http://www.dailyazette.com

Quoted Text

ROTTERDAM
Schalmont fields get more trees
BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter

    Spectators attending sporting events at the fields on Schalmont’s main campus could find themselves standing in the shade this spring.
    Members of the district’s Board of Education approved a $25,152 contract with Paktar Landscaping this week to plant 89 mature evergreen and deciduous trees around the newly constructed athletic fields once the ground thaws. Funding for the project comes from a legislative grant secured for the district by former state Assemblyman Paul Tonko before he became president of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority last year.
    District Business Administrator Mark Kellet said the trees will at last bring to a close Schalmont’s $32 million capital project, which was approved by voters in 2000 and started about five years ago. The projects included $5.28 million worth of improvements at the high school and middle school campuses off Duanesburg Road, including an expansion of the athletic facilities.
    “We wanted to complete the field project and leave it better than we found it,” he said Thursday. “So wherever we had to take down trees, we’re putting up more than we took down.”
    Kellet said the trees will create a more park-like setting. Last year, some residents criticized the district for removing trees around the campus to construct the new fields. Kellet said the addition of the trees should help ease some of these initial concerns.
    “We’re putting in nice-sized trees so they will have an impact immediately.”
    Kellet said the new landscaping will also serve as a marker for where one capital project ended and another begins. Schalmont officials are planning a $9.7 million project to upgrade weatherization, heating and cooling in buildings; the project was approved by voters last fall and is mostly covered through state aid.
    “This really puts the finishing touches on proposition 2000,” he said. “Now, we’ll turn our attentions to the improvements of 2007.”

So, with this $25,000 that's supposedly not coming out of my pocket being paid off, I should see a tax decrease, since we're finished paying off this $32 million project.  But, oh wait, there's another, bigger, more expensive project coming up.  Good thing that we didn't make the buildings energy efficient before, we might have saved some of the tax money that could have paid for THIS project!

Schalmont gets more trees.  Yippee.  Maybe the residents of Schalmont can get some more of that green stuff that's printed on stuff that comes from trees.  Actually, this pork has finally ben totally paid off by the state.  Maybe we should be going back and asking for more, since this ran out?  Maybe we can have the entire state pay for the next project instead of saddling the residents of the district with part of the burden?

And don't forget that the SI Group is looking for a tax break that will include the Schamont School district! Just where do they think they are going to get all of this money from?

That is so the fields wont be in the open to be seen by Flying J's.....or whatever gets built at the 88 entrance....and it will probably help with the whistling winds.....