It looks like the contract negotiations in the Dryden Central School District have finally reached a positive conclusion, as the school board voted unanimously to approve the contract that teachers approved September 2nd.
Meanwhile, in the Ithaca District, negotiations with the service union reached an impasse.
At the county level, District Attorney George Dentes relived last year's failed attempt to get more money out of the county budget, even losing a crucial vote because he said he wouldn't participate in Drug Court. County Legislator Mike Lane expressed his frustration with Dentes:
"I am not prepared to add this position back... I can't gloss it over. There wasn't a department who wasn't injured during last year's budget. But everyone else licked their wounds and went back and did what was best for the county. But with the DA, there was a major flurry of correspondence basically saying that drug court would end because of his lack of participation. It was done in retaliation because of what the Legislature did. It can't be a political act by a department head."
Lane and fellow Dryden legislator Martha Robertson voted against adding the money to the DA's budget in a 7-7 vote. Lane and Robertson split on making some Alternatives to Incarceration programs a permanent part of the County budget, with Lane voting in the majority against and Robertson for.
(Personally, I'd be delighted to see local Democrats find a strong challenger to George Dentes next year. He won in 2001 by 9,511 to 7,093, hardly a convincing victory when his opponent was nobody.)
There's an article on the Ithaca Youth Bureau that discusses the Recreation Partnership of which Dryden is currently a member. One thing that caught my eye was a request for a $40,000 software package. It may be the right thing to do, but I really wish governments would work together to come up with open source packages for such things. It wouldn't make all of the costs go away, but it could reduce a lot of the cost while making it easier to customize tools to specific needs. Open source also avoids the data lock-in problem, where vendors control formats to ensure that you're stuck renewing the licenses.
Finally, the August Environmental Health Highlights mention some activity in Dryden, largely water problems and restaurant inspections.
Posted by simon at September 16, 2004 12:41 PM in Ithaca Journal , labor , politics (local) , schools (Dryden) , schools (Ithaca) , water and sewer