Most of the Dryden-specific activity in today's Ithaca Journal is on the opinion page, so I'll start there for the first time in a while.
Henry Kramer of Dryden writes to argue that New York (population 19.2 million) follow Connecticut's (population 3.4 million) lead and abolish counties, suggesting that:
"For municipalities, cooperative arrangements and use of consortia could be used to achieve economies of scale. For those who prefer sales and income taxes to property taxes, more of the tax burden would shift to statewide taxation."
Once Kramer gets past his visions of a government both more concentrated in Albany and more distributed among the towns, he arrives at what he no doubt thinks is a more likely suggestion:
"If we are not to do that, let's at least establish a strong county executive and a separation of powers concept for county government."
It's a nice style of argument. Put forward a bold but unlikely idea, and then make a more plausible suggestion at the end of the letter, without the burden of explaining its benefits. As is probably obvious from some of my earlier postings, I don't see much benefit to the idea.
Cathy Wakeman of Dryden writes in response to an earlier letter questioning the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004. Wakeman argues that:
"Our 'have it your way' society would like to entertain sexual relations as recreation and then is somehow surprised when an embryo or fetus or baby shows up.
Responsibility balances our rights. If a criminal violates the rights of a pregnant woman, he or she is responsible for both affected lives. "
On the news side, Groton and McLean firefighters reported to a silo fire in Groton, with mutual aid that included the Freeville and Dryden departments.
The TCAT bus system has a new manager, Joseph J. Turcotte, who has been the superintendent of transportation and administration in Charlotte, NC.
There's also an announcement that Better Housing of Tompkins County will be having group work camps to help low-income and elderly families this summer, from July 10th to 16th.
Posted by simon at January 21, 2005 7:39 AM in Ithaca Journal , emergency services , politics (local) , politics (national) , politics (state) , roads, traffic, and transit