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Editor:

Congresswoman Claudia Tenney and her Republican colleagues are choosing to turn a strong economy into a recession. President Trump and Republicans inherited an economy that was considered the “envy of the world,” according to the Economist magazine.

Inflation was falling, wages, consumer spending, and corporation profits were rising, and unemployment was low. Just three months in, office and economists from Goldman Sachs, Moody’s Analytics, Wells Fargo, and others are predicting a significant slowdown in economic activity with J.P. Morgan saying that the risk of a recession this year is at 60 percent.

Ms. Tenney and her colleagues can vote to end the emergency powers the President is using to impose recession-inducing tariffs, and the Executive Orders he is using to cut the Department of Education, U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as well as massive layoffs at Health and Human Services, Veterans Administration, Social Security Administration and other agencies.

It is her constituents that will be hurt by these policies. Farmers in her district will pay more for fertilizer, and lose markets to sell their commodities, consumers in her district will pay more for groceries; meanwhile unemployment will increase, and veteran services will be cut in Batavia and Canandaigua, both in her district.

Congress, not the President, has the authority to levy tariffs and Congress, not the President, has the power to end agencies such as the U.S.A.I.D. or the Department of Education.

It is her job to be a check and balance on the executive branch of government especially when that Executive pushes policies that are economically harming her constituents. Her constituents elected her to be their voice in Washington, to put forth their concerns. Congresswoman Claudia Tenney is abdicating her responsibilities.

William Fine

Brockport

Provided photo: Railcars at the Medina Railroad Museum have been vandalized with graffiti.

Editor:

Vandalism is not a victimless crime. The Medina Railroad Museum, for those who don’t know, is a chartered non-profit organization on West Avenue in downtown Medina.

The museum has a large collection of railroad-related artifacts, as well as several pieces of historic railroad equipment. People travel from all over the country, and even many parts of the world to visit the museum.

How many people? Including special events such as Polar Express and Day Out With Thomas, upwards of 30,000 people per year. These are all folks who not only visit the museum, but many of whom spend time and money in the village’s local businesses.

Among the museum’s collection is a train of 8 passenger cars. These railcars together hold a total of 476 people and are used throughout the year, giving people rides along the railroad and through our local towns. As one of the people who maintains and looks after our train, imagine my sorrow and disgust when I got a report that graffiti was spotted on our railcars on Friday, April 11th.

I need to mention that the group who maintains these railcars for the museum is stretched very thin. Oftentimes, it’s 1-3 of us working for a couple of hours on a weekend. We have a lot of projects that always need to be completed within our very limited amount of availability, so setbacks like this can delay other important work.

We are also almost entirely volunteer, and the money we use to maintain the train comes from donations and from revenue that the train itself generates during rides. Some of the paint covers numbers and stencils which are required by federal law to be on the side of the train, so it now cannot technically be moved without at least some paint stripping and new stenciling in a few spots. Fortunately, we have some time to clean up the mess before our next event.

We have already filed a police report with the Medina PD. Parents, please consider where your children may have been after school the last few days, especially if your child or a child you know has recently gotten into trouble at school. It seems as though the vandal(s) fit that bill.

If you know anything about this or the people who did it, please either contact me at ccatlinrailroad@gmail.com or the Medina Police Department directly. I will be following up with the school district next week as well to inform them of the situation; they were already closed by the time I got out there today.

Sincerely,

Cody Catlin

Medina Railroad Museum Car Department

Editor:

Can anyone explain why, on a day when the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against the Trump Administration on  deportation practices (2nd time), the only immigration news on Fox News was that a lower Court agreed the Administration  correctly interprets a registration provision in a 1952 law?  (The fight under that law will be if visitors like Canadians will be included and if some crazy things mentioned – like  jailing them in Central America – are legal.)

Both are and will be interesting. Where is “Fair and Balanced”?

Conrad F. Cropsey

Albion

Editor:

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that no one shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

And the Fourteenth Amendment also states that no State shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Due process is so important that it is the only command that is stated twice in the Constitution.

It is a fundamental principle of fairness in the legal system ensuring that everyone is treated fairly and has a chance to defend themselves against government actions. The Constitution states that due process is extended to everyone including undocumented immigrants, or those who have overstayed their visas, and even those who have committed crimes against this country; think Donald J. Trump.

Mr. Trump was extended the Constitutional right of due process, even after he was convicted of crimes and when the evidence against him was overwhelming. Despite the fairness shown to Mr. Trump, the Trump administration is denying due process to people in this country, violating the Constitution and the basic American principle of fairness.

The administration doesn’t care about the rule of law. It arrested over 200 individuals because they had a tattoo that in someone’s arbitrary opinion, looked like a gang tattoo, and denied them their Constitutional rights of due process, deporting them without any legal basis. Since this administration is routinely violating the Constitution and the rule of law, can anyone still claim we live in a democracy?

William Fine

Brockport

Editor:

The renowned Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said: “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.”

It is worth keeping that statement in mind when considering the huge tax breaks – $472 million! – offered by the GCEDC as an enticement to build a large data center at the STAMP site in Genesee County. Once built, the data center will be occupied by a tenant company.  The firm building the data center currently has a soft commitment from a potential tenant: a  Fortune 50 company (i.e., a very large, very wealthy company).

The GCEDC has argued that, since no cash is actually being exchanged in the tax deal, it’s really not as bad as critics make it out to be, but rather it’s just part of a win-win deal for badly needed economic development in a state that ranks near the bottom for business friendliness. Furthermore, they noted that it’s possible that Albany will push through tax relief legislation, so some or all of the taxes they propose to abate might just disappear. Sounds great, right?

There’s a bit of sophistry in this argument that needs to be sorted out. Tax abatements, whether they come from GCEDC or Albany, are dollars that the data center does not have to pay. That’s a huge win for the data center and a huge win for the GCEDC, which, interestingly, stands to collect tens of millions of dollars as a reward for the transaction.

But what about the rest of us, the taxpayers of New York? Well, that’s tax money that we’ll never see, money that might have been useful to support any number of worthwhile public projects. Adding insult to injury is the proposal to give the data center a price break on massive amounts of electricity, a move that is likely to result in higher electric rates for residential ratepayers.

The counterargument for all this is that the data center will spur economic growth in the area, thereby offsetting the tax breaks.  But that’s not how data centers work. They need few workers (around 120 jobs, so about $3.9M in subsidies per job).

What they need are 1) tons of electricity, enough to power multiple western NY counties, 2) clean water, and 3) a place to dump their sewage. That’s it. There is no way that a data center per se can be rationalized as a magnet to draw other companies to the site.

However, what a data center could do is pay for an electric substation, thereby accomplishing what Plug Power failed to do. Even though the net effect of a highly subsidized data center will be to put an additional burden on the taxpayers and electric ratepayers of New York, the hope is that electrifying the site will attract other companies that will create  jobs and boost the economy. Thus the data center would be an expensive means to a desirable end.

Don’t believe it.  STAMP is fundamentally flawed.

STAMP is tainted with the original sin of “bad location.” This is not news. Twelve years ago (!) a detailed critical analysis of STAMP concluded that it was “a poster child for location inefficiency.”

The very real economic, environmental, and ethical problems that plague the STAMP site are all related to the fact that it’s in the wrong place – in a remote, wet, rural area, lacking infrastructure, and nearly surrounded by protected and tribal lands.

Yes, if you wave enough money at a company it may decide to accept the risk and build there (Edwards Vacuum, recipient of $18 million of Sen. Schumer’s CHIPS money, is an example) but at what cost to taxpayers and ratepayers? This tradeoff is not worth making.  The proposed heavily subsidized data center at STAMP is a terrible idea, clearly not in the interest of the citizens of New York.

Sooner or later the truth will come out, and STAMP will be recognized as a failure, not because it was poorly conceived or managed, but because it was poorly sited.  If development at STAMP continues, the only uncertainties will be the amount of taxpayer money that will be sacrificed, and the amount of damage done to  protected lands, tribal lands, and local waterways.

Economic growth is important and desirable, but it’s got to be smart, ethical growth. It is incumbent on thoughtful New Yorkers to make our voices heard, and express our disapproval of STAMP in general and the data center in particular.

David Giacherio

Kent