5-17-11: school budget comparisons, road issues in copake, resolutions at county board meetings

School budgets. Great chart. Must see.

Literary event in Hudson. This is good. All Lit Up.

Party in Germantown. "Every spring, Joan K. Davidson gives a wonderful Shad Party at Midwood, her fabulous home on the Hudson River in Germantown, Columbia County."

Look: this is something that was in the board resolutions. Good thing they got online eventually! Not without some prodding, however.

Like the Columbia Land Conservancy? I do. And the Farmland Trust.

And speaking of farming: here is the 2010 report from the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Columbia County. Too much good stuff in there to summarize.

Tourist maps online.

Body in the Hudson River.

Too much defense spending.

Local races: judge and district attorney. Update.

Need a 3 million dollar horse farm?

Copake Falls photo. Biking in Copake.

Tourism site. Any good?

Fishing report. Looks okay.

Here is a discussion that should happen BEFORE the board votes. Let's get the resolutions online before the meeting next month. And the resolutions should be easier to sort through, by name, not by number.

Here are the resolutions on the county site:
http://www.columbiacountyny.com/resolutions2011.html

Here they are again on wikicoco.com:
http://wikicoco.com/tag/view/resolutions

I should tag them better and organize them... or someone else is more than welcome to work on it. Wikicoco is like wikipedia: anyone can jump in and do whatever they want.

From: Reggie Crowley [mailto:reggiecrowley1953@msn.com]
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2011 9:50 AM
Subject: RE: Copake BOS resolutions - questions

Resolution 177-2011, Walkers Mills - This was a typo in the resolution. It's actually in the Town of Livingston. It is being corrected by the County Attorney
Resolution 175-2011 is the Highway portion of the Copake project
Resolution 176-2011 is the bridge portion of the project
To secure the federal & State grants the bridge and the highway are viewed as 2 separate projects.

When the grant was awarded 4 or 5 years ago it was based on "preliminary" figures, as the county had no approved bids at the time, only prliminary figures.
Once the County got bids and awarded them, then the grant was adjusted to reflect the actual cost of the project.
There was no extra construction costs per say from the original design.
This is simply the way that these grants are handled. It is done for all municipal projects.

Hope this answers your questions
Reggie