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But Legislators Gerold Bierker, C-Bardonia, and Doug Jobson, R-Stony Point, did a good job of leading the audience at Tuesday’s Legislature meeting in a rendition of “God Bless America.”
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Legislator Gerold Bierker said his current third term on the Rockland County Legislature will be his last.
The Bardonia Conservative said he’s looking forward to time spent fishing, playing with the grandchildren and getting back into his target shooting hobby.
“At the end of this term, I’m going to be 72 years old,” he said.
Bierker, a former high school principal, was elected in November. His term ends in 2011.
The former minority leader said he hopes the leaders of the Republican and Conservative parties will start looking for a replacement soon so that person can learn about the job and make him or herself known to community members before the 2011 election.
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Working for a morning paper, the Rockland County Legislature meeting lasted long after my deadline last night. When I left around 9:30 p.m. or so, the Legislature was only halfway down a long list of people who had signed up to speak on the so-called “flow control” proposal that would give the Solid Waste Management Authority the right to mandate that all trash haulers, even private carriers, bring waste to county-owned facilities.
The vote didn’t happen until around midnight. Yikes.
After hearing hours of comment, mostly negative, legislators voted 11-4 to approve the law with the “nay†votes coming from Legislators Gerold Bierker, C-Bardonia, Ed Day, R-New City, Joseph Meyers, D-Airmont and Frank Sparaco, R-Valley Cottage.
The Legislature previously struck down a motion to table the issue, 5-11 with Bierker, Day, Meyers, Sparaco and Legislator Doug Jobson, R-Stony Point, voting in favor of tabling the proposal.
Several members of the Legislature sit on the Solid Waste Management Authority.
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Our Data Desk has posted two new databases with all sorts of info useful to Rockland residents.
First off, relating to today’s story about how many schools and districts in the Lower Hudson Valley, including some in Rockland, received high marks from the state Education Department for their academic performance and for closing the achievement gap.
Here’s a link to the article about it, written by Journal News reporters Randi Weiner and Dwight R. Worley: Nearly 150 schools show improvement. And here’s a link to the database.
Then, we have the database the desk put together on tax levies and school spending. Check out how your school district compares with others.
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Legislator Gerold Bierker, C-Bardonia, has a penchant for really going to bat for causes he feels are not only worthy, but not getting the attention they deserve.
During budget season you often hear him trying to wrangle more money out of the budget for certain organizations, most notably the Hi-Tor Animal Care Center and Project Turning Point.
He helped honor the latter last night before the Legislature meeting when he and Chairwoman Harriet Cornell, D-West Nyack present the group and it’s leaders with the Legislature’s Distinguished Service Award.
Operating out of Spring Valley since 1985, the group has provided services to thousands of homeless and runaway teens from every town in the county.
Having faced budget cuts from the federal, state and local levels, Project Turning Point currently operate a six-bed shelter as part of St. Agatha’s Home.
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I attend most of the County Legislature’s meetings, held the first and third Tuesday’s each month. They are interesting for the most part, but can get a little dry.
Well last night was anything but. A simple public hearing and subsequent vote on a law to mandate recycling programs for plastic bags turned into an all out snit-fest.
It all started when Legislator Gerold Bierker, C-Bardonia, called for motion to table the resolution until it could be heard by the Solid Waste Management Authority. (Keep in mind that the SWMA doesn’t recycle plastic bags.)
The only votes of encouragement he got were from the five members of minority parties (the sixth—Legislator Doug Jobson, R-Stony Point—was absent.) So Bierker’s motion got shot down by Dem power.
But the motion then causes Legislator Ilan Schoenberger to remark that no member of the minority parties had brought up the SWMA issue previously and that it was a display of party-line voting. He also noted that if a minority member had sponsored the law along with him and 
Legislator Connie Coker, D- South Nyack, it would have passed smoothly.
Which then led Bierker to comment “that when the lower tier votes, it’s a called a party line vote. But when the Democrats vote I presume it’s called democracy in action.”
Ding! Round Two.
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New York state is relatively unusual in that you, the voter, get to have a say in school budgets.
Enough people turn out and say no to the budget, and the school district has to go back to the drawing board or adopt what is called an “austerity” budget. I put that word in quotes because, in fact, it’s rarely any smaller than the proposed budget; all the elements in an austerity budget are mandated by the state.
But truth be told, school budgets rarely are voted down. It happens from time to time; in recent years in Rockland, budgets in East Ramapo have been rejected by voters a few times in the past decade: in 2005, 2004 and 2002, the district’s original budgets were voted down; subsequent, trimmed-down versions were approved.
Vote in our poll in the right-hand sidebar or comment here on how you think the New York school budget process works (or doesn’t).
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