Russian Mafia in Our Back Yards?

Does the Carver Laraway-Boris Jordan-George McHugh Connection Mean We Now Have the Eurasian Mob on our Doorstep?

The Russian Mafia, known in Russia as Bratva, the “brotherhood”, has been around since the Tzar’s days, but up to about the 90s was fairly limited to muscling businessmen and in the protection/extortion racket, and black markets. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the so-called Russian mob was expanded to include ruthless criminals from areas like Chechnia, Ukraine, and other areas until it became more appropriate to call them the Eurasian mob.

The Eurasian mob has been involved in everything from Russian industry, banking and insurance, vice and corruption, to collaborating with other criminal groups like the drug cartels in Central and South America, and even financing and providing guns to the South Italian mafia, the Camorra.

Louis Freeh, former director of the FBI, said that the Russian mafia posed the greatest threat to U.S. national security in the mid-1990s. In August 2010, Alain Bauer, a French criminologist, said that it “is one of the best structured criminal organizations in Europe, with a quasi-military operation.” It’s only gotten worse.

One example is Vyacheslav “Yaponchik” Ivankov, who was sent to Brighton Beach (NY) in 1992, allegedly because he was killing too many people in Russia and also to take control of Russian organized crime in North America. Within a year, he built an international operation that included, but was not limited to, narcotics, money laundering, and prostitution and made ties with the American Mafia and Colombian drug cartels, eventually extending to Miami, Los Angeles, and Boston. Those who went against him were usually killed.

Question: If Ivankov was a well-known organized crime figure and undesirable in his own country, Russia, how did he manage to get into the United States??? Who paid whom off? Where was our national security organization at the time? Where is our national security, Homeland Security, the FBI, now?

On June 7, 2017, 33 Russian mafia affiliates and members of the Russian mob were arrested and charged by the FBI, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and NYPD for extortion, racketeering, illegal gambling, firearm offenses, narcotics trafficking, wire fraud, credit card fraud, identity theft, fraud on casino slot machines using electronic hacking devices; based in Atlantic City and Philadelphia, murder-for-hire conspiracy and cigarette trafficking.

On 19 February 2018, 18 defendants, members of the Russian mob, were accused of laundering over $62 million through real estate, including with the help of Vladislav Reznik, former chairman of Rosgosstrakh; one of Russia’s largest insurance companies. The Russian mob is involved in everything from real estate to banking to aluminum refining companies in Kentucky. (See the article, “Russian organized crime operates just about everywhere” by G. W. Abersold Ph.D. – March 13, 2018). Have they now found a home in Coeymans, a guest of Carver Laraway, at the so-called Coeymans Industrial Park. Will Coeymans be renamed “Russia on the Hudson?

Even the Times of Israel published an article, “US targets ‘Thieves-in-Law,’ Russian mafia royalty” (23 December 2017) and writes, “Washington seems to be confirming that the threat posed by the fabled “Russian mafia” from the former Soviet republics is a more organized one than previously supposed.” Gee! Didn’t you know that?

Russian Mob in Your Back Yard!

Well, Guess What? The Russian mob may be right in your back yard, in the Coeymans Industrial Park, in the grey building with no visible sign identifying what’s going on inside, the very building that houses the Curaleaf marijuana growing and processing operation headed by none other than Russian businessman, Boris Alexei Jordan, who is working in partnership with Carver Laraway and his lackey George McHugh.

This is the Curaleaf facility in the Coeymans Industrial Park
No sign on the building. You’d never find it if you were looking for Curaleaf. We identified it by the many vents on the building and a tiny sign on a door mentioning “Curaleaf Security.” We later confirmed with an employee outside the building.

Boris Jordan likes to talk about how he almost single-handedly turned the Russian economy, including banking and industry, around in Russia. But the boy-wonder, Boris Alexei Jordan, has only a B.A. from New York University, not very impressive credentials for a veritable miracle worker. So how does a guy with only an undergrad degree get to Russia and just start reorganizing things? There’s got to be more, much more to this story than meets the eye. We think we know what it is, too.

Jordan thinks we all came down with the last shower, it seems. Does he and his pals Carver Laraway and George McHugh really think we believe he’d get anything done in Russia without the backing of the powerful Russian mafia and Putin, who himself is closely connected with the Russian mob and mob money? Does Jordan, who blatantly admits that “business is done differently in Russia than it is in the USA,” and that bribery is an accepted way of doing business there, think we’re all stupid?

The Russian Bear Loves Dollar$!

Our question is also this: If he didn’t have mob connections and didn’t work with the Russian mafia and Putin’s crew, how did he stay alive over there? The answer is easy: He worked with them. They had him in their pockets.

It’s no secret that the Eurasian mob is getting more sophisticated and has entered the banking, insurance industries, and even aluminum refining in Kentucky. Jordan himself admits that now that billionaire bucks have bought off the United States government and legislatures, that pot is a major growth industry and a huge market. Jordan has carved out a chunk of that market and want’s us to believe that he’s the genius behind it all. He’s the front man, maybe, but he’s no genius and it’s not Jordan who’s behind it all.

The FBI and other law enforcement agencies in the United States have been aware of this growing problem since at least the 1990’s if not the 1970s but have done remarkably little to slow down the mob’s growth in the United States or even to keep their kingpins out of the country. We really should be asking Why?

In a Connecting Heights (PBS) interview, the interview starts out with a bit of background:

Boris Jordan was a key figure in Russia’s economic transition to capitalism in the early ’90s, assisting in the launch of the Russian stock market and the privatization of state assets. Later appointed chief executive of Russia’s Gazprom Media as well as general director of its NTV television network, Jordan was forced to resign in early 2003 under political pressure.

But there’s one key bit of information we haven’t shared: Boris Alexei Jordan is an American of Russian parentage. You see, his people emigrated from Russia after the revolution. He admits he grew up in a strongly Russian traditional home, went to Russian school, and he even speaks fluent Russian. According the interview transcript, Jordan says:

I was very interested in Russia. My family came from this country. I was educated in the United States at home as a Russian. I had a Russian education on Saturdays for Russian language and Russian history. My university education was based on U.S.-Soviet diplomacy.

[Editor’s Note: This is a bit confusing because at one point Jordan says his education was based on “Russian diplomacy” and a couple of breaths later says that his background was “Russian finance.” The man can’t keep his story straight.]

We also find it interesting that Boris Jordan entered the Russian economic scene in the 1990’s, a time when the Russian state was in a turmoil and the Russian mob was seizing the opportunity of a country in chaos to get its fangs into very vulnerable and influential business sectors. They obviously needed a plan and needed one fast: Enter Boris Alexei Jordan and a small team of other opportunists. You don’t just step in because a bunch of patriots invite you in, not in Russia. The mob doesn’t just let some hungry wannabe waltz in and take over what was theirs to claim. Jordan had to have mob support or he was a dead man.

One clue about the sinister connections is a statement made by Jordan in an interview, when he talks about setting shop in the Metropol Hotel in Moscow:

“We literally had to come in on a weekly basis with a suitcase of $25,000 or $50,000, or $100,000 in cash to just finance this whole operation and put it together.“

Jordan describes how he got things done, avoiding the word “bribe” and replacing it with “incentivize,” according to Jordan: Where’d he get the suitcases of money he was talking about in his interviews? Santa Claus? The Easter Bunny?

Where’d the suitcases of money come from? The United States has laws and rules concerning how much money leaves the country and Russia certainly has rules about the sources and destinations of US$. Where’d the money come from, Mr Jordan?

Was it Easter Bunny money in the suitcases?

In the end it was a very old, simple process that got these guys to agree. We had to basically, I wouldn’t say bribe, but incentivize them by giving them stock.

Shakespeare wrote: “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet?” In other words, a rose would smell just as sweet if you called it a cabbage. Well, bribery by any other name smells just as bad. Whether you call a bribe and incentive or not, it’s still a bribe. Sorry, Boris.

Doesn’t matter whether it’s in the Kremlin, Cuomo’s office, the NY state Senate or Assemby, or in Washington D.C., or George McHugh’s or Michael Biscone’s office.
It’s still bribery.

At another point in the same interview, Jordan responds:

“There’s an argument that I’ve compromised principles somehow by trying to adjust to doing business in the Russian environment…If you’re going to operate within this environment, if you’re going to have an impact on changing it, you can’t do it overnight. You can’t come in here and say, “For God’s sake, you have to follow the U.S. laws on securities for these operations.” You can’t do that. It’s just impossible…I’ve created a way of life for myself here [in Russia]. I’m living here with my family and my children for a very long period of time, and I intend to continue to live here. We are participants in an evolution and a change in this country…I’d love to change this country in two, three years, but I don’t want to make it look like the United States because, frankly, this country has tremendous things that are different from the United States.” [Emphasis provided]

That interview was conducted by PBS “Commanding Heights,” on October 3, 2000; Jordan was 33 at the time. There’s a lot going on in that background but we’ll gloss over it for now. Trust us when we say that it all supports our contention that Jordan is part of something much bigger and much more sinister than just growing pot.

We found another site that tells the story of how Boris Jordan does business. It’s a real eye-opener so do yourself a favor and read the article by Bill Browder, an American investor, “A true story of high finance, murder and my fight for justice in Putin’s Russia,” in which Jordan is a key figure.

American Investor Bill Browder, at war with Boris Jordan

Jordan was fired from his positions at Gazprom and NTV while in Russia. Apparently he stepped on Putin’s toes and had to go. Read the New York Times report at “American Financier Is Fired as Head of Russian TV Network,” Putin was angered by Jordan’s publishing premature reports of Russian troop movements responding to a Chechen terrorist attack on a Moscow theater that left 129 hostages dead. Jordan thought the report was ”exceptionally well done.” Putin’s response was, “journalists should not ply their trade ”on the blood of your own citizens — if, of course, those who do this consider these citizens to be their own.” The remark was widely seen as a jab at  Jordan and a NTV journalist, Savik Shuster, a Canadian citizen. Jordan’s operation gets 129 people killed and Jordan thinks it was “exceptionally well done.” Disgusting.

The Russian Mob – Boris Alexei Jordan – His American Whores (Carver Laraway/George McHugh) relaxing together.

In one interview with CNBC he openly talks about getting US laws changed. Now how do you think he gets that little tidbit done? He also says that the Candadian market for pot isn’t big enough; its the US that is the target. Does that get your gray matter fired up yet?

Our research has shown that more is written about him in Russian than in English. In fact, credibility is an issue here, and there’s an awful lot about Boris Alexei Jordan that is in-credible. But make no mistake about it: Boris Alexei Jordan is 200% Russian.

For an interesting perspective, see the article “How Russia Prepared Renaissance Capital Co-Founder Boris Jordan For The Cannabis Industry” by Javier Hasse and Alex Oleinic , Benzinga contributors.

But all of that aside, we have to seriously ask ourselves where our elected and public officials were when all of this was in the planning and ultimately got approved by someone. We’re thinking especially of those closest to us and our children, those elected officials and public servants in whom we place our trust to make good decisions and to protect us:

• Ravena Coeymans Selkirk Central School District & Board of Education: When they’re not spending tax dollar wildly or evading paying taxes, where were they when the Town of Coeymans was considering this pot growing and processing facility? Of all the public servants, we’d have expected our kids’ educators to have chimed in at some point along the line. But they don’t care about anything but their own interests and their pensions.
• The Coeymans Town Board and the Ravena Village Board: Where were the public comment sessions and were were the town and village officials while all this was being hatched? Weren’t they elected to protect the public’s best interests? Instead they put out the Welcome Mat to a Russian billionaire, his American whores, and the Russian mob. Great job!
• Where were the Churches?!? All the Jesus Loves You! freaks. All the Bible Thumpers! All the Faith and Family Values hypocrites? All the good church-goers that fill the church parking lots for 45 minutes every Sunday? Where were your pastors, your priests, your bishops, your deacons and elders when all of this was happening?
• Law Enforcement: Yeah, we know: All we can do is enforce the law! Poor excuse, dudes! Are you a bunch of brainless manikins? A bunch of remote controlled robots who get reprogrammed every time the politicians conjure up some hare-brained scheme? Just a couple of years ago, we recall and so do you, you and our corrupt judges were ruining peoples’ lives for a dime-bag of pot. Now you’re right in the middle of the corruption protecting the industrial pot-growers? If that isn’t an example of public corruption and the mob at work, what is. Can you defend yourselves?
• But the worst bunch are the state and federal legislators, the people some voters put in the New York State Assembly and the Senate, and the US House of Reps and US Senate. They’re the biggest failures, disappointments and criminals because they are the real Whores of Babylon, it’s that bunch of elitists who sold us out. They took mob money to legalize another drug plague. They criminalized tobacco, an American addiction, only to legalize marijuana, a foreign addiction. They all should be tried as traitors!
• And our final accusation is against YOU! Where were you when all of this was going on? Probably watching some sick sitcom like Mike and Molly while the rest of us were out voting, exercising one of our most important rights. It was your responsibility, your duty, your obligation to safeguard your children, their community, and their future. You FAILED! Your children’s blood is on your hands. We’ll be there to remind you when catastrophe strikes, if it hasn’t done already.

Moscow on the Hudson

Kremlin and Red Square (Moscow), Law Office of George McHugh (Old Ravena News Herald Building), Coeymans Industrial Park, the News Herald Offices (the former George McHugh law offices). Moscow will soon be in Coeymans via the Coeymans Industrial Park!

 

Fraud, Fake Non-profits, Tax Evaders. They’re everywhere!

They think they’re pretty slick but someone’s watching.

The Non-Profit and Not-For Profit Tax Dodgers Right Under the New York State Tax and Finance Department’s and the IRS’s Noses!!! What’s the deal? Joe Average gets fines and penalties for a mistake while the real winners get non-profit or not-for-profit status and make the big bucks. But that’s because most of the sheeple simply closer their eyes to the problem, stick their heads in the sand, and keep paying…and paying…and paying! Question: Are you one of them?

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Most of us are aware of the various taxing jurisdictions which use the real property tax to raise the money needed for their operations. Every county uses this form of taxation as do the cities and towns within a county. Within towns one sometimes finds villages which also levy property taxes. The biggest property tax bite for most homeowners is the school tax.

Property taxes provide the bulk of the funds required for local government and public primary and secondary education. A large variety of services including road maintenance, police protection, libraries, deed registry, justice courts, building code enforcement, etc. are all provided for by county, city, town and village taxes. The school tax pays the salaries of teachers and administrators and maintains the buildings and equipment required by the school system.

We all know the sickening stories about General Electric and Amazon, and other US corporations and the fact that they get away without paying any taxes. Well, there are plenty like them out there and here are some local examples.

We’ve already reported on a RCS Board of Education (BOE) member and former BOE president, Mr. James Latter, an employee of the Saudi Arabian-owned company, Sabic,  who got away without paying a year’s taxes on his $300,000 + new construction in Ravena. That was because the Ravena Building Department never reported the construction to the Assessor in the Town of Coeymans, who violated the property tax laws by not assessing the in-progress improvements on the property, although you can almost see the house from the town offices. That one instance involving Mr. Latter’s ostentatious new dwelling cost the Town a couple of grand in property taxes, and Latter didn’t offer to make good on it. You can bet your life on that one. [Read our article, “Board of Education Member James “Hadji” Latter: Is he paying his fair share of property taxes?“]

[Editor’s Note: According to the NYS Real Property Tax Law, If you add a room or put in central air conditioning you would naturally expect your assessment to increase. [Note: In some states new construction cannot be assessed until it has been completed and a certificate of occupancy issued. In New York State, the assessor is required to value the property exactly as he or she finds it on taxable status date (to be defined later). Thus a partially completed garage would ordinarily receive a partial assessment.]

So, now let’s look at a local attorney and his slick operations to avoid paying his share of property taxes: George McHugh, the shyster who’s got his hands in everything from p****y to pot. Yes! He’s the same crook asking you to elect him to be Coeymans Town Supervisor so he can make things easier for his keepers, Carvery Laraway and his pot-growing Russian pal, Boris Alexei Jordan.

Did George McHugh evade paying property taxes on his Blaisdell Farm project?

We’re also wondering about George McHugh’s little housing project on the Blaisdell Farm property. Did McHugh get the same tax break on that biggie that Latter got on his property? That’s a little project we’ll be sure to look into over the next couple of weeks. Did McHugh get away with not paying his property taxes on the project because the Ravena Building Department and Building Inspector never notified the Town of Coeymans Assessor of the project?

Jason Tantra, a British subject here on a visa, claims he’s operating his business, Tantra 4 Gay Men, legally in the USA, and paying taxes. Really?

It’s going on all over the place but the real scammers are the ones who manage somehow to get non-profit or not-for-profit status by some slick tricks. One of the organizations that has recently caught our attention because of their involvement with a charlatan from the UK who managed to get a visa to operate a sex-services company in the US. The organization is located in Washington County, New York, near Greenwich, about an hour’s drive from Albany. It calls itself the Easton Mountain Retreat Community and caters for anything and everything for gay men with lots of cash to spare. What caught our eye is that it claims IRS Tax Code 501(c)(3) status as a non-profit offering  — now get this –“ religion-related” and “spiritual development” programs. You’ll have the same reaction we did when we looked at their offerings and their prices: WTF!!!

To put things a bit in perspective, the town of Greenwich in Washington County, NY has a total of 61 non-profit organizations with assets totaling $19,876,829+ and total incomes of $8,395,791. Most, if not all of that multimillion dollar figure is tax exempt, while the rest of us are paying through the nose with property taxes, sales tax, and other indirect taxes that the state calls “fees,” cleverly and sneakily avoiding any word even suggesting “tax.” Same goes for all those add-on charges to your phone and cable bills. Fees but in reality taxes. Add them up and have a coronary.

No shame. They actually ask for donations!!!

Even Albany Medical Center is tax exempt!!! Think about that when you get your next bill! Read below to see what the Tax Code calls a tax-exempt organization and then go to AMC’s profile at Albany Medical Center, and note there’s nothing about real estate development or property management. So what’s the deal with AMC’s owning a huge chunk of central Albany real estate that was once privately owned and residential? Our government at work, people, and AMC’s CPAs and lawyers ensuring that the non-profit can make the CEOs and the board of directors’ payroll.

The Albany Times Union published an article in November 2018 entitled, “Capital Region hospitals earn poor grades on patient safety,” and reported that Albany Medical Center’s grade went from a “C” to a “D”. Other Capital Region Hospitals weren’t any better; in fact, most went from bad to worse! The best performers in the report remained unchanged from the year before. Now that’s pretty crappy!

There are also reports that patients were being infected by machines that should have been junked but AMC, despite warnings and recommendations, continued using the machines, causing a number of life-threatening infections in patients.

And then there’s the horrible story of the young man, Riley Kern, killed in a pick-up truck-motorcycle accident last year by a local, Travis Hagan, that went uninvestigated by the Coeymans Police Department. The young man was transported to Albany Medical Center where he was the victim of a number of ER mistakes; he died a couple of hours after they had their way with him. The documents provided by the boy’s mother after a grueling year of questions without answers read like something out of a scifi horror script!!! We’re waiting for permission to publish what we have obtained. (Read our reports: “We Are Re-Opening the Case: Riley Kern, Young Man Killed in Coeymans Hollow, Sycamore Golf Course,” “Riley’s Song: Verse Two – Update on Our Investigations,” “Riley’s Mom Responds: A Mother’s Perspective,” and “Memorial Service for Riley.”)

Not only was the ER staff incompetent, Pathologist Bernard Ng apparently doesn’t know how to correctly complete a death certificate. Incompetence at every level. What’s even more shameful is that the hospital CEO refused to launch an investigation; swept the entire thing under the rug. 

But Albany Medical Center is the Albany Greed Center! On their website they actually ask for donations to support AMC. NO SHAME!

They actually ask for donations on the AMC website (http://www.amc.edu/)!!!

But back to Easton Mountain Retreat Center as our example of real tax scammers.

Do you really think that all of these organizations should be non-profit or tax-exempt? Click here for a list of Greenwich non-profit organizations. Greenwich Non-profits.

Easton Mountain Incorporated, NY Department of State Entity ID No.  2897573 (Initial DOS Filing Date: April 22, 2003) is a New York corporation (Employer Identification No. (EIN): 01-0778873) NTEE classified[1] as Religion Related, Spiritual Development N.E.C. and designated under the Nonprofit Tax Code as 501(c)(3) defined as:

“Organizations for any of the following purposes: religious, educational, charitable, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition (as long as it doesn’t provide athletic facilities or equipment), or the prevention of cruelty to children or animals.”

Yeah. And pigs have wings, too!

But here are some of this year’s programs. Right from the start we do not see a connection with “religion related” or ”spiritual development” programs nor do we see anything that corresponds to the Non-profit Tax Code for a 501(c)(3) entity. If you do, please let us know and we’ll publish a correction:

• Best Friends Program (One-year package for multiple “events” depending on availability: $1,995.00 – $3,495.00)
• Summer Gay Spirit Camp July 29 – August 4, 2019. Offers men a chance to establish lasting friendships in a fun and uplifting environment
• Spirit Deck Party – Day Pass $25.00
• Sun Clad – A naturist gathering for men who love men You love to be naked. (4 days, $395.00 – $795.00)
• SUMMER: Freedom Camp, Gay Spirit Camp, Bear Your Soul Summer Camp
• WINTER: Winter Gay Spirit Camp, Bear Your Soul Winter Hibernation
• FALL: Kink Odyssey, Singles Weekend

Incredibly, Easton Mountain claims to be a non-profit organization meeting the above IRS criteria. How does a corporation catering for an affluent segment of the gay male population – Yes! we said “affluent” because Easton Mount is not cheap. Their programs run pretty pricey. For example, a program described as Gay Spirit Camp, which runs from July 29-August 4, 2019, which Easton Mountain describes as a “6-day program” but is actually a 4-day program, since :[t]he event begins with dinner at 7:00 pm on Monday, July 29., “ends with lunch at 1:00 pm on Sunday, August 4.” You have to have some pretty hefty recreational money or disposable income because the prices posted for this particular mid-range event by Easton Mountain range from $595.00 (bring your own tent) to $1,095.00 for “semi-private” accommodation.  A so-called “5-day” event August 6 – 11, 2019, with our friend Jason Tantra, runs the same  You can browse the other programs on the Easton Mountain Site (Source: https://eastonmountain.secure.retreat.guru/programs/, last accessed on July 3, 2019)

Those prices are low compared to some of the events. Now we ask you very seriously: Should Easton Mountain be considered a tax-exempt, non-profit religion related, organization for spiritual development? Maybe you should have a look at some of the other programs offered at Easton Mountain Incorporated and decide. Then maybe you should call the New York State Department of State, the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, and the IRS, or just write to them asking how Easton Mountain has finagled the tax laws to arrive at non-profit status as a religious organization of anything under IRS 501(c)(3)!?!

ORGANIZATION NAME	ADDRESS	CLASSIFICATION	REPORTED ASSET AMOUNT	REPORTED INCOME AMOUNT	FORM 990 REVENUE AMOUNT	EXEMPT STATUS DATE	FORM 990 FILES
EASTON MOUNTAIN INC (c/o RAYMOND NIRO)	391 HERRINGTON HILL RD GREENWICH, NY 12834-5809	Charitable Organization; Religious Organization (Religion Related, Spiritual Development N.E.C.)	$100,000 +*	$500,000 +*	$500,000 +*	500,000 +*	03/2005

(Source: https://www.taxexemptworld.com/organizations/greenwich-ny-new-york.asp, last accessed on July 3, 2019)

We obtained the Easton Mountain Incorporated IRS 990 for the Tax Year 2016  — Easton Mountain publishes only their 2014 IRS 990 form filing (the last year available on the IRS site (2016 Form 990 Filing, Page Last Reviewed or Updated: 6-Jul-2018) (Source: https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/, last accessed on July 3, 2019)

Now you know. 

Slick operators, incompetent local public employees, fake non-profit organizations all are eating at our table and getting fat, leaving us to pay the bills. Isn’t it time we split the check? Isn’t it time we demanded state and federal government agencies, including law enforcement, to start taking a closer look at how much tax avoidance and tax evasion is going on and leaving the rest of us to pay the bill? Your tax dollars are paying those public employees to sit on their fat flabby asses doing nothing while waiting to collect fat tax-free pensions!!! Isn’t it time we demanded they do their jobs?

 

[1] NTEE = National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities codes

 

 

Please don’t Mug Me! Just Pot Me!

Think: FOLLOW THE MONEY!!!

Curaleaf♠: Jordan ⇔ Laraway ⇔ McHugh ⇒ KREMLIN !?!

We can’t produce fresh fruit or vegetables that aren’t rotten when we buy them or are rotten two days in the fridge, or we have to import them from Mexico or Canada, but we can build, maintain, and secure cannabis pot facilities all over the place!

Import Rotten Food but Grow Fresh Pot Locally.
Isn’t that just plain crazy?

Coeymans’ Very Own Russian Connection
The Alien – Jordan – McHugh – Laraway
Russky Collaborator George McHugh is running for Coeymans Town Supervisor. Will he get your vote, Komrad?

Yes! We spend billions a year on rotten fruits, vegetables, and meats and throw about 30% of it into the garbage because it rots before we can us it. But we import all of that produce and much of the meat and seafood, the meat and seafood arriving who-knows-how-old because it’s frozen. China, Mexico, Canada and other foreign economies are gobbling US dollars, your dollars, much faster than we can save our groceries from the transfer station.

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Editor’s Aside: Curaleaf is the new name for the former PalliaTech. Boris Jordan is the CEO of Curaleaf. In an Albany Times Union article, the TU reports that the “Albany County Industrial Development Agency’s approval of roughly $450,000 in sales tax exemptions for equipment purchases to get the facility set for production” was OK-ed! Almost a half-million dollars in sales tax exemptions to retrofit a private company?!?!? Who approved that one, Mr Cuomo? Duh! A private company to grow What? You must all be on drugs.

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In a personal communication from a local gas manufacturer in Glenmont, he tells us that his company’s major consumer of nitrogen gas is the food transportation industry. They cover the vegetables with inert gases like nitrogen or gases like ethylene dioxide while shipping them so that they don’t ripen during travel. But then, when they arrive at the destination, they go through accelerated ripening and rot faster!!! But who cares? By then they’re in your fridge. (Read about American waste in “Why Americans Lead the World in Food Waste,” — but the article doesn’t cover the additives to prevent ripening during shipping — but a trade article on how to prevent losses during shipping does cover the silent subject in the article,  “Preventing losses and preserving quality in food cargoes.”)

Canada gets the Blue Ribbon for taking care of their own.

We have to hand Canada the blue ribbon for taking care of their people. You see, Canada, with about one-tenth (35 million) of the US population (320+ million) and about the same size in terms of total area with Canada topping the USA in area (Canada 9,984,670 sq.km. vs USA 9,833,517 sq. km.).

But here’s an amazing difference: Canada has 44.5% agricultural land while the United States has 6.8%; Canada has about 17% arable land compared to the USA with about 7% Still wonder why we have to import our food? Oh, you say, most of Canada is woods and snow. Not true! Canada and the USA compare almost equally in terms of forested land: 33% and 34%, respectively. So why can’t we feed our people? Why can Canada feed their people and supply ours? Why does Canada have approximately the same land area but  only 1/3 the agriculture — but still feeds Canada and the USA —, while the US government is paying American farmers NOT to produce?  And why  Canada can produce beautiful produce hydroponically even during inclement seasons, and the US concentrates on growing pot? It’s actually a question of where government priorities are and the Big Plan for the few to control the many (only in the US, though).

You may not be able to afford these but Carver Laraway and Boris Jordan can. Smoke more pot!

They serve you rotten veggies and Chinese drugged up chicken, and provide fresh pot salad, while you’re vaping your cannabis oil they’ve sold you.

Minds like Boris Jordan’s, Carver Laraway’s and George McHugh’s and others around us function almost pathologically: Greed is a disease and excludes all other considerations. As Boris Jordan states in a CNBC interview, and we paraphrase, ‘Why stay in the Canadian pot market with only 36 million potential users when we can come to the USA and have 322 million potential users. The market growth is in the USA.’ We’re talking about pot now. Remember the stuff you’d get arrested for having just a couple of years ago?

Listen to the entire interview (about 6 minutes) at: Curaleaf chairman talks going public in a wild market for pot stocks.

Now greed mongers like Boris Jordan and Carver Laraway, with the help of the likes of George McHugh and Michael Biscone, are influencing legislators to change the laws (to make pot more accessible and put more of your money in their pockets. Don’t you see anything wrong with this picture? They serve you rotten veggies and Chinese drugged up chicken and provide fresh pot salad, while you’re vaping your cannabis oil they’ve sold you. Just listen to the interview above; Boris Jordan unabashedly talks about changing the laws!

Mug me! Pot me!

Americans want drugs; everyone knows that!
Americans are like midnight strollers in Central Park with big fluorescent letters on their backs: Mug me! Rape me!

Americans want drugs. There’s no question about that. The Columbians knew that and cashed in. The Mexicans know that and cash in. Afghanistanis know that and cash in. The Russians know that and are cashing in. Your American job-creators (That’s a joke!) are aiding and abetting the crimes against the American people. Americans are like strollers in Central Park with big fluorescent letters on their backs: Mug me! Rape me!

“All you need to do is trust us. We ask only that you trust us.”

The Russian, The Alien, The Russian-American
Is there a resemblance or is it us?

American business is based on a market economy: Give the market what it wants, that is, supply the demand. Enter Carver Laraway, George McHugh, and Boris Alexei Jordan. Remember the Twilight Zone episode, “We have come to serve you“? If not, let us remind you; watch the episode clip below:

And if that doesn’t amuse you, the clip where a Russian diplomat — interestingly Boris Jordan did his B.A. in Guess what? Russian diplomacy!!! — asks the alien: “Precisely, what are your motives for coming here quite uninvited. Are we to assume that there is no ulterior motive beyond this vast humanity you speak of?” And the alien replies: “All you need to do is trust us. Only that you simply trust us.”

The punch line comes in episode 3:

Government says: If there are laws prohibiting it we have to enforce the laws. That means we need a law-enforcement infrastructure and that costs money. This democratic market-economy so why not provide what the people want and do it legally. So we change the laws to make drugs legal that were once illegal, and government cashes in on the thing. Now if there’s no drug law enforcement, we don’t have to pay law enforcement to control drugs. Right? If it’s now legal, government and private enterprise make money. Right? If it’s legal, we don’t have to spend money on enforcing laws. Right? You don’t need so many law enforcement personnel or agencies. Right? More money saved. You make it legal and the street drug dealers go out of business. Right? WRONG!!! They create new, more potent, more deadly alternatives!!! Haven’t we learned from past failures?

We spent billions in the war on drugs…and lost the war. Now we’re joining the enemy. Nice!

Shocked? You should be.
(Figures up to 2015)

And just a couple of years ago, politicians were getting themselves elected by supporting the so-called “War on Drugs.” The stupidity of it all is revealed in the stats above and in the article, “Time to End the War on Drugs,” in which the argument is not that we should legalize drugs but should curb drug use but that we’ve been doing it all wrong for decades! Nobody in Washington or Albany seemed to read the writing on the wall.  We spent $$billions$$, NO! $$trillions$$ of taxpayer dollars in the “war on drugs.” And, like past wars, we came out with egg on our faces. Since VietNam, we’ve learned one thing: If you’re going to fight a war, make sure somebody gets rich and somebody gets re-elected. That’s the drum to which Washington and Wall Street march. So now we make marijuana legal — a drug that sent tens of thousands to prison and ruined tens of thousands of lives — but now is OK. Do we purge the criminal records of the kids that got caught? Do the convictions go away and does the stigma disappear? Maybe we should be asking questions like that.

We can’t buy a week’s supply of antibiotic to fight an infection without a doctor’s prescription but we can now get pot legally. Oh! Sorry, “medicinal pot.” We still need a practitioner’s prescription. Well, until we get beyond the “medicinal stage”, and move smoothly and legally into the “recreational stage,” like they are doing in Canada. But Hey! Boris Jordan is working on getting legislators to change the laws. All it takes is money, and he’s got plenty.

Sign on a downtown Montréal building.
(Translation: Smoking, Vaping, Cannabis Prohibited)

In a CNBC inteview of Boris Jordan, Carver Laraway’s backer and George McHugh’s financer, Jordan says: ‘In Canada there are 36 million people; in the United States we have more than 320 million people. Where do you think the market is? Where do you think the money is? The market’s in the USA.’

Don’t you feel like you’re being used? Why are the American people allowing themselves to be treated like mudroom doormats? Everybody, Chinese, Russian, Mexican gets to walk all over us. Is that right?

You’ve become the doormat and they’re walking all over you!

 

Happy Independence Day! Everyday.

No Flag-waving, Sunshine Patriotism. It’s all Phony. We are Celebrating Truth, Instead.

Our gift to our readers, followers, and supporters on this Independence Day. From the movie Idiocracy (2006), President Camacho’s State of the Union address:

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Editor’s Note: Idiocracy is a 2006 American science fiction satire/comedy film. The film tells the story of two people who take part in a top-secret military human hibernation experiment, only to awaken 500 years later in a dystopian society where anti-intellectualism and commercialism have run rampant, and which is devoid of intellectual curiosity, social responsibility, and coherent notions of justice and human rights. The main character, Joe Bauers, the definition of “average American”, is selected by the Pentagon to be the guinea pig for the top-secret hibernation program. Forgotten, he awakes five centuries in the future. He discovers a society so incredibly dumbed down that he’s easily the most intelligent person alive. Many in the media and commentators call the film a “documentary” rather than a comedy, and discuss how the theme of the film is actually coming true!

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We’re celebrating the REAL America. We’re celebrating the Catskills!

Unlike most journalism and unlike most media, Smalbany is Independent, totally Independent, and doesn’t sell out for cash, ratings, future promises. Smalbany cherishes the guaranteed freedom of press and opinion, and will never abuse that guaranteed right. Smalbany is no slave to any special interest, any politician, or bribery of any kind. No other area print or online media can make that claim. That’s why we are the areas most read and most trusted journalistic source for truth and openness.

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The Smalbany a.k.a. Albany, NY, team wish all of our readers a safe and peaceful Independence Day 2019.

The Smalbany Blog again celebrates their 5th Independence Day, Yes! 5 years already serving the community and beyond. Smalbany Blog confirms and re-asserts their

• Independence from allegiance to any political party, ideology, special interest, religion, or group; Smalbany’s only allegiance is to Truth and Fairness.
• Independence from greed and avarice as a motivation; Smalbany does not allow advertising and does not ask for donations nor even accept donations, if offered; Smalbany doesn’t owe anyone anything but justice and fairness.
• Independence from ignorance and lies; Smalbany never posts an article without checking the facts and looking at both sides of the story.
• Idependence from hearsay, rumor, or gossip. What you read on Smalbany has been investigated and vetted; that’s how we keep our credibility.
• Independence from fake loyalty to any flag or national myth; Smalbany is supranational, above any nation or national symbol, Smalbany avoids idolatry and false prophets.
• Independence from fear; Smalbany knows more than it posts, and keeps the scoundrels and villains in the community and beyond on their guard.
• Independence from corruption in public services, public servants, elected officials; Smalbany doesn’t ask any public servant or elected official for any favors. This means that the crooks in government can’t buy their way out of their crimes.
• Independence from any blame or guilt; Smalbany has always maintained the highest level of integrity — and will continue to do so — and has nothing to fear from the powers to be.

And speaking of misinformation, Most historians have concluded that the Declaration was signed nearly a month after its adoption, on August 2, 1776, and not on July 4 as is commonly believed. The actual resolution of independence was made on July 2, 1776, by the Second Continental Congress in a closed session. So why July 4th? The declaration resolution was publicized on July 4, 1776. In 1781, the Massachusetts General Court became the first state legislature to recognize July 4 as a state celebration. But it wasn’t until 1870 that the U.S. Congress made Independence Day an unpaid holiday for federal employees, and only in 1938 did Congress change Independence Day to a paid federal holiday; in 1941 the day was expanded to become a “national” holiday. (5 U.S.C. § 6103). (Source: https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/july-4th, last accessed on July 3, 2019)

That’s the kind of Independence we at Smalbany wish each and every one of our contributors, followers, readers, and supporters. We wish you all a Smalbany Independence Day, every day!

The Hudson River represents natural freedom and independence. Keep it pure and free.

 

To McHugh or Not to McHugh.

It’s a dumbass question, actually.

The obvious answer is NOT McHUGH.

Would you trust a guy wearing a hairpiece like this?
Was it the Saratoga stripper who taught him that?

We’ve done some investigating and some research and have come up with the recommendation that George McHugh should not be a consideration for the office of Coeymans Town Supervisor. We’ll be giving the reasons for our recommendations this weekend, before the primaries, so stay tuned.

First of all, if you know very little or nothing about a candidate, why would you even think of voting for him. That goes for the entire McHugh flea circus. You have a pack of losers, literally, just look at Langdon and McHugh himself.

Remember this honey of a land deal. McHugh took good care of himself.
By the way, Darby Realty was run by one of his former wives. Get the picture?

But once we go through the Coeymans Town Board minutes and working session minutes for 2000 to the end of 2001, the two years McHugh was last in the Coeymans Supervisor’s office and finagling land deals for himself when he left office, and we look at some of his other phoney activities, as well as talking to some people who were very close to McHugh — literally in the same bed with him, you’ll see what a slime he really is.

We’ll also be examining his running — or should we say crawling — mates, if there’s anything really there to discuss. They’re all a bit of not much, if you get our gist.

We’ll also be reviewing the local news opinions of McHugh and his relationship with Carver Laraway and Carver Companies. An we’re not necessarily talking about his picking up one of Carver Laraways’ ex wives. We’ll have more to say about how he manages his domestic, his personal life and how that reflects on his ability to manage your lives from Town Hall.

We’ve got some good stuff for ya! The Editor

P.s. We’ll also let you in on how the Ravena News Herald has become McHugh’s whore — among the many local ones he’s added to his kennel — and why you shouldn’t trust a word printed in it about him.

We’ll also let you in on our demands to US attorneys and DAs to invesitage and report back on the British subject in the US on a visa and Why? the US granted a visa and authorization to a perv to operate a sex business in the US!!! Are we that hard up for businesses that the United States State Department and the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (Homeland Security) grant visas for pervs to operate their sex businesses in the US? SHAME ON YOU!

 

 

Why You Should Avoid Ravena-Coeymans and New Baltimore, New York

Among so many other scandals and secrets, we now learn thru the media that the depressed village Ravena in the depraved Town of Coeymans (New York) may be getting garbage from Connecticut. Long-time polluter and environmental disaster LaFarge cement may be accepting tons of Connecticut garbage for burning in Ravena! According to an article in Hudson Valley 360, the online version of the Register Start and the Daily Mail, “A proposal is under consideration in the state of Connecticut that if enacted, could bring 116,000 tons of trash to the LafargeHolcim cement plant for burning each year.” Of course, everyone from the Lafarge spokesperson to corrupt Coeymans Town Supervisor Phil Crandall and his lackey, town board member Tom Dolan, plead ignorant, “We are not informed.” But the plan, according to the media, means that the Ravena plant could be burning 116,000 tons of solid waste every year in the near future. But local officials know nothing about this, of course. Aren’t they supposed to be aware of what’s going on in the town? (When the construction of the new kilns was announced nothing was said about burning garbage!)

[Read more at: Connecticut’s trash may be headed to Lafarge (Hudson Valley 360), and at Proposed solid waste removal plan could mean Conn. waste comes to Ravena (News 10 online)]

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Infrastructure is crumbling. Real estate is plummeting and deteriorating. Tax base is dwindling. The ignorant still elect the ignorant…

Coeymans has a disgraced former town justice (Phil Crandall (D), Coeymans Town Supervisor), at least two former prison guards (guess what their attitude is to dissent or opinions), and a known bully used car salesman (Jim Youmans (D)), plus their cronies and friends (Cindy Rowzee (D), Crandall’s former “confidential secretary,” as Town Clerk, in key town government positions. Coeymans Town Hall has become the backwater, hill town version of corrupt Tamany Hall.

 New Baltimore has an illiterate, barely high-school educated, but highly paid dolt, Denis Jordan (D), with no formal training training  and no continuing education course, serving as Town Superintendent of Highways (Denis Jordan). Jordan ignores the New Baltimore Town Board and the New Baltimore Town Board — even though they have a Repubican majority on the board –— takes it up the bottom and does nothing to discipline Jordan or to protect residents and their property from Jordan’s incompetence.

When the New Baltimore Town Supervisor complained of anal irritation, this x-ray showed what appears to be Denis Jordan’s foot.

There’s little or no hope for justice in these backwater towns, either. It’s no wonder, though. The New York State Unified Court System (everything but unified) and New York state law requires a town justice to have only a high-school equivalency education and does not require legal training to be a town or village justice. The fact that town and village justices are elected locally, and because the standards for education and training of the judges are so abysmally low, the courts in the area are just as corrupt as the town boards, and local law enforcement. In the Greene County town of Cairo, one town justice, Leland Miller, takes his orders from the attorneys appearing in the court. So much for judicial impartiality. And New Baltimore has two incompetent town justices (Joseph A. Farrell Jr and Thomas J. Meacham, highly questionable ethics and courtroom conduct). Coeymans town supervisor Phillip Crandall, was removed from the bench and forced to resign from his elected position as a town justice and had to promise never to run for judicial office again! A judge disgraced for doing illegal favors for friends. But he then ran for the office of Coeymans town supervisor and was elected! And in 2017 re-elected by Coeymans voters!!! So Coeymans thinks that a dishonest town justice makes a great Town Supervisor? Apparently!

Incest may be illegal everywhere but in Ravena-Coeymans, shyster Michael Biscone can fix it for you.

Ravena doesn’t fare much better when it comes to a village court. Harold “Hal” Warner, a former Albany cop who was taken off the street because of civil rights abuses, and put behind a desk until he could collect his pension — That’s how they do it locally: We take our criminals out of the public’s eye, put them somewhere until they can collect their pensions! There’s a lot of local incest and Ravena, apart from its inbred native population, practices incest in public office, too. Old judge “civil rights abuser” Hal Warner’s wife, Nancy Warner, is a “village trustee” — we wouldn’t trust her with a bowl of cat food; she’d probably want to sell it — The village court is supervised by Mrs Hal, who, by the way would hyphenate her name as Biscone-Warner; she’s a member of a local incest tribe, the Biscones, who appear in public either as crooked real estate agents (Josephine Bruno) selling you local dump properties or as corrupt lawyers (Michael Biscone) who do your real estate work for you with their cousins, the real estate agents. Incest may be illegal everywhere but in Ravena-Coeymans, Michael Biscone can fix it for you. (Michael Biscone’s claim to partial masculinity, — he hasn’t seen that part of his anatomy in decades — is the fact that he claims to drive a “Bentley,” a fact he won’t let locals forget. He’s apparently on everyone’s payroll both over the table and under the table.)

When Coeymans Town Supervisor Phil Crandall complained of similar anal irritation, the x-ray showed his head inserted into his rectum!

Elected government? Forget about it. Where Coeymans has a pack of crooks on their board, New Baltimore has a one-party system for supervisor, and other elected offices: The No-Balls Party. Houses are going up for sale in unbelievable numbers in Ravena, Coeymans and New Baltimore. Property owners can’t get out of these backwater towns fast enough. What doesn’t sell gets either burned down or demolished. It’s a ghost town in the making.

Infrastructure is crumbling. Real estate is plummeting and deteriorating. Tax base is dwindling and the tax burden is falling on the few who are attempting to ride out the storm of mismanagement, corruption, and general incompetence in local government. And you wonder why?

Ravena’s mayor, William “Mouse” Misuraca, was elected by his bar room buddies and bar customers.

What can we say about the village of Ravena? Well, not much. What applies to the Town of New Baltimore and the Town of Coeymans applies equally well to the village of Ravena and the Hamlet of Coeymans. Incompetence, apathy, ignorance, anxiety, crumbling infrastructure, corruption, croneyism, empty storefronts, hemorrhaging businesses and population. Absolutely no vision in village hall. Ravena’s mayor, William “Mouse” Misuraca, was elected by his bar room buddies and customers — the mayor owns one of the local bars — and previously had tax problems so he qualified for local elected office. He’s done nothing for Ravena but plenty for his bar business: Everyone likes to have the mayor pouring his liquor, opening his bottle of beer. His honor William “Mouse” Misuraca! You can’t make this stuff up, people!

Vote for Mayor Mouse Misuraca (or buy 10 beers) and get a Mouse shirt!

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Law enforcement in the Town of Coeymans and the Town of New Baltimore can easily be called “Cold Case Criminal Investigation” because you can hand the Coeymans Police Department and the Greene County Sheriff the hottest of evidence and they’ll let it chill until it goes cold. Chilling a case takes less effort and is less expensive than working it, maybe even prosecuting it. But then, the Albany County District Attorney, racist P. David Soares, and the Greene County District Attorney, Joe “Stagnant” Stanzione, as the chief law-enforcement officers in their counties, play the party game, they’re logrollers, country-club members in their respective parties. Don’t rock the boat! Don’t go after friends of “friends.” And you’ll likely be elected for life. Same thing for Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple and Green County Sheriff Greg Seeley, who both play by the party’s rules and stay in office. Corruption? Do ya think so?

Search this blog. For more than five (5) years we’ve been investigating and reporting on the craziness in Ravena, Coeymans, New Baltimore. We have hundreds of thousands of readers. State and local government officials, even the FBI, read this blog, yet the situation gets worse and worse with each election! Why is that we have to ask?

“I don’t get involved in local politics.”

The ignorance is staggering. When discussing — rather attempting to discuss — the local situation with a fairly evolved local (We know that because he was walking on his hind legs, upright!), he responded: “I don’t get involved in local politics.” Well that explains a lot!

It’s a pitiful situation but no one wants to admit the fact that we are in a crumbling, corrupt and indifferent vicious cycle of political parties, NO!, not parties, one political party the Self-Serving Party (or in the service of the Corporations, who then show their “appreciation”). Our politicians, or more accurately, our local wannabe politicians hold carrots on a stick dangling in front of the dumbass sheep (local residents, “potential” voters), and the dumbass sheep (We repeat: local residents, “potential” voters), follow the carrot wherever the lying sacks of dung (= our local wannabe politicians) want them to move. The fascist political party committees pick the candidates and the voters can make their choice between two or more evils, the final choice being evil by default. That’s what our democracy has become. And you sing your stupid carols and shout Happy Holidays, ringing in a New Year with depravity and debauchery, making resolutions you have no intention of keeping — and you try to deny that the coming year, the New Year, will be different from the Old Year. You’ve been deceived so often for so long that you’ve gotten to the point of deceiving yourself, and you don’t even know it. Business as usual in 2018. And Town Hall butters their bread while telling the starving masses, “Eat cake!”

Can you find yourself in this group photo?

The mob has control of the entire floor of Town Hall

When you look back on 2017, do I have to spell it out for you? What do you see? Well, in 2015 Coeymans elected a bunch of recycled losers to occupy Coeymans town hall. Phil Crandall and his mob of morons, Jim Youmans, Tom Dolan, all losers, made life miserable for the decent public servants, Coeymans Police Chief P.J. McKenna and Town Clerk Diane Millious. In 2017, Crandall was re-elected (or was he?) by the Coeymans villain voters. Crandall’s “confidential secretary,” Cindy Rowzee,  was elected by those same villainous voters to take over the Town Clerk’s office. Diane Millious after more than a quarter century serving the Coeymans community had had enough, had suffered enough abuse from Crandall and Youmans, two scurrilous bullies, and had shed enough tears.So they drove an honest town clerk out and installed a fixture from the corrupt supervisor’s office. Now the mob has control of the entire floor of Town Hall.

The Coeymanites handed their community over to the Coeymanazis!

The Hamlet of Coeymans is a social welfare slum. Run down buildings, abandoned buildings. Buildings being demolished at an alarming rate. Lost tax base; overtaxing those who are stupid enough to remain in what is a textbook example of the American third world in the making. Corrupt Town Hall, abuse of power, and a cowering community. Guess who’s to blame? The Coeymanites handed their community over to the Coeymanazis!

New Baltimore is just as bad. The Democrats served themselves and their friends for years. Now it’s the Republican’s turn. We say Democrats and Republicans but they are the same. For the past 4 years New Baltimore has been the Republican’s sandbox and they’ve done absolutely nothing to benefit taxpayers. The New Baltimore Town Board has proven that the fish stinks from the head down. New Baltimorons can pay their taxes to pay the freaks in the Highway Department to ruin their property, to devalue their real estate, even to create dangerous situations and then refuse to correct their defective work. The New Baltimore Town Board has the wherewithal to correct the situation — New York State Town Law actually gives the Board considerable power over the Highway Department — but when you got no balls and you have an incompetent town attorney advising you, the community suffers, that is, what’s left of the community.

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Editor’s Note: In our article New Baltimore Elections: No Choice. The Sequel.(Nov. 4, 2017) We called on New Baltimore voters to protest all unopposed candidates by withholding their votes for unopposed candidates. Again on November 6, 2017, we repeated our call for New Baltimore voters to withhold their votes for unopposed candidates (Election Day Recommendations. This is the moment of Truth!); we advised New Baltimore voters simply not to give unopposed candidates the numbers. On November 7, 2017, we published the election results for New Baltimore (Congratulations, New Baltimore! You did good!). Those results showed more than one-third of ballots cast did not vote for an unopposed candidate. Those numbers sent a very strong protest message to those candidates. It was a great response to our call to withhold votes from unopposed candidates and not to give them the numbers! One third of New Baltimore residents who voted did not vote for an unopposed candidate! Bravo for those voters! Then, in our article, Complacency is a Bad Thing…Especially in Local Government, published on November 10, 2017, we put local, county, and state officials on notice that we would be watching and reporting, warning that complacency and indifference would not be accepted, warning them to be on their guard. This article is to show that we have not let our guard down; we still have your back, neighbors!

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New Baltimore Town Board Meeting

New Baltimore would rather sit back and let their insurance company attorneys f**k with New Baltimore taxpayers

Even the higher state courts expect the Town Boards to take care of their own dirty laundry and to keep their incompetence out of the court system but New Baltimore would rather sit back and let their insurance company attorneys f**k with New Baltimore taxpayers — unless you’re a friend of New Baltimore Highway Superintendent Denis Jordan or, as the incumbent Republicans like to say, “Republicans take care of Republicans” — You pay your taxes and the town of New Baltimore uses the money to screw you, while taking their salaries, and padding their pensions. You get to pay attorneys until your money runs out and your home collapses around you. They’ll ruin your property but they’ll still send you a hefty tax bill. And you’ll still be liable for their debt service. Complain? Sure. They’ll send a letter telling you you have to appear before some board months later! But you’d better not be late paying your taxes! Or your dog license, they’ll hit you with a $5 surcharge or threaten you with court action. Small town government at its best!

Don’t give Coeymans Police trainee Amanda L. Mueller any attitude! Hooters in Coeymans PD!

A bunch of kids in uniform with too much power (little authority), and a bunch of bored, ignorant geezers “supervising” them…

Local Coeymans police department rookies go for the quick and the easy: traffic passing through their territories, while a blind eye is given to criminals and obstruction of justice within the department. Serious cases go cold because of indifference and incompetence in the police department. But seriously, can we expect more of boys and girls who are barely out of puberty, still have identity problems, have barely an education, no life experience, no real ability to make good decisions, and you put them in a uniform, pin a badge on them, give them a gun and IT’S PARTY TIME BACK IN HIGHSCHOOL BULLY LAND!!! That’s what we have in Coeymans right now: a bunch of kids in uniform with too much power (little authority), and a bunch of bored, ignorant geezers “supervising” them. Lord save us from ourselves…and our police!!! (See our article on Amanda L. Mueller, local rookie bully cop, at Coeymans Police Turning Into Coeymans Gestapo Again?)

Coeymans: Save money. Put children in uniform, turn them loose on the community.

The antiqaited, obsolete and incompetent town and village court system is a collection of ignorant, just barely high-school educated hicks in black robes, elected by their friends until they are sanctioned, censured, or removed by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct.

Mayor “Mouse” Misuraca
Village of Ravene, NY

Ravena is run by a local bar tender/gin mill owner, so-called mayor Bill “Mouse” Misuraca. Coeymans is run by a disgraced town justice, Phil Crandall, and several recycled politicians. Crandall, Coeymans town supervisor, was removed from his elected judgeship for ethics violations and doing favors for his friends. New Baltimore is a shambles, run by a bunch of balless board members, who can’t even get the town highway superintendent to keep reasonable records. New Baltimore has become a one-party town, where several elected officials, including the town supervisor, were “voted” into office this past election; the problem is that they were unopposed! There was no other candidate to choose! Local democratic process at work. (BTW, it was the Democratic party that was unable to cough up an opponent to the Republican incumbents.) Misuraca’s campaign slogan was lifted directly from the GOP (Republican) National Committee’s slogan, “Committed to Community,” but his administration is more committed to Misuraca’s bar room ego than to any notion of “community.” His campaign couldn’t even come up with a decent campaign slogan.

In the meanwhile, the infrastructure is crumbling and corruption abounds. New Baltimore Highway Superintendent Denis Jordan is doing favors for his friends using town equipment, but refusing to correct deficient and defective sewers and roads in the National Historic District.

Local Town Justice Presiding in Coeymans.
(George Dardiani or Thomas Frese (Dem))

Roads are shit, transportation is shit, local elected officials are shitheads and dumbasses, law enforcement are bullies or worse, judges are ignorant and the courts run by the lawyers. Ravena, Coeymans, New Baltimore have descended to below third world quality of life.

Local Town Justice Presiding in New Baltimore.
(Joseph Farrell or Thomas Meacham)

What left of families and what’s not “brown trash” or “white trash” is quickly vanishing as the children grow up, go on to their fake higher education, go deeply into debt for a third-rate education but can’t find jobs, struggle to pay back their student loans accrued for their third-rate education (generally because the academic standards in the RCS Central School District are so low, and the RCS CD Board of Education know nothing about education but love to spend money). Once the kids experience what it’s like in the outside world, no one has any plans to go back to their backwater hill-town home towns. They go elsewhere.

Local Village Justice in Ravena deciding a case.
(The notorious former Albany cop taken off the street and assigned a desk job for civil rights abuses, Harold Warner.)

As the children leave the area, what’s left are the parents, aging, miserable, and heavily taxed. Property taxes are some of the highest in the state and with the wild spending practices in the RCS school system — plenty of money for AstroTurf and sports field renovations, seasonal refreshment stand construction, and tennis courts but none for books — aging parents question the value of paying school taxes in a community where there are no children and for the third-world education for “brown” and “white” trash, or for snooty, “me-first” part-time parents (parents who split their time between their personal interests and parenting). The obvious solution: people are selling their homes and moving to areas where, if they must pay high taxes or taxes at all, they will at least get a reasonable quality of life and some public services in return.

The situation in the village of Ravena-, and the towns of Coeymans and New Baltimore merely reflect the general decline and the depressed atmosphere of the New York Capital Region. The whole region is, and has been for generations, rife with thievery and corruption. The corruption starts in the state capital, Albany, and from that nest of depravity, extends its loathesome tentacles out to surrounding communities, even crossing county lines into Schenectady, Rensselaer, Greene counties. It’s a mess.

The entire area has turned into a hippo farm

The unfortunate fact that the Ravenese, the Coeymanites, and the New Baltimorons (a term coined to describe their neighbors by Ghoul’s Gulch denizen, Joan Ross a.k.a. “Cut-and-Paste” Joan and her partner in vileness, “Bitter Bob” Ross, imports from depraved Albany) have to admit is that they owe all their problems and misfortunes to their ignorance and apathy. They could have it much better if they’d simply take an interest in their community instead of complaining and turning into ugly hippos. Yes, dear readers, The entire area has turned into a hippo farm. Depression leads to many things and one of them is a lousy diet, lack of ambition, and obesity.

Two locals having a chat

Ravena and Coeymans is a veritable hippo farm, a breeding ground for every ailment, mental and physical, that accompanies a depressed and apathetic community. And Albany Medical Center is right there to open up yet another EmUrgent Care location, the Walmart of the American healthcare system, where you can go and sit and wait to be seen by an incompetent physician’s assistant who will give you what you are looking for, a fake diagnosis and a prescription, you’ll pay and be on your way. Everyone’s happy: you got your fake diagnosis and prescription, the EmUrgent Care staff got their numbers and are rid of you until your condition worsens and you return for the ambulance ride to the Albany Medical Center emergency department where you will wait 14-20 hours to get a bed and, if you don’t die there, you’ll be dumped out on the street in a couple of days with another fake diagnosis and another useless prescription. Best healthcare system in the world — or so they tell us.

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The Bigger Picture

How we got here; where we’re going from here.

Life in the United States has become highly confused and superficial. Confused because the population is bombarded with conflicting and contradicting information from all sides, particularly the media. A general atmosphere of fear and anxiety is foisted upon the American people by everyone from the POTUS on down. Fear of North Korea. Fear of guns. Fear of shooters. Fear of aging. Fear of the cold and flu season. Fear of this or that product. Fear of the weather. Fear of fear.

The anxiety actually starts with fear of failure. Parents and the education system has failed to teach the value of failure as a learning tool. The result has been a downward spiral of expectations and standards to the extent that the education lie has become a reality. The young people graduating from our schools are dirt dumb. But they do know how to thumb-type and how to conceal a weapon so they can shake things up at school.

Albany High School. Once a place of learning the largely minority high school has become a place of violence, criminality, and police presence!

Take as an example the recent student fight phenomenon (See: Update: Albany High will close Friday after fights spilled into street) or weapons in school (See: Student with gun is arrested), as happened recently in Albany High School (Albany,, New York), a huge collection of kids of color (a fancy term for blacks and mixed-race youth) coming from disordered and angry homes, mostly single parent households, if that, who bring their anger and loneliness to school and start shooting or brutalizing each other. Once the shooting starts, the stampedes start. It was all caught on film and broadcast for all to see a week ago. The new entertainment, it seems. The new United States it is. Soon, the government’s first phase of destroying American values will have been concluded: those poorly educated, angry, young people will be churned out into a world that disparages them, a jobless world, a world full of the wrong passions and addictions, and they will likely perpetuate their anger and misery. They will all be churned out not with competencies and confidence but a sense of arrogance and entitlement; self-destructive and depleting.

George Orwell painted a very accurate picture of the world back in 1948, when he penned his prophetic novel, “1984.” It’s all coming true. Then there was Aldous Huxley’s novel “Brave New World,” and  the film “Soylent Green.”

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Editor’s Note: Since our schools do not teach literature any longer, and people don’t read real books, being too wrapped up with Facebook and Twitter, truncated, abbreviated virtuality, I’m going to proved a brief synopsis of these novels for our readers:

Brave New World (Aldous Huxley, 1932). The author describes a world, in which citizens are engineered through artificial wombs and childhood indoctrination programs into predetermined classes (or castes) based on intelligence and labor. Lenina Crowne, a hatchery worker, is popular and sexually desirable, but Bernard Marx, a psychologist, is not. He is shorter in stature than the average member of his high caste, which gives him an inferiority complex. His work with sleep-learning allows him to understand, and disapprove of, his society’s methods of keeping its citizens peaceful, which includes their constant consumption of a soothing drug called soma. Courting disaster, Bernard is vocal and arrogant about his criticisms, and his boss contemplates exiling him to Iceland because of his nonconformity. His only friend is Helmholtz Watson, a gifted writer who finds it difficult to use his talents creatively in their pain-free society.

Nineteen-Eighty-Four (“1984”) (George Orwell, 1948).  As literary political fiction and dystopian science-fiction, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a classic novel in content, plot, and style. Many of its terms and concepts, such as Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak, Room 101, telescreen, 2 + 2 = 5, and memory hole, have entered into common use since its publication in 1949 (A complete glossary of “Newspeak“can be found at Newspeak. Nineteen Eighty-Four popularized the adjective Orwellian, which describes official deception, secret surveillance, brazenly misleading terminology, and manipulation of recorded history by a totalitarian or authoritarian state. There’s a great online study guide for “1984” but we think it might be interesting for our readers to first check out the Themes page. It’s an interesting read.

Soylent Green (Film directed by Richard Fleischer, 1973). The 20th century’s industrialization led to overcrowding, pollution and global warming due to the greenhouse effect. In 2022, 40 million people live in New York City; housing is dilapidated; homeless people fill the streets; many are unemployed; those few with jobs are only barely scraping by and food and working technology are scarce with most of the population surviving on rations produced by the Soylent Corporation. Their latest product is Soylent Green, a green wafer advertised to contain “high-energy plankton” from the World Ocean, more nutritious and palatable than its predecessors “Red” and “Yellow” but in short supply. The main characters are New York City Police Department detective Frank Thorn, who lives with his aged friend and police analyst, Solomon “Sol” Roth. Fast foward to the end: Roth is so disgusted with his degraded life in a degraded world that he seeks assisted suicide at a government clinic. Thorn rushes to stop him, but arrives too late. Roth is mesmerized by the euthanasia process’ visual and musical montage – extinct forests, wild animals, rivers and ocean life. Before dying, he tells Thorn his discovery (that Soylent Green is made from human beings) and begs him to expose the truth. Thorn boards a human disposal truck to the disposal center, where he sees the human corpses converted into Soylent Green, but is spotted and has to flee. Returning to make his report, he is ambushed by Fielding and others. In the ensuing firefight, Thorn kills his attackers but is himself wounded. When Hatcher (Thorn’s supervisor) arrives, Thorn tells him what he has discovered and urges him to tell the researchers so that they can make a case against Soylent and to spread the truth about Soylent Green. Hatcher promises that he will. Thorn is taken away by paramedics, shouting out: “Soylent Green is people!”

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The apathy and anxiety are fatal to the community. The root cause is that people see so much wrong and wrong-doing, and our elected officials and office holders don’t seem to care, they are indifferent and for the most part incompetent due to inexperience or lack of education and training. Elected office has become an ego enhancement or a way to acquire power and influence and is even used against the voters, taxpayers and property owners. It seem that our elected officials quickly become the enemy and the oppressors, not the promised benefactors we speak to when they’re campaigning.

You’re drowning and you don’t get out of the water? That’s malfunction!

Over the passage of time, just as any disease process, the sufferer becomes tolerant of the pain and discomfort and learns to live with it for better or for worse. That’s what’s happened in our communities and that’s what’s happening across the nation.

You allow your kids to play violent games and shed virtual blood, they become tolerant and insensitive to violence. You allow yourself to spend hours a day on Facebook while you avoid doing more worthwhile things or even necessary things, and you become tolerant to being irresponsible and inefficient; in fact, you become addicted. You allow your elected officials to take you, the voter for granted, you allow them to do as they please while in office with no accountability or transparency, you allow them to treat you with disrespect, you soon become tolerant of it and you get more of the same. Business as usual. But the effect on you is fatal: you lose your dignity, you become apathetic, and your self-esteem plummets. Same things happen to entire communities, to entire nations. It’s happening right now.

The women’s answer to being unable to cope in a “men’s world:” sexual harassment.

The confusion is infiltrating every space in our lives. One example is the confusion we now face regarding the once clearly defined question of gender, and the acceptable behavior between the genders. When the male-female roles were clearer, that is, in the generations where men were men and women were women, there was respect and certainty. The man was the provider and protector, the woman was the nurturer and the educator. Now men are still expected to be men, but women have insisted on invading the previously men’s world, but the women don’t want a level playing field. They want the rules changed: they want to assume male roles but want to keep the advantages associated with being a woman. They want to enter the male world but can’t play the game by the same rules. We now have the women’s answer to being unable to cope in a men’s world: sexual harassment. Whenever a woman feels inadequate or unable to cope, she bounces back with a claim of sexual harassment. If you can’t cope or play by the rules, then just be a victim. Victim is in. But this scenario causes a great deal of confusion because no one feels trusted or safe any more; the result is anxiety everywhere. And that’s just one example of the myriad confusion and anxiety situations. The mistrust of women and the feminist agenda has even affected some men’s desire to even get involved with women, who are now perceived as adversaries, unnatural, predators, opportunists, freaks. Those men might very well be right in their diagnosis of such confused gender benders as many women have become. The Orwellian stigma attached to any charge of “sexual harassment” by any psycho no matter when the alleged event may have occurred, has reached a troubling peak at this writing. A defense is nearly impossible; the merest allegation is politically annihilating. It’s just one of the many diseases of our current culture.

So now you know the facts. What are you going to do about it? How are you going to improve your life, your community, the nation in 2018?

 

Got any Answers?
The Editor

 

 

$46 Million Dollar School Budget Passed – One Backwoods School District

Voters a.k.a. “residents” approved a local RCS Central School District school budget of almost $46 million dollars. That’s more than the total budgets of several surrounding townships combined! Voters a.k.a. “residents” who passed the budget are largely non-property owners but the property owners foot the bill. What’s more, local government has caved to demands that local corporations get their tax breaks and reduced assessments. Again, local tax burden falls on the shoulders of local property owners. The local area is falling apart and so is the quality of education because we’re educating those who don’t have an appreciation for education and who likely don’t even use it later; they just don’t come from a background that encourages working or learning. So why do we keep spending and spending and spending? We don’t make the necessary adjustments, we just tax more and spend more. Why is that?

You’re still doing it! So we’re here to tell you how…

$45,829,423 budget for the 2017-18 school year!?! That’s more than local town budgets combined! And you wonder why your roads suck? You wonder why your drinking water is toxic and brown? You wonder why crime is rampant and the police do little or nothing to bring in the criminals? You wonder why you can’t make ends meet? But don’t you wonder why your kids act like brain dead morons? Why they can’t read? Why they can’t spell? Why they can’t hold a discussion?

Has anyone ever asked the students — the one’s with the lights on and someone home in their heads — what they think of their education, of their teachers? Times Union, News Herald, Daily News, W10, W13? Has any of the media given a thought to ask students about what they think of their education? Well, it would have to be cleverly done — and that rules out Times Union, News Herald, Johnson Newspaper Group, Daily News, W10 and W13, practically all Capital District media — and it would ideally include past graduates, who would be more likely to be truthful and say where RCS education got them. Current students would be fearful of teacher or student retaliation if they were to be interviewed and identified. That’s the way it has been and continues to be in the RCS Central School District, and is very likely the same situation throughout this third-world, backwoods hole in the earth. (Great place for woodchucks, though.)

We did an informal survey and found that several past graduates agreed that “one in fifteen teachers was any good and cared for students.” Others simply hated RCS and refused to participate even in 10 year class reunions. One RCS teacher with 23 years teaching said that he couldn’t wait to retire, “They have millions for astroturf but no money for books for my AP students! I’m history as soon as I can retire.” A history of pitiful graduation rates, low student and teacher morale, and spending seem to characterize local schools, especially spendthrift RCS.

Why don’t we ask the one’s who know?

If past history is anything to judge by, we have a pattern of fewer property owners (those who pay) and a growing number of social service recipients, senior citizens (those who can’t afford to leave), and transients (those who don’t pay), as well as a decline in taxable businesses, and an increase in pandering to local large corporations (who get “corporate welfare”) who want and get tax breaks but don’t create jobs and don’t contribute to tax revenues. So the misinformation provided by propaganda machines like the Times Union, News Herald, and other local media, flash such titles as “School budgets sail to approval”(Times Union, May 19, 2016) reporting also that “districts were mostly able to avoid huge tax hikes in their 2016-17 budgets thanks to a large increase in state aid.” Really? If that’s last year’s situation, why the increase this year?

The previous year, the Times Union article, “Voters Happy With Budgets” (May 19, 2015) reports that “Voter turnout was typically slim with many school board candidates running unopposed. Albany saw 72 percent of voters who showed up to vote offer support for the school budget. In 2015 Albany passed a $234 million budget that carried no tax increase. Schenectady passed a $177 million budget that will actually decrease the tax levy 0.21 percent. The report goes on to say that “on average, Capital Region schools are prepared to spend and tax more than other districts around the state. Spending is poised to rise 2.87 percent at schools across the region next year (compared to 2.1 percent statewide), while tax levies will increase an average of 0.95 percent (compared to 0.7 percent statewide). That was 2015.

The pattern continues in RCS. 2017-18 budget passed by voters Residents of Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk took to the polls Tuesday, May 16, approving a $45.8 million budget for the 2017-18 school year, as well as the bus purchase proposition and community library vote. Voter turnout was typically slim (less than 1000 voters, down from previous years) with school board candidates running unopposed.

The local school district got approval to purchase school buses for the year ahead and create additional teaching positions. New technology purchases, like Chromebooks and iPads, were also high on the budgets, as well as a bigger investment in professional development for teachers. More technology, less learning, more cyberkids and sheeple. What a plan for Big Brother!

Local politicians, including the RCS School Board, are like maggots eating us alive.

Corporate Welfare. Lowered assessment for Selkirk Cogen to affect RCS homeowners (May 5, 2017). The RCS Central School District website reports: “One noticeable difference for taxpayers will be increased tax rates for the 2017-18 year, due to a lowered tax assessment for local business Selkirk Cogen. The district does not control home or business assessments, however, taxes collected from those [private] assessments act as revenue for the district.” This is purest propaganda. These businesses come to this area, destroy our historically beautiful landscapes, poison our air and our water, demand tax breaks at the expense of property owners and small business, drive out local residents and businesses, shift the tax burden to local property owners. They promise prosperity and jobs, which our local hillbilly elected officials gobble up like hungry hogs, and don’t deliver. In fact, the trend is to automate operations, leaving the really dirty jobs to low-paid black-collar workers. Now that’s a real vision for the future. Our economic geniuses hard at work for the corporations, while burying us!

According to a RCS school board member : “As a district, we have no control over assessments,” school board member James Latter said. “it’s unfortunate the reduced assessment has an effect on our resident taxpayers, we are thankful for businesses like Selkirk Cogen. It’s businesses like these that often pay large sums of school taxes, taking some of the burden off our residents.” Contradiction here, Mr Latter? Read that quote again! He’s double-talking. And that’s the kind of dumbass RCS voters put on the school board! 

That kind of pass-the-buck double talk is characteristic of weasel Jim Latter, who is an employee of a Saudi-owned corporation in Feura Bush, so we know where his loyalties lie. He’s not going to be honest and tell it like it is: He’s going to spend, spend, spend and then blame the tax hikes on the local town administrations! Of course he’s thankful to Cogen and to his Saudi keepers, they sign his checks.  But it’s his talking out of both sides of his mouth that irks us most. You see, they preach austerity and fiscal responsibility but they don’t practice what they preach.

We’d like to know where the money came from for the sports field refreshment stand that is not used for 6-8 months of the year? The RCS Sports Association was to have paid for it but they couldn’t raise the money. Anybody hear where the rest of the money came from? Anyone care to guess? We all know. But the question is still: If we have so many youth sports associations and groups in the area, why does the school district have to have million dollar playing fields. Is the RCS community that rich? We know it’s falling apart and dirty. We know that our elected swine are handing our community to killer trucks, heavy truck traffic, dust devils, and our roads are tuning into mini-Grand Canyons. We know our students are coming out of RCS schools stupid. We know that there’s money for jocks but no money for books and brain programs. We know the teachers are getting paid very well, get incredible benefits and get paid professional enhancements. We know that 75-80% of the budget goes to salaries and benefits. What else do you know but won’t admit?

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Heres a contribution from one of our readers that should get you thinking:

I was working out at the Glenmont Planet Fitness when a group of about 4-6 boys gathered around one of the equipment. One was on the phone and talking to “his brother”. When he had finished he asked the others whether they knew anyone who would “buy” for them. As the conversation went on it became clear that they needed alcohol for a group or a party that was going to happen in connection with the prom. They brainstormed for a little and made some calls, and then, apparently the problem was solved. Someone, one of the boys brothers, would make the purchase. These guys were obviously still in school at RCS and planning a party after the senior prom. They needed booze and found it. I wanted to give them a good talking to but the way they were acting, it would only have caused a scene and embarassed me. They were too ignorant to care, and their language didn’t make me think they had any brains.

I thought about one of the blogs recent articles about the accident on 144 when Logan Penzabene was creamed and his buddy seriously injured. I remember the quotes from local law enforcement, and then there’s Cuomo’s campaign. I lthought how right you were in that article. Then I saw this one and everything got clear. It’s all smoke and mirrors around here.

Not two weeks after a fatal accident and these knuckleheads are looking for alcohol. What? Isn’t the prom enough? I guess they’re so insecure they have to drink. So where are the parents? Do these kids still have parents? Do they know it? What’s up with all this law enforcement effort to curb these teen morons and their childish behavior? Where’s the school district and the teachers on this one? Where’s Cuomo’s campaign. They’re at Planet Fitness arranging for a booze delivery! I couldn’t believe my ears!

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Well, there you have it, “Not two weeks after a fatal accident and these knuckleheads are looking for alcohol. ” Maybe the RCS school district can get a discount on the grief counseling they provide after the fact. Is that in the budget? Plenty of money to spend but none to spend wisely.

Less than 1 in 5 persons in Coeymans eligible to vote actually voted in the budget vote! And they weren’t property owners voting for a tax increase, we know that for sure!

Coeymans has a population of about 7500 persons with 13% over 65 years of age. In 2010 there were approximately 3000 housing units in Coeymans, of which 70% were owner occupied (the tax base). 91% of residents 25 years old or older are high-school graduates but only 1 in 5 has a bachelor’s degree (they graduated high school but either couldn’t get into a 4-year college or didn’t try)! Of those employed, they travel an average of 26 minutes to work (Obviously they don’t work locally. Where would they work?) Half of the population earns less than $55,500 a year, and there’s a 10% poverty rate. About one quarter of Coeymans residents is under 18 years of age; 13% are over 65 years old. OK. Let’s do some old-fashioned math: 25% of Coeymans are under 18 so they can’t vote. That leaves 75% of Coeymans residents who can vote, or 5,675 eligible voters. Let’s say, just for argument’s sake, that only 5000 are legally registered and can actually vote. The numbers for the budget vote show only about 900 total votes were cast on May 16, 2017. that means that less than 1 in 5 eligible voters actually voted (This is probably less, considering that parts of New Baltimore in Greene County could participate in the voting!). This is even more alarming because if we can believe the US census data, 70% of the some 3000 housing units in the town of Coeymans are owner occupied, meaning that they are property owners and foot the tax bill. That’s about 2,100 voters, at least, who should have showed up to vote on the budget! How many property owners do you know who would vote for a tax increase? So you can guess who the majority of the about 600 votes were, who voted for the budget and the tax increase, can’t you? Piss poor performance in our opinion! Are you proud of yourselves, Coeymanites.

“The impact of the reduced assessment will be reflected in September 2017 tax bills when residents will likely see an estimated tax rate increase between 4.5 and 6.5 percent (based on 2016 tax assessment figures), depending on town of residency.

The RCS Graduate:
Can’t draw, can’t spell, can’t count, can’t write,, can’t drive.
Can drink, can fornicate, can finger-fondle any electronic device.
Can get a social services check.

Local Corporations Get Tax Breaks; Property Owners Get a Tax Increase; Teachers Get Increases in Perks and Benefits; Students look forward to a lousy education; We all Get Shoddy Government by Incompetent Ego-maniacs; Our Roads Get Worse (Our idiot highway departments fill in potholes with sand today, pothole’s back tomorrow). The budget calls for an increase in total spending of 2.6 percent from the 2016-17 school year and a tax levy increase of 1.25 percent, which equals the district’s limit based on the state’s tax levy cap calculation. Translation: for a home valued at $150,000 with no STAR exemption this would lead to a projected tax increase of $195 for Bethlehem residents, $116 for Coeymans residents, $117 for New Scotland residents, and $153 for New Baltimore residents. Here’s what you get for your tax increaase:

• Local Corporations Get Tax Breaks
• Tax burden shifts to property owners and small businesses
• Property Owners Get a Tax Increase
• Teachers Get Increases in Perks and Benefits
• Students look forward to a lousy education
• We all Get Shoddy Government by Incompetent Ego-maniacs
• Our Roads Get Worse (Our idiot highway departments fill in potholes with sand today, pothole’s back tomorrow)
• You get less in the package for more in the manufacturer’s pocket (Do you ever read the labels of your coffee containers?)
• Welfare recipients get their cell phones, transportation, manicures, healthcare for free (Are you going to work today? Second job? Third job?)

Voters turned out in very low numbers, again. Even more alarming is that — even with the low turnout– there seems to be a bizarre pattern in the voting this year (similar to past years) With with the budget receiving 538 in favor and 294, the bus proposition 537 yes and 289 no; The RCS Community Library budget showed the same pattern of 593 in favor and 297. (RCS Central School District webpage, 2017-18 budget passed by voters, last accessed on May 17, 2017). Even more bizarre is that several of the local news reports repeat each other’s stories almost word for word!

The only good news coming out of this year’s budget vote was that the RCS Community Library vote passed with 593 in favor and 297 opposed. Residents also re-elected two candidates to the library board of trustees. Bravo! RCS Community Library! 

The only ones with half a brain appear to be the baby-boomers and they’re quickly disappearing from the area, leaving outright, or just dying. It appears anyone born after 1980 is a product of the materialist consumerism that haunts us today. Those born in and after the 1990’s are a total loss to their anxieties and greed. After 2000, they are either chemical or electronic addicts; orphans, really, and unable to articulate a sentence or even make change at the counter, even when the amount of change is displayed on a screen.

Your school tax dollars at work. Thank you.

Holy Scripture & Our Opinion
The Editor