JIM KEEGAN

But I wouldn’t have gotten very far in the process if, from the start, I had taken an immovable position of keeping Pine Haven in Philmont no matter what and not given credence to other ideas that were being floated about. That would have been against my oath to protect the taxpayers of Columbia County. The Democrats seem to think that taking a stance of defiance will somehow win the day. Government simply doesn’t work that way.

DSS AT OCKAWAMICK

I’ve also been accused of flip-flopping on the idea of moving the Department of Social Services to Ockawamick. I still believe that consolidation of services is a good idea which will mean considerable savings to the county’s taxpayers and that Ockawamick is a good site to do it due to its location near the geographic center of the county. But that does not necessarily mean moving DSS there. DSS clients generally also utilize a host of other agencies, including the Social Security Administration and Columbia Opportunities, which are not part of county government and continue to be based in Hudson. After pondering the move for a while, it became clear that DSS clients are better served in Hudson where the majority of them reside so that they may have ready access to other related agencies.

TRAFFIC 

Just as many Claverack residents were upset with the prospect of increased traffic resulting from moving DSS to Ockawamick, we are now facing an outlandish proposal by the former City of Hudson Democratic [Committee] chairperson to reroute trucks out of Hudson through Claverack. It is another example of a knee-jerk reaction to a problem rather than a thought-out solution. Anyone who knows me will tell you I am not a guy to make rash decisions. Our programs and policies are well thought-out and studied thoroughly. Item for item, cost for cost. It takes a little longer perhaps but we don’t paint ourselves into corners that way.

TOWN HALL

Some Democrats have also made a issue of demanding that the Claverack School become our new town hall. We’re all in agreement that our current town hall is inadequate for our needs and not a very attractive building. No argument there. But to demand that we pick one site no matter what is just another example of Democratic tunnel vision. First, in the current depressed economy, we have no current plans to build a new town hall. Period. When the economy stabilizes and we all agree that it is time for new town hall, then we have four possible options to choose from: rehabbing the Claverack School, rehabbing the current town hall, building new on land the town owns next to the highway garage, or building new on two acres we acquired on the Ockawamick campus. At that time we will do extensive studies comparing the virtues and drawbacks of the four sites and do significant cost analysis to provide the best town hall at the lowest cost to our town taxpayers. It may be the Claverack School, it may be somewhere else. We won’t know until be do the research. And I promise that all the number-crunching will be as transparent as possible so everyone in the community will have the opportunity to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. In the meantime, I am sure some of the Democrats will continue their cry to make the Claverack School our new town hall even though the building is NOT CURRENTLY FOR SALE!

THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN

Another area of concern is the seemingly slow implementation of the town’s new Comprehensive Plan. It was our administration that initiated that plan—the first such document of its kind since the early 1970s. And we think the committee did a great job on it. However, it is necessary revise the town’s zoning to accomodate that plan. That is currently underway. It’s an intricate process which must be done correctly. Once the zoning changes are identified, that portion will be aligned with the recently enacted Comprehensive Plan. Again, it takes a little time, but we’re going to get it right the first time.

CHANGE

In recent years there have been calls for “change for the sake of change.” Well, we see the results of that today in Washington and in Albany. You have to ask yourself, Are we truly better off today after we changed course on the federal and state levels? Did it make a difference or just make things worse? We sure do not want that kind of tax and spend type of governance here in Claverack. We’ve managed to keep taxes low—in fact, Claverack’s tax rate is the fourth lowest in the county. That’s because we do the same common sense thing you do—we put a little bit aside for a rainy day. And you can’t  spend it before you’ve got it. I really wish the politicians in Washington and Albany could figure that one out.

THE POST OFFICE

There’s some joker on a local web blog who is hammering us about getting a new post office for the hamlet. I think he’d better spend a little less time on the computer and a little more time watching the news. We’ve gone round and round with the U.S. Postal Service on this one for quite some time. We had a site. We had a developer who was willing to build a new post office. But the postal service backed out. They were broke. At first it was Hurricane Katrina and all the POs they had to replace down there. Now it’s simply their financial mess. They’re cutting services and closing post offices trying to save money. I heard they lost $3 billion last year. They simply aren’t in a position to build a post office here, at least right away. But we’ll keep after them in case something changes. But for now, it’s just another example of another government agency going bankrupt.

BROADBAND 

When federal stimulus funding was announced, Board [of Supervisors] Chairman Art Baer asked the supervisors to name three priority projects they would like to see funded under the program. Gaining increased broadband coverage for Claverack and other parts of the county was one of those three priority concerns. We have applied for funding under the federal stimulus program and are awaiting word on our application. I believe that having increased coverage would be beneficial to attracting new businesses to the Town of Claverack and be of great benefit to those businesses already here.

TOOT OUR OWN HORN

The Town Board and I are proud of our record of accomplishment. We built the new town garage and salt shed at minimal cost to the taxpayers and constructed a water district for the hamlet of Claverack after Hudson threatened to cut off the water. We instituted the LOSAP awards program for our volunteer firefighters and initiated a committee comprised of town board members and community people to seek out government grants for improvement projects throughout the town. The freakish weather in the past year has forced us to declare a state of emergency three times and has really stretched the capacity of our road crews and county emergency personnel. But when trouble hit, we were prepared with an emergency plan (despite Democrat claims to the contrary) and we got through it safe and sound. I’m proud to call Claverack my home, and I’m proud to stand for what we’ve done in this town. That’s why we’ve adopted the slogan “Progress—Not Politics” on all our campaign literature. So don’t be misled by claims to the contrary.