Sorry, Smoke Out

But this ain't gonna happen:

We the People have every right to question whether tax breaks granted by the Ulster County Industrial Development Agency (IDA) are producing the promised economic benefits. For those not familiar with the issue, the following paragraphs come in handy.

From Ulster County Cloackroom:

This is classic lazy journalism. DiNapoli writes that a number of businesses in Ulster County could lose tax breaks or be subject to other sanctions, but she cannot be bothered to ask which businesses O’Halloran is referring to. Her article doesn’t say that the THR tried and failed to obtain this information (which is publicly available). So, why the omission? Could it be that one of these “underperfomers” is Skate Time 209, which is owned by O’Halloran patrons Len and Terry Bernardo? How convenient of DiNapoli to leave this information out of her article.

From Liberty Coalition (yes, it’s about Skate Time 209):

For example if a business applied for IDA assistance – whether for a loan, tax breaks or both – and they said they were going to create twenty jobs but their reporting shows they’ve created only nine (45% of the target) then maybe a formula needs to be created that increases the tax liability based on the underperformance. After all, I don’t think any of us wants to pay for an underperforming business to operate on our nickel. Put another way, if a $1.4 million commercial property is paying under $7,000 per year in property taxes, and that business is at only 45% of their job target, which includes the owners, it sounds like the taxpayers are getting screwed.

Mrs. Bernardo, tonight – for a change – do the right thing: when the Resolution No. 157 pops up, recuse yourself.

There is absolutely no way that Bernardo will do the right thing on this, as doing the opposite is her raison d'etre.