Weekly-ish Retrospective And Outlook

In the retrospective, I'll sum up what I've been focusing on in the week prior and provide an outlook for the coming week.

While many in Greenport are currently in a waiting loop hoping that a particular NY state law enforcement agency makes a surprise appearance at our town hall, throughout the past week I've been looking more closely at the aftermath of the July 29 rain event.

On Tuesday, I visited Patricia Burt, who was at last week's Greenport Town Board workshop to give an account of what had happened to her home and that of her neighbor's on Virginia Ave on July 29. This meeting and her testimony was covered in an earlier article.

The particular issue of sewage backflow that Patricia and other residents on Virginia Ave are facing appears to be caused by excessive storm water entering the drainage system beneath Fairview Ave where it subsequently crosses over into Greenport's sewage system and causes raw sewage to backflow into the basements of nearby houses.

Patricia showed me the backflow prevention device she had installed in her home. She explained that she had installed a device that wasn't on the list of devices approved by the town around a decade ago and as a result, she had to fight to get financially reimbursed by the town. Yet, her device works quite a bit better than the ones sanctioned by Greenport as hers has a flapper that can be manually cleaned.

The reason why I spoke with Patricia in the first place was to set her up with WAMC Albany. I was at their Hudson office last week for an interview. When afterwards bureau chief Sam Dingman accompanied me out of the building, I mentioned to him how the real tragedy of Greenport is the fact that the town isn't focusing on its most pressing issues while it's dealing with a supervisor who stubbornly refuses to resign. I named the inadequate wastewater system as the premier problem that needs solving upon which he replied that he would love to interview one of the affected home owners. In my mind, Patricia would be the perfect person for that and it might help bring more public attention (including at the state level in Albany) to something that will take years and many millions of dollars to fix.

Climate Smart Communities Program

Related to the water issue is the Climate Smart Communities program (CSC) of which I had only learned on Monday in my preparation for visiting a Stockport Town Board meeting. Given that, of course, Greenport hasn't signed up for it I quickly convinced myself that this is now a priority.

This program asks a lot of a municipality: a newly formed CSC Task Force consisting mainly of volunteers would work through a long list of prescribed action items, many of which time-consuming or potentially even costing money, to earn the town points towards a bronze or silver certification. To get an idea what these action items are, visit this site.

While these actions by themselves provide some benefits to a municipality, none of them will fix Greenport's wastewater system. Yet, it's still important that Greenport participate and get going on this as quickly as possible. At some point, the town will apply for grant money. NY State prioritizes grant applications by municipalities that have demonstrated that they are staying on top of programs like the CSC. Greenport has stayed on top of exactly nothing. This needs to change.

On Thursday, I called Don Meltz, who is the Climate Smart Communities coordinator for Columbia County, to get a clearer picture what it would take to sign up. When I told him that Greenport has not been too proactive with things, he chuckled and said that at the county-level they've been looking at Greenport as this weird blank spot.

Don was extremely helpful in providing me the information I was looking for. Armed with new knowledge, I sent a couple of emails to the Greenport Town Board in which I explained that I don't think we have a choice other than registering Greenport in the CSC program. The good news is that Jim Dolan and Clayton Clark both acknowledged the emails and I am now hopeful that at the next Town Board meeting on Sep 2nd first steps may be taken towards signing Greenport up.

The Coming Week

I haven't yet fully decided what meetings and events to attend other than the meeting of the Stuyvesant Climate Smart Communities Task Force on Tuesday. They were recommended to me by Susan Helden of Stockport as a task force that is especially well organized and so I will have many questions for them.

Knocking on wood, on Monday Greenport should fill one of my FOIL requests that they had been very difficult over. I am very curious how complete or redacted the document I receive will be.