Sunlight Is the Best Disinfectant

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant,”

said Louis Brandeis way back in 1913 and it is still generally true today. While soap and alcohol might be more quickly effective against the corona virus there is nothing like shinning a light on the workings of government and corporations to improve performance.

Members of Saratoga County’s government got caught in a scheme to pay time and a half pay to some employees, administrators and (maybe) supervisors for showing up during the pandemic to work their non-overtime hours. When the press and the public heard about it and expressed their dismay the county government decided to take back the pay. Further information shows that many Supervisors were unaware of the initial decision, and didn’t have a say in the follow-up decision - and those party to the decision hadn’t followed established procedures – or at least can’t explain when they did what.

That’s what happens when there is little effort to follow the spirit of the Open Meetings Law! While Saratoga County follows the letter of the Open Meetings Law there is no real effort to actually let the public follow what is going on. Agendas are seldom available even 24 hours in advance of a meeting, and when you pick up an agenda at a meeting it is a list of resolution numbers with the briefest of descriptions.

During the regular meetings of the Board of Supervisors many supervisors don’t speak into their microphones, and the chair doesn’t call on Supervisors by name, so the public is hard pressed to follow what is going on.

Since the pandemic things have actually improved for the public wanting to observe a meeting because the supervisors are calling in to a conference call number and have to identify themselves before they speak or their colleagues and the transcript won’t know who they are. And the public has been provided with a listen in number so that they can hear what is going on without having to drive to Ballston Spa during the afternoon (which during normal times keeps the working public from attending).

The League has for many years called on the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors to provide a live video broadcast of their meetings. The City of Saratoga Springs has been providing real time video access to their meetings for many years – through both Republican and Democratic administrations – the County should follow their example!

Come to the Meetup: Saratoga County Government – Is It Working? To learn more about the way our county government operates. That’s on May 20th via Zoom.

Barb Thomas
May 11, 2020

Virtual Lunchtime Climate Discussion

Peter Iwanowicz, the Executive Director of Environmental Advocates of N.Y., spoke to the LWV via Zoom on April 29. He passionately explained the goals of the organization, thanked the LWV for its work on climate change and voting rights, and laid out a significant environmental plan for NY. Environmental Advocates works with many partners attempting to steer the legislature and governor to adopt green management of water quality, climate, land use etc. It promotes specific goals and time lines, such as elimination of styrofoam and plastic in restaurants and increased use of Electric buses. The main priorities for this year are:
A) Get $1 billion dollars in the state budget for our aging water infrastructure
B) Get $1 billion in the state budget to jumpstart an economy wide shift off fossil fuels
C) Advance solutions to the solid waste crisis.

In 2019 the legislature passed a record number of bills to protect the environment. The highlight was the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).

This bill is touted as the most far reaching law for Climate protection ever passed anywhere. The purpose is to move NYS to a carbon neutral economy by the year 2050. There are many intermediate dates and subgoals to be achieved along the way to make sure that we actually get to the final goal. It is also the first law to emphasize social justice and the right to a healthy environment. CLCPA provides for a Climate Action Team, representing various constituencies, to be appointed to lay out a blueprint to reach those goals. Peter was appointed to the Committee by the Governor. He reported that he is one of two of the 23 people on the Climate Action Council who was appointed to represent the general public. He welcomes questions and ideas at 518-528-5080 or peteriwanowicz@eany.org.

Although the CLCPA has passed both houses of the Legislature and been signed by the Governor, it has only begun to be funded. There will be a large Bond Act to be voted on at the November Election. This will give the general public a chance to show their support/or lack thereof for environmental protection. Peter talked about large amounts for the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) where we are partnering on projects with neighboring states, $550 million for Land Conservation and $700 million for climate change mitigation. In responding to an observation that, in the past, these funds have been raided to balance the budget and in light of the huge deficit from the COVID-19 pandemic crisis what can we expect? His response was that, the hope is, this money will be treated as stimulus funds to provide jobs and rebuild the economy similar to what was done following The Great Depression. It is hoped that the 2021 budget continues the State’s leadership on, and commitment to , meeting its long-term climate and clean energy goals in ways that will create and maintain jobs in New York when today’s public health crisis has abated.

Peter responded to many questions including: where electric energy comes from, stating that nuclear and biofuels have many negatives. He compared the true value of fossil fuel energy— we actually benefit from about 25% of what is produced, compared to 75% of solar, wind, etc. He talked about making the siting of electric generating stations more local to reduce the large amount of energy lost by long distance transmission. He gave us a vision of using batteries of electric vehicles to store solar energy during off peak hours.

Peter’s presentation was galvanizing for those of us who watched. Where should we go from here?

For more information on CLCPA go to its website: climate.NY.gov

This will help to understand the bill, follow its progress and you may sign up for email updates

Joanna Lasher

LWV Launches Remote the Vote

Francine Rodger just keeps coming up with good ideas. Her latest brainchild is Remote the Vote. It’s a way for our League to continue the vital work of getting people registered and getting them to the polls –even as we stay safe by practicing social distancing.

The way that Remote the Vote will work is that each week LWVSC will put out a message on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter highlighting a city or town in our county, highlighting how many people they could register and giving them an online method to get registered.

We will be sending an email blast to our members living in the targeted municipality, asking them to share the social media with their friends and neighbors.

Using population projections from the Capital District Regional Planning Commission and the number of registered voters in each municipality (provided by the Saratoga County Board of Elections) Francine has figured out that there are about 35,000 Saratoga County residents who aren’t registered to vote. Remote the Vote could put a big dent in that number.

Francine says, “Social media is a great multiplier. Let’s spread the word far and wide and get people registered. That’s the first step in getting more people to vote”

Barb Thomas

Help Us on National Voter Registration Day

We are looking for volunteer “Captains” for Saratoga, Warren and Washington Counties for National Voter Registration Day, September 22. At specific locations, Captains will set up and take down their booth, have registration form responsibility and help our registration volunteers. Captains will work with our Venue Coordinators.

Public training will be held in multiple, socially-distanced sessions on Wednesday, September 9 at the Methodist Church, Saratoga Springs—details TBD.

Please contact us in you want to get involved.

Kathy Biegay

Time for County to Address One Person/One Vote

April 20, 2020 Letter from the League of Women Voters of Saratoga County

To the Members of the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors:

Last year, on February 26, League Co-President Linda Gush addressed the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors on the subject of making plans to address the way in which the Board will implement the One Person-One Vote rule as they reapportion representation within the county following the 2020 census.

We pointed out at that time that since most county decisions are made in the committees of the board, and membership on the committees is not in proportion to the population of the county, our current system does not meet the One Person-One Vote rule, and that the discrepancy will only get less representative as county population grows.

Just recently the controversy over time-and-a-half pay increases for selected employees and administrators, and the subsequent disagreement over meetings of the Board, has called attention to the fact that Supervisors representing over 70% of the population of the county do not represent a majority of the board.

It is time for the Board of Supervisors to address this issue!

Sincerely,
Barbara Thomas, Co President, League of Women Voters of Saratoga County
Co-President

Att: 2-26-2019 Statement by League of Women Voters
Short list of possible solutions

Attachment: 2/26/2019 Statement

Statement to the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors 2-26-2019

The League of Women Voters of Saratoga County asks the Board of Supervisors to appoint a special committee to examine options to deal with applying the “one person-one vote” principle to the results of the 2020 census.

It is almost forty years since this County critically examined whether our current governance structure continues to meet our needs. We believe that the time has come for the County to re-visit the issue.
Since the middle of the last century counties have had to address the issue of “one person - one vote”. At that time, the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors adopted weighted voting and added a second Supervisor for the two most populous municipalities.

Realizing the issue would require additional study, in 1987 the Board of Supervisors created a 16 member 21st Century Commission. The Commission was asked to “jointly identify and address the issues of today before they become the problems of tomorrow”. They issued a 113 page report that dealt with many issues and made many recommendations, among them recommendations about the structure of the County Government, the most important of which was a recommendation to ESTABLISH A SCHEDULE OF REGULAR REVIEW OF THE STRUCTURE AND RESPONSIVENESS OF OUR COUNTY GOVERNMENT. To our knowledge, this hasn’t been done.

They also said, “Although we believe the accomplishments of Saratoga County government compare most favorably with other counties, it is prudent to carefully consider:--as Saratoga’s population and budgets continue to grow, “ will the present form of government be able to meet the needs of its County residents?” (p.87)

Although the Board has adopted a weighted vote for decisions made by the Board of Supervisors acting as the whole, we all recognize that Board decisions are actually made in the board’s committees, and that the membership of the committees is not in proportion to the population of the County’s towns and cities. Currently all Supervisors sit on 4 committees of the board. If their representation on committees were in proportion to the number of people they represent, the representative of the Town of Day would sit on one committee and the representative from the town of Halfmoon would have to sit on 23 committees.

We anticipate that the next Census will show continued high population growth in the towns and cities of the Northway corridor, while the population of the other towns grows at a very much slower pace – increasing the inequity of representation in the committees if the current allocation of Supervisors is carried forward. There are many possible remedies, some of which are listed in an attached list.

We think that now is the time for the Board to think about the best way to represent the people of this county. It is time to move closer to the ideal of “one person one vote” by appointing a committee to recommend the most appropriate response to the 2020 census results.

Attachment: Short List of Possible Solutions

Short List of possible ways to assure that the principle of “one person- one vote” carries through to the committees (the decision making bodies of the Board of supervisors of Saratoga County):

• Recommend a Charter change to create a county Legislature made up of equal population districts. Town Supervisors could run to serve one of these legislative districts.

• Reapportion the weighted vote and require proportional representation among the committees. This might require combining several low population towns into one committee member (Not one member for every Town).

• Increase the size of the Board, so that every Town or city gets one member for every multiple of the population of the smallest City or Town. This would of course, result in a very large and unwieldy Board of Supervisors.

• Change from an appointed County Administrator to a County Executive who is elected directly by every voter in the County.

The above are just some possible configurations. The League of Women Voters of Saratoga County doesn’t necessarily support any of these options.