On the afternoon of November 30, county judge Bryan Rounds was expected to approve a settlement of foreclosure proceedings against TechCity owner Alan Ginsberg. After years of blaming Ginsberg’s intransigence and the site’s sorry history of environmental problems for the failure to restore the TechCity premises to any kind of economic competitiveness, there has been a tentative breakthrough.
“The combination of people sick with Covid, as well as the population that are taking up spaces [in hospitals] … has really created a situation that is, that is not sustainable,” governor Kathy Hochul warned recently.
How long does it take for a massive shift in voter enrollment to show up at the polls? We found out at the polls last night when voters elected the 23 members of the Ulster County Legislature. With only the absentee ballots to be counted, the Democrats picked up four seats, increasing their total to 16 and leaving the GOP with only seven.
Two major regional hospital systems in the mid-Hudson area, WMCHealth and Nuvance Health, have recently launched extensive post-Covid recovery programs, with over a thousand local patients between them. WMC started its formal program a year ago, Nuvance its program this past springtime.
The stakes on November 2 are high. The present legislature is closely divided, consisting of ten Democrats along with one no party (Tracey Bartels) and one independence party legislator (Laura Petit), both of whom caucus with the Democrats, for a total of 12; and eight Republicans along with one Conservative (Mary Wawro) and one Independence Party member (Heidi Haynes), both of whom caucus with the Republicans for a total of 10. John Parete, a registered Democrat, sits independently.
As county executive Pat Ryan’s team adjusts its search for a user for the main 400,000-square-foot space, the legislators are growing restless about the project’s continuing drain on county resources.
Local elections are now less than three weeks away, and the names of candidates for public office are suddenly appearing on posters outside houses and in clumps along roadsides like mushrooms after a rainstorm. The season is short. A big turnout is not expected this year.
Suppose you were able to get an Ulster County job that paid New York City wages? Most mid-Hudson residents working in the private sector would jump at the chance. Not many have that opportunity, alas.
This month, Garry and Diane Kvistad sold Woodstock Percussion, Inc. to Sullivans, a Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based home-décor business that distributes its products to more than 15,000 retail stores and has expanded into other significant outlets. The price was not disclosed.
Those who think that it’s not really autumn (aka fall) until New York’s governor says it is can relax. Governor Kathy Hochul last week announced the start of the 2021 fall foliage season in New York State.