"No PILOTs in Marlboro" Letter to the editor Ted Millar

If the town of Marlborough and Marlboro School District are sincere in their endeavor to attract future residents and business, why are they considering a “Payment in Lieu of Taxes [PILOT]” agreement with the Ulster County Industrial Development Agency [IDA] that would permit an 18-year property tax reduction to the R. L. Baxter Corporation proposing constructing housing units on land bordering Marlboro Middle School?   

I agree with state senator James Skoufis in his recent statement that the Baxter company should pay its taxes like every other residential project in the Mid-Hudson Valley, adding the tax abatement will “significantly increase local costs district-wide.” He also noted, “The costs associated with municipal services are conveniently omitted from the IDA application.”

Unfortunately, we still perpetuate a tax system that funds schools through local property taxes instead of fully funded at the state and federal level. Letting developers off the hook for those taxes would exploit Marlboro/Milton residents and depress future town growth. Residents of the proposed units would not be given a pass on their taxes; the units’ developer should not be given one either. 

 Regardless of wealth and income, everyone needs to pay his and her fair share of taxes. Unfortunately, we have a system in the United States that favors wealth over wages with laws riddled with loopholes and carve outs for Wall St., corporations, and the ultra rich. The result of this is that the middle class is forced to shoulder most of the financial burden.

Publishing history:

Southern Ulster Times.  Feb. 10

"Democrats Deliver, Democrats Build" Letter to the editor Tom Denton

 President Biden’s poll ratings currently are suffering, in large part because of the mess he inherited and the huge task of extricating the country out of it. The process will take time, even as we all are eager to escape the COVID-caused mire in our lives.

In its first year, the Biden administration and Democratic Congress has delivered, by historical standards, a list of impressive achievements for the American people:

• The country’s 2021 growth rate (GDP, 5.7%) is the highest in four decades.

• The most recent unemployment rate was 4%, closest to its 21st century low.

• The number of new jobs created was the highest first-year total for any American president.

• A success that numbers can’t fully capture:  the millions of people and businesses who, because of the American Rescue Plan relief payments, were able to claw their way through the catastrophic disruptions of COVID-19.

• Passage of the expanded child tax credit dramatically reduced child poverty in a period of family crisis.

• Funding for rebuilding our roads and bridges, modernizing our electric grid, and expanding broadband access to rural and other underserved areas.

There’s much more to include. Suffice to conclude that Democrats have delivered sane, rational, deliberative governance and relief from the exhausting torrent of tweets and the ascendance of dangerous crackpots.

Inflation, in large part a consequence of our rapid recovery and the infusion of relief money in the economy, is being addressed, with the Federal Reserve having the heaviest role.

Radical Republicans, congealed into the party of breakers, the party of “No,” desperately use cultural conflicts to distract Americans from the reality:  Democrats whom the nation elected in 2020 are doing the hard work the people asked them to do. They are delivering.