Re$ycle

I had Mayor Sottile on the air with me this morning as I cohosted my monthly show on Kingston Community Radio.  We discussed – or tried to – his concept of doing a pilot program with County Waste to pick up Kingston’s recyclables.  It’s an interesting program which involves providing containers to residents and then letting them mix all of their recyclables in the one container.  There will be no need to separate cans from cardboard and such.

Just when he was warming to the subject, marina owner and local businessman Scott Harrington called in and started to ask the mayor several leading questions about why the mayor (and Harrington) think having a sound stage at Gallo Park is such a smashing idea.  I’ll discuss that in another post, but my point was, the Mayor ran out of time and didn’t complete his thoughts on the matter.

But here’s what we know so far.  Sometime before the end of the summer, approximately 700 residents will take part in a pilot program to see how it works.  The company will be doing all of the pickups using the containers they provide.  The mayor says if it turns out to be successful (ie causing residents to more fully comply with our recycling goals) he will propose that the program go citywide.

The rub, I imagine, will be the CSEA, which may protest that jobs will be taken away from public employees.  The Mayor has said that won’t happen – that the employees will simply be redeployed to other needed work such as storm sewer repair.  The devil’s in the details, but I think I speak for everyone when I say I’m looking forward to seeing how this works.

Recycling is not only good for the environment, but it reduces the amount of money the city has to pay in tipping fees for sending its waste to the landfill.

Cape Cod

I love spending the summers in New York. But there’s a lot to be said for Cape Cod, where a good percentage of upstate New Yorkers will spend a week or two. In fact, if you’re in Chatham, chances are better than even, IMO, that you’ll run into SOMEone from Ulster County.

Park in a Poke

The new uptown lot after the garage was torn down, courtesy of Stinemire Engineering.

Kingston, with the help of the Daily Freeman, has a tendency to focus on day-to-day issues.  Rightfully so, we get upset when basic things go wrong.  Yard waste pick up might be the most recent example.  Snowplowing, and how to do it right or wrong is another.  Pot holes.  Speeding traffic.  Things of this nature.

Another one is parking, or lack thereof.  I’d made a comment to Freeman reporter Paul Kirby recently about how the parking local development corporation, created under legislation I authored, had not done anything since 2006 when the mayor signed the legislation into law.  I mistakenly added that I didn’t think he’d appointed anyone to this board.  I was wrong as it turns out on the second point, but I thought this mainly because under the mayor’s leadership, the commission hasn’t met once.  Not once.

So, Kirby turned this issue into a story (he’s just doing his job after all) and the mayor used this opportunity to attack me personally.  He’s done this to me before and to others.  One of his favorite refrains is to openly and loudly question someone’s “leadership.”  While I accept responsibility for comments I made in error, I see no reason for the mayor to continue to behave the way he does.  There is no reason for him to constantly blow his temper and attack people who question him.  This kind of behavior to me is not the hallmark of good leadership in any sense of the word.

But getting back to the issue, if Kingston – led by the Parking LDC – decides we don’t need to alleviate parking congestion in either the Rondout or Uptown business districts, then so be it.  At least the LDC will have made some kind of decision, issued some kind of opinion, in the three years since the Mayor appointed its members.

PS – I bet none of the members even knew they were appointed to the LDC in the first place, until they read today’s Freeman story, which, BTW, can be found here:

http://dailyfreeman.com/articles/2010/07/11/news/doc4c394e6b1fee2127966280.txt

Good Bye, King’s Inn

It may have once signified a period in our history where people traveling by car used motels, rather than hotels, but beyond that I don’t see – and haven’t seen for some time – any redeeming value to the King’s Inn on Broadway, next to UPAC.

King's Inn...in better days - were there better days?

For years it has been the center of trouble.  It has been “home” to people unable or unwilling to take care of themselves.  And it has been the subject of repeated building code violations.  It has been clear to me for a very long time that who ever has owned this building viewed it as little more than an income generator.  It symbolized Kingston’s absentee slumlord.  Find boarders, take the rent income, and put very little back into the building.

Kingston city government has acquired the building now for failure to pay taxes.  It should be razed, and replaced with something that makes more sense for the Broadway business corridor.  Why not repeat the model adopted at 721 Broadway?  We can offer office space for people making a living off of the digital economy.  Maybe we can also include living space in this structure.

Why not?  The key to any urban revitalization  is to get people to live, work and do business in the same locale without having to get in their car all the time to do it.

Kingston Freeman has a story on it here:  http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2010/07/02/news/doc4c2d76e32ffbe308210154.txt