You may call the Owego Pennysaver Readers’ Column at (607) 687-2378 24-hours a day, or e-mail comments to readerscolumn@stny.rr.com. We reserve the right to revise or reject any message.
Five hundred million dollars is coming to the Southern Tier. How much do you think Tioga County will get? Does your town have a good development plan? How about zoning and land use regulations? If you look around, the only Towns that are ever improved have zoning and land use regulations in place. Why? To avoid time wasting law suits when a project is introduced. If you want to see growth, jobs, and lower taxes you need to change your Town Boards attitude toward planning. Most small town boards have no idea what they are there for. If not for State regulations they would have nothing. So advise them to quit holding hands at Town Meetings and do something or cry and point fingers when the money goes elsewhere.
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Interesting. They used to use actual thermometers in weather stations across the world to measure surface temps. These showed evidence of some small amount of warming, but then the experts decided satellites would measure the surface temps more accurately, so we put up satellites. The satellites show NO warming over the past 18 years, so now they’ve decided to go back to the thermometers on the surface because they give them the results they want to see. See how this works? Here’s the real rub. If everything they want at the meeting in Paris were put into operation today, we would achieve a 0.05-degree reduction in earth temps over the next 85 years! Sorry, makes no sense!
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The lights on the bridge look great but did someone forget to light the trees in front of the courthouse?
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The person who wrote that there was no legal immigration from 1925 – 1965 was incorrect. While the immigration act of 1924 set quotas per country at 2 percent of their U.S. population, it did not stop immigration. It did reduce it substantially but during that period an average of 178,000 people per year immigrated legally into the U.S.A.
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The Village of Owego Planning Board, Zoning Board of Appeals and the Historic Preservation Commission positions all have term limits. State and local law govern their decision-making, not by “old ideas”. Any Village of Owego resident that is interested in serving on any of these boards may submit a resume and a letter of interest to the Village of Owego Clerk / Treasurer to be considered when there is a vacancy. The Village of Owego is very fortunate to have residents that are concerned enough about their community to serve on these boards.
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I wonder how many Candorites would have voted for our current Town Supervisor had they known he has been investigating Candor seceding from New York State and joining Pennsylvania. Sounds like a joke, doesn’t it? But it is true. He so badly wants fracking here that he will go to any lengths to make it happen. Then he’ll take his profits and run, while the rest of us are left here to deal with the negative aftermath of fracking.
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There are going to be 64 units of housing on the south side of the village (Route 434) within the village. So let’s get the cart before the horse for a change and LOWER the speed limit to 30 miles per hour to the village line East of the new development. I live in the Halstead development and I can tell you that it is a problem many times trying to take a left to go to town because too many drivers do not heed the 40-MPH speed limit. With the bureaucracy being whet it is, we have to start now to get the speed limit lowered. There will probably be close to 100 cars at the new development along with the vendors and service people. LET’S GET ‘ER DONE, MAYOR AND OWEGO VILLAGE BOARD!
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A recent readers column caller said the apartment project on Southside Drive was a hush hush deal. Perhaps they need to read more than just this column. This project has been in the regional news for the past two years. This reader went on the say, “The developer is a close relative of someone.” They may be interested to learn that everyone is a close relative of someone. But the developer, economic development, and IDA members have no family or financial ties that would be a conflict of interest. The IDA sold the property to a developer to build apartments. The developer will pay taxes on a parcel that has not paid taxes for over 20 years. It is not for county offices. It will provide modern efficient housing for people 55 years old and up. Facts are facts. Negative mud slinging is negative mud slinging and is not very useful.
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This is addressed to those in this column claiming that the Republicans are holding us back from “a sensible solution”, that we need “common sense representation” and the Republicans are “buffoons”. I am not a Republican and I disagree with many of their positions but I think they are doing a better job of protecting our Constitutional rights than the Democrats. Even the anti-gun crowd has been forced to admit that all of the current Gun Control laws and none of their Gun Control proposals would have prevented the mass shootings that have dominated the headlines. Since those laws and proposals come from the Democrats, it seems that they lack “a sensible solution”, need to develop “common sense representation” and are the real “buffoons”. All the laws and proposals by the Democrats do is seek to erode our God given Constitutionally protected rights rather than address the real problems. Their solutions are just pandering to say, “Oh we did something and it will make you safer, aren’t we wonderful.”
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There has been a lot of talk lately about saving our water resource. In the past year we have installed two new 1.8-gallon flush toilets. We have a household of two people and have cut our clean water usage about 2,000 gallons per quarter and have not changed our flushing habits. If everyone is concerned about future water supply it would be wise to replace your old toilets now with the new minimum flush type.
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There’s an epidemic in this state, which is not being addressed! Heroin Addiction! Destroying the lives and minds of our young adults. Tioga County, like many others, is failing in the battle to stop or even slow down the growth of this. My question to the powers to be is, why are we putting drug addicts in jail? The cost of housing drug addicted people time and time again, and putting them through the court system for breaking laws to buy or get drugs is enormous! This falls on the back of the taxpayer. If we had treatment centers here to put the addict in instead of jails, It would solve over crowding, over running the courts, and would give the offender (addicts) a better chance at being cured and less chance of them going through the judicial system time and time again. Jail doesn’t cure addiction! Its time that the people running this county and state realize this! It would cost much less in the long run to treat their addiction than to ignore it. We are not going to arrest our way out of this! We need county / state funded rehabs, not more jails. In the long run it would save money and most importantly save the lives of our young. It’s time to do the something! Before it’s too late!
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The music and light show at 2246 Bodle Hill in Owego is amazing if you have not checked it out. The sign says it runs from 5 to 10 p.m. and gives the radio frequency for your car radio.
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What a shame and a colossal waste of the time and money spent on repairs to Fred Catlin Road by the Town of Tioga highway crew. They dug up the road to put in drainage pipes, filled it in and then covered the road with dirt and stones that they spent a lot of time rolling down and oiling. The road was widened in several spots, but there is at least one blind curve where a school bus and a UPS truck can’t meet without one of them having to dodge the other. They said they were going to pave, but instead of finishing the job, here it is, mid-December and no paving in sight, while they continue to dig out ditches along Snyder Road and elsewhere. Meanwhile, the “surface” of Fred Catlin Road is starting to look like a moonscape, with dinner plate size craters, smaller holes and erosion along the edges. Speaking of the edges, nobody seems to know where the “road” ends and the “shoulder” begins, so you have places where vehicles have run off the edge of the road and into the ditch. The edges of the road are breaking down and the whole length of the road will be a terrible mess come spring. All the work they did this summer and fall will be ruined and will have to be re-done. Nice job Town of Tioga, great use of our already-too-high taxes. Guess I won’t be voting for that highway supervisor when he comes up for re-election. Will you?
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My comment is to Tioga County taxpayers, which is every one of us. How much money could Tioga County save by eliminating the legislature and then go back to the way it was before? The town supervisors would be the legislators. The money saved from the county could go, partially, to the town supervisors. The town supervisors see the people in their town almost every day or much more often than the legislators, because the only time you see the legislators is when they have their monthly meetings. It appears there’s no communication between the legislation and the people of the towns, and the town supervisor would be more up on what is needed. This could be quite a savings.
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There are Angels who walk among us. I know this to be true. My family came upon hard times and a gentleman showed up at my door with kind works, advice and a gift card for my son’s Christmas. Our heartfelt thanks to Lenny and Nancy Jackson and the Dan Jackson Foundation for their generosity. There are not enough words to express our gratitude for making our dark hours shine.
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A special thank you to all the generous people who have donated cat carriers for transporting cats in the Spay/Neuter Program. We are extremely grateful and appreciate it more than you know!
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In the spirit of the holiday season the Republicans buffoons in congress are still refusing funds to help the 911 first responders who are dying of cancer and related deceases in an alarming rate. These people sacrifice their lives for our country and here we have the Republican baboons refusing to help them financially in the time of great need. Happy Holidays from the Republicans.
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If people are on the no fly list, why do the thumb suckers in congress insist that these people be able to buy guns, weapons of mass destruction as it turns out. What’s the matter with the Republicans in Congress. I thought they were in charge. What fools and buffoons that they are. Afraid of the NRA, cowards, thumb-suckers?
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The Socialist Democrats have one candidate, Hillary, who plans to carry out nobama’s plan to destroy the U.S.A. and implement Marxist one party rule. The majority of the middle class rejects the Democrats and also the Republican higher hierarchy candidate Jeb Bush. Anyone is preferable to these two candidates. I support Ted Cruz but anyone is better than Hillary and that includes Donald Trump, who has changed the complexion of this whole election. This is the last chance to throw the Democrat bums onto the dung heap of history where they rightly belong.
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After the mass shootings in California that killed 14 innocent people by the hands of two Islamic terrorists, the sheriff of Ulster County urged residents who are legally licensed in New York to own a pistol to carry their weapons for protection. Unfortunately I didn’t hear a peep from the Tioga County Sheriff. Governor Cuomo and President Obama, both would like to see guns taken from the people. America started 228 years ago by brilliant men who understood the reason for the Second Amendment in the constitution. Recent events in the world have gotten people scared. That is why gun sales are on the increase. Christmas is next week and a gun would make a perfect gift. Some day you will thank God you have one.
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We have to allow fracking and soon! It’s such a no-brainer and I can’t believe how blind anti-frackers are. The numerous advantages certainly far outweigh the minimal risks and besides, getting out of bed everyday entails a certain amount of risks. At one point people were even afraid of indoor plumbing. Over 30 states now frack and I don’t know of any three-eyed people living there or two-headed people, and their soil doesn’t glow at night. We have to impeach Cuomo and frack now for the big time benefit for ALL New Yorkers.
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The Apalachin Fire Department has got to be kidding! They blindsided us with a bid for a new station. Now they’re sending out donation letters.
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Whoever edited my comment last week obscured the meaning of it. It should have read “In this free country every church has a right to accept ONLY those who agree with their principles.”
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I’d like to say thank you to the Owego fifth grade chorus and band for their performance last night. It was wonderful blessing! I really enjoyed it, the kids did a wonderful job and it was so great. Thank you so much for all the hard work you put into it, we are so proud of you!
