School board rejects tax request

CMYK
©2016 Malone Telegram
(USPS - 326 - 840)
Malone, New York 12953, Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Vol. 111 No. 268
Price $1.00
Winds slow progress on Jericho Rise
n WEATHER
FORECAST FOR MALONE
TODAY TONIGHT WED
GHD CONSULTING UPDATE: 21 of 37 planned turbines completed — eight in Bellmont, 13 in Chateaugay
By FRANK DIFIORE
An a.m. rain
or snow
shower
A snow
shower
around
Partly sunny
and cold
HIGH
41
LOW
25
37
15
Complete weather, A2
n SPORTS
fdifiore@mtelegram.com
CHATEAUGAY — Work
continues on the Jericho Rise
Wind Farm, with wind — ironically — causing an occasional
slowing of construction.
Sandy Sayyeau, an engineer
from GHD Consulting, visited
the Chateaugay Town Council
Monday evening to provide an
update on the progress of the
wind farm project. GHD Consulting was hired by the towns
of Bellmont and Chateaugay
to provide technical expertise
on the project.
Twenty-one of the planned
37 wind turbines had been
completed as of Monday, according to Sayyeau — all eight
of the turbines in Bellmont,
and 13 of the planned 29 turbines in Chateaugay.
Work on raising the wind
towers had been slowed recently, said Sayyeau, due to
the high speed winds the area had been receiving lately.
The winds made it unsafe to
attempt to load the blades
and other components into
place.
“They have cutoff points for
placing certain components ...
it’s really quite a process,” Sayyeau said.
The project is still planned
to be completed by the end
of the year, but Sayyeau said
that the exact date of completion has not yet been determined.
The Jericho Rise wind farm
project was first proposed
roughly 15 years ago but had
lain dormant from 2009, when
then-developer Horizon Wind
Energy of Houston put the
project on hiatus. It was revived in late 2014, when Gov.
Andrew Cuomo announced it
was one of four renewable energy projects that would share
in $206 million made available
through the New York State
Energy Research and Development Authority.
In the interim, Horizon had
been purchased by Energias
de Portugal, which is developing the project through its EDP
Renewables subsidiary. Within about seven months of the
funding announcement, EDP
had filed a notice of intent to
move forward with the project,
which had originally been proposed as a 53-turbine facility.
Work on the project began
in April, with the clearing of
access roads and turbine sites.
At the time, company officials
said they hoped to have the
turbines operational by No-
vember, but a delay in the receipt of a required permit from
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers forced the developers
to suspend work for roughly a
month.
EDP Renewables signed
a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes
agreement with the Franklin
County Industrial Development Agency last month that
distributes about $310,000 per
year among the towns, Franklin County and the Chateaugay
Central School District. The
towns would also split an additional “host community”
payment of about $389,000 per
year under the agreement.
Dam
razing
surges
SETTING UP FOR A SCARE
Bulldogs
advance
PENOBSCOT RIVER:
Fish return to Maine’s
largest body of water
Chateaugay’s Danielle
Cook scored two goals
to help advance to
Wednesdays semifinal
game at SUNY Canton.
PAGE B1
New York Times News Service
n STATE & NATION
FRANK DIFIORE nTHE TELEGRAM
Early voting
underway
David Robinson, 14, applies tape to a sheet of black plastic
on the wall as part of the set up for the Greater Malone Area
YMCA’s annual haunted house. He is assisted by Toby Jacobs,
A decision to send special
election observers to only
four states on Election Day
worries civil rights advocates.
3 candidates look ahead
PAGE A2
n LOTTERIES
Daily Numbers:
Midday 5, 4, 3 Lucky Sum 12
Evening 7, 8, 3 Lucky Sum 18
WinFour:
Midday 4, 1, 7, 8 Lucky Sum 20
Evening 9, 4, 0, 8 Lucky Sum 21
Pick 10: 3, 4, 10, 14, 17, 19, 22, 24,
29, 31, 34, 37, 39, 40, 47, 48, 57,
66, 73, 75
Take 5: 11, 15, 16, 18, 32
Cash 4 Life: 1, 2, 20, 40, 55
Cash Ball 4
n INDEX
Obituaries
A3
Editorial
A4
Amazing World & Beyond A5
Dear Abby
A6
Sports
B1
Television
B4
Classiied
B5-B6
On the web
www.mymalonetelegram.com
Twitter
Follow:
@MaloneTelegram
Facebook
Browse to
wdt.me/MTGnews
14, in green, as well as Alex Secore, 13, front, and Madison
Norcross, 13. The haunted house will be held from 5 to 9 p.m.
Friday at the Y on West Main Street.
21ST CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT: Discuss nation’s military budget, future
By BRIAN MOLONGOSKI
bmolongoski@wdt.net
One of the most significant
challenges facing the U.S.
military, says U.S. Rep. Elise
M. Stefanik, R-Willsboro, is
the uncertain future of the nation’s defense budget.
Stefanik, who is running for
re-election to the 21st Congressional District seat, said
the threat of federal sequestration budget cuts always looms,
as they are expected to return
in the 2018 fiscal year. Because
of this, Stefanik said, it’s difficult to devise a long-term
strategy.
“Sequestration has had a
negative impact on our military readiness and it hasn’t
allowed the Department of
Defense to plan on the long
term,” she said.
Last summer, Fort Drum
avoided substantial troop
cuts, which were part of an
Army move to reduce 490,000
active soldiers to 450,000 by
the 2017 fiscal year, while
other military bases across the
nation lost several hundred
troops. Stefanik had worked
with members of the New York
delegation to keep Fort Drum
cuts at bay. In the end, it lost
only 28 troops.
But it doesn’t mean the base
is out of the woods yet. Stefanik said she is focused on
ensuring a new round of Base
Realignment and Closure does
not come to fruition. The Department of Defense said in
an April report that it has approximately 22 percent excess
infrastructure, primarily within the Army and the Air Force.
Plattsburgh Air Force base was
closed in the previous BRAC
round, in 2005.
A member of the House
Armed Services Committee,
Stefanik has remained close
to defense policy in her first
term. She incorporated language in the 2017 National
Defense Authorization Act
that requires the U.S. Department of Defense to develop
strategies to prevent social
media use in the recruitment
of violent extremists. The act
also contained a provision she
sponsored in March that will
increase joint research efforts
by the United States and Israel
to detect and destroy ballistic
missiles. Within that realm,
a missile defense site for the
north country has been high
on her wish list, as Fort Drum
remains a highly considered
site for an East Coast missile
defense system.
According to military research, the creation of a missile site at Fort Drum, near
Route 3A, would provide
about 650 to 850 jobs and an
estimated sales tax boost of
$1.65 million annually. The
region would see a $27 million
increase in economic value
annually and about 340 jobs
would be indirectly created.
Overall, construction would
increase the region’s value by
$190 million and create 1,836
indirect jobs.
Retired Army Col. William
“Mike” Derrick, the Democratic candidate for the seat,
also has his eyes on that plan.
He said he would support
a missile defense site at Fort
Drum, citing his familiarity
with the topic — he worked in
missile defense for the last five
years of his military career,
working with allies in the Pacific and in the Middle East.
He noted that while the missile defense technology is, in
essence, still in its research
and development phase, Fort
Drum would be an ideal site
because it already has the infrastructure to reduce costs
and make it sustainable over
time.
If elected, Derrick said he
would want to serve on the
House Armed Services Committee, like Stefanik. Asked
how he would be able to top
her first term on the committee, he said his military career
See 21ST A8
BANGOR, Maine — Joseph
Zydlewski, a research biologist with the Maine Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research
Unit of the U.S. Geological
Survey, drifted in a boat on the
Penobscot River, listening to
a crackling radio receiver. The
staccato clicks told him that
one of the shad that his team
had outfitted with a transmitter was swimming somewhere
below.
Shad, alewives, blueback
herring and other migratory
fish once were plentiful on the
Penobscot. “Seven thousand
shad and one hundred barrels
of alewives were taken at one
haul of the seine,” in May 1827,
according to one historian.
Three enormous dams
erected in the Penobscot,
starting in the 1830s, changed
all that, preventing migratory
fish from reaching their breeding grounds. The populations
See DAMS A7
Health care costs
to increase 25%
AFFORDABLE CARE ACT: With open enrollment
beginning Nov. 1, some states will have fewer
insurers; Obama says other options available
By ROBERT PEAR
The New York Times News Service
WASHINGTON — Premiums for midlevel health
plans under the Affordable
Care Act will increase by an
average of 25 percent next
year, while consumers in
some states will find significantly fewer insurance companies offering coverage,
the federal government said
Monday.
But the Obama administration said three-fourths
of consumers would still
be able to find plans for less
than $100 a month, with the
help of federal subsidies.
The open enrollment period under President Barack
Obama’s signature health
law begins on Nov. 1, but
consumers got their first look
at their options on Monday.
Consumers who go without
insurance next year could
face possible tax penalties of
$700 a person or more.
In many parts of the country, the available options are
sure to become part of the
political conversation in the
election season’s closing
days. And the rising costs and
shrinking options all but ensure that the next president
will need to make significant
adjustments to the health
law, something both Hillary
Clinton and Donald J. Trump
have promised.
The average increase of
25 percent in benchmark
premiums on the federal
exchange compares with increases of 2 percent in 2015
and 7 percent this year. Major insurers have pulled out
of the public marketplace in
many states, citing multimillion-dollar losses, and state
officials have approved rate
increases of 25-50 percent or
more for some insurers that
remain.
One in 5 consumers on
the federal health insurance
website HealthCare.gov will
find only one insurer with offerings next year, the administration said.
For a 27-year-old consumer, in the prime age group
sought by insurers, the average monthly premium for
See HEALTH A7