H.  Peter  Kahn Memorial  Scholarship

Sunday, March 21, 2009
7:30 AM to 11:00 AM
74 West Main Street, Trumansburg
Adults $6; 5-12 $3; under 5 FREE

Peter was a member of the Trumansburg Fire Company for over 20 years when he died in the line of duty at a motor vehicle accident on February 16, 1997.  This scholarship has been established in his memory to assist children and/or step children of members, and/or members of the Trumansburg Fire Company who plan to continue their education after high school.

If you are interested in making a gift to the scholarship, please send to:
Laura Keefe, Treasurer
PO Box 418
Trumansburg, NY  14886

It’s a reassuring thought, that even now in the closing hours of winter, there are still good things to eat being taken from the ground nearby.

The sale will take place on April 23 to April 27, but the deadline for donations is April 3. Books, music, movies, audio books, puzzles, games, and computer software in good condition are accepted at the front desk. Textbooks, encyclopedias, magazines, condensed books, romances and damaged items are not accepted.

The library is also looking for volunteers for the sale. A sign up sheet will be posted in the library in early April. Call 387-5623 or 387-6562 for more information.

These are some of the items that will be on sale at the Artisan Cafe this Saturday, from noon to 4:00 PM, as the business prepares to go close.

Those of you out there who are into cooking may find some really great deals for your home kitchen in this sale, but don’t miss those books either. There are some good quality books in those shelves, and at a great price.

This Saturday (March 6), there will be a public forum held in the auditorium of the Trumansburg High School from 10:00 AM until Noon. It’s a regional forum, so people from an area ranging from the South Seneca School District to Dryden will be attending. It’s an opportunity for people to speak out in protest of Paterson’s proposed budget cuts to the state education budget.

If you can, please attend.

Either I’ve fallen down another rabbit hole, or all 3 Republicans running for Village offices, are to the left of the 3 Democrats, on the most important issue in front of the Board.  John White(R) is running for Mayor against the incumbent Democratic Mayor, Marty Petrovic.  Debbie Nottke(R) , incumbent trustee, and Matthew Taylor(R) are running for the two open trustee spots, against Deborah Watkin (D) and Blake Reid(D).  I went to the Candidate Forum last weekend and put this question to the Democrats,

The news from Washington looks really bad for the majority of us that want a single payer health care system.  It’s looking like we won’t even get a public option.  I’ve been writing congressmen, and signing petitions, but I’m not very optimistic.  So I turned to local politics, because I at least have a chance of being heard, but the actions of the Village Board on this issue are even worse than in Washington.  We have a single payer EMS right now.  If you begin ambulance billing you will risk lives, discourage volunteerism, raise insurance premiums and contribute to the obscene profits of insurance company CEO’s.  Is there not one candidate here with the common sense, and empathy to take a principled stand against EMS privatization?

The answer from all three Democrats was no.

I just had a meeting with John White, the Republican candidate for mayor.    He said that if he had to vote today on whether or not to implement the fee for service system, he would vote no.  He said that he needs more information, and he didn’t think that all the aspects of this important change had been sufficiently studied.  Marty Petrovic,  has already voted in favor of moving forward towards implementation.  Oddly, this puts the Republicans well to the left of the Democrats on this issue.  John is not promising that his position will never change, but he is currently opposed to the proposed changes to our EMS.  I didn’t think I was going to bother voting in March.  I’m pleasantly surprised.  It’s looking like I might vote a straight Republican ticket.

John has some first hand experience with ambulances as a patient who did not have health insurance at the time.  The Trumansburg ambulance  transported him to Cayuga Medical Center for emergency surgery.  He ended up owing tens of thousands of dollars to the hospital, and anesthesiologists and surgeons etc. etc. It took him a long time to pay off that debt, but he at least didn’t have a bill from our EMS.  What if he had had a high deductible policy?  Would he have made that call, and incurred that debt? He understands how these things might affect some people, and it concerns him.

a couple hours later

Just got off the phone with Matthew Taylor.  Matthew is a volunteer with the Fire Department and he sometimes drives the ambulance.  His day job is director of facilities at Schuyler Hospital. Apparently  all of the Republican candidates have more first hand experience with this issue of emergency medical care than any of the Democrats.  Maybe that’s why all three are against ambulance privatization.  Matthew believes that if the community feels that we are paying too much for the level of care we receive (and that’s a big if) then we ought to first look at increasing volunteerism and then decreasing paid staff.  He believes that this is possible, and he should know, because unlike  any of the other candidates, he is part of the volunteer corps.  He, like John, said that if the vote were today, he would vote to leave it the way it is, and he would advocate for investigating other methods of saving money.  It seems to me that it would make a lot of sense to elect Matthew Taylor and ask him to be the trustee whose task it is to oversee the  Fire Company.  Let’s let Christopher Thomas do something else for a while, and see if we can get a fresh perspective on this.

Debbie Nottke is the incumbent trustee.  She is the retired head nurse of the Cayuga Medical Center Emergency Room.  She was there when John White was brought in years ago.  She was the sole dissenting vote when the Board voted a couple months ago to move forward with billing.  She is taking the strongest anti billing stand.  I had thought that she voted no, just to give the Town more time, since the new Supervisor and two Town Board members were in the audience that night, requesting more time.  But  she assures me now, that there is more to her opposition than that.

I’m suggesting that the Republicans are to the left of the Democrats in the sense that concern for the well being of the people is usually a left, or Democratic position.  Nationally, you can usually count on the Republicans to side with the Corporations rather than the people, to a greater degree than the Democrats do.  Perhaps the corrupting influence of corporate lobbyists doesn’t reach this deep into the grassroots.  The 3 Republican candidates here in Trumansburg, seem more empathetic to the plight of the underinsured, than do the Democrats.  It’s a topsy turvy world.

This is not a one issue election, but the ambulance issue is by far the most urgent.   The impending attack of the gas drilling corporations is very important but all of the candidates seem equally opposed to that.  I have advocated for much stronger action to stop them than the sitting Board is willing to take. Maybe this change could be for the better on that front as well.

But that’s just semantics.  The important part is that if they do this it will risk lives, discourage volunteerism, increase insurance premiums, and contribute to the enormous wealth of insurance company CEO’s.

I’m not voting for anyone who will not take a position against ambulance privatization.  So, unless by some miracle one of these Democrats sees the light, I cannot vote for them.

I just called Debbie Nottke, the Republican incumbent for trustee.  She said very emphatically that she is opposed to this. She’s got my vote.  She  also seems willing to take a stronger position against the gas drilling corporations than the Democrats did.  Marty Petrovic said that the board passed a resolution that said that they would not sell water to these corporations for use outside of the Village, but that it was not legally possible to refuse to sell to them for use within the Village.  I don’t believe it.  There is no way that we can refuse to sell millions of gallons of clean water to a corporation that intends to add toxic chemicals to it, and pump it down into holes they drill in our Village?!  And we should just accept that?!  You’ve got to be kidding me.

This resolution not to sell them water for use outside the Village passed 4 to 1 .  Rordan Hart is the trustee that thinks it’s a good idea to facilitate the rape of the environment.

Yesterday afternoon, Free Our Midwives presented a family-friendly benefit concert right here in Trumansburg, at the Rongovian. The concert provided social and financial support to Birth Net of the Finger Lakes, a group that helps families as they seek out alternatives to birth in a highly regulatory medical setting.

The benefit concert is over, but the opportunity to help this organization’s work remains. You can donate financially, or through your grassroots activist efforts.

On Tuesday March 16, the Village of Trumansburg will hold an election for Trustees and Mayor. Please come out and hear what the candidates have to say. You will have the opportunity to ask questions. Make sure you know where the candidates stand on the issues that matter to you, and vote for those who will enact your agenda.

All Trustee and Mayoral candidates have been invited.

If you have any questions, e-mail us at community@BackToDemocracy.org

Hosted by Back to Democracy.

–
Elizabeth Thomas
Councilwoman, Town of Ulysses

The Patriot Act was set to expire. It was originally supposed to expire years ago, actually. So, the House and Senate judiciary committees went to the trouble of holding hearings, and arguing about the need for reforms. The need for reforms to the Patriot Act are substantial. It’s been revealed through federal government reviews that Patriot Act spying powers are being used not to investigate terrorist plots, but to spy on Americans who aren’t even suspected of having any connection to terrorism. Senator Russ Feingold pointed out during a hearing on the Patriot Act last year that “in fiscal year 2008 only 3 out of the 763 sneak and peek search warrant applications were in terrorism cases. 65 percent were for drug cases.” From last year’s hearings, some reforms were proposed. They weren’t as strong as they could have been, but at least they were a step in the right direction.

Some Republicans in Congress objected to reforming the Patriot Act, however, so this week, the congressional Democratic leadership capitulated, and agreed to extend the Patriot Act without any reforms whatsoever – as quietly as possible, disguised as a Medicare reform amendment, and without any debate or roll call vote in the Senate at all. In the House yesterday, a roll call vote took place, but only someone paying very close attention would have known that the roll call was about the Patriot Act, not Medicare reform. If you want to take a look yourself, here’s the roll call.

Defying their party’s leadership, 87 Democrats in the House decided to do the right thing and vote against the no-reform Patriot Act extension. Our Representative in Congress, Mike Arcuri, was not among that 87. Congressman Arcuri voted yesterday in favor of extending the Patriot Act without reforming it one bit.

Ulysses Democrats, is that what you thought you were voting for in 2008? You can call Arcuri’s office at 315-793-8146 to tell him yourself what you expect.

Go to   tcgasmap.org and see all of the gas leases in our area.  When we meet the candidates at the Firehall on Sunday, we will be only a few hundred feet away from leased land.  Maybe the next candidate forum will be interupted by the sound of giant compressors and tractor trailers hauling toxic fluids in and out.