ulster County’s organic waste output locally by 2030, to convert the county vehicle fleet into zero-emission vehicles, and to adopt a stringent purchasing policy, the search for resiliency solutions continues apace.
As an object lesson of the purchasing policy at her state-of-the county address at the Orpheum Theatre in Saugerties on February 6, Metzger chose the 8000 reams of paper, composed of over four million sheets, which the county buys every year. Said Metzger, “The county’s choice to switch to 100 percent recycled paper prevented 80 tons of new wood from being harvested, 1000 tons of carbon from being emitted, conserved 40,000 gallons of water, and avoided clearing over seven acres of trees each and every year. And that’s just changing the paper we buy.”
To encourage towns and villages to adopt greener policies, Metzger announced a new $2.5-million county grants program for 2024 awarded for municipal solar and EV charging projects. Originally proposed by Marlborough county legislator Tom Corcoran, a municipal building inspector, the grants will be funded from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
“With new federal renewable incentives of up to 30 percent for local governments,” she said, “this really couldn’t be a better time to invest.”
With tourism dollars gushing into the region, responsible environmental stewardship also makes business sense. Metzger claimed that the $979 million spent by tourists on 2022 constituted a143 percent increase from pre-Covid 2019.
Metzger conjured up the vision of agritourism complementing the natural scenic and recreational attractions offered the millions of visitors who come to the Hudson Valley annually.
With a healthy tableau in mind for vacationers as well as locals, the county looks to tighten the bond between rural and urban communities with a grant program offered farmers to support soil health, community workforce housing and a pilot program to enable low-income households to participate in community supported agriculture (CSAs).
Metzger credited her role as chair of the agriculture committee in the State Senate for developing a keen awareness in her of the weather-related impacts of climate change as well as land and labor costs. “Working farms provide more than food on our tables. They maintain healthy soil and water.” She said Ulster County’s farming community has increasingly embraced sustainable practices.
Some children living just a half-hour from thick mountainous forests can’t tell a birch from an oak, and have never walked beneath either to hunt mushrooms or find secret waterfalls. An estimated 7.5 percent of Ulster County residents don’t own a car. Parents harried to chase better wages or work longer hours are among them.
“We’re excited to share that our tourism department and UCAT [Ulster County Area Transit] are partnering to pilot what we’re calling the Nature Bus,” she said. “Each bus will run from population centers to scenic and recreational destinations.” Logistics are currently being fine-tuned between UCAT director Toni Roser and tourism director Lisa Berger on how best to coordinate the schedule with the destinations.
Operating without fares since October 2022, Metzger reported, UCAT ridership numbers in 2023 jumped 40 percent over the previous year, a record breaking 426,000 rides, surpassing 2019’s high-water mark of 415,029. The nature bus is planned to begin its route accompanied by the warming weather in the springtime.
“We’re already electrifying our bus fleet,” said Metzger.
With the vital arts-and-cultural scene of the Hudson Valley, townies and tourists are competing for costly and scarce housing stock.
The quest to increase stock by reconfiguring zoning laws continues, as does the safety net of emergency housing. Last summer over 500 people, mostly families, were in need of temporary digs — with permanent housing as their end goal.
The county maintains a website dashboard with the number of short-term rentals operating in Ulster County, sorted by municipality. To inspect the numbers, sign in to Participate Ulster County. Short Term Rental monitoring is part of what the website offers.
“This is a site where people can go and see, for instance, everything we’re doing on housing,” said Metzger. “They can find the data by community and you can find many initiatives that we’re working on. The idea is for the public to be able to see them as we’re working on them.”
Metzger said the county often posts surveys online and hosts public informational meetings, looking for interaction from the public. “We’re trying to get people more engaged in the projects we’re working on.” Metzger explained, “and then we update the site so they can see what’s been happening to projects as they evolve.”
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