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| Legislative Happenings At the last legislative session of the year, the Ulster County Legislature passed the 2007 budget. As noted in a previous column, this is a good budget that keeps spending flat in spite of several new costs including bond payments for the new jail and increases in many expenses such as labor contracts and health care. The county portion of our property tax will increase 7.5%. We accomplished a lot during the year with department consolidations and cost cutting measures. The most difficult part of voting for the budget was eliminating 25 jobs. Laying people off is never easy, but it was necessary to get spending and property taxes under control. The Legislature, Office for Employment Training and the Personnel Department are working to find other opportunities for the employees that were laid off. In other business, we passed a new notification law for commercial pesticide applications. I was pleased to support this new law that makes it mandatory to notify all adjacent property owners when pesticides will be applied on lawns. We held a public hearing and two public comment periods where we heard testimony from opponents and proponents of the new law. Under the new law, lawn care companies must provide 48-hour written notice to occupants of all abutting properties within 150 feet of an eligible pesticide application or to owners or agents of rental housing within 150 feet. Almost everyone speaking against the new law were from lawn care companies or association representatives. It is true that there will be an additional expense that will probably be passed on to customers. However, it is important to realize that treating a lawn with pesticides is a luxury, not a necessity. There is a lot of research available that shows that pesticides ma impose serious health and safety risks to people, particularly children, pregnant women, the elderly and infirm, and that citizens have the right to know about pesticides to which they may be exposed from applications on neighboring properties so that they can take steps to minimize such exposures. You can get more information about pesticide spraying, a set of Frequently Asked Questions by New York Public Interest Research Group (NIPIRG), a copy of the law and links to several interesting sites at my web site - www.gary4ulster.com . Marge and I wish you and your family a joyful peaceful holiday season and a happy, healthy new year. |
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