Hugh Reynolds: Baby, you can drive our car
In the normal course of events, Ulster’s county exec can afford to ignore the occasional critiques on his operation by the annoying terrier one floor below. That terrier would be independent watchdog Comptroller Elliott Auerbach, who treats taxpayer wallets like a territorially minded canine treats cars. Last week, Auerbach issued his latest report on county...
Hugh Reynolds: Payroll, please
In one of the more obscure footnotes to a routine January meeting (other than 45 gun advocates expressing themselves) Ulster County’s legislature passed a resolution asking the county executive to begin sharing personnel information. Specifically, the legislature would like to be kept apprised monthly of all hirings, firings and retirements. Under the current system, legislators...
Hugh Reynolds: In your face
It may go down as a brief footnote in county history, if it’s remembered at all, but last week a committee of the Ulster County Legislature actually challenged the county executive, and it appears that, for the time being, it got away with it. That Ulster County Executive Mike Hein reacted with swift retribution suggests...
Hugh Reynolds: Dancin’ Dave is out of step
Apparently county legislature Minority Leader Dave Donaldson didn’t get the memo that last week’s Ulster County organizational meeting was for the purpose of swearing in legislators, not swearing at them. Not that firebrand Donaldson used bad language. He didn’t have to. Donaldson, in an anti-Republican rant against legislature Chairwoman Terry Bernardo, shocked some legislators, amazed...
Hugh Reynolds: Two retirements
Two of Ulster County’s iconic political figures, Congressman Maurice Hinchey and Judge Mike Kavanagh, will retire next month, between them ending almost three-quarters of a century on the public stage. By chance and durability, I was around to cover both. A few hundred words won’t do either justice. Assemblyman Kevin Cahill said more in his introduction of the next speaker...
Hugh Reynolds: O’Halloran the bucketman
Pity Dave O’Halloran, southern Ulster resort operator and the county Industrial Development Agency (IDA) board chairman dealt the unhappy hand of attempting to negotiate between County Executive Mike Hein and arch-enemy Independence Party Chairman Len Bernardo on an IDA tax deal. A comedy/tragedy in at least a dozen acts, the roots of rancor between Hein and Bernardo extend...
Hugh Reynolds: Wrath of the IDA
It seems the Ulster County Industrial Development Agency is finally getting hard-nosed about underperforming recipients of county-sponsored tax breaks and low-interest loans. At its meeting this month, the IDA board identified nine organizations (out of 45), including a Kingston church, that it said hadn’t lived up to job-creation forecasts made on their IDA applications. Melinda...
Hugh Reynolds: Lies, damned lies and campaigns for office
It was Winston Churchill, a fair country fibber in his own right, who said at the height of World War II, “In time of war (or politics), when truth is so precious, it must be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” A previous British prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, is supposed to have put it more...
Reynolds: Hein outmaneuvers Gallo
Kicking off their summit last week with an exchange of insults, Mayor Shayne Gallo and County Executive Mike Hein then got down to the real business of saving face on one hand and advancing an ambitious plan to consolidate county government and enhance educational opportunities in the city. Flies on the wall report it got...
Reynolds: Golden Hill showdown
The Ulster County Legislature must be getting close to a decision on staffing the local development corporation (LDC) board that will attempt to sell the nursing home on Golden Hill. How do we know? They’re beginning to bicker. Scrappy Dave Donaldson threw down the gauntlet when he accused majority Republicans of attempting to stifle Democratic...
Hugh Reynolds: Welcome to an interesting year
I have been advised by the most web-savvy of our editors that the Chinese never said anything about living in interesting times. Nonetheless, the immediate future will at least be interesting. Around these parts there will be lots of new political faces tackling long-standing problems, plus a plethora of retreads to offer guidance and pundits...
Hugh Reynolds: Independence politics
Some Republican Ulster County legislators may be wondering why so many top jobs are going to members of the Independence Party. The Indys endorsed 19 winning legislators, but nowhere was their vote decisive. In fact, one Republican Indy endorsee, Jack Hayes of Gardiner, lost where many predicted that line would have made the difference. So...