BROOKFIELD: Gravel Pit Proposal Rt. 8

Parker Excavating & Gravel of Mount Vision has an application pending with the DEC to operate a gravel pit on approximately 46 acres of land located on the Ralph Rathbun farm off of Rt. 8 and Beaver Creedk Rd. (Near Wagoner's Store).

The Public has until Oct 21 to comment on the project by contacting the DEC person listed below.

According to the DEC filing, it has been determined that the project will NOT have a significant impact on the environment or archealogical/historical sites; and is NOT located in wetlands.

Further information and copies may also be obtained from the DEC contact: Teresa Phelps - DEC Cortalnd Region 7 - (607)753-3095 or r7dep@gw.dec.state.ny.us

Here is a link to the site & application: http://www.dec.ny.gov/enb/77087.html and click on "REGION 7".

North Brookfield Fire Department AUDIT

Attached is a link to the recent audit of the North Brookfield Fire Department conducted by the NY State Comptroller's Office. Audits are a common practice to help municipal governments meet standard accounting practices, by citing ways they can improve accountability for taxpayer funds. Pretty standard issues when compared to other department audits, HOWEVER, the audit noted the following: "In 2007 the District invested $15,000 with a local insurance agent and received a promissory note stating the money would be returned in one year along with 8% interest. ....At the end of our audit field work the monies had not been returned to the District nor had District officials sought or received any information from the agen relating to this investment."

BROOKFIELD REPUBLICAN PRIMARY RESULTS

Salka won the Republican primary over Josh Haar. Very interesting race. Other Republican winners: Clint Abrams & Jeff Mayne for Councilman over Chuck Blood. See link to the Oneida Dispatch coverage.

What ARE we thinking? DEPLETING EARTH

Very thoughtful article by Tom Friedman (NYTimes)...re: life choices and earth's depleting resources.... and really makes one wonder WHY we are poisoning our most limited and vital resource - WATER - for GAS? Just WHAT ARE WE THINKING???!

You really do have to wonder whether a few years from now we’ll look back at the first decade of the 21st century — when food prices spiked, energy prices soared, world population surged, tornados plowed through cities, floods and droughts set records, populations were displaced and governments were threatened by the confluence of it all — and ask ourselves: What were we thinking? How did we not panic when the evidence was so obvious that we’d crossed some growth/climate/natural resource/population redlines all at once?http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/opinion/08friedman.html?hp

RAW SEWAGE Dumping in Lake Ontario

Come on now...isn't it about time we stopped this disgusting practice?.... and we worry about "hydro-fracking".... ? From today's POST STANDARD: New York environmental regulators have asked the federal government to ban vessels from dumping on-board sewage into waters along its Lake Ontario shore. They want the Environmental Protection Agency to create a "no-discharge zone" running along 326 miles of shoreline from Youngstown in Niagara County to Cape Vincent in Jefferson County. http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/05/state_wants_to_ban_lake_ontari.html

MEDICARE - "Privatization" JUST SAY "No"

Sounds like the Republicans are going to have to change their butcher job (aka -"privatization") of the MEDICARE program. Democrat Kathy Hochul (D- Buffalo) won on long-held Republican turf riding a wave of voter discontent over the national GOP's plan to change Medicare. Tuesday's special election in New York's 26th Congressional District became a referendum on the health care plan for the nation's seniors may serve as a warning shot to further GOP efforts to cut popular entitlement programs. See: http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/05/medicare_key_to_shocking_democ.html