Give and take

By Edie Johnson
MIDDLETOWN — Roxanne Donnery called her Republican opponent for Orange County Executive “one of the good old boys” and a “political operator.”

Steve Neuhaus retorted that his Democratic opponent was “a career protester” and “part of the problem of a paralyzed and bickering government.”

Such was part of the tenor of the second of three forums in the race for Orange County Executive, held Wednesday evening at Middletown High School.

At stake in the contest to succeed Republican Edward Diana is a host of unresolved issues. Those issues range from what to do with the Government Center in Goshen, how the county’s nursing home should be run, what kind of development should take place on the former Camp LaGuardia property the county now owns and other growth and economic issues that have frequently be caught and stalled between the will of the county executive and that of the county Legislature.

Donnery, the longtime county legislator from Highland Falls, and Neuhaus, the supervisor of the Town of Chester, covered many of these topics during the forum, which attracted about 200 people.

Here’s a sampling of their comments

Orange County Government Center

Donnery said the solution is clear. The Legislature voted for the option to renovate last February. The building is still closed “for no reason.”

To take the county building down would cost millions more than restoration. She said she visited other Rudolph buildings and engineers and that each of the other buildings had been restored rather than demolished.

Neuhaus said he was not as convinced about all renovation. Saying he had spoken with engineers as well, but the ones he spoke to had recommended rebuilding. Adding that he was willing to be flexible and “interested in engineering, not politics” he summed his position with a preference “to do more of the building ‘new’.”

A final report is due this week from the architect and engineering groups charged with the final plan and drawings that will show exactly how much will be demolished and how much will be rebuild.

Valley View
Donnery said her committee had discovered millions of dollars in waste in the way the Valley View Center for Nursing Care and Rehabilitation had been run and that it should be given at least a full year of funding to determine its potential to be run more economically. Since the special commission convened and a new administrator hired, millions have been saved, she said, and the occupancy is back up to 95 percent. Further savings, she said, could result from eliminating another unnecessary level of mid-management.

Neuhaus said that if economically possible, he “wants to keep it open.”

“The hiring of a new administrator made progress,” he said, “but that the facility’s problems are multi-faceted, including a major problem with the inequity that public facilities receive only a fraction of Medicare reimbursements as do public facilities.”

Neuhaus said that in addition to trying to streamline and make Valley View as well as other segments of the government more efficient and economical, “we need to send our representatives to Albany to lobby for changes so that reparations are fair, dollar for dollar.”

Economic development
Both candidates praised Middletown Mayor Joe DeStefano for the renovations and new building that have revitalized the city’s downtown. The Hoboken Film Festival was a big hit and has given new vitality to the arts in Orange County. Both promised to foster this increase in arts as part of their economic development plans.

Both praised the Orange County Partnership’s work in promoting new businesses and both emphasized the necessity to help the county’s three cities, and particularly to address crime and economic problems in Port Jervis and Newburgh.

“If we don’t make them safe,” Donnery said, “no one will come.” She proposed a portion of sales tax go toward increasing law enforcement so that business in these areas can prosper.

Neuhaus touted his long list of endorsements by police and sheriff departments and his comprehensive economic development plan. He said that he wants to help the arts to thrive as well, but has so far focused more on bringing businesses like C&S Grocers, Short Line and Satin Fine Foods to Chester.

His economic plan includes, as does Donnery’s, increasing the number of “shovel ready” sites and streamlining the process of building application and site approval for the many big businesses that are finding it easier to build outside of New York.

Camp LaGuardia
Asked how they saw future development for the 258-acre former homeless shelter in Chester, Neuhaus said he said that having grown up in Chester he remembers the days when the area was “plagued by criminals.”

It was an appreciated gift when the county purchased the property from NYC for $8.5 million, but local officials were thrust in a position of making quick decisions between three alternatives: a landlord known as the worst slumlord in New York, a college with 1,000 high density dorm units or a housing development that originally included a college and a good proportion of commercial good tax rateables.

Neuhaus said he thinks it is time to cancel the contract and work with the Orange County Partnership and County Planning Department to find mixed uses that will be right for the property, including a return of portions to agriculture and a select group of commercial pads.

Donnery said she had thought it would make a lovely college community, but had voted for Mountco because that is what the towns and Neuhaus wanted.

The issue, she added, “needs to be moved forward.”

“The big thing that was a mystery to me was finding out about the promise of sewer (by the county executive),” she said. “I blame it on a contract that we could never deliver on.”

Like Neuhaus, Donnery said the site needs to be get back on the tax rolls.

Kiryas Joel Pipeline
The Village of Kiryas Joel is building a pipeline to connect with the New York City Aqueduct in New Windsor.

With the Harriman plant at capacity and Chester not willing to build a second plant along the Blackmeadow Creek, the county has already started actions to expand the Harriman plant. But they are still without required extensive environmental impact studies, and developments already approved are waiting for promised capacity.

Donnery was so opposed to the KJ pipeline that she and her supporters parked their vehicles and stood in front of the construction until a court injunction forced them to stop.

Neuhaus added that “infrastructure is a crisis in Orange County.”

He said the county should go back to earlier plans of trying to grow regional water loops through the county water and planning departments. He also recommended a commission to study the pending sewage disposal issues.

“The KJ pipeline is bad planning, bad government,” Neuhaus said. “If I was county executive I would condemn it for county use.”

Next
Next Monday a third forum will be held at Newburgh Free Academy.