In the introduction post to this series, I noted the recent uptick in the number of people moving to the Hudson Valley from New York City and the rising home prices driven by this trend. This next post is going to look a little more closely at the possible scale Read more…
The Hudson Valley economy has in the past relied on visitors coming, spending their money, and then going home. Now people from NYC are fleeing the pandemic and coming to stay. Gentrification is the other side of the revitalization coin. Unchecked, this will take a toll.
On May 25 in White Plains, U.S. District Court Judge Cathy Seibel ruled that the at-large system used for electing the nine members of the East Ramapo School Board denied the district’s Black and Latino voters effective choice in its elections, violating §2 of the Federal Voting Rights Act (VRA). Under an at-large system every voter votes to fill each board position, allowing a disciplined majority to control all seats. A majority of the East Ramapo district’s voting population is Hasidic Jews. The School Board has long been dominated by members recruited and endorsed by the leaders of this religious community and elected at-large through the use of block voting.
The Benjamin Center recently asked 233 randomly selected New York State county, city, town, and village elected officials, representative of local elected leaders across the state, about how they and their communities are handling the COVID-19 crisis. Here’s what they told us. Key findings: COVID-19 has presented major challenges to Read more…
On the second Tuesday in May, in ordinary times, voters across New York State (with the exception of those in the Conference of Big Five School Districts—Buffalo, Syracuse, NYC, Yonkers, Rochester) head to the polls to cast a ballot in favor of or against their local public school district budget. Read more…
My friend Carol Roper died last week. She was 86. There’s a lot of death around these days. My generation is passing, and at an accelerated pace with the coronavirus taking its grim daily toll. I’ve known Carol for over 50 years; her death hit me particularly hard. Yet strangely, Read more…
Vice President Pence and other federal officials suggested on March 24 that it would be a good idea for people to self-quarantine for two weeks if they’ve recently left or passed through New York City. Three days later President Trump declared that he was thinking of quarantining parts of New Read more…
On February 18th SUNY New Paltz, in conjunction with the BenCen, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Mid-Hudson League of Women Voters, and many other local and regional bodies such as the Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency, will hold a multipart workshop on zero waste. (You can sign up for any part Read more…
A look at upcoming events hosted by the BenCen A Conversation with Congressman Antonio Delgado October 10, 2019, 5:30-6:30 pm Student Union Multipurpose Room, SUNY New Paltz Campus The Benjamin Center for Public Policy Initiatives is pleased to welcome to our college Congress member Antonio Delgado, member of the Read more…
The world’s not a happy place these days but there is a temptation to think that at least some of what’s happening nationally — e.g. who gets what big job in Washington — won’t much impact your daily life. Wrong, for sure, when it comes to the air you breathe and the water you drink.
Look no further than Newburgh, New York last month.
In 2016 it was discovered that Washington Lake, a major source of water for City of Newburgh residents, was contaminated with PFOAs from nearby Stewart Air National Guard Base. These chemicals, used as fire retardants, have been linked to the proliferation of kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, high cholesterol and ulcerative colitis, among other diseases. Then just a few weeks ago, the City was again threatened by the use of a chemical foam used at the airport.
Exactly two days after the latest news of contamination, The New York Times reported that the EPA wants to downplay the risk of this class of chemical in drinking water under pressure from the Defense Department. Prior to the EPA’s revision, the agency had suggested those responsible for proliferation would need to take immediate action. But proposed revisions would let the agency drag its feet on cleanup or avoid remediation.
These events and others like them across the state and country make the Benjamin Center’s latest discussion brief, Hudson River PCBs: What the GE Clean-Up Brings to Life, by Simon Litten, more than a powerful history lesson.
Litten shows that the extraordinarily costly, time-consuming, and ultimately equivocal cleanup of PCBs from the Hudson River is at least in part the result of even well-meaning researchers fumbling for decades about how to study the impact of toxins already released into the environment. Litten says “prevention would be far better, and far cheaper than cleanup.” Put differently, the broadly applicable general lesson is that pretending a problem doesn’t exist (more…)