Odds and ends
So many stories have piqued my interest this week that I’m going to go an odds-and-ends review of them.
First, we’ll go to Potsdam, where village planning director Fred Hanss has so much time on his hands that he was able to come up with a plan that would place escalating “reinspection fees” on vacant buildings. These fees would culminate in a nifty $1,500 charge in the third year a building is vacant. Fines for violators go all the way up to $2,500 and 15 days in jail. I wonder if Mr. Hanss has ever spent any time in jail?
This idea is one of the most monumentally inane that has been offered in public in the nearly 40 years I’ve been in the newspaper business. Mr. Hanss apparently believes that property owners are deliberately keeping their buildings empty just to yank his chain when he’s walking the dog. He says the law would provide an incentive to eliminate "slums and blighting conditions" in the village. In reality, all it would do is make already desperate people more so. I can’t imagine facing outrageous fees and ridiculous penalties will be any added incentive for a property owner who, in most cases, would give about anything not to have an empty, revenue-free property.
It’s ideas like this that have fired up the village dissolution movement. If there is a more egregious example of governmental stupidity than this, you’ll have to show it to me before I believe it.
On to Jefferson County, where state Assembly candidate Ken Blankenbush put out a campaign platform that he cleverly called his “True North Plan”, only to have to admit less than a week later that no, he didn’t really write it all. Or, apparently, much of it, since in 12 different areas it was word-for-word the same as a campaign pledge offered by downstate Assembly candidate Jim Borkowski. I know this will shock you as much as it did me: they’re both Republicans, and they both “borrowed” from an Assembly Republican playbook.
The problem here is not that Mr. Blankenbush “borrowed” from state party hacks. That’s how the game is played, unfortunately. The problem is that he put this forward as his own, with all the pride of authorship of a first-time novelist. When I read his “True North” platform, my first reaction was “No way Ken Blankenbush wrote this.” The one part of it that I figured had to be his was his proposal that the state should deny federally guaranteed Fourth Amendment rights. Apparently, the federal court emasculation of Miranda rights isn’t moving along quickly enough, so Mr. Blankenbush thinks we should give it a hearty shove toward the door.
If a college student plagiarized as much material in a paper as Mr. Blankenbush did in his “True North” plan, he’d flunk and face suspension. Far as I can tell, that would be an appropriate reaction by the voters to Mr. Blankenbush’s shenanigans.
Finally, I have one word for you: Hounsfield. Open warfare has broken out at several recent meetings, as the Town Council fights over everything from heating systems to public bidding. It makes you wonder if they have been looking longingly down Route 3 at Henderson, whose dysfunctional status was nearly legendary until the most recent local election calmed things down, and saw a chance to jump in and take over the crown. Well, they win.
A sketchy junket for town officials to Ohio, paid for by a company seeking the town’s business, has a lot of feathers ruffled. Questionable bidding practices, especially for a boring machine whose purchase has stirred up all manner of rumors, and the inability to agree on providing heat for the town offices are also matters of contention in the town. The situation is very close to being out of control, with a public demand for the supervisor’s resignation ringing out at a Town Council meeting this week.
Town Council members don’t have to be friends. They don’t even have to particularly like each other. They do, however, have to do their best to represent the citizens and not their own interests, biases or prejudices. The Hounsfield Town Council owes better behavior to its citizens.
