How Long Should They Serve?
By Thaddeus Flint
It will now be up to the residents of New Lebanon to decide if they want some of their elected Town officials to stay on the job an extra two years, it was heard at the June 18 Town Board meeting.
Town Supervisor Colleen Teal said the resolutions, which passed with all in favor, will let voters decide on the extra years. She said they will help “streamline” the internal workings of New Lebanon. At the upcoming November polls, residents will have the choices of increasing the terms of office for the Supervisor, Town Clerk, Tax Collector, and the Highway Superintendent from two to four years. The options will be a choice, so voters will not be obliged to accept all or none, but will be able to choose which terms they feel—if any—should be increased. The Town Clerk, Tax Collector, and the Highway Superintendent terms are increased through local laws and would be effective January 1, 2020. The Town Supervisor position is by resolution because Columbia County is a Board of Supervisors county, and would only go into effect January 1, 2022 if passed by the voters.
A once proud, but now rather sad, house on New Lebanon’s so-called Miracle Mile, has also had its life term extended, but possibly for the last time. The Phoenix Project of Eastern NY (PPENY) is still trying to raise the money needed to stabilize and then fix up the Abner Perry house just south of West Street. It’s the one that’s had a blue tarp on the roof for a while now. It’s also right next door to Fisher’s Store, a previous PPENY project that once looked just as rundown, but is now spruced up and ready for an occupant. The problem–as it usually is–is money. PPENY founder Deborah Gordon said if she had the money to put a new roof on the Abner Perry house, “I would in a minute.” Unfortunately, she does not. New York State, however, does, and Gordon is trying to persuade the New York Main Street Program to award a grant to the PPENY so it can move forward with structural improvements.
Another problem—because problems have a way of multiplying when you are working with old things—is not everyone has the patience of Deborah Gordon. “There is no end in sight,” said Councilman Mark Baumli, who can’t stand the blue tarp which he seems to think is the only thing there being worked on. Baumli added that tourists driving through Town “don’t see that as a historic building. No, they see it as blight.” Fortunately the Miracle Mile has a range of other problematic areas that are larger than the Abner Perry house and most tourists probably don’t even see that place as they are confronted with empty gas stations and massive potholed parking lots.
However, nobody is really arguing that the house isn’t blight. What the PPENY is arguing is that some blight is worth de-blighting. “When quirky, architecturally distinctive and varied old buildings in a town are lost and replaced by franchise-designed, cheap and generic buildings – think Family Dollar, Dunkin’ Donuts, CVS – the function is still there, but the special character of the old structures and the memories they evoke are gone. And they will not return,” says the PPENY on a GoFundMe page set up to save the Abner Perry house.
Supervisor Teal agrees. “When we lost the Union Free School, that broke a lot of hearts,” she said. What made that loss even more bitter was the school was built and paid for by the taxpayers, and yet the people they entrusted over the years to take care of their investment let it crumble. A building like that could have lasted hundreds of years. There are thousands of building across Europe that are still happily functioning even after being bombed by the Luftwaffe. But the New Lebanon School Board at that time decided a parking lot for a baseball field was a better use of their building that was listed on the National Historic Registry.” It was demolished in 2012.
Perhaps with that in mind, the Abner Perry house will likely survive another year. A vote on providing the PPENY with a Letter of Support for their grant application passed, with only Councilman Kevin Smith voting against it. Councilmen Baumli and Jesse Newton voted for the letter but “with reservations.” Baumli conceded that fault for the building’s current state in part rests with the Town as well, for not enforcing zoning over the years. The result of which is people now thinking “this main drag looks insane,” he said.
The next Town Newsletter might also begin to look a bit less “generic” and more “quirky” like it used to before New Lebanon realized that doing so was looked on poorly by New York State. The Town’s attorney has provided the Board with a new list of items that can and can’t be written about in the newsletter. Noted by Supervisor Teal, is that anything funded by the Town could be added. Going forward, her intentions are to set up a Publicity Fund that would be used to promote tourism in New Lebanon, possibly with Columbia County and even Berkshire Tourism. The idea is that this would open up far more subjects to the Town’s newsletter, while at the same time increasing the number of tourists that would drive through Town wondering about the blight. “Why don’t we just give every business in Town a dollar and then we can promote all of them,” laughed Baumli.
The night ended with Highway Superintendent Jeff Winestock asking the Board to consider offering some form of health insurance for employees once they retired after a certain number of years worked. The County and the State do, and even some Towns. While he feels it’s the right thing to do for people who devoted much of their life’s work to the Town, it’s also the right thing to do if the Town wants to keep good employees around. As an example, Winestock mentioned he had one young highway employee who does a great job and would be a real asset to New Lebanon if he stayed on until retirement. However, with other jobs out there willing to make sure he still had health insurance when he was retired, “he’d be a complete idiot to stay here,” said Winestock.