County Legislator Joseph Meyers, D-Airmont, today called for a new county law to require certain eateries to post the calorie count in their food.

The “Rockland County National Food Service Establishments Calorie Posting Law” would require an eatery that is part of a chain that has 15 or more restaurants to post the calorie court of their standard food items on their menus, including menus boards.

The law would not apply to menu items that are listed for sale for less than 30 days in a calendar year, Meyers stated.

“Providing calorie information is public health intervention and will help address the rapidly growing epidemics of obesity, diabetes and heart disease,” Meyers stated.  “These diseases affect our entire society in terms of higher health care costs for everyone and higher taxes to support Medicare and Medicaid for the uninsured and underinsured. I am concerned that a result of the current economy more of our citizens will be frequenting fast food establishments.”

He further stated, “The fact is that people who eat at fast food establishments consume more calories.  It is important that people are provided with accurate calorie information from which they can easily make their own healthy choices. In the long run, I anticipate that some chains will improve their menus by offering selections lower in calorie count.”

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.

My daily commute to The Journal News’ Rockland office takes me down Route 17 in Orange County. For the past few days road crews have been working on an overpass near Monroe.

I was driving along, cursing getting stuck in construction traffic during an already long commute, when I saw one of Patrick Withers’ campaign signs. Wha??

Withers, a Democrat from Suffern and a former county legislator, was one of several politicians last fall who used the sides and back of trucks to promote their candidacy.

And one of his old advertisements, albeit faded and peeling, has been parked along the side of Route 17 in Monroe for the last few days. The smaller details of the ad are almost gone—one can make out the word “keep”—but the Pat Withers, now dulled to a light gray,  is clear as day.

Withers was defeated last year by Legislator Joseph Meyers, D-Suffern.

Legislator Joseph Meyers’ resolution requesting Congress to review and amend the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, also known as RLUIPA, will go up for a vote before the full Rockland County Legislature on Tuesday night.

The measure has passed through two committees. The resolution was Meyers’ first as a county legislator, though during election season last year he was more forceful in his campaign against RLUIPA, calling repeatedly for the law to be repealed. Meyers is a Democrat from Airmont.

People on both sides of the RLUIPA debate are expected to speak during the Legislature’s public participation session at the start of the meeting.

The meeting begins at 8 p.m. in the Legislature chambers at 11 New Hempstead Road in New City.

Legislator Joseph Meyers’ resolution to request that Congress review and amend the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, also known as RLUIPA, has passed on Legislature committee and has one more to go before going to the full body.

The resolution, which does not request legislators take a stance on the merits of the law, was unanimously approved at this week’s Planning and Public Works Committee meeting, chaired by Legislator VJ Pradhan, D-Nanuet. In two weeks it’ll go before the Multi-Services Committee, chaired by Legislator Phil Soskin, D-Monsey. If approved there, it will go before the full Legislature for a vote, likely at its March 18 meeting.
The law itself has been controversial in Rockland, especially in Pomona where where Congregation Rabbinical College of Tartikov sued the village to build a college with housing for nearly 5,000 people on a 130-acre site off routes 202 and 306.

Meyers promised during last year’s campaign for the Legislature seat that calling for a review of RLUIPA would  be the first thing he did if elected. And it was. Meyers has, in the past, called for the law to be taken off the books entirely.

You learn something new every day. When perusing the new Legislature bio of Joe Meyers, D-Airmont, I stumbled across this snippet of info: Meyers is an identical twin, 11 minutes old than his brother, Alan.

Maybe I’m slipping because I’ve covered Joe for the last year and I never knew that.

Also did not know he taught a “mini-course” (whatever that is) on the Modern American Presidency while he was an undergraduate at the State University of New York at Binghamton.

(Photo of Meyers in his Airmont trustee days by Vincent DiSalvio/The Journal News.)

Legislature Chairwoman Harriet Cornell, D-West Nyack, has made a few changes in the committees and their leadership.

She created one new committee on economic development to be headed by Majority Leader Michael Grant, D-Garnerville. The committee will deal with the “stimulus, development and revitalizaton of Rockland County’s economy” according to a new release issued by Cornell.

Newly returned Legislator Alden Wolfe, D-Suffern, has been named chair of the Government Operations Committee, a spot formerly held by Grant. And Legislator Jay Hood Jr., D-Haverstraw, will replace former Legislator David Fried as the chairman of the Public Safety Committee.

Returning to their posts are:

Legislator Ilan Schoenberger, D-Wesley Hills: Budget and Finance

Legislator Connie Coker, D-South Nyack: Environmental

Vice Chairman William Darden, D-Spring Valley: Rules

Legislator VJ Pradhan, D-Nanuet: Planning and Public Works

Legislator Philip Soskin, D-Monsey: Multi-Services

That leaves two Democratic legislators, Joseph Meyers from Airmont and Jacques Michel from Spring Valley, without leadership positions. The two are new to the Legislature this year.

Today The Journal News’ editorial board heard from the County Legislature’s District 12 candidates: Legislature Patrick Withers, Airmont Trustee Joseph Meyers and real estate broker Larry Weinstein. The editorial board was there to get information for its endorsement. I was there to get information for my story on this race.

It’s certainly not a rule, but in the other meetings I’ve been to (this year and the two years previously) the candidates typically take care to turn off or silence their cell phones. Or maybe no one called them while they were being interviews. Who knows.

But today, Weinstein took two phone calls and made a third in the middle of the interview. The first call was picked up to tell the caller he was in a meeting and he quickly hung up.

Call No. 2 lasted a bit longer with Weinstein again telling the caller that he was in a meeting and then going so far as to ask to borrow Wither’s pen to write something down.

After telling us he was late for a closing—the meeting was running a half-hour late at that point—Weinstein then made a call to postpone his closing explaining that the meeting had run over.

All this was done seated at our table with Weinstein sitting across from us and in between Meyers and Withers. And the latter two were made while the other candidates were trying to answer their questions. On the third call, Meyers simply gave up and waited for Weinstein to finish his conversation.

*** NOTE TO READERS Reporters often sit in on these meetings, but we do not have any input in who the editorial board chooses to endorse. We are not asked for opinions nor are we allowed to give them. Because these are on-the-record interviews reporters attend for any news that may be discussed.