Please read some of our latest news and events below.
By BARBARA LIVINGSTON NACKMAN THE JOURNAL NEWS
Original publication: September 25, 2007) SOUTHEAST - Putnam County Legislator Regina Morini narrowly lost the Republican line for re-election tonight, virtually ending her bid for a fifth term to newcomer Anthony Fusco.
At 7 p.m. tonight, absentee ballots and affidavits from the Sept. 18 primary were counted at the Putnam County Board of Elections.
By 16 votes, Fusco kept the lead he had by primary evening. A computer technology consultant who rose to prominence by opposing Mahopac school budget increases in 2006, he moved to Putnam less than four years ago.
He not only sealed the GOP line in November, but the legislative seat in District 9. He has the Independence and Conservative party lines; Morini has no other ballot lines. No Democratic candidate is running in the district, which covers Mahopac.
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Click here for more information!Carmel - Putnam County does not have adequate controls in place to ensure purchases are made in "a legal, prudent and economic manner," the state comptroller has concluded.
That evaluation comes as part of a 28-page audit report on the management of the county-owned Putnam National Golf Club in Mahopac and county procurement overall. The report, which examined county practices between Jan. 1, 2005 and Aug. 31, 2006, was released this week by the state Comptroller's Office.
The first half of the report found that Putnam officials have mismanaged the county-owned Putnam National Golf Club to such an extent that they don't even know what it costs to run the money-losing 18-hole course and catering facility.
Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has given the county Legislature 90 days to submit a plan to remedy these deficiencies.
Click here for more information!Putnam officials have mismanaged the county-owned Putnam National Golf Club to such an extent that they don't even know what it costs to run the money-losing 18-hole course and catering facility, the state comptroller said yesterday.
"No detailed budget or accounting records were kept," Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a written statement yesterday. "(County officials) also used a process that limited oversight by the county Legislature. They need to fix these problems now."
Click here for more information!ALBANY, July 23 — Gov. Eliot Spitzer indefinitely suspended his communications director and reassigned another top official today after Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo’s office issued a scathing report accusing the governor’s staff of using the State Police for political purposes.
Click here for more information!MAHOPAC, N.Y., — Joe Hajkowski, a 75-year-old retired sprinkler fitter who lives in nearby Putnam Valley, is a man on a mission: to reinstate the free doughnuts at the day center for older people here that he visits regularly.
It doesn’t even matter that he usually skips the sugary snacks, indulging only on the rare early-morning fishing jaunt. “I don’t eat those things, but at my age, I don’t need to be told I can’t,” said the craggy-faced Mr. Hajkowski. “We’re being treated like senile citizens, not senior citizens.”
Mr. Hajkowski was referring to a four-month dispute here, about 50 miles north of Midtown Manhattan, which has attracted the attention of the national news media — and pitted the public health monitors in Putnam County against its elders’ belief in their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of a leftover cruller.
Click here for more information!SOUTHEAST - The senior member of the Putnam Legislature has gone down to defeat.
Regina Morini, a resident of Mahopac who was seeking her fifth term on the nine-member governing body, lost the GOP line to newcomer Anthony Fusco when absentee ballots counted at the board of elections office in Southeast Tuesday night failed to change the result announced on Primary Day. Each candidate received 18 absentee ballots, resulting in a 16-vote victory for Fusco.
"My wife needs a vacation and I need some sleep. It's been a long road and a well-fought campaign," Fusco said.
"I thank my supporters and now the future of our county is ahead. I intend to live up to my campaign promises and my first goal is to reduce taxes," said Fusco.
Click here for more information!MAHOPAC - The new - very large and impressive - Mahopac firehouse is nearly complete and its status has brought up a hot-button issue - the fate of the old firehouse that it now overshadows.
It appears the demolition of the 1950s-era firehouse is imminent, with firefighters hoping they can move into the new building next month. The timing may have prompted a round of mysterious computerized calls to Mahopac residents this week rallying them to save it.
Janet Hecht, a 38-year Mahopac resident, received one of the automated calls and said it got her thinking.
"It is great they got a new firehouse. No one begrudges them that," she said yesterday.
To her, however, it seemed a waste to destroy what looked like a perfectly good building when she could pinpoint community needs.
Click here for more information!MAHOPAC - The management agreement created to run the county-owned Putnam National Golf Club is "inappropriate and not in the best interests of taxpayers," according to a report by the state Comptroller's Office released to the public today.
The comptroller examined Putnam's process for contracting for management at the Mahopac golf course and catering center. The county created a private corporation, Putnam Golf Inc., to run the club but put county Highways and Facilities Commissioner Harold Gary in charge of it and kept financial responsibility for the golf course's operation.
Click here for more information!Back in November, some members of the Putnam County Legislature, tired of wrangling with County Executive Robert Bondi over the unorthodox management arrangement he had worked out for the Putnam National Golf Course, decided it was time to ask for guidance from higher officials. All nine members of the Legislature sent a request to the state comptroller asking for a review and audit of the 18-hole course and its accompanying catering facility.
This week, they got their answer and it was a vindication: a stinging rebuke of the management structure of the golf course and a criticism of the county's internal controls over purchasing.
Click here for more information!CARMEL - The company that provides ambulance service to Putnam County says it can't afford to do the job at the current rate and has announced it will opt out of its contract on Oct. 1.
"It's strictly financial," Robert McMahon, the county's commissioner of emergency services, told a legislative committee last week. "The cost of ALS (advanced life support), like everything else, has gone up. They are continuing to lose money."
"The news couldn't have come at a worse time for Putnam officials. County Executive Robert Bondi is in the midst of preparing the 2008 county budget and has already warned that property taxes could increase by more than 20 percent.
Click here for more information!CARMEL - Putnam legislators have set aside an earlier decision and voted unanimously to extend a contract with Empire State Ambulance Corp., a move that guarantees continuation of advanced medical services in the county through Dec. 31.
Putnam will pay $116,250 more to keep the Fishkill-based Empire on the job for three months. The legislators voted Monday night.
Legislature Chairman Dan Birmingham, R-Brewster, said this week that the board had won "a key concession" by getting County Executive Robert Bondi to agree to conduct a formal bid process for the service, known as Advanced Life Support.
Click here for more information!MAHOPAC - A half-dozen seniors picketed outside the Koehler Senior Center this morning in protest of a new Putnam County policy that bans doughnuts and other donated baked goods from county senior centers.
Wearing signs that read, "We want our baked goods indoors," "They're carbs, not contrabands,"and "We want our just desserts," the seniors, organized by Putnam Valley resident Joe Hajkowski, 75, held a peaceful protest.
The protesters said it's not about the sweet, day-old treats, which county officials banned out of a concern for seniors' health. It's about getting county officials to seek their input before making a unilateral decision.
Click here for more information!CARMEL - The town Planning Board, lead agency in reviewing a proposed 150-unit housing complex on a hillside behind the ShopRite plaza near the Carmel-Kent border, will have to take another look at the project's possible effects on its surroundings.
A state Supreme Court justice in White Plains has sided with a Westchester-Putnam environmental group in overturning the Planning Board's approval of an environmental impact study of Hillcrest Commons, a senior-citizen housing cluster with office space on 108 acres off Route 52.
In his decision, Justice Francis Nicolai said the Planning Board had "deferred the evaluations of the possible effects of the project on wetlands and archaeological resources," and in doing so it left some studies not reviewed and needing "further examination and determination."
He annulled the Planning Board's Aug. 23 acceptance of the environmental review and told the panel to take another pass through the paperwork and consider all the reports, including a review of archaeological aspects of the property and the prevalence of shining bedstraw plant life.
Click here for more information!CARMEL - On Sept. 18, Putnam's largest town will host a slew of primary races.
Republicans have a dizzying number of choices for their ballot line - town supervisor and two Town Board seats as well as town justice, receiver of taxes and legislators for Districts 5 and 9. Also up for grabs are the Democratic and Independence Party lines for town justice.
Click here for more information!CARMEL - The most senior member of Putnam's nine-person county Legislature, Regina Morini, R-Mahopac, enters the race for the District 9 seat without the backing of local Republican leaders - again.
The county's Republican Committee has endorsed Anthony Fusco, a computer network technology consultant, to run for the district that covers parts of Mahopac.
Click here for more information!CARMEL - It's a cliffhanger: Will the state Legislature approve Putnam's request to raise the county portion of its sales tax before the end of the legislative session Friday?
County Executive Robert Bondi said Putnam needs to boost the portion of the sales tax it receives from 3.5 percent to 4 percent to rein in property-tax increases in 2008. But even the sales tax measure won't generate enough revenue to stave off an estimated 20 percent property-tax increase over this year, Bondi said.
"It's in the range of 20 percent, but it could grow," he said. "There's growth in county government that is mandated, and those expenses keep going up."
Click here for more information!Public Inspection of AMVETS Memorial Bridge Postponed By Weather YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, NY -- Putnam County Legislator, Anthony Fusco announced that the public inspection of the AMVETS Memorial Bridge planned for earlier today was postponed due to rain until Thursday, October 2nd. Putnam Legislators Fusco, Tamagna, Westchester Legislators Oros, Pinto, Kaplowitz, State Assemblyman Ball, bridge engineering and safety inspectors from the NYSDOT, NSTB and other invited guests will reconvene at 9 A.M. in the same location.
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