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Saturday,ÊO ctoberÊ22,Ê2016
www.SunCommunityNews.com
In SPORTS | pg. 20-21
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‘Second season’ begins Playoffs start in football, soccer
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In opinion | pg. 6
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Staying Healthy
Local groups lauded for health initiatives
In elizabethtown | pg. 3
Learning safety
Students get lessons from fire dept.
Essex County: Expect 5% tax hike next year Budget planning still underway; tentative tax increase comes as county nears end of five-year fiscal plan By Pete DeMola
pete@suncommunitynews.com
ELIZABETHTOWN — Essex County is making progress on hashing out next year’s tentative spending plan. Taxes will almost certainly increase next year.
“We’re in the 5 percent neighborhood,” Essex County Manager Dan Palmer told lawmakers on Monday. But the increase is expected. Essex County is now in the fourth year of a five-year plan implemented to course correct their finances, which were teetering on insolvency after years of reliance on their fund balance. Lawmakers have been holding budget workshops for much of this month. One giant question mark is the annual renewal process of employee health insurance policies. Palmer estimated a 10 percent increase in premiums, but hopes that can be whittled
down to 7 or 8 percent depending on how discussions with four different providers play out. “So we will have four quotes to look at to see where we are in terms of that,” Palmer told lawmakers on Monday. Health insurance “experience ratings” are complicated, Palmer said, and rates and premium renewals are driven by shifts in the Affordable Care Act and state tax surcharges, among other variables. “Health insurance gets to be really complicated when you go to the experience rate,” Palmer said. “But hopefully, we’re looking at that 7 to 8 percent range.”
ChamplainÊ DARÊ conservesÊ WestportÊ stoneÊ schoolhouse One-room school in Westport, oldest in Essex County, reopens with bicentennial tribute and history lessons kim@suncommunitynews.com
>> See SCHOOLHOUSE | pg. 14
>> See COUNTY | pg. 18
GOP ‘super PAC’ drops $500k into NY21 race Ahead of final stretch, funds will be allocated to television commercials in the Watertown and Albany markets
By Kim Dedam
WESTPORT — Two hundred years ago, Westport’s first farmers cut hundreds of limestone blocks and fashioned a oneroom schoolhouse. The blocks are fit like a stalwart puzzle against the wind-whipped edge of Lake Champlain. One teacher taught eight grades at the same time in about 900 square feet of space here. The woodstove occupies a good 10 feet in the center of the room, its pipe fitted to a chimney through the roof ’s center peak. “In 1816, the United States flag had 21 stars and 13 stripes,” Ruth Barber, a descendant of those first settlers, said to a crowd gathered for the bicentennial celebration. The last year it was used, one-hundred years later, the flag had 48 stars, she said.
Additional details will be available next week after the county’s purchasing manager returns from vacation. “We have to file by (November) 15th, which we fully intend to do,” Palmer said. The county is right where it needs to be following the five-year plan, Palmer said, and the county’s reserves have returned to a “more acceptable level.” “We’ve managed to go from nearly a $7 million deficit to a healthy fund balance. How we choose to use that moving forward makes a big difference,” Palmer said.
By Pete DeMola
pete@suncommunitynews.com
Champlain Chapter, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution Regent Jean Dickerson found historic lists of students who attended the District 8 one-room schoolhouse, dating to the mid 1880s. Here, she is checking the guest book, a log that collects names and thoughts of visitors to the historic site. The DAR restored the interior room, which is protected from foot traffic by a screen. Photo by Kim Dedam
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A “super PAC” backed by House Republicans announced plans to spend $500,000 against Mike Derrick in the final stretch of New York’s 21st District Congressional race. The independent expenditure will include television advertising in the Albany and Watertown media markets, the Congressional Leadership Fund announced on Friday. “In just two years, Elise Stefanik has delivered for her district and stood as a conservative, results-oriented leader in Congress,” said Ruth Guerra, a CLF spokeswoman. “Mike Derrick, on the other hand, vows to be another rubber stamp to the failed Obama-Clinton agenda that has left hardworking families behind.” The spending influx comes three weeks before voters head to the polls on Nov. 8, and is part of a $10 million package allocated last week to 15 congressional districts across the country, bringing CLF’s total announced general election spending to date to over $33 million in 29 districts. >> See NY-21 | pg. 10