Consolidation

This is always a good idea when it's possible to do so:

Ulster County Executive Michael Hein is using the impending retirement of a long-time county employee to again downsize county government.

On Monday, Hein announced that county Real Property Tax Service Agency Director Dorothy Martin will retire effective June 29 after a 25-year career in county government. Martin was director of the agency for the last six years.

Hein said he will ask the Ulster County Legislature in June to consider a local law that would merge the Real Property Tax Service Agency into the Ulster County Finance Department.

“With Dorothy Martin’s retirement, the timing is perfect to be able to institute this consolidation protecting property tax payers while simultaneously streamlining the delivery of services."

I assume the quote is from Hein, though the article itself has no attribution and no closing quotation mark (the Freeman's website, by the way, is absolutely riddled with typos, spelling errors and bad punctuation. I hope this isn't reflected in the print edition).

The Freeman article has no quote from Bernardo. For that, we have to go to Mid-Hudson News:

Legislature Chairwoman Terry Bernardo, meanwhile, said the lawmakers are “always willing to review proposals to consolidate government and save taxpayer dollars.” They will review the proposal “to ensure that the financial oversight role of the finance department is not compromised,” she said.

As I mentioned in a previous post, it appears that the Freeman is being shut out by the Bernardo Gang. Of course, it's possible that Doxsey didn't bother contacting Bernardo at all, given the state of the relationship. But I think this is unlikely. It's far more likely that Queen Terry is holding a petty grudge, as is her wont.