A Informative Look at the Corinth Dissolution Referendum

Voters in the Village of Corinth voted 338-209 last Tuesday against dissolving the village and being absorbed by the town. Doing some reading on the subject, I’ve found some very interesting points to share which should help us better understand the complexity of the dissolution/consolidation process and how it could possibly play out in our [...]

The Real Story Behind City/County Consolidation

The idea for the City of Amsterdam to merge with other localities to provide police and fire protection, maintenance and other services has been increasingly talked about in the local media, blogsphere and among local politicians this election season. The further goal of completely disbanding the city to be part of a wider, single government encompassing all of Fulton [...]

While we’re on the Subject of Crickets

The latest editorial from the Recorder offered a gem of a paragraph that begs for some additional scrutiny. The 2 percent tax cap under which Gov. Andrew Cuomo has snugly tucked New York’s municipalities — including the most flailing and failing — is an urging toward merging. Eliminating duplication and layers of government, forcing small [...]

Chamber of Commerce Consolidation

Well I figured it was about time for the Recorder to write yet another editorial singing the praises of consolidation. This time the idea is to consolidate the Fulton and Montgomery County Chambers of Commerce. It’s worth noting here that Recorder Publisher Kevin McClary is a member the Montgomery County Chamber Board of Directors. I found this editorial [...]

Awkward Clarification

My previous blog post entitled “A Proposal for the Amsterdam Recorder” was, in fact, a satire based on two recent opinion pieces that appeared in the Recorder in regards to consolidation and shared services. I’m not sure how well this idea worked, probably because I did not get completely  over-the-top ridiculous with my suggestions. In fact,  on [...]

A Proposal for the Amsterdam Recorder

It’s no secret that local papers everywhere are struggling. The number of people who choose to get their news on “paper” is declining daily.  Back in the 18th and 19th centuries, when newspapers started to become popular, news travelled  slow and therefore, we created newspaper companies  that were small and that provided for the local [...]

Collaboration Consternation

“Consolidation” and “shared services” – seem to be two buzzwords that are being used a lot these days. All three mayoral candidates have expressed (in varying degrees of detail), their support for working with other municipalities to cut costs of services. The idea of  consolidating local governments gets mentioned a lot by some county supervisors, [...]