Assemblywoman Sandy Galef hosted a forum on May 29 that discussed strategies for continued budget savings through sharing and coordination of services. The 2014 New York State budget included a two-year promise of state funded rebates to property taxpayers if local governments and school districts remained within the property tax cap year.
Year two of the two-year program adds a condition for governments and schools, not only must they stay within the cap, but also they need to identify savings from efficiencies or shared services equal to at least 1 percent of their tax levy for three consecutive years.
The forum was intended to help governments, schools, and libraries for whom this rebate applies, to learn new strategies.
“We need to find additional ways to help our local taxing jurisdictions to stay within their cap and produce savings moving forward so that taxpayers can continue to benefit from this new state program,” Galef said. “Hopefully the forum will educate individuals on ways to work with their local officials to approach business differently than they have in the past.”
The forum will air on cable television the following Sundays: July 6, July 13 and July 20. Wappingers Falls airs at 8:30 p.m.; Ossining, Peekskill, and Yorktown at 9:30 p.m.
Ossining and Peekskill airs on Channel 15 — (Briarcliff, Ossining, Scarborough, Buchanan, Cortlandt, Croton, Garrison, Montrose, Peekskill, Philipstown South, Verplanck); Wappingers Falls airs on Channel 21 — (Cold Spring, Philipstown North); Yorktown airs on Channel 74 — (Lake Peekskill, Putnam Valley).
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“Airs” is an increasingly anachronistic term to describe an almost ancient method of media distribution, namely “appointment TV”; broadcasting programs at specific times to an audience who has dropped everything to “tune-in”, another outdated concept.
We now have on-demand HD quality “narrowcast” streaming over the internet, and computers, tablets, phones and inexpensive TV connected devices that will easily access virtually unlimited program material for us whenever we have a moment in our busy lives. This technology has also made it feasible and desirable for a growing number to discontinue using cable TV.
With that in mind, why is access to a recording of a public forum by an elected representative limited to those that subscribe to Cablevision’s TV service? Where is the program web link for Cablevision Internet customers? For that matter, since this type of program pertains to all citizens not just Cablevision customers, it should be freely available to all on the internet.
Someone commented: “Next meeting, you should film it. You already film the Village meetings that the PCNR films and posts for free.” There is no added benefit in my additional volunteer time duplicating Cablevision’s video coverage, especially when they have both in-house infrastructure to distribute this on the web and public service obligations to fulfill.
Supplementing the PCNR video coverage at village board meetings is an entirely different story however. The PCNR only posts a small percentage of the unedited meeting video it records, leaving the community without access to the majority of their elected officials’ discussions.
As someone who does not own a television, I agree that these meetings should be made available to all. But I do not believe it is the responsibility of a private citizen to take on that task. Moreover, a private citizen’s posting of a meeting can be redacted selectively and is therefore not as reliable as a government-sponsored streaming.