Plan 9 from CNY

Fault Lines and NYCO have recently discussed the situation that upstate finds itself in. The blogs are a concentration of the discussion going on among residents of the region. The OD brought it to a point last month with their Next Step series.

I don't really have a dog in this fight, I just live here. I hear a lot about the advantages to living in CNY. Of course, most of them boil down to the change of seasons. I'm not sure people from Florida and California want to come here for below zero weeks and fatal road conditions.

I was talking to someone the other day about the political situation here. We all know that taxes are too high (and even if you believe in taxes, Oneida County's 10% sales tax is indefensible) but no one in government does anything about it. Downstate controls tax policy at the state level, and NY is the only state to make counties pay for Medicaid. The "Republicans" around here are no better. James Brown lowers taxes on new homebuilders like himself. Maybe he should give himself a pay raise too. Joe Griffo was known for holding the line on Rome's property taxes but raised the tax rate 18% when he became County Executive.

One of the few places that keeps taxes (for school and town) low is New Hartford. This is why business is booming there. Unfortunately, the trend in the county is to crate project after project to build this eyesore or renovate that eyesore in an attempt to create a Mecca of urban planning. Then Rome complains Utica gets everything or Utica complains that Rome gets too much. We all hope for state grants that end up coming out of our own pockets.

Lets all stop looking ten or twenty years into the future towards the next great New York revival. Let's stop voting for politicians that want to make us great again and come up short on the details. I'd like to see a politician say that they want to make this place friendly for business. Lower the taxes for everyone instead of throwing money at a megastore or a stadium or a solar powered shopping mall. Maybe we should try looking one year into the future at a time.

As Criswell said in Plan 9 from Outer Space, "We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives." Let's not spend all of our time there yet.