BERNARDO:PROPOSED COUNTY "CUTS" AREN'T
TAX
Ulster County Executive Candidate Len Bernardo (I - Accord) urged the Ulster County Legislature to adopt a tax cap for Ulster County Property Taxes. The State Senate on Friday passed Governor David Paterson's proposal to cap property taxes.
"We need to stop these constant property tax hikes. A tax cap forces real spending reductions, not just more promises to spend less in the future," Bernardo said.
"Families are making real cuts in spending and real changes to our lifestyles each day to make ends meet: less trips to the store, turning off air conditioning for those who have it, reducing cable TV service, buying less - all to pay property and fuel taxes. The real world is making real cuts all around us while the insiders club in
In this time of economic uncertainty, County leaders are proposing to make budget changes designed to reduce anticipated 2008 spending by only 1/3 of 1% of the more than $325 million county budget.
Meanwhile, the amount raised by property taxes has risen an average of 5.5% over the past two years.
Bernardo is the retired President of Data Communique International (www.DataCom-USA.com), a 350 employee company. He currently operates two small businesses in
A registered Independent, he is running with Republican and Conservative Party backing, along with his own Independence Party support.
"We need independent people to come in and change the way government is run. Depending on a good old boys club will only get us the same results - less jobs and higher taxes we cannot afford."
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45 comments:
If Len Bernardo had any idea at all of what he was talking about he would shut his mouth right now, just on the outside chance that he did win.
He has no clue how the Government works, how the budget is structured, and how the revenue streams work. He has yet to say where he would cut and what he would cut.
Would he shut Golden Hill? Do away with the Sheriffs road patrol? Let's start asking those questions and see what his answers are.
It is easy to say cut this and cut that, but until he says HOW and where, he is nothing more than a voice from the peanut gallery who is clueless.
We don't need bored millionaires who have nothing better to do running Ulster County.
Actually they are millionaires for a reason. They know how to handle money. I hope whoever wins knows how to handle money. Oh wait I can only name two people who can handle money, Bernardo and Quigley
and the alternative is???? Mike (39% + 8% + 7% + ??%) Hein, the tax raiser, who was schooled at the Littman Jeweler at the mall and at a bank. A lifelong Republican who became a democrat as soon as the democrats took control of the Legislature..... Someone who has never CREATED 1 SINGLE SOLITARY JOB FOR ANYONE ELSE IN HIS WHOLE LIFE.
NO THANK YOU
In my business, we say that "revenue hides a multitude of sins"
The Democrats have done nothing to make economic developement deals happen since they took over.
In fact,they have chased businesses right out of Ulster County. The revenues that these businesses brought in sales tax revenue covered the multitude of spending "sins" of the Legislature.
Now that they have chased the businesses out of town, there is no other way to cover the tax burden to raise taxes on the citizens of Ulster County.
There are many ways to balance a budget. Cutting is only one of them. There are many ways to generate revenue, and that is what Bernardo is best at - generating revenue.
This is dead on. These guys in Kingston don't know it but the rest of us are actually cutting our budget, not simply deciding to go out to eat less. We aren't eliminating the gravy, we are eliminating the steak. When will the Kingston team of insiders like Mike Hein, Dave Donaldson and Lew Kirschner get it.
to 10:33 who said "There are many ways to balance a budget. Cutting is only one of them. There are many ways to generate revenue, and that is what Bernardo is best at - generating revenue."
I say, That is campaign BS. Many ways is not a department or agency in Ulster County the last time I checked.
Where and how? Otherwise Bernardo's statements and those of his posse are nothing but empty words with nothing behind them.
I LOVE that " Good Old Boys " Poster,,,
is it available anywhere ??? id buy a dozen & put em up all around New Paltz,,,
9:37 -
You talk about Government, budgets and revenues as if they were aspects of some incredibly complex form of black magic that only the initiated could possibly understand.
We, the voters, do not know of the regulatory details of constructing a budget or the procedural minutiae involved in running a Government. Yet, we have not decided to disqualify oursleves from choosing those who do. That, in itself, should say something about the importance of so-called "experience" in Government. Such "experience" is virtually worthless because all it teaches one is how to do things the wrong way.
You see, the way Government operates is a warped, borderline insane version of the way in which a healthy organization operates in the private sector. You are correct in stating that the private sector and Government do not operate in the same manner. Your mistake, however, is in assuming that the people we elect should learn the way Government operates and adapt to the lack of efficiency, to the waste which is its number one characteristic.
In truth, we need someone to lead Government who can take the reins from day one and force Government to operate in the same manner any truly healthy organization works. Anyone who has gotten used to the way things "work" now is - by definition - unqualified to undertake this task.
The reality is, there are only two ways to balance a Budget: cut spending or increase revenues.
As we are insanely overtaxed in Ulster County, drastic cuts are required to keep things moving. The County Administrator's "cuts" actually do little - if anything - to stem the bleeding. All they demonstrate is that he does not have the strength of will to stand up to the powers that be and begin slashing with the vigor and determination we require.
Let's elect someone who understands that OUR economic health is far more important than the County's ability to spend our hard earned money.
Len Bernardo will fix Ulster County.
Hein will make sure to hire all of Lew's cronies and relatives and so will Auerbach.
9:37 and 5:20.... ARE YOU SAYING THAT YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH TAX CAPS? I don't know anyone Democrat or Republican, other than Sheldon Silver and Kevin Cahill who doesn't support a tax cap.
For those of us "regular joe" taxpayers, a tax cap is called our paycheck. We can't spend more than our employer pays us.
We don't have the luxury of having our paycheck raised every time we want to buy something new. We have to CONTROL our spending and keep it within our paycheck.
All we ask is that there is a limit to how much our politicans can spend. Our taxes were raised in the last 3 years 39% then 8% then 7%. My paycheck was not raised that much. Therefore, I have had to stop spending on other things to pay my taxes. It's just simple math.
And to 9:37, the beauty of America is that anyone can be elected to public office - you don't have to be a Government "Insider" to be elected to serve the people.
You should add Al Spada, Pat Oliveria and Ward Todd to the poster.
Holy shit Beke, STFU will ya? Man you have more words than Bernardo has brains! All I hear is blah blah blah! Enough already!
1:09 -
I notice you don't say I'm wrong. No one is forcing anyone to read anything. Apparently, those of us who are pointing out the major deficiencies our County Administrator has as a candidate are hitting sore points with his supporters.
By the way, obscenities don't do much to bolster your candidate's resumé, but they do show that you have no substantive argument to make in his favor.
1:09 is that drooler blaber
I never denied that *I* was in the minority!
Those who can:
see beyond the conventional,
don't follow in lockstep,
can conceive of alternative views,
think outside the box,
reject narrow labels,
realize the emperor has no clothes,
aren't hypnotized by knee-jerk slogans or mindless cliches,
can frame a logical argument,
write a literate sentence,
act beyond petty ego-driven ambition or cupidity,
not get distracted by small-minded pipsqueaks who are unable or unwilling to do some, most, or all of the above...
will ALWAYS be in the minority, and usually get crucified, pilloried, hung, exiled, imprisoned, reviled, or hounded to death by those who feel threatened by them, or are jealous of them, or who just like things as they are and resist new ideas or challenges to their special status.
As Dr. Thomas Stockman says in Ibsen's "Enemy of the People" (in a new translation I've prepared for local radio production):
THOMAS: The majority never has right on its side. Never, I say! That's one of these social lies against which a free, thoughtful man must rebel. Who make up the majority in any country? The bright folk, or the dim? The wise, or the foolish? Will you dispute that the dim or foolish people are the overwhelming majority the world over? Would you argue that it's right that the foolish should govern the wise? (Uproar and cries.) Oh, yes -- you can shout me down! But you can't refute me. The majority has might -- alas; but not right. I am in the right--I and a few other individuals. Only a minority will ever be in the right. (Renewed uproar.)
HOVSTAD: Aha! -- so Thomas has become an aristocrat!
THOMAS: I already said I won't waste words on that puny, small-minded crew we are leaving astern. Pulsating life no longer courses through them. I am thinking of the scattered few amongst us, who have absorbed new and vigorous truths. Such few stand, as it were, at the outposts, so far ahead that the compact majority trails behind; and there they fight for truths too fresh in the general consciousness to have won over a majority.
HOVSTAD: And now the Doctor is a revolutionary!
THOMAS: Of course I am, Mr. Hovstad! I shall revolt against the lie that the majority owns the truth. What sort of truths does the majority usually hold? Was the majority right when they stood by while Jesus was crucified? (Silence) Was the majority right when they refused to believe the earth moved round the sun, and let Galileo be driven to his knees like a dog? "Majority truths" are like last year's rancid, tainted meat; and they are the origin of the moral scurvy rampant in our communities.
LAKSEN: It appears the speaker is wandering a long way from his subject.
PETER: I quite agree with the Chairman.
THOMAS: Have you taken leave of your senses, Peter? I am sticking as closely to my subject as I can; for my subject is precisely that it is the masses, the majority -- this infernal compact majority -- that poisons the sources of our moral life and infects the ground beneath us.
HOVSTAD: And all this because the great, broadminded majority is prudent enough to subscribe only to well-established and acknowledged truths?
THOMAS: Ah, dear Mr. Hovstad, don't talk nonsense about well-established truths! The truths the masses now accept are the very truths the fighters at the outposts held to in the days of our grandfathers. We fighters at the outposts today no longer acknowledge them. Answer me this... A platoon of soldiers is walking down a road toward the enemy. Every one of them is convinced he is on the right road, the safe road. But two miles ahead stands one lonely man, the fighter at the outpost. He sees that this road is dangerous, that his comrades are walking into a trap. He runs back to find the platoon. Isn't it clear that this man must have the right to warn the majority, to argue with the majority, to fight with the majority if he believes he has the truth? Before many can know something, ONE must know it. (His passion has made a silence.) You proclaim far and wide that the mob, the crowd, the masses, are the essential part of the People -- that they are the People itself -- that the common folk, the ignorant and rough-hewn members of the community, have the same right to condemn or approve, to advise and govern, as the intellectually superior individuals in it.
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Or, to put it more bluntly, as the Waco Kid did in "Blazing Saddles":
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons."
4:43 -
"I do not read your bulls*** anymore."
Really? You want to explain how you answer something you don't read? If you don't read my comments, then your only possible objection would be that you are afraid they are correct and could expose the Liberal candidates' lack of qualifications.
By the way, I'm unconcerned with your opinion of me or of anyone else. Considering the level of intelligence with which you have endowed your comments, your opinion is unlikely to be accurate.
No, Rich is not a relative of mine. However, I am proud to call him a friend.
Imre, I would question your characterization of certain candidates as "Liberal"!
"Opportunist," perhaps, or "Self-Centered," but I don't see anything in their history or philosophical grounding (what little they've expressed) that epitomizes "Liberalism," either the classical 18th to 19th century variety, or the more-conventionally-understood mid-20th-century interpretation.
In this race, as in most, I don't think "Liberal" is a particularly meaningful label any more (along with most other cliched terms; Orwell said as much in his classic 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language!).
I know it is a convenient and hackneyed all-purpose slur that some who consider THEMSELVES "Conservative" use to avoid having to get into the details of what issues and positions are being addressed, and just use it as the whole of their attack, as in the famous TV ads that just intone ominously "He's just too LIBBBBERRRRALLLLLL for us," as if that were equivalent to being a serial killer, but it really does over-simplify and turn potentially serious debate into a shadow play of cardboard cartoon cutouts.
Other than that, I not only agree with what you wrote, but have written as much myself too many times to mention, to similar troglodytes who are usually not worth the electrons wasted on crafting their utter humiliation.
Is that BBT again? Blaber Blog Troll?
Why did they (Liberals) start using the term 'progressive'. Even liberals don't like to be called liberals, why? Because most Americans do NOT agree with income redistribution, a cornerstone of liberal or progressive ideology.
Shouldn't Elliott Auerbach be co-starring in the movie? How about a special appearance by Kevin Cahill... oh yea, he hates Mike Hein and probably wouldn't be in the movie with him. Al Spada should definitely be in the movie.
A troll is better looking and smarter than blaber. Blaber gets energetic from a burger king run. Well ok not a run more like a waddle.
10:09 -
I apologize. You are correct. I should have used the phrase "your only possible RATIONAL objection..." However, as you have shown that you are prone to irrationality in your posts, you may well have other objections, ones the rest of the world does not understand.
Spada is behind Hein 110% so is Olerveri..they all golf together and are part of the Good Ol' Boy network.
Auerbach has been ignoring the Village of Ellenville water & sewer system for years. He desperately wants to get out of his job before that 10-15 million dollar piece of sh*t hits the fan. Then that will be the end of his management of a 4 million dollar fund.
Sorry Brittney,
I'm for tax caps.
Politicians just can't help themselves. It's like they have a credit card with no spending limit.
We need to set the spending limit.
You say 8:54 is a personal attack? What about calling Bernardo a "madman"? What do you have to back that up with... because he called for a tax cap? You are a whack job.
How is Hein going to break the good ole boy network when it's standing behind him and giving him money? When I see a candidate supported by the likes of Sottile and Spada, I immediately look for someone else. Hein's supporters are foxes who want to elect a farmer who will keep the chicken coop door unlocked.
Mike Hein will not be the first County Exec. He is still considered by many in both parties, to be an opportunist who changed his enrollment when he saw the shifting of the tide back in 2005.
UP,
You have a blockbuster hit with the "Good ole Boys" movie. When this movie is released, it will surely out gross "Dark Knight" in box office receipts.
What a plot: The ruthless cattle baron [wearing the straw hat] drives the farmers off their land with the help of his hired gun [wearing the cowboy hat]. In the end, the protagonist rallys the town folk, reclaiming the land, and chasing the baron and his cronies away into Mexico.
Honestly, I am having a hard time even taking Hein seriously. He obviously is not very smart. His main support among "Democrats" are the likes of Sottile, Woerner, and Kirschner. I would not be stretching to say that these 3 are not considered by Democrats to be their most loyal members. They represent what I will now call the Portebello crowd, all linked to Al Spada.
Honestly, I am having a hard time even taking Hein seriously. He obviously is not very smart. His main support among "Democrats" are the likes of Sottile, Woerner, and Kirschner. I would not be stretching to say that these 3 are not considered by Democrats to be their most loyal members. They represent what I will now call the Portebello crowd, all linked to Al Spada.
I want my baby back baby baby back ribs, I want my baby back baby back baby back ribs... CHILI'S... BABY BACK RIBS!
I love Elliott Auerbach. I can't wait until he becomes our county's first comptroller. I'm just sad that I no longer will have him to lead my village any longer :(
I'm a loser! I'm a loser. I have no experience to be exec.
We would like to acknowledge the mischief going on here.
One of the downsides of not censoring (unlike Blaber who will censor anything mildly critical of Hein or Auerbach) is where to draw the line.
Some very creative minds have figured out a way to "spoof" other people. The staff here at Ulster Politics knows exactly how you are doing this and thinks you are pretty smart. It's a very different and creative way of expressing your thoughts on this blog.
However, we would like to point out for those "not so savy" computer users out there, that there are people out there "posing as" or "spoofing" other people's identities.
The really smart ones even have a link that takes you back to the real person's profile or website.
Readers beware.
And to you smarty pants.... please don't abuse it to much... Know where to draw the line, and don't make us draw it for you AGAIN please.
Keep it clean, we aren't going to post the *ick comment about Cahill and Sottile.... give us a break please and keep it clean.
We are proud that to date the only posts that we have deleted are the ones like "lotto results". We are the alternative to Communist Blaber News and Commentary.
You are very funny! Ha ha, but let's all show a little restraint in our humor.
Clearly the post at 9:27 wasn't by ME! They may have been able to hijack the link to my profile, but they couldn't fake the photo! (Sheesh, will we have to have registered holograms to prove unique identities online?)
Just shows how bereft of integrity, principles, morals, or commitment to honesty certain persons ARE!
Anyone who thinks it's clever or funny to pretend to put lies in the mouths of those they can't refute or defeat in a fair debate, is lower than a slug's belly.
And THESE are the persons who would WANT TO BE, or who support those who want to be, our ethical watchdogs and accountable leaders!
The only thing that keeps this from being a criminal identity theft (similar to why Hustler and Larry Flynt didn't get nailed for a parody of an ad that featured Jerry Falwell having sex with his mother in an outhouse) is that it's so frickin unbelievable that only someone without two working neurons would believe *I* said it!
Oh, I know that they want the blogmeister here to REMOVE it so that THEY can pull a "tu quoque" and say "See, YOU'RE just like Blaber! YOU remove posts YOU don't like!"; OR they are pulling a COINTEL PRO operation to so muddy the waters or poison the well that the blog becomes a confusing no-man's land where everyone is suspect and nobody can be trusted.
Because THAT is all they have! What shameless, hit-below-the-belt scum!
(Oh, and U.P. should refrain from calling Blaber a "communist"! He ISN'T -- I doubt he even know what one believes or stands for -- and that particular slur -- at least for some -- still recalls a less-than-proud era in our history when just the SUSPICION of someone being ASSOCIATED with someone ACCUSED of being a "communist" was enough to wreck careers and lives unjustly.
There are many more accurate and relevant "names" to call JB IF you feel you must, but, hey, let's follow our OWN advice and refrain from unsupportable and incendiary flaming.)
is enjoying his vacation.
Why was Mike Hein at the press conference today on solar energy. He is an appointed bureacrat but his fellow Dem politicians (I guess I can say that, now Hein is a Dem, when the GOP was in charge, Hein was a Republican) are trying to make him look elected.
More importantly, this is just another Hinchey Hoax. As the Freeman points out today, months ago Hinchey made a similar announcement and not one job has been created. This is pre-election nonsense made by promising politicians and Hinchey hoaxters.
I do find it fitting, the Freeman does NOT include Hein in its picture, at least online. He has NO business being there, as an appointed county WORKER!
This is akin to Dukakas photo op, riding in a tank. RIDICULOUS!
It's outrageous that Hein is using his position to promote himself. His job as county admin has no role in economic development--he's supposed to oversee the day-to-day management of the county. No other UC admin. in history has abused his position like Hein.
Want to screw with Blabers Polls? Get an account on proxify.com. You can get to blaber anonymously. Just like the real thing, vote early and vote often.
Brittany, Would you not like a "madman" with ideas and dreams for Ulster County rather than a "Good Old Boy" who goes with the wind switches to the tide and has not done anything in three years to make Ulster County a better place to live. Maybe I'm desperate but we need a change and I'll vote for that
The Good Old Boys Club in Kingston is for real. If you want to do business in Kingston, you need to grease the palms of some pretty seedy characters. It's all pay for play.
It needs to stop.
Blaber's Polls.
Got 2 Words for Ya.....Suck it
This blog is open to invited readers only
http://blabernews.blogspot.com/
did anyone see Blaber went private?
I don't understand; Blaber's blog seems to be as it was before. How come you see it differently? Did he go private and then go back?
BTW, overnight, the total number of votes on the Auerbach/Quigley poll DOUBLED!
Apparently, the zombie vampires got up between midnight and dawn and cast as many votes in that graveyard shift as all previous votes cast for all candidates in the entire previous polling!
If ever there was proof that the poll is completely bogus and unreliable, there it is!
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