Sullivan will have an interesting year

By DAVID HULSE

MONTICELLO, NY — In its first four years, the new Sullivan County Legislature developed a reputation for non-partisanship and open debate. Maybe it was just inexperience.

Entering the last year of its second four-year term, that reputation pretty much reversed itself and it will be surprising if the coming year, leading to the panel’s third quadrennial elections, does not show more of the same.

After seven years in the back seat, a brand new, and now overwhelming, seven-to-two Republican majority is likely to flex its muscles, as it did in last-minute trimming of positions before the 2003 budget was approved.

As with all governments, the maintenance and growth of revenues will be a central feature in 2003. After years of running on a zero-growth policy for new taxes and seeing the slow depletion of surpluses, Sullivan has turned to a growing retail sector and pinned its budget needs on the institution of a .75 percent increase in sales tax.

While business operators, many already facing cheaper competition across state lines, complained, legislators said the only alternative was a property tax increase, which no one wanted to support.

The county has few alternatives for other revenues. Controversial imported trash contracts at the soon-to-be-expanded Monticello landfill bring in some $4.7 million annually, but the landfill revenues are not new money.

New sales tax revenues must be related to high volume sales at WalMart and a new Home Depot, which is expected to open this spring. Should economic conditions dampen those sales, the county could go shopping elsewhere for revenues.

Last August, Calpine, harried by a relatively small and vocal opposition group in Monticello, withdrew plans for a $700 million gas turbine power plant near the landfill. While the Village of Monticello and Thompson Supervisor Tony Cellini opposed the plan, the county legislature had passed a resolution allowing the county manager to negotiate with Calpine after it had completed the regulatory permit applications. The plant would be a property tax bonanza.

In November, Calpine put out feelers in the press that it remains interested in Sullivan County, if a site can be found.

Finding such a site could become an issue in the preparation of a new comprehensive plan, which the county will undertake this year.