Keep County Property Tax Rate Stable

Since taking control of the legislature in 2006, Democrats have kept property tax increases to less than the rate of inflation, reversing double-digit property tax increases by Republicans.  We will continue to work with the County Executive to control spending and reduce the size of government.

Over the last several years, we reduced the size of Ulster County workforce by eliminating redundant functions.  We will look at innovative ways to deliver services to constituents at reduced cost.

We will work to ensure that Ulster County is an attractive place to live and work.  We support efforts to create affordable housing, improve our education system and continue improving our infrastructure including high-speed Internet access to the entire county.  We support continued funding of The Solar Energy Consortium.  We will work to support, improve and publicize tourism in Ulster County.  We support continued efforts to create a technology park at Winston Farm.

We support a dual approach to implementing the new state and federal regulations.  First, we believe that our existing technology (lever machines) have a history of providing fair, accurate, reliable elections at reasonable cost for many years and we urge New York State Board of Elections to allow us to continue to use lever machines.  Second, if the state rules that we must go to new machines, we will work to ensure that the new technology is implemented as smoothly as possible and that the cost of elections is kept as low as possible.  We also believe that the pilot tests of the new technology optical scan voting machines must have 100% hand count verification of results.

Oppose state unfunded mandates
Tight state and federal budgets have resulted in many responsibilities being passed down to counties. However, needed funding has not always accompanied the new responsibilities. 

Support local control of all county land use and planning decisions through zoning
Local governments have the authority to control development of land and property within their jurisdictions. We believe that local elected officials are best suited to make decisions affecting land use for their communities. All land use, zoning, and annexation decisions should remain at the local level.

We believe that the environment must be protected from those will exploit it for their own means.

We believe that the county should be part of a national and global effort to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.  At the county level this means providing an excellent public transit system, reducing energy used of county buildings, promoting the use of more fuel-efficient vehicles, moving to alternative energy sources such as solar power.

New York’s high tax burden is driven by local property taxes.  Our state income tax is about average compared to other states.  Our local taxes are 40% higher than the national average, and property tax levies are rising at more than twice the rate of inflation and salary growth.  We support the “Circuit Breaker” state legislation for immediate help and a tax levy cap to control future growth along with mandate relief.