State environmental officials want wind energy developers to pay closer attention to how their projects will affect birds and bats.

The Department of Environmental Conservation proposed a set of guidelines to promote wind power and minimize the danger to birds and bats.

Developers have been required to analyze how wind projects would affect wildlife before they are allowed to build and the new guidelines will standardize that review.

The guidelines released Thursday would determine how wind energy developers estimate bird and bat populations and how many would be killed by colliding with the giant towers and rotating blades

New York has six operating wind farms, five under construction and at least 30 more planned.

UPDATE: The guidance is available in .pdf here:

The "battle of doughnuts" may be curbed next month. A rash of franchise requests from competing doughnut chains and fears of traffic tie-ups related to the locations has prompted the town board to consider a moratorium on drive-through businesses.

Dunkin Donuts and Tim Hortons are aggressively expanding in the Buffalo area, and Cheektowaga appears to be a prime target for both chains.

Last November, then-supervisor James J. Jankowiak said franchise location requests from Dunkin Donuts and Tim Hortons was "a battle of doughnuts for control of William Street." Both franchises seek drive through service for their selected sites.

However, fears of traffic backing up at both William Street locations- at Union Road for Tim Hortons, and at Raymond Avenue for Dunkin Donuts- has the board taking a closer look at its zoning code.

The board may impose a 90-day moratorium on permits and approvals for drive-through windows while it reviews the zoning code.

Supervisor Mary F. Holtz explained that the portion of the zoning code that regulates drive-through businesses was established in the 1970s and may require an update.

"It was geared toward drivethrough banks, not coffee shops, not this situation," Holtz said.

When Hudson Falls resident Brenda Ross said it was a pleasure to pay taxes on her property in South Carolina, her community's collective jaw dropped.

"Things are different there," Ross said during a public hearing discussing a merger of the Kingsbury and Hudson Falls court systems. "Taxes on six acres of land is $253 annually. I pay $6,000 in Hudson Falls. The reason is, South Carolina has one layer of government -- the county."

And while village residents largely rejected merging court services, all agreed taxes are too high and something must be done about it.

Some are proposing Hudson Falls dissolve into Kingsbury; some are suggesting Kingsbury dissolve into Hudson Falls to make a city; and some are taking a middle ground, proposing an increase in shared services.

The state Comptroller's Office has reported that, among the state's 932 towns, 554 villages, 62 cities and 57 counties, growth in outstanding debt is exceeding growth in revenue.

Between 1995 and 2005, outstanding debt increased 94 percent for local governments, while revenues grew 54 percent. Village debt statewide rose $800 million, to almost $1.7 million, from 1995 to 2005.

DEVELOPMENT MORATORIUM TO BE REWORKED:

At Tuesday night's Springfield town board meeting, the board did not decide to adopt the moratorium the planning board has been working on, in hopes of slowing down town development before a comprehensive plan is created.

However, after a long, heated discussion between board members and the public, the board agreed to form a committee in order to continue working out glitches in the proposed moratorium.

Town Supervisor Tom Armstrong said the board would leave it in the hands of the committee, which will be made up of two town board members and two planning board members, to come up with something new for the board to hear in a few months.

"As it (the proposed moratorium) stands, it looks like a blank check and I cannot vote for it," said Councilman Richard Rathbun, who said he had difficulty understanding some of the language in the proposed moratorium.

For example, the proposed moratorium said the town would not approve any "unprecedented" projects.

Rathbun said he believed the word unprecedented could be interpreted to mean just about anything and needs clarification..

The system could be connected to Cheektowaga's online assessment system as well. From there, the system's possible uses could be endless.

Holtz explained that complaints would be logged by an "SBL" number used by the assessor's office to identify land parcels.

"That SBL numbers (system) would be (used as) the primary code for all complaints in the town," Holtz said.

A particularly deep pothole? The highway department could add it to their list and, using electronic maps, create an efficient route that would allow a repair crew to patch several potholes.

A vacant home or frequent sanitation violations? The housing department can follow up on it.

Sewer problems could be easily referred to the engineer's office.

"Every department in town could use this system," Holtz said, "and all of us would have a complete record of every complaint that comes in."

Councilmember Stan Kaznowski, who has seen the system, said he likes the idea of tracking complaints and the added accountability of the program.

"We can get back to residents and say, 'yes, this has been addressed,'" Kaznowski said. "That's been my biggest frustration" as a homeowner group president.

The largest task after purchasing the system, estimated to cost between $40,000-$50,000, would be training town employees to use it.

The campaign to create a Dutchess County well-testing law is on its last legs, but efforts at the town level are just beginning.

Fishkill Supervisor Joan Pagones, in a 40-minute speech Wednesday evening, spent a few minutes affirming the town's support for the county law while pledging to pursue a town law, if necessary, to require tests for well contamination when homes are sold.

"This issue is not a partisan issue. It is a public health priority," Pagones, a Republican, said in her annual State of the Town speech. "County government exists to provide services that individual municipalities cannot provide. When that need is not met, municipalities must then step up and provide the service."

Sitting nearby during the speech were East Fishkill Supervisor John Hickman, a Republican, and Wappinger Supervisor Joseph Ruggiero, a Democrat. Both towns have faced water quality problems in recent years and could follow Fishkill in seeking town laws.

The new push follows County Executive William Steinhaus' veto last week of a countywide bill passed by the Dutchess Legislature. As a sort of prelude to the veto, Steinhaus sent letters in January to all the county's 30 municipal leaders suggesting they consider adopting well-testing laws appropriate to their communities, and he included sample legislation.

The deadline is nearing in a contest for a new Penfield motto.

The Penfield Chamber of Commerce is seeking a new motto because officials consider the current motto — The Town of Planned Progress — outdated.

The deadline for entries is Feb. 28. The three best suggestions, judged by chamber officials, will be presented to the Town Board for final approval. The winner will get $100.

Penfield residents can submit a motto on a form at the Chamber’s Web site, www.PenfieldChamber.org, by sending an e-mail to newmotto@PenfieldChamber.orgCQ, or by sending a letter to the Penfield Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 545, Penfield, NY 14526.

I'd be curious to know whether many towns have mottoes. If your town has one please put it into the comments.

Jim Nagel, a small business owner on Canaan Road in the Town of Caroline, believed he could only get slow, unreliable dial-up Internet when interviewed for a Jan. 14 Journal story on the lack of high speed services in rural pockets of Tompkins County.

But soon after, he learned his phone provider Frontier could help him. Now, the difference in negotiating the Internet is like “night and day.”

“I tried the same tool catalogue I tried to access before,” he said, and what once took 20 minutes — often with his computer crashing — took only two. Now he's interested in getting a Web site established for the Nagel and Wolff furniture business he runs with his wife, Elizabeth Nagel.

. . . and Auburn: WI-FI COULD OPEN NEW FRONTIERS:

Wi-Fi? Why not?

The group behind a seven-point plan for revitalizing the region would like to bring wireless Internet access to the city and beyond. It's a goal included in Call to Action: Blueprint for Our Region's Future that could be used to retain and recruit young people and business.

“You're dealing with a generation of folks that crave connectivity, that need this in their lives,” said Tim Fox, a member of the Blueprint panel and former chairman of the Ignite young professional group.

The applications are social and economic. It can be used to lure businesses or to close the so-called digital divide between rich and poor, urban and rural.

“The idea is everyone should have access,” Fox said.

State aid to pay for dissolution of local municipalities is proposed to stay at last year's amount in New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer's 2007-08 budget. That could bode well for Johnson City if a dissolution petition is accepted.

The proposed Executive Budget Aid and Incentives for Municipalities (AIM) program has earmarked $25 million to the Department of State Shared Municipal Services Incentive (SMSI) program to fund grants to local governments that consolidate or share services. The funding level would be the same as 2006.

A petition requesting officials to study the dissolution of Johnson City into the Town of Union is being reviewed by the village to verify its authenticity. If found valid, the petition would begin a process that would end with a village-wide vote on a plan draw up by officials to dissolve the village government.

Kyle Wilber, SMSI program manager, said Johnson City and Union last year could have each received a maximum of $400,000 to help study the potential economic impacts and the extent of efficiencies created by a possible dissolution, the legal paperwork leading to the referendum, and a dissolution plan. Under last year's program, state reimbursements covered 90 percent of the actual cost of the proposal, or a maximum of $400,000 each.
...
Charles Zettek, with the Rochester-based non-profit consulting group Center for Government Research, explained that if Johnson City's petition to study dissolution is accepted, he believes it will be the largest populated village to study dissolution.

He said the first step when he helped an appointed committee study dissolving the Village of Wellsville was to decide what services the village had and what it needed. In Johnson City, the study committee would include at least two representatives who live outside the village, but in the Town of Union.
...
The actual Wellsville dissolution study took six months to prepare, but last November's referendum vote, in which dissolution was rejected 1,000-94, didn't come until two years later.

In the old days a horse and buggy would deliver water house to house for 15 cents a barrel.

Today, the most up-to-date water delivery systems have miles of pipeline, computerized mapping systems to quickly locate valves and sophisticated acoustical equipment to pinpoint leaks.

But all the technology in the world can't stop a 120-year-old pipe from wearing out.

Forestville residents found that out. Breaks in their pipes - including some installed before Abraham Lincoln was president - drained their water tank, leaving the 800 customers in the Chautauqua County village without water for almost a week earlier this month.

And Buffalo, with hundreds of miles of lines 100-plus years old, loses nearly 12 billion gallons of water a year to leaks and breaks in pipes.

Some lines in Western New York are less than a year old and pose no problems. But the middle-aged pipes are starting to show their age.

"It's a challenge this country faces in its infrastructure," said Robert A. Mendez, executive director of the Erie County Water Authority. "A significant amount was done after World War II. Now that's 50 years old."
...
A respected trade association estimates it will cost a minimum of $250 billion nationwide to replace the aging underground infrastructure over the next 30 years. Finding that much money - and essentially burying it in the ground - is difficult.

Anna Miller stood in the back of the room, silent, her fingers wrapped around a small, hand-held video camera.

The 14-year-old Minisink Valley High School freshman believed it was her civic right to bring her camera. She wanted to record a public meeting of the town's Zoning Board of Appeals for herself and others. She learned in school that government meetings are open to the public.

That's true. Just not Thursday night's meeting of the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Chairman Richard Onorati demanded that Miller shut off the camera. "It's too much of a distraction," he told her.

Miller complied.

"I made no noise," she said. "I didn't draw attention to myself."

The state's Committee on Open Government was contacted months ago by Miller's mother, Deborah Glover, and another citizen, Connie Lichtenberger, seeking an opinion on whether the public has a right to videotape open meetings.

Glover wants to videotape all government meetings, Town and Planning boards included, for future use on a grassroots town news Web site. Such a tool is critical to keeping residents in this town informed — many of whom cannot find time to attend meetings between working and children's activities, she said.

Back in August, Lichtenberger tried to videotape a public hearing of the Zoning Board of Appeals that dealt with an issue relating to her New Hampton neighborhood. She placed a video camera in the corner, on a tripod. But she, too, was shot down.

Committee on Open Government Executive Director Robert Freeman wrote that case law suggests audiotaping and videotaping of town meetings is permissible as long as it is not "disruptive or obtrusive."

Freeman's opinions haven't swayed Onorati. He said that the camera, pointed directly at the board members, is intimidating and distracting. And the board unanimously agreed several months ago to not allow videotaping. The meetings are recorded on audiotape, and copies are available to the public upon request. He further contends that the board is a "quasi-judicial" agency and should be granted the "same consideration as the courts."

At one time, state law exempted quasi-judicial boards, including zoning boards of appeals, from holding open meetings. But more than 20 years ago, that law was amended and no longer allows for such an exemption, said Camille Jobin-Davis, Committee on Open Government assistant director.

"It's not a distraction. You have a hand-held video camera. You stand still," said Jobin-Davis. "I don't see what the problem is."

Glover and Miller said they will try again.

"Nothing is denied here," Onorati said of the meetings. "Except videotaping."

This girl's mother, her friend, and the reporter shouljd be ashamed of themselves for using this girl to draw attention in this manner. The choreography of the "confrontation", including making sure a sympathetic reporter and cameraman were there, couldn't be more obvious.

It was studied in the mid-1980s.

It was discussed again in the mid-1990s. And six years ago, a team of international experts suggested that the Town of Cornwall and the Village of Cornwall-on-Hudson merge their police departments.

No action was taken then or since, but the question of the dual departments persists.

Town Councilman Randy Clark was the latest to raise the issue.

"I have no idea why we have two police departments," Clark said recently.

Clark said he's not advocating a merger; he's just never been able to get a satisfactory answer as to why it should or shouldn't be done.

At Monday's Town Board meeting, Clark asked Town Attorney Stephen Gaba to look into the pros and cons of such a change and report back to the board. No specific deadline was given for Gaba's report.

The two departments already share dispatching services run out of the town department's headquarters.
...
Town Supervisor Richard Randazzo said there's no point in forcing the issue as long as village Mayor Edward Moulton is opposed to changing the status quo. Moulton said studies have shown that combining the departments will have "no real advantage to village taxpayers." He said village residents like having the immediate response that's assured by a village-based police department.
...
Six years ago, a panel of international experts brought in by the Glynwood Center — a Cold Spring-based think tank — suggested that the communities might be better served by one department. Nothing more was done at the time, but Bob DeWit, president of the Greater Cornwall Chamber of Commerce, thinks it's still an idea worth looking into, since it came from people with "no preconceived notions" about the town and village.

Questions that seem to come up whenever a merger is discussed are: Who would be in charge of the department? Would both municipal boards have a say? Or would it have to be a town-run department, as Randazzo suggested the other night?

Madison County Chairman of the Board of Supervisors Rocky DiVeronica chose tow [sic] bow to the will of his fellow supervisors and vote against the county taking a share of the payment in lieu of taxes revenue expected from the latest wind farm endeavor.

"I went with the direction of the board; I usually do," he said.

He had previously been an advocate for the county getting involved because he wanted to put the revenue toward the upcoming communication tower project.

A company called Airtricity has been working on an agreement with the Towns of Stockbridge, Eaton and Madison. The company has agreed to pay $8,000 per megawatt of electrical power as a PILOT to the participating towns and schools.

The resolution put to the board of supervisors would have given the county $500 per megawatt and a percentage of the consumer price index, or inflation over the first 15 years of the project.

The participating schools and towns were to split the remaining $7,500 per megawatt.

State law exempts wind power companies from paying property taxes for the first 15 years of operation but also allows for taxing jurisdictions to request a PILOT during that time.

The county could have received $245,214 over the 15 year term of the PILOT.

An amendment presented by Eaton Supervisor David Puddington brought the amount the county would receive to zero.

And Nelson Supervisor Richard Williams added an amendment so that in signing the agreement with Airtricity the county would relinquish its share to the other Madison County jurisdictions on the agreement.

"The lion's share of the impact is to the immediate area, not only the participating landowners, but the neighboring landowners throughout the town," said Lincoln Supervisor Doug Holdridge. "And the town staff itself as they provided services to support the project during construction and long-term operation."
...
Proponents of the county receiving a share noted the "parochialism" on the part of those town supervisors who did not want the county involved.

"I think wind energy is the wave of the future-any revenue generated should go to everyone," said Oneida Supervisor Michel DeBottis. "To say we shouldn't get a piece of that to save parochial interests-this is really the crumbs at the table, we should take what we can get."

From the beginning those opposed to the county receiving a share of the PILOT have said that a policy needed to be enacted before the county tried to get involved in any wind farm projects.