Finding Ulysses

Residents of the Trumansburg Fire District (which includes the Village of Trumansburg, Town of Ulysses and parts of the Towns of Covert and Hector) have recently received or should shortly receive a mailing from the Village of Trumansburg regarding an important upcoming public hearing to discuss the possibility of billing for EMS services on a per call basis.  Up to this point, the EMS service has been funded through taxes of the various municipalities it serves.  The letter describes the process of the appoinment of an EMS Task Force, their report and recommendation, the referendum that turned out never to be, and the public hearing.  This public hearing is an important opportunity to make your voice heard regarding the possibility of moving to a system of billing-for-services for the EMS/Ambulance portion of the Trumansburg Fire Department.

When: Wednesday, June 18, at 7pm
Where:  Trumansburg Elementary School Auditorium.

If you have not received this letter yet, you can find the link for a pdf on the main page of the Village of Trumansburg web site.  What seems to be lacking at that site as of yet is a copy of the report of the EMS Task Force.  Fortunately, I picked up a copy at the May Village Meeting, and scanned it to pdf, so you can read it here.

My understanding is that no taxes are expected to decrease with the advent of billing for EMS services, but the revenues from these bills would be directed back to the EMS budget.  I think we have to ask some hard questions at this point regarding the consequenses of such a plan.  I’d like to see more community engagement on this issue.  I’m hoping some of that discussion can happen here. 

Yesterday, our first grade son brought a letter home from Carolyn Lange, the elementary school principal. That letter informed us that a student in the high school has been diagnosed with MRSA - Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. MRSA is one of those superbugs that medical professionals have been warning us about for years, an antibiotic-resistant bacteria that can infect and kill even people in the prime of their lives.

An article in the Ithaca Journal indicates that the student, a 14 year-old male, is staying home from school as a precaution, and is seeing a physician to keep track of the infection. The article, and the comments after it, indicate that there are rumors, unsubstantiated at this point, of further MRSA infections of students in the Trumansburg School District. An additional letter sent to parents, from Superintendant Cosimo Tangorra, states that there are no other student MRSA infections that have been reported.

Antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria have been a serious problem in hospitals, where the collection of people susceptible to infection in close quarters has contributed to their spread. MRSA, however, is different in that it is being transmitted outside hospitals as well, with strong, healthy people being infected. This isn’t the disease just of the old and frail.

There’s no need for panic, or to run around with masks over our faces, as some people did during the SARS outbreak a few years ago. Sensible precautions are called for, though - the kind of thing that we ought to be doing anyway.

The letter from the elementary school advises parents that students there are being told to wash their hands while singing the song “Happy Birthday To You”, and not to finish until they have sung it twice. You can choose your own song: “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” or “Crank That”, if you really want to. Pay extra attention to cuts and scrapes, taking care of them promptly and using a Band-Aid to keep them clean.

It’s worth keeping in mind that, although a new study suggests that around 19,000 Americans died of MRSA in 2005, more Americans than that die of the ordinary flu every year. MRSA is something important to pay attention to, but it is not The Black Death.

Tomorrow, Saturday October 13, from 9:00 AM to Noon, people will be gathering on Willow Creek Road, about half a mile from Agard Road, to work on the Black Diamond Trail, the walking/biking trail that will eventually stretch up from Ithaca, through the town of Ulysses, up to Trumansburg.

Visit the Black Diamond Trail web site for details.

Tonight, at the Fire Hall in Trumansburg, Back To Democracy is hosting a showing of the Michael Moore documentary on health care in America, Sicko. The movie will begin at about 7:00 PM.

I didn’t make it to the block dance last weekend — I was out of town, and the weather was kind of “iffy” anyway — and I was hoping that someone who’d been there would post a report on the blog. My home town used to hold block dances every week during the summer when I was in my early teens. It was great fun, a highlight of my week, a time to get together with my friends and listen to some good old rock ‘n’ roll and flirt with the boys. So I hope the Tburg dance was a success.
In case you didn’t get enough dancing last weekend, I thought I’d point out that the Trumansburg Conservatory of Fine Arts has hired a dance teacher this year, and she’s got an ambitious slate of offerings: ballroom dancing, creative movement for 4 and 5 year olds, ballet for ages 7 to 11, beginning tap dancing, and Irish ceili dancing. Not sure of what the latter was (I was picturing “Riverdance” where you have the stiff back and hands at sides and ballet-pointed toes) I googled it, and learned it’s more like contra dancing, or square dancing. It sounds like fun and great aerobic exercise to boot! Plus you get to dance to all that great Irish music. Dance lessons start next week and go for six weeks, and I heard that the ballroom dance class may be reaching its limit. Well, if you have an interest in learning how to cut a rug (or move gracefully across the dance floor), give the Conservatory a call at 387-5939.
TCFA director Calista Smith has also lined up quite a selection of new music teachers, making it possible to study all kinds of instruments with private teachers. Did you know that at TCFA you can take private lessons in cello, flute, guitar, autoharp, banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, piano, violin and voice, as well as all band instruments?
Sometimes I think how cool it is that we have this resource for the arts in our community. How many communities our size can offer so many activities that feed the soul and spirit?

Takin’ Care of T’burg

The Main Street Project has brought new life to T’burg’s
Main Street. The new sidewalks encourage walking and wagon
pulling. The wonderful new children’s park has become a
gathering place for all ages. The memory bricks bring a
sense of history and family to the village. We are so
fortunate to have a community where so many people worked so
hard to make the Main Street Project a reality.
Now we need to look to the next step - routine maintenance
and cleaning of the Main Street area.
This is an invitation to everyone who cares about T’burg
to think about signing up for a few hours one or two days a year to work
with a group of neighbors to pull the weeds between the
bricks, weed around the trees, and pick up trash.
Please consider joining this team! Call Karen Powers
(387-4058) or email her at kpower01@icsd.k12.ny.us with any
questions or to add your name to the Takin’Care of
T’burg list.
We will keep your time commitment to a minimum. We will set
up a master schedule so you will know dates and times and
the neighbors you will be working with.
We live in a great community and Takin’ Care of T’burg
will give us an opportunity to easily take care of our
community.

Please join us for our first work session - Saturday,
September 8 from 8-11 AM. Meet at the Kids’ Village next
to the bridge and stay for whatever length of time works for
you. Together we’ll be Takin’ Care of T’burg!

Born early this morning at our home in Trumansburg:

Auden Cook, 8 pounds, 4 ounces, 21 inches long, pink and healthy.

Mother and son are healthy, happy, and resting snug upstairs. Auden sings in his sleep.

It’s not just the Free Press any more. Here at Finding Ulysses, I’ve done my little bit to assist in the sharing of ideas around the Village of Trumansburg and the Town of Ulysses. Sometimes, people have welcomed the information here, many times they haven’t, but I look upon both as a confirmation that I’m on the right track.

The good news is that we’re not alone. For those of us in Trumansburg, there’s now the Trumansburg News. They’ve got a lot of information that you just won’t find in the Trumansburg Free Press - especially information about what’s going on at the High School.

The editor over there is Ed Sutherland, and he describes the mission of the Trumansburg News site as follows:

“We’re professional journalists with over 20 years of experience bringing local and international news to readers both offline and on. As Trumansburg residents, we want to give back to the community.

Current news sources don’t cut it and we have created Trumansburg News as the alternative. We cannot substitute press releases for reporting and we cannot settle for remote control journalism. Trumansburg News provides the context needed to understand the importance of issues while also asking the not so obvious questions.”

There’s no need to worry about an overcrowding of information about Trumansburg online. The addition of Trumansburg News is all for the better. Having multiple ways for people to get information and communicate about what’s going on in our community benefits us all.

As of noon yesterday, Les Roberts is no longer a candidate for the United States House of Representatives. That leaves Oneida County District Attorney Michael Arcuri as the only Democrat left in the race, which means that, once again, the Democratic voters of the 24th district will not have the chance to select their own candidate.

I’m troubled about the implications of this news for the ability of the Democrats to take back Sherwood Boehlert’s seat in the United States House of Representatives. Sherwood Boehlert is retiring, but the Republicans have got a replacement all ready in the form of a guy named Ray Meier. Ray Meier is no centrist, that’s for sure.

On the other hand, Michael Arcuri is not the kind of candidate to get Democrats fired up. He knows how to run a local campaign, but seems to be struggling to reach out to the larger district outside of his home county. Mike Arcuri has seemed overwhelmed as he tries to run for Congress and do his job as District Attorney at the same time, yet has expressed the resolve not to quit as DA in order to give the congressional race the energy it deserves. Furthermore, Arcuri has taken what seems like extraordinary trouble not to venture beyond bland, ambiguous policy statements that, while safe, are surely not inspiring.

Without a primary race to take us through the summer, the congressional race will now fade from the news, and it won’t be until just a couple months before the election that attention turns again to the idea of taking back the House of Representatives. Without drama in the race, and without a Democratic candidate who is willing to run full time in order to create news, what will the newspapers have to report, but the occasional visit of a candidate to a Kiwanis Club?

In the four months that he campaigned, Les Roberts came to speak in Trumansburg twice. Michael Arcuri hasn’t come here at all, and there isn’t any indication that he’s interested in doing so.

There are a lot of people here who were eager to see Les Roberts campaign all the way to the primary, and some who were already signed up to pitch in and do their part. They have the opportunity to volunteer for the Arcuri for Congress campaign now, but Arcuri’s tendency to lean toward the right may not match well with the Trumansburg idea of what the Democratic Party is all about.

Arcuri seems ready to run a standard, paint-by-numbers campaign. That was enough to push out the more idealistic candidates, but what will it mean for the Democratic voters?

As for myself, Arcuri’s commitment to Democratic ideals leaves me underwhelmed. I suppose I’ll vote for him when November comes around, but only as the better-than-nothing option.

These days, we Democrats ought to have the chance to vote for something more than that.

7:30 PM tonight at the Elementary School Auditorium there will be a Trumansburg Central School District budget hearing.

Looking through the proposed spending plan for the next school year that was sent to everybody in here in the mail, it looks like a fair budget to me. It’s not easy to pay the taxes we do, but the plan shows pretty clearly that Trumansburg is one of the more fiscally restrained school districts in the area. We spend less per student than the South Seneca School District, and get better results.

The vote on the budget and attached propositions will take place between noon and 9 PM at the Elementary School, Room 2.

I got the following email from Jane Penrose, a veteran local Democrat, last night about a visit to Trumansburg this week from Democratic congressional candidate Les Roberts. Les Roberts is well known as the lead researcher in the study published in the Lancet that found likely 100,000 civilian casualties resulted from the American invasion and occupation of Iraq by the end of 2004. Roberts will be speaking about his experience in Iraq, and his policy proposals for dealing with the Iraq War, and taking your questions on other subjects as well.

This will be the second visit by Les Roberts to Trumansburg. Earlier this year, Roberts met with Ulysses Democrats at the Town Hall. Roberts is the only candidate, Republican or Democrat, to visit the town of Ulysses for this year’s race, made one of the hottest congressional contests in the entire country by Sherwood Boehlert’s announcement that he will not run for re-election.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend this meeting, as I’ll be in Boston on business. If you attend, drop me a line, and let me know how the event goes.

———-

I just wanted to remind all of you that Les Roberts will be speaking at the T-burg Fire House on Friday , April 28th at 7pm. It will be great opportunity to hear his views on the state of the nation. It’s a once in a lifetime chance to have someone of his caliber representing our district. He really will need our support between now and November.

Jane Penrose