With the State Budget being held hostage by the dysfunctional State legislature, Governor Paterson’s draconian recommendations have kicked in and, once again, New York families and communities are the loser.

But the Republicans might have an idea, it seems. On the eve of the park closings, in a mailing from State Senator Thomas Morahan, there is a push poll asking constituents if we should privatize our parks. Read on, I’m not making this up.

The mailer contains the “2010 Legislative Questionnaire.” This is a one-sided survey as it has very limited questions with an even more limited range of answers, that range from fiscally moderate to ultra-conservative. The possible range of responses pushes respondents to right-of-center conclusions. There’s no room for a progressive answer anywhere in the questionnaire.

More to the point, question #4 asks:

Which of the following aspects of government should be privatized? (check all that apply)

Highway and roadway maintenance
Corrections
Parks and Recreation
Health care
Transportation
Education

But beware, this isn’t a legitimate survey. It’s a politician playing craps with public opinion using a pair of loaded dice. This is an attempt by New York State Republicans to push through an agenda by attempting to change public perception.

This recent push poll is not unlike others. It is a underhanded political technique where Senator Morahan is trying to sway public sentiment and opinion by bringing certain issues to the forefront. There is very little science behind this polling process. And while a large number of people are contacted, little or no effort will be made to collect or analyze their responses. I know from experience that analyzing polls is very cost prohibitive and Senator Morahan’s office does not have the time, nor the resources to analyze the data. So this survey cannot possibly provide an accurate gauge of the pulse of the 38th State Senate district. It’s no wonder that push polling has been condemned by good-government groups and even the American Association of Political Consultants. And in New Hampshire, push polling is downright illegal.

Closing our public parks is just plain wrong. The Stony Point Battlefield is critically important to the economy of the Town of Stony Point as visitors to the site often spend money at the town’s shops during their visit. The Tallman Mountain pool is the only public pool in the entire town of Orangetown. They are now gone; they may never come back.

Worse than closing the parks is entertaining the cynical idea that they should now be privatized. And trying to push public opinion to this conclusion using taxpayer money is unethical to say the least.

There’s a sad irony to all of this: Mailings from our State legislature cost taxpayers $27.3 million per year and they are nothing more than incumbency insurance, or political campaigning paid for by our tax dollars. That amount is roughly the same as the $29 million that has been cut from our State Parks, resulting in today’s closings. So shouldn’t there be a question on Senator Morahan’s survey asking if we should do away with legislative mailings?

We do have taxpayer-financed elections. They are called Senate and Assembly mailings,” said Lise Bang-Jensen, a senior policy analyst at the Manhattan Institute’s Empire Center for New York State Policy, which analyzes state payroll and legislative office expenses.

Recently, Greg Ball, a Republican State Assembly member from Putnam County who is running for the State Senate, sent out mailings—paid for by our tax dollars—to promote an April 15 Tax Day protest event where he and several other “Tea Party” candidates made campaign speeches bragging how they’ll fight for taxpayers. Just how ironic is that?
It gets  worse, it’s alleged that Ball’s mailings didn’t only go out to his constituents, those in the larger 40th Senate District (that don’t live in Ball’s 99th Assembly District) complain that they got the Tax Day Protest invitations, which also tout the Assembly member as a “real leader and reformer.” The legality of the mailings are currently being challenged by Ball’s opponent and other regional politicians. This isn’t the first time these mailing privileges have been misused, and it certainly won’t be the last.

I often like to refer to the legislature’s mailing as “incumbency insurance.” The practice is not only cynical, questionably ethical, and easily abused, it’s outrageously expensive, costing New York taxpayers $27.3 million per year. That princely sum is roughly equivalent to the cuts being proposed to our State Parks system, cuts that might close 55 park services, including the pool at Tallman State Park and the Stony Point Battlefield.

With more efficient, and much less expensive communications such as Web sites, e-mail, and text messaging available, it’s time that we do away with taypayer-funded mailings. Also, think of the good we’d be doing our environment by eliminating these mailings; imagine of the natural resources and fuel we’d save over time.

So, make it a point to take your State legislature members and candidates to task over this issue. Demand that they support doing away with outmoded, expensive, and environmentally insensitive practice. And demand that they use taxpayer dollars for the good of all New Yorkers, and not for the reelection campaigns of a few politicians.

Without even something as simple as a business plan or a building permit, the Town has already bulldozed a notable section of the 61 acre drainage basin on Route 45, cutting down trees and paving it over. However, neither the Board nor Town Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence has been able to provide any hard evidence that the wooded site is in fact blighted and worthy of being classified as an urban renewal zone. But by declaring it one, the Town can easily move ahead on development and construction without going through typical bureaucratic processes.

But has St. Lawrence and the Ramapo Board played fast and loose with the legal definition of blighted to skirt State law?

New York’s Constitution (Article XVIII, Section 3) uses the precedent established by Yonkers v. Morris to define blight as follows:

* Factors to be considered in determining if area is “blighted” and thus subject to urban renewal condemnation include such diverse matters as irregularity of the plots, inadequacy of the streets, diversity of land ownership making assemblage of property difficult, incompatibility of existing mixture of residential and industrial property, overcrowding, incidence of crime, lack of sanitation, drain areas makes on municipal services, fire hazards, traffic congestion and pollution.
* For an area to be termed “blighted” and thus subject to urban renewal condemnation, degree of deterioration or precise percentage of obsolescence or mathematical measurement of other factors do not have to be arrived at with precision, since combination and effects of such things are highly variable.

Further, the New York Development Corporation Act defines a “substandard or insanitary area” as:

[I]nterchangeable with a slum, blighted, deteriorated or deteriorating area, or an area which has a blighting influence on the surrounding area, whether residential, non-residential, commercial, industrial, vacant or land in highways, waterways, railway and subway tracks and yards, bridge and tunnel approaches and entrances, or other similar facilities, over which air rights and easements or other rights of user necessary for the use and development of such air rights, to be developed as air rights sites for the elimination of the blighting influence, or any combination thereof and may include land, buildings or improvements, or air rights and concomitant easements or other rights of user necessary for the use and development of such air rights not in themselves substandard or insanitary.

I think an interested party stands a good chance of challenging this development and stopping its progress in court. After all, wouldn’t the Town of Ramapo have to prove that the area has the potential to degrade the quality of nearby property or is itself in the process of deterioration? And what proof would they present?

Aerial photographs of the site show the property to be a healthy, attractive wooded area with a stream running through it. Only the area that was bulldozed and paved over by the Town of Ramapo seems to mar it. However, the Town claims the site is polluted and filled with trash, such as abandoned cars. But those that have visited the area, including Preserve Ramapo‘s Michael Castelluccio have found the site to be “pristine” and devoid of trash. The Town has even admitted that the levels of mercury, DDT, and arsenic on the site are not highly toxic.

By insisting this wooded area is blighted and by designating the site an urban renewal zone, the town allows the Ramapo Local Development Corporation, a quasi-governmental agency chaired by St. Lawrence, to forego numerous protocols typically used in the development and construction stages. It also assists the corporation in seeking state and federal grants, including real property tax abatements. After the stadium is built, it would be owned by St. Lawrence’s corporation, which would lease the stadium to tenants.

Even after it’s built, Ramapo residents would continue to be taxed diffusely for this new stadium, picking up the slack for the tax abatements that the Ramapo Development Corporation will enjoy. While the developers could have 10 years of real property tax abatements through New York’s Empire Zone program, Ramapo residents will be footing the bill for the additional police, public works, and sewage resources this stadium will demand. In addition, the rest of taxpayers in Rockland can expect to pay for the the Development Corporation’s share of county taxes into the next decade. In short, residents of other towns will end up paying for a project that they didn’t approve. And that’s taxation without representation.

Further, it has been pointed out by local newspapers, bloggers, and activists that the surrounding roads, especially the two-lane Route 45, will be inadequate in handling the traffic to the area, possibly causing back-ups and gridlock that would extend outside of Ramapo and into Clarkstown and beyond. The Orangetown newspaper Our Town said in a recent editorial that:

The downside of Ramapo’s headlong rush to get into the sports business is the traffic impact and the investment in road improvements necessary to support a minor league baseball team and stadium. That could be spread around a much larger number of people who have no say in the matter whatsoever. All towns that could be affected should have an opportunity to review and comment during the planning process.

I couldn’t agree more. I’m calling on the Rockland County Executive’s office to take the lead in this matter, considering that this stadium could have a potential negative impact throughout all five towns.

The Town of Ramapo is playing the entire County as suckers and taxpayers need an advocate. It is the County Executive’s duty to use the bully pulpit of his office to review land use, public works, and taxation issues that can have a dire consequences on the welfare of the County. We need Scott Vanderoef to lead the County a public forum, or if need be, a suit filed by the on behalf of Rockland’s residents to stop the Town of Ramapo from moving forward with this subterfuge.

• High Tor State Park. The pool will be closed.
• Stony Point Battlefield State Historic Site. The site will be closed.
• Tallman Mountain State Park. The pool will be closed.
• Harriman State Park. The Anthony Wayne park area will be closed and there will be reduced maintenance at group camps.

Five years ago, residents in Orangetown voted down a bond to build a municipal pool on the site of the Rockland Psychiatric Center. Unfortunately, there is now no public place in Orangetown where children can swim outdoors this summer. That is, unless some enterprising local politicians decide to do something about it. Perhaps the Town of Orangetown can convince the State to keep the pool open or rent the pool from the State. How about purchasing the pool at Tallman Mountain for a nominal amount to take it off the state’s hands? It certainly would be an inexpensive way of finally providing this town service

Also, our exceptional State Park system is a revenue and jobs generator for the State. Our parks attract out-of-state tourists and generate up to $2 billion in annual economic activity.  Every $1 of taxes spent on parks generates $5 in jobs and economic activity. So the loss of parks in Rockland county also means a loss of revenue and wealth in the region.

In addition to these sites in Rockland, many other regional parks will be affected:

• Knox Headquarters Historic Site (Orange County). The site will be closed.
• New Windsor Cantonment SHS (Orange County). The site will be closed.
• Schunnemunk State Park (Orange County). The park will be closed.
• Donald J. Trump State Park (Westchester County). The park will be closed.
• FDR (Roosevelt) State Park (Westchester County). Reduced Swimming Pool Season
• Hudson Highlands State Park (Putnam County). Arden Point Area will be closed.
• James Baird State Park (Dutchess County). Reduced Golf Course Season
• Mills Norrie State Park (Dutchess County). Reduced Golf Course Season
• Olana State Historic Site (Columbia County). Closed two days per week
• Philipse Manor Hall Historic Site (Westchester County). The site will be closed.
• Rockefeller State Park Preserve (Westchester County). The park will be closed.
• Taconic Outdoor Education Center (Putnam County). The site will be closed.
• Taconic State Park – Rudd Pond (Dutchess County). The site will be closed.
• Wonder Lake State Park (Putnam County). The park will be closed.

The Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation released the suggested list of closures and cuts for the State. The office is facing a $29 million cut in funding, which is about 16 percent of its annual budget. It’s fiscal year begins in April.

Mt. Kisco opthamologist Nan Hayworth later today is expected to unveil a new website and disclose that’s she’s already got more than $300,000 for her congressional run.

Hayworth is said to be well known in the area due to her years working as doctor, and her husband Scott Hayworth is an OB/GYN and CEO of the Mt. Kisco Medical Group.

She has reportedly been talking with Sue Kelly, the former longtime 19th rep, who Hall unseated Kelly in 2006 with 51 percent of the vote.

This candidacy makes for some interesting scenarios.
I’d first like to report that Hayworth is targeting independent and Democratic voters in her initial emails. Yesterday, I got three emails from her, each one sent to a different address. Other progressive voters that like in the 19th (I do not) said that they have already been contacted by her campaign. This early move tells me that Hayworth will be targeting socially liberal but fiscally conservative Republicans, like many of those that you would find in northern Westchester County.

Her campaign Web site is not up yet, but a blog called Hayworth for Congress has already been launched. In it, Hayworth (the woman on the left in the photograph) attacks John Hall mostly for his support of the stimulus bill, although many of the assumptions she makes about the lack of job creation on her Web site are misguided or erroneous. There is no mention of social issues such as gay marriage or abortion that one would typically find from a staunch conservative candidate. So I think it’s safe to say that Hayworth will run to the left of Ball in the primary.

And Hayworth has a lot of cash behind her campaign already. She already has $168,247 in contributions and has loaned herself $150,000. This war chest of nearly $320,000 is substantial.

What little I know about Scott and Nan Hayworth is that they have many connections to money and power in Westchester. They’re on boards and donors lists of many civic and benevolent organizations and are the quintessential Westchester power couple. They’ll have no problems finding friends willing to write them $2,000 checks and names like Pataki, Giuliani, and Bloomberg endorsing Nan.

The good news is that this will be devastating for Greg Ball, as he’ll have to much of his cash on a tough primary battle. As Ball’s primary opponent, Hayworth will also expose his Achilles Heel if not pierce it. The bad news is that I worry that Hayworth can win the primary and she’d be a much stronger candidate against John Hall come November as she doesn’t have the baggage that Ball does. While Hayworth won’t inspire any loyalty from teabaggers as Ball does, she is a moderate and can appeal to independents and moderates.