Editor:

After reading the letter entitled “Gaines town hall office hours reduced, amounting to a raise for town clerk,” I felt I had to comment.

I am a member of the Conservative Party Committee of Orleans County and as such, have an interest in the finances across the county. This is an example of why we did not, and will not, endorse individuals who we feel do not represent the best interests of the taxpayer.

I ask the residents of Gaines and those across the county to attend your town and county meetings. Get involved! Hold your representatives accountable because it’s your money!

Ken Longer

Holley

Member of the Conservative Party Committee

Editor:

As the new interim CEO/President of Orleans Community Health, I would like to introduce myself and share some of the upcoming plans for our health system.

I have over 20 years of healthcare experience in various financial roles and I worked as the controller for Orleans Community Health from 2006 – 2008. After that, I was the controller for BryLin Hospital for 7 years and have been back at OCH working as the Chief Financial Officer for the past 3 years. I live and grew up in Lockport and look forward to the opportunity to serve as CEO.

As a 25-bed critical access rural hospital we provide services to Orleans, northern Genesee, and eastern Niagara counties. We strive for the best possible outcomes and our goal is to treat every patient as an individual with compassion and high-quality health service every time they come through our doors.

Medina Hospital has been a proud part of the community since 1908. While we have evolved over the years to meet the changing environment in health care, our commitment to ensuring our patients receive personalized, high quality care will be ongoing.

We continue to make strategic and necessary investments in technology, improve our physical space (lobby renovations and the ER), add new services, recruit new providers, as well as focusing on staff education and development in order to provide the best possible care for our community members.

Orleans Community Health remains an active participant in community endeavors and we strive to contribute to the health and wellness of our community.

Our current services include: 24/7 Emergency Services, NYS Designated Stroke Center, Residential Care Unit (North Wing), Lake Plains Dialysis Centers in Batavia and Medina, Physical, Occupational and Speech Therapy, Nutritional Counseling, Diabetes and Pre-Diabetes Education, Cardiac Services, Cancer Services Program, Community Partners Wellness Programs, Surgical Services, Transitional Care Unit, Imaging Services/X-Ray (MRI, CT scan, Digital Mammography, Nuclear Medicine, Ultrasonography, Echocardiography), Albion Walk-In Medical Center (Primary Care, Occupational Health, Lab, X-Ray, Physical Therapy), Lab services (Albion, Medina and Middleport), Respiratory Services and Health Insurance Assistance through the NYS of Health.

It is my sincere honor to serve as the CEO at Orleans Community Health. We thank you for your past support and look forward to continuing to serve the community with the best possible health care close to home…So Much. So Near.

Sincerely,

Mark Cye

CEO/President  (interim)

Orleans Community Health

Editor:

When the ribbons are cut in a couple of years for the Lighthouse Wind and the Barre Wind Projects, S.O.S. and its hand-picked boards will look back at last week’s Article 10 Siting Board Cassadaga decision as the high-water mark in the locals’ quest to turn back the 21st century.

Anti-groups read the decision as a victory for town boards scrambling to push through restrictive zoning laws aimed at appeasing dirty energy forces and the legions of garden variety NIMBY’s. Yates and Somerset Town Board members envision hundreds of New York towns and villages emulating their hostile laws.

But, not so fast. Seasoned observers of the State scene understand that each case brought before a State tribunal such as the Siting Board, brings its own unique set of facts, context and precedents. What was applauded by the anti-forces reflecting on the Cassadaga decision, may receive not even a mention in the upcoming Siting Board proceedings relating to Lighthouse Wind. As but one example, the Town Boards’ overt hostility toward agricultural interests in Yates and Somerset will likely be a key factor in the Board’s decision-making process. The now laughable Niagara Air Base threat should receive no play.

Clean energy supporters need to hang in there; the inevitable is the inevitable. (Have an off-record chat with state and federal pols’ senior staff sometime. Bring up Lighthouse Wind).

That doesn’t mean the town fathers should keep their ceremonial ribbon-cutting scissors at the ready. You won’t likely be invited to the ceremony.

Ralph Smith

Lyndonville

Editor:

I had the opportunity to read your recent editorial titled “GOP State Senate blueprint for NY should include equitable AIM funding for villages,” which criticized the Senate Majority’s plan for failing to address the disparity in Aid and Incentives to Municipalities (AIM) funding awarded throughout the state. (Click here to see the editorial.)

While I agree that AIM funding should be more fairly distributed to towns and villages in relation to cities, I vehemently dispute the fact, as the editorial claims that, “These villages can’t even get on the radar of state politicians.”

As a state lawmaker, I have always been an outspoken proponent of reducing mandated spending on towns and villages, something that is routinely pushed by downstate lawmakers who are in full force in Albany.

New York’s Medicaid budget is nearly $70 billion, and those costs are handed down to local governments, which in turn, hand them down to local residents. New York is unique in the large burden of Medicaid costs it asks its counties to cover. In many other states, state government pays the bill – rightly so.

I sponsor multiple pieces of legislation (A.5628 & A.5186) to make Albany pay for what Albany legislates, instead of passing the buck to homeowners and local taxpayers. Despite our advocacy, these bills have either been blocked or left without action by New York City politicians.

Furthermore, I introduced legislation last year, supported by members on both sides of the aisle as well as in the Senate (A.8040), which would direct the bulk of any AIM awards over the $715 million currently awarded to villages.

Unfortunately, this legislation has sat idly in the Ways and Means Committee since it was introduced, a committee controlled by New York City politicians.

The biggest hurdle is that for several years, including this year, Gov. Cuomo has failed to include an increase in Village AIM funding in his Executive Budget proposal despite repeated pressure from the legislature and neither the Assembly nor the Senate has yet to release its “One House” budget proposal this year.

So I believe the criticism of “state politicians” being ineffective is an unfair assessment – perhaps the reality of “downstate politicians” stonewalling our efforts to fully fund our towns and villages should be exposed.

Sincerely,

Steve Hawley

Assemblyman for 139^th District

Editor:

The Town of Gaines Clerk has decreased her hours at the Town Hall from 31 hours a week to 24.  Total pay based on a 31-hour week in the budget is $31,773.  This amounts to  $19.71 per hour.   The pay per hour for the new 24 hours per week is $25.46. That is a 29% pay raise.

The original 31-hour a week schedule was set by a Town Board resolution in December 2016.   The Town Clerk by law has a responsibility to ensure that her office hour’s match with the Town Hall office hours set by the Town Board.  The previous Town Board and the current Town Board have not altered that resolution according to the minutes posted on line.

Your tax bills however, were mysteriously altered in December 2017 to match the recently changed hours.  This was without Board knowledge or approval.

As a taxpayer and resident we all have a responsibility to watch and pay close attention to how our public officials conduct business while in office.   Please attend your local board meetings, ask questions, and read their minutes on line.

Sincerely,

Susan M. Smith

Gaines

Editor:

Now in our 4th year of the Lighthouse Wind industrial wind turbine Article 10 proposal, I took great interest in the Cassadaga Wind decision just issued by the NYS Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment (Siting Board).

In the final public hearing of EverPower Wind’s Chautauqua County project, the Chairman of the Siting Board, John Rhodes, said that Cassadaga Wind was deemed, “appropriately sited,” and that it will, “protect and accommodate the concerns of local communities and of the New Yorkers who live in them.” Chairman Rhodes added that it is, “…noteworthy and positive that the project is consistent with all local laws and ordinances.”

In my opinion, the Lighthouse Wind proposal for the Town of Yates is not, “appropriately sited,” does not, “protect and accommodate the concerns,” of the town, and is most definitely not, “consistent with all local laws and ordinances.”

From when Apex Clean Energy filed its Public Involvement Plan (PIP) for Lighthouse Wind on October 31, 2014, to when they submitted their Preliminary Scoping Statement (PSS) in November 2015, and through to the present, it has been very clear that Apex has little regard for our community’s concerns and intends to get NY State to override our local ordinances.

In its PSS, to cite but one glaring example among dozens, Apex stated that they plan to ask the Siting Board to rule that the Town of Yates’ law requiring turbines not to exceed 420 feet is unduly burdensome. Their PSS calls for 71 turbines ranging from 480 to 620 feet. So much for accommodating our concerns and working with our town to ensure their proposal is consistent with our local law.

Since the inception of the Apex Lighthouse Wind Project, the Yates Town Board has endeavored to expand its knowledge of these types of industrial-scale projects. As such, we amended our Wind Energy law in 2016, and we are proposing further amendments to our law as our understanding deepens. This is our obligation. We are called to protect the health, safety and welfare of our citizens for current and future generations and to preserve the rural, agricultural and leisure-based character of our community.

I am heartened to know that the Siting Board has set a legal precedent in Cassadaga Wind to honor local New Yorkers’ concerns and to uphold our local ordinances.

I am hopeful to learn that Governor Cuomo will preserve and protect all New Yorkers’ constitutional right to home rule by allowing each town – in the spirit of environmental justice – to determine how they will contribute to a more sustainable future.

Finally, I am eager to hear Apex Clean Energy publicly acknowledge the right of the Town of Yates to enact reasoned, scientifically-based ordinances concerning the use of our land.

Jim Simon

Supervisor

Town of Yates

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Editor:

In October 2014 Apex Clean Energy filed a public document on the NYS Department of Public Service. Called the Public Involvement Plan, it is required by Article 10. In it the wind developer outlined [pp. 6-7] its required community outreach to the host communities of Somerset and Yates in the Lighthouse Wind project area.

• “A phone poll to understand community sentiment” [and their list of]  “Additional Public Events:

• Office open house: A kick-off event to invite people to the Apex office space in town and introduce local contact.

• Local workshops offering an introduction to the lighthousewind.com website and instructions on how to give online feedback.

• Information booths at local farmer’s market (monthly in season) and participation in a few additional events.

• Public information sessions to educate the community on wind energy and the Project.

Topics may include:

• Turbine Technology: This session would include the basics of how a wind turbine works, a synopsis of changes over the last 15 years, a list of some projects and turbine types, and then a review of the specifications of selected current models.

• The Grid: How the grid works and how power is purchased.

• Wind/meteorology: How we measure the wind, why some locations are better than others, and how this information contributes to siting

• Studies, Impacts, and Mitigation: This session would explain the studies that we will be performing, what they will show us and how we will make modifications to accommodate the results.

• Siting: An interactive session that informs the public on what considerations go into siting wind turbines.

• Construction and Operations: A presentation about what the community will see during construction and after construction is complete. This session will feature pictures and visual aids to help the public understand what to expect from construction and operations.”

I have read the contents of 18 event logs filed by Apex on the DPS website from January 2015 to November 2017. There have been no events remotely resembling the above descriptions. There was no telephone poll to gauge residents’ sentiments, and there were no “information sessions.”

What I see in Apex event logs consists of assertions that their Barker office was staffed by at least one person during regular hours, and that there was some presence at town board and other official meetings. Any attempt at community outreach was limited to reciting office hours.  There is mention that during the July 4th holidays of 2015 and 2016 Apex had a presence in Lyndonville and added Hartland (not a host community) town park in 2017.

If Apex has desired to conduct outreach to these affected communities, it was never done. (Paying for hot dogs and fireworks is not “informational”.) An individual walking into an Apex office to ask a question is not the same as an event, such as the educational and informative “local workshops” Apex elaborately describes in their PIP.

A year after the PIP we have seen that their Preliminary Scoping Statement was found deficient by the DPS, and yet there was no effort made by Apex to answer specific questions except in the most general and vague terms, and allowed to stand as such.

In the last several weeks now Apex has been found out-of-compliance with its met tower in Somerset. Originally, to obtain the permit to erect it (after successfully suing Somerset) Apex had agreed to conditions set by the town’s planning board. But the requisite reports were never made to the planning board’s stipulations, nor was adequate fencing for the tower constructed.

So, what are residents supposed to take from this? It seems that all of this begs the question: if Apex has problems with follow-through, what can we expect when this company begins construction and operation of Lighthouse Wind? Are they rewarded for just “saying anything”?

Where is the accountability here? Who is the watchdog that oversees that Apex will carry out what it promises? People’s health, the environment, quality of life, their greatest financial assets, are all at risk here to a developer that obviously cares not. It’s another reason, going on Year Four, that the overwhelming majority of residents in my town of Somerset, and those in Yates, have continued to oppose Apex.

Christine Bronson

Councilwoman, Town of Somerset

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Editor:

The table below shows the results of an empirical analysis of public comments made to the DPS website in relation to the Lighthouse Wind Project as proposed for the Towns of Yates and Somerset by APEX Clean Energy.  A total of 1,051 comments submitted were assessed, tabulated and organized by support (in favor) and opposition (opposed) to the project.

All comments made to the DPS site regarding the Lighthouse Wind Project were included in the assessment and cover the time period from Q1-2015 through December 31, 2017.  All comments were read fully in order to ascertain position regarding the wind project.  The positions were tabulated as in favor or opposed to the project.

The results are as follows:

The overall results for the time period January 2015 to December 31, 2017 are as follows:

Comments in favor of Lighthouse Wind Project = 187

Comments opposed to Lighthouse Wind Project = 864

% of Comments in favor of Lighthouse Wind Project = 18%

% of Comments opposed to Lighthouse Wind Project = 82%

Two additional assessments were performed as part of the year end analysis of comments.

Assessment of One-Time Submitters.  This assessment determines Opposition/In-favor percentages for those who have only submitted once to NYSDPS Matter Number:  14-F-0485 (Lighthouse Wind).  The results for Q1-2015 to December 31, 2017 are as follows:

The results show that, when submitters are counted only once, there remains overwhelming opposition to the Lighthouse Wind Project (74% opposed vs. 26% in favor).  The significance of this statistic is that multiple submitters, regardless of opinion on this project, cannot unfairly weight the results.  This statistic is the most telling of the assessments performed.

Lastly, an assessment was performed for multiple submitters to NYSDPS Matter Number 14-F-0485 (Lighthouse Wind).   The results for Q1-2015 to December 31, 2017 are as follows:

The results show that multiple-time submitters show as 80% opposed vs. 20% in favor.  This statistic shows that there were multiple contributors on both sides of this issue and that the difference between this assessment and the one-time submitter statistic does not result in a statistically significant difference in opposition vs. in favor percentages.

As such, the results of the DPS comment analyses continue to show a clear, significant and ongoing opposition to the Lighthouse Wind Project.

The will of the people is clear.  This project must not move forward.  Article 10 must not be allowed to suppress Home Rule and the will of the people.

Governor Cuomo, are you listening?

Thank You.

John B. Riggi

Councilman, Town of Yates

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Editor:

Thanks for the article on the Yates Pier at Shadigee. I was proud to see reference to my late grandmother, Virginia Cooper, mentioned in the article. She was the Town of Yates Historian for many years and proudly served that role. It was heartwarming to see that her hard work still lives on!

Todd Cooper

Euless, TX

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Editor:

Those proponents of Lighthouse Wind, and particularly those who have leased land to Apex on which to site wind turbines, are often quick to proclaim that the principle of property rights gives them the right to have an industrial wind turbine located on their property if they so desire. That is only partially true. A quotation often credited to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. states “My right to swing my fist ends just where the other man’s nose begins.”  Similar sayings are often credited to Abraham Lincoln and others.

In terms of property rights, this saying has been interpreted to a broad range of restrictions which govern rational life among neighbors. As examples, I do not have the right to blare loud music on my property, disturbing my neighbors at all hours of the night, and I do not have the right to pile trash in the yard outside my house for my neighbors to view.

In the case of these Lighthouse Wind leaseholders, this quotation can be easily applied to the following: if you can keep the noise, the infrasound, the vibration, the shadow flicker and the visual blight on YOUR property alone, you may have the right to host an industrial wind turbine on your property. One cannot imagine how that might be even remotely possible.

Remember too, in signing that lease, you will have probably given up all recourse to complain about noise, vibration, infrasound and shadow flicker. Apex will have left town, you’ll be picking up dead bald eagles and bats from under your wind turbine, and you will be left without some very basic property rights.

Steve Royce

Appleton