New Year's Resolutions for 2011 for Dutchess County-- help make 'em happen!...

Hi all...

Tonight at 6 pm our County Legislature will be holding its first full board meeting of the new year...


Would be great to see some folks speaking truth to power on some of the issues on agenda tonight...


[...or-- as you see fit-- feel free to bring up any/all of twenty New Year's Resolutions for 2011 too!...]


John Hall recently warned us all of creeping fascism and he's right-- right-wingers like Nan Hayworth, Chris Gibson, and John Boehner didn't surge to power over last two years because tea party activists rolled over and played dead-- GOP surged to power because of Koch $, Dick Armey $, and activism....


Well now it's our turn, folks-- your turn(!)....(I can't do it alone, people!)...


Time for y'all to shine your light, clear and bright, in this, the New Dark Ages and the New Barbarism...


Speak your mind tonight on sixth floor of our County Office Building at 22 Market St. in Poughkeepsie!...


[on agenda-- see below-- rules for meetings, official newspapers, etc.-- great excuse for folks of conscience like yourself to bring up how ridiculous it is for GOP like Flesland to interrupt duly elected legislators like Co. Leg. Alison MacAvery and myself over and over and over again practically every mtg. (and then go into fits when once in a while one of us gets our back up and refuses to be ridden)...we can't do it alone, folks-- we need you come out out to these mtg.'s and support us-- and-- re: resolution 2011006 below re: setting official newspapers-- this is the PERFECT excuse for any of you out there understandably disgusted (as I am) at how pro-GOP-biased the Pok. Journal is-- speak up!]


Pass it on...


Joel
444-0599/876-2488
joeltyner@earthlink.net

[again-- scroll down for full list of twenty New Year's resolutions for Dutchess County for 2011!]


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From http://www.co.dutchess.ny.us/CountyGov/Departments/Legislature/CLagenda.htm ...


Tuesday, January 4

6:00 PM Board Meeting

a) Roll Call by the Clerk of the Legislature


b) Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag; invocation; and a moment of silent meditation
F.D. Roosevelt String Quartet

c) Election of Chairman
Chairman's Address to the Legislature

d) Privilege of the Floor with respect to printed agenda items


e) Resolutions

2011001 ADOPTION OF THE TEMPORARY RULES OF THE DUTCHESS COUNTY LEGISLATURE

2011002 ATTENDANCE AT CONVENTIONS AND CONFERENCES FOR THE YEAR 2011

2011003 ATTENDANCE AT CONFERENCES AND CONVENTIONS - BOARD OF ELECTIONS

2011004 UNDERTAKINGS 2011

2011005 ESTABLISHING DATES OF REGULAR MONTHLY MEETINGS FOR 2011


2011006 DESIGNATION OF OFFICIAL NEWSPAPERS FOR THE PUBLICATION OF LOCAL LAWS, NOTICES, AND OTHER MATTERS REQUIRED BY LAW TO BE PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO SECTION 214 (2) OF THE COUNTY LAW

f) Other County Business

g) Privilege of the Floor with respect to agenda and non-agenda County business


h) Adjournment


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Twenty New Year's Resolutions for 2011...(email countylegislators@co.dutchess.ny.us on all 20!):


[250-word letters needed to support the ones you like-- to letterstoeditor@poughkeepsiejournal.com, letters@freemanonline.com, newsplace@aol.com, and editorial@thehudsonvalleynews.com!]

1. Help local small business owners and homeowners by completely eliminating county property taxes (while avoiding the need for any more budget cuts or layoffs)-- with a county-level income tax as in Michael Bloomberg's NYC. 28 county workers were laid off this holiday season, along with many more at local nonprofits due to GOP budget cuts. Assemblymen Kevin Cahill, Marc Molinaro, and Joel Miller have all recommended a much more radical shift with statewide income tax increase to eliminate school property tax-- there's no reason why Dutchess County can't lead the way in NYS with progressive tax reform to stop the recession from getting any worse locally (join thirty other Dutchess residents who agree at http://www.petitiononline.com/cobudget ).

2. Bring back our Human Rights Commission here in Dutchess County, land of Eleanor Roosevelt-- there were over 900 different folks who reached out to it every year.

3. Bring back BOCES' GED program in our Jail-- a program that was endorsed even by Jail's leadership because it cut the recidivism rate in half for those participating.


4. Bring back our county Youth Bureau's Project Return program-- juvenile delinquency prevention that effectively kept 45 kids on the right track for only $24/day-- instead of them being locked up at $657/day.
Bring back county funding for the Mediation Center of Dutchess County's program for 245 families with troubled teens-- instead of those youth being incarcerated at
$240,000/year.


5. Slash recidivism and save tax dollars with truly comprehensive system of re-entry and programming for youth; Newark's fraternity for dads behind bars has cut the recidivism rate there from 65% to 3%; Brooklyn's ComAlert system and Lancaster County's job court are cost-saving models for us as well; the National Institute of Corrections is also willing to conduct, for free, a top-to-bottom assessment for us.
( http://www.petitiononline.com/comalert ; http://www.petitiononline.com/jobcourt , http://www.FightCrime.org ; http://www.NICIC.gov ; http://www.nicic.gov/Downloads/PDF/Library/023356.pdf
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2032144,00.html )


[note-- on this topic-- join us for our Sixteenth Annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. March for Social and Economic Justice Monday, January 17th at noon-- starting at the Smith Metropolitan A.M.E. Zion Church at 22 Cottage Street in Poughkeepsie with Mae Parker-Harris, Ann Perry, Pat Lamanna, Chris Ruhe, Shaleah Patterson, and Fred Nagel, walking to our County Office Building, and ending with refreshments and reflections at Holy Light Pentecostal Church at 33 Clover Street-- come out this Martin Luther King Day to help us launch our new Jobs Not Jails organization-- to stop the Dutchess GOP drive to force county taxpayers to waste tens of millions of dollars on an unnecessary jail expansion-- and pro-actively invest in our human infrastructure instead!]


6. Bring back the senior home care program at our county's Health Department; keeping our elderly in home-based care preventively saves tax dollars spent on nursing home care.


7. Bring back our county's Office for the Aging Senior Friendship Centers in Millerton, Pawling, Hyde Park, and Fishkill-- and restore a five-day week at the Rhinebeck center and all of them.


8. Bring back our county's Office of Consumer Affairs and our county Health Department's water lab (Dutchess has more public water supplies than any other county in NYS; see http://www.RealMajorityProject.blogspot.com ; http://www.ToxicsTargeting.com ).


9. Restore $327,000 in county funding cut from Cornell Cooperative Extension's 4-H, Agricultural, Environmental, and Horticultural programs ( http://www.CCEDutchess.org ).


10. Restore full funding for a county historian ( http://www.petitiononline.com/hirehist ).


11. Create green jobs with an energy-efficiency/renewable-energy loan program for homeowners, as in the Towns of Babylon and Bedford ( http://www.petitiononline.com/pacehere ; http://www.LIGreenHomes.com ; http://www.NWEAC.org ; http://www.PACEnow.org )-- and create green jobs with solar farms in all of our communities; the Greene County IDA is making this happen there with a 15 megawatt solar farm; why not here in Dutchess? ( http://www.PetitionOnline.com/SOLAR ).

12. Create green jobs and save millions annually by moving to 85% recycling goal by 2020, as endorsed by Clearwater, Sierra Club, and NYPIRG; recycling towards zero-waste as in Seattle, Austin, and Portland creates ten times more jobs than incineration or landfilling
( http://www.petitiononline.com/zeroyes ; http://www.CECToxic.org ).

13. Create jobs now with real support for microenterprise loans as Orange County has long done through Gateways to Entrepreneurial Tomorrows ( http://www.GetHudsonValley.org ).

14. Hold banks accountable for investment/foreclosure prevention practices, as Philadelphiam and Los Angeles have done, and as the Northern Dutchess Alliance's "Blueprint for Economic Development" recommends
( http://www.MoveYourMoney.info ; http://www.NorthernDutchess.org ).

15. Feebates-- sales tax breaks for green products-- paid for with tax polluting products, as recommended by the Rocky Mountain Institute ( http://www.petitiononline.com/cleancar ; http://www.RMI.org ).


16. Preserve accuracy, integrity, and reliability of voting system while saving $-- with lever machines.
( http://www.re-mediaetc.blogspot.com )


17. Save $250/winter each for local homeowners w/home heating oil discount program as in Cortlandt.
( http://www.townofcortlandt.com/cit-e-access/news/index.cfm?NID=12528&TID=20&jump2=0 )


18, Save $3 million annually for Dutchess towns, cities, and village on cost of health insurance for municipal employees-- without cutting benefits-- with a countywide consortium as in Tompkins County.
( http://whcu870.com/pages/8011398.php?contentType=4&contentId=6717548 even L. Hitsman for this)


19. Save at least a million dollars a year for Dutchess taxpayers with a Canadian prescription drug option for county employees and retirees-- as GOP and Dems are doing in Rensselaer, Schenectady, Albany, Lewis, and St. Lawrence counties (see http://www.PetitionOnline.com/SaveOnRx ).


20. Clean up county government with campaign finance reform, as Pok. Journal has strongly editorialized for twice-- a $100 limit on donations from companies doing business with Dutchess-- stop millions annually in legalized kickbacks as in Rockland ( http://www.petitiononline.com/cleangov ).