Grants received and a sad goodbye

APRIL 2008 - The Justice Court Assistance Program granted the town $7,145.17. Although all the items in our request weren't funded, we will now be able to proceed with installing a surveillance system to make a more secure environment. Many thanks go to Justice Jill Myers, with help from Justice Karen Waldron-Munson and Court Clerk Carol Plumadore, who authored the application and did the footwork for this significant court improvement.
Charter Cable has outlined their plans. Their new build last year of four-tenths of a mile on Ryan Road is complete, which reached 10 lots. Two other areas, Picketts Corners Road from the existing plant at Bucks Corners Road and the Bucks Corners Road from house #591 to #501 are partially completed and are only waiting for the ground to thaw to allow for underground construction. According to Charter's Director of Government Relations, these two new builds were delayed last fall due to an early winter and that, weather permitting, they should be completed in late May or June. These two new builds will travel eight-tenths of a mile and reach 16 lots. In his letter to me the Director mentions the challenges they face in making a case for prudent investments given the number of dish owners in any given stretch in their spreadsheet study. Charter plans to poll about 121 other homes in areas that were identified in the ride-out we did in March 2006.
We applied for two DEC Smart Growth Grants. One was to fund a study for hamlet revitalization in town. That grant was rejected. The other, however, was awarded. Early on in my door-to-door campaigning one of the frequently asked questions was, "What can you do to get me high speed internet?" I heard it asked from home-based businesses who wanted to compete not just in a local but in a global economy and I heard it from students who start their work at Saranac Central School on fiber optic and then have to go home to finish on dial-up. I heard it asked from people who were frustrated because they couldn't take advantage of their employer's offer to do their work from home and not have to report to the employer's main facility. And I heard it asked by Nanas and Pops who wanted to receive digital photos of their new grandchild without having to sit 27 minutes in front of their home computer. We hitched this wagon to CBN-Connect, a not-for-profit arm of the Technical Assistance Center at SUNY Plattsburgh, who will administer the grant. The $106,971 we received will be used to identify potential structures for telecommunications infrastructure to bolster wireless networks in the Park.
At our last town board meeting we were approached by Adirondack Farmers' Market Cooperative. The town board supports their efforts to hold a Farmers Market at the pavilion behind town hall this summer. We appreciate local foods because they often use fewer pesticides, nutrients are not lost during travel or storage time, small family farms help create a thriving local economy, and transporting food a few miles instead of thousands reduces fossil fuel emissions. We encourage your support for this local endeavor.
It is with deepest sadness and with the most profound sense of loss that we say goodbye to Eugene Dickerman, our Code Enforcement Officer for 14 years. While I was acquainted with Eugene in the past, I got to know him personally over the last two years. His easy demeanor, his wit and humor, his overwhelming capacity for kindness, and his uncomplicated, undemanding, straightforward way of approaching life will be missed. Although his office hours were from 3:00 to 5:00 in the afternoons, he frequently, and often daily, would come into town hall in the mornings and check for phone messages and emails, and I would look forward to those brief visits before he would go out to do an inspection or meet someone at a job site.
He would recount stories of his youth and growing up in a more simple time and I would so appreciate his peaceful way. He approached his job - and life -- with an unbounded kindness. His benevolence for others, this thoughtfulness and kindheartedness proved limitless. In every sense of the word, Eugene was a gentleman and the town will miss him.