Harckham to head up Board of Legislators Review of the Astorino Sustainable Playland Plan–90 Day Process

WPCNR COUNTY CLARION-LEDGER. From the Westchester County Board of Legislators. February11, 2014:

The Westchester County Board of Legislators (BOL) referred County Executive Robert P. Astorino’s Playland Improvement Plan to the BOL Committee on Labor, Parks, Planning & Housing (LPPH) last night, thereby commencing a substantive review process of the proposal promised by LPPH Committee Chair Peter Harckham (D, I, WF – North Salem).

Legislator Harckham outlined his vision for the review process today, and remarked, “This proposal will have enormous implications for the people and taxpayers of Westchester for generations to come. Playland is an iconic park and we have to use this opportunity to get any changes right. As Chair of the Committee charged with this important oversight responsibility, I will strive to foster a fair, thorough and transparent process.”

Harckham added the process for the review of the Playland plan is critical.

“This will be a collaborative and inclusive process—all stakeholders will have a seat at the table,” said Harckham. “I expect the Committee members will make site visits to Playland to review the specifics, and we will hold at least two public hearings to gather input from the public. There is enormous public interest in this project in both the neighboring communities to the park and throughout the county. Giving residents and other concerned individuals an opportunity to voice their approval and concerns is a crucial element in moving the plan forward.”

The first public hearing, Harckham stated, will be early in the process to get on the record what issues and concerns the public may have about the Playland plan so that the LPPH can address them in its deliberations. The second hearing will be as the LPPH nears the end of its analysis.

Given the ninety-day window laid out in the County Executive’s Asset Management Agreement with Sustainable Playland, Inc. (SPI), Harckham said that a “comprehensive, inclusive and expeditious review “ of the plan would be undertaken, though “no details will be overlooked for the sake of timeliness.” To accomplish this, Harckham said he will schedule LPPH meetings every week devoted exclusively to the Playland review.

After the Committee on Labor, Parks, Planning & Housing votes out the final piece of legislation regarding the Playland plan, it will be referred to the Committee on Budget & Appropriations, as well as the Committee on Economic Development & Capital Projects before going to the full BOL for final approval.

Harckham declined to predict an outcome for the Playland Improvement Plan.

”In all my time on the Board of Legislators, our best work is done when we collaboratively review the facts and seek to understand the best ideas for long-term success that may exist,” he said. “That is my goal for this process.”

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The Deer Shoot in Teatown.

WPCNR TALK OF TEATOWN. February 11, 2014:

Letter to the Editor:

Last weekend illustrated vividly some of the incredible juxtapositions of life in our community.

People from near and far traveled to Croton Point Park and nearby locations to attend Teatown’s 10th Annual Hudson River EagleFest to celebrate the re-emergence of bald eagles in the Hudson Valley.

At the same time, the sponsor of that event, Teatown Lake Reservation, a 875-acre nature preserve in the towns of Yorktown and Cortlandt, was completing a three-week deer baiting program, and, the night before Eaglefest, began a program of hiring sharpshooters to kill 75 white tail deer.

Since the deer baiting/killing program had never been made public, visitors to Eaglefest were shocked and dismayed to learn of it there because of a rally by animal lovers at Croton Point Park during the event.

In a recent article in Psychology Today, Marc Bekoff, Ph.D.,  former Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and co-founder with Jane Goodall of Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, writes about the problem and how it is being handled in a nearby village in the Hudson Valley, Hastings on Hudson:

“Urban deer have become a “problem” in many different communities across the United States because there are simply too many of them.

“Many communities have resorted to “humanely” killing deer but now there’s an option that I hope will be widely adopted. In a recent essay in the New York Times called, “A Kinder, Gentler Way to Thin the Deer Herd” by Lisa Foderaro, Hastings-on Hudson’s (New York) Mayor Peter Swiderski “has settled on a less violent approach: birth control. In an experiment to be undertaken with assistance from Tufts University’s Center for Animals and Public Policy, Hastings hopes to become the first suburb in the United States to control deer through immunocontraception, using the animal’s own immune system to prevent it from fertilizing offspring.”

“Dr. Alan Rutberg, the director of Tuft’s center, calls the idea “brilliant.” He has successfully used immunocontraception in self-contained areas such as Fire Island and elsewhere resulting in a 50% decrease in deer numbers over five years. Dr. Rutberg notes, “Deer have entered our backyards and essentially become unruly guests … We are bound by suburban rules in dealing with them, and violence is not how we deal with neighbors we don’t like.”

“…Peaceful coexistence needs to be the way in which we live with urban neighbors and birth control is a wonderful alternative to killing these magnificent animals.”

Teatown’s refusal to seek less violent alternatives, the lack of public information or opportunity for input casts a big shadow over their mission  and reputation going forward;   more than 1300 people have signed a petition to have the bait/kill  program stopped. ( http://chn.ge/1dzcmrV)

Linda Conte

Croton-on-Hudson, NY

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Regents Votes to Delay Common Core Incorporation into Regents Tests to 2022; Limits Teacher test success as factor in teacher evaluations, and Limits Assessment Preparation. Governor Says Not Enough.

WPCNR ALBANY ROUNDS. February 10, 2014:

The New York State Board of Regents Monday voted to accept their own study committee’s recommendations on Common Core standards evaluation and pushed out to 2022 the date when students graduating had to pass Regents exams tied to Common Core standards.

The Board also limited to 1% the role teachers’ success in getting students to pass assessments should have in evalating teachers. The Board also voted to restrict time spent in preparing students specifically for assessments, and said  school districts did not have to use assessment test results as a basis for promotion of students in grades 3 to 8.

The Regents said they would do less field testing of assessment test questions and make more questions available to teachers, however they did not say they would make the complete tests available.

There was no statement from the Board of Regents on whether assessment tests for 2014 would go on as scheduled and designed by Pearson, the designers of last year’s higly criticised tests. At this time,  It appears the assessments are going ahead as scheduled this year.

For the complete memorandum the Board of Regents passed today addressing Common Core alleged deficiencies go to;

The Chancellor of the Board of Regents Merryl Tisch in a statement said:

“We have listened to the concerns of parents and teachers. We’ve heard the concerns expressed at the hearings and forums, and we regret that the urgency of our work, and the unevenness of implementation, have caused frustration and anxiety for some of our educators, students, and their families. This report is designed to make significant and timely changes to improve our shared goal of implementing the Common Core.”

Governor Andrew Cuomo, in a statement, said the Board of Regents did not go far enough:

“Today’s recommendations are another in a series of missteps by the Board of Regents that suggests the time has come to seriously reexamine its capacity and performance. These recommendations are simply too little, too late for our parents and students.

“Common Core is the right goal and direction as it is vital that we have a real set of standards for our students and a meaningful teacher evaluation system. However, Common Core’s implementation in New York has been flawed and mismanaged from the start.

“As far as today’s recommendations are concerned, there is a difference between remedying the system for students and parents and using this situation as yet another excuse to stop the teacher evaluation process.

“The Regents’ response is to recommend delaying the teacher evaluation system and is yet another in a long series of roadblocks to a much needed evaluation system which the Regents had stalled putting in place for years.

“I have created a commission to thoroughly examine how we can address these issues. The commission has started its work and we should await their recommendations so that we can find a legislative solution this session to solve these problems.”

 

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Watt Shock! Electric Rates UP 136% in Month. Con Ed Blames Natural Gas Prices, Cold Weather. Will Work With You They Say

WPCNR THE POWER NEWS. February 10, 2014:

Local Con Edison customers got a rude shock Saturday when Con Edison electric bills arrived.

The charge per kilowatt hour went from 8.1 cents in December to 19.1 cents in January.

The explanation from Con Edison’s Elizabeth Matthews to WPCNR: the high cost of gas and cold weather. Delivery charges per kilowatt hour went down half a cent per kwh.

Ms. Matthews told WPCNR: “We are willing to work with customers (on spreading out  their bills over the course of a year)”:

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration,

“Natural gas supply into New York City remained constrained during colder-than-normal temperatures as evidenced by the price spikes in mid-December and early January. Spot natural gas prices reached as high as $47.80/MMBtu, higher than in New England—likely because New England was able to meet part of its natural gas demand with imported supplies of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and Canadian offshore natural gas production. Power prices hit $233.59/MWh on January 8.

Several major natural gas pipeline projects came in service ahead of the 2013-14 winter, including theNew Jersey to New York expansion of the Texas Eastern Transmission and the Algonquin Gas Transmission pipelines, which will deliver additional natural gas supplies, particularly from the Marcellus region, into the New York City area, the main demand center of the New York electric system. Despite these developments, natural gas supply into the New York region remains constrained during high demand periods.

An additional strain on the New York system came from the unplanned outage of Entergy’s Indian Point Unit 3 nuclear reactor located near New York City, which went offline on the evening of Monday, January 6. The loss of the 1,044-megawatt (MW) capacity baseload unit required additional higher-cost generators to be brought on line, which put further pressure on power prices.”  (Editor’s Note: Unit 3 was returned to service on January 8, according to the Entergy website.)”

According to a news release on the Con Edison website released January 29:

Con Edison is reminding customers that they can spread their energy costs out over 12 months to ease the impact of gas and electric supply prices, which shot higher in January due to the extreme cold weather.

The company also urges customers to take simple energy-saving steps to reduce their bills while staying comfortable.

Natural gas costs climbed in January, as the region has experienced colder-than-anticipated weather. The high gas prices are also driving up the cost of electricity, since gas is the fuel used in the generation of most electricity in New York.

Con Edison does not control the price of natural gas or electricity and makes no profit on either commodity. The company uses a variety of buying strategies to get the best price possible and then provides the energy to customers at cost.

Con Edison offers level-payment plans and other options to help customers manage their bills. For more information, go here: http://www.coned.com/customercentral/managemybill.asp

Under the level-payment plan, Con Edison will estimate the customer’s energy usage for a 12-month period and then spread those costs out over 12 months. After 12 months, the company will reconcile the estimates with the customer’s actual energy usage.

Con Edison estimates that a typical residential gas heating customer using 215 therms will have a February 2014 bill of about $388, which is $55, or 16.5 percent, higher than the February 2013 bill. Actual bills could be higher, depending on a customer’s usage.

The rise in gas prices is affecting the electric charges for customers who receive their bills in late January and early February.

A typical New York City residential customer who receives an electric bill this week for 300 kilowatt hours of usage will pay about $118, an increase of $21, or 21.6 percent, over the bill for the same period last year. Con Edison projects that bills sent in early February will include similar increases.

For a Westchester customer using 450 kilowatt hours, that late January bill is about $151, an increase of $27, or 21.8 percent, over last year. 

(Editor’s note: Where WPCNR is located, we used 718 KWH at 19.1 cents a kwh for a supply charge of $137.15  as opposed to $53.75 in December.)

Residential customers can save up to $1,000 and cut heating costs up to 30 percent with Con Edison Green Team rebates. The rebates encourage customers to do simple things like replace older equipment with efficient technology and seal leaks in their home heating systems. For energy tips and information on our Green Team programs visit: www.coned.com/greenteamor call 1-877-870-6118.

Customers also can save money with these tips:

  • Set your thermostat at 68 degrees during the day and 60 degrees at night and when no one is home. Each degree over 68 can increase by 3 percent the amount of energy you use for heating.
  • Install a programmable thermostat and set it to lower the heat at night and when no one is home.
  • Inspect ducts to ensure adequate air flow and eliminate loss of heated air.
  • Keep drapes and furniture away from radiators and baseboard heaters so heat can flow freely.

 

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