Some interesting numbers from Albany reporter Cara Matthews in her Albany Watch post. She reports that this year’s report cards on proposed school spending shows that districts would increase spending by an average of 2.35 percent, and the average tax levy would go up 1.89 percent. Seems that suburban districts, like Rockland’s, are adjusting to the times. In 2004-05, the average spending increase was 6.29 percent, and the average statewide tax levy for that budget year was 8.26 percent. It’s going in the right direction, for sure, and many Rockland districts seem to be in line with the new numbers.

Of course, the bigger issue is the property tax-based funding of schools, and municipalities, in New York state. That, of course, is the big fish.

Today, the Rockland County Health Department reported that two cases of possible swine flu were being investigated. Both Rocklanders had recently traveled to Mexico, the epicenter of this outbreak. Here’s info from the county DOH. Local health departments, along with the federal Centers for Disease Control, are advising people to take precautions, including avoiding shaking hands.

I haven’t gone out of my way to avoid handshaking, but I have taken a wait-and-see attitude. I had three meetings with people (candidates for school boards, the county executive and staff) and no one offered to shake hands. And yes, usually they do. Everyone was pleasant, and nodded, smiled, etc., all the social cues. But no one put out the paw. And that’s just fine. I asked a few people if they were avoiding handshaking, and a couple said yes, one said no, and one said she hadn’t realized it, but yes, she was a usual handshaker and hugger and wasn’t doing either when she ran into people.

So, are you greeting people at a distance? What are you doing differently as the swine flu progresses? And did you even realize it?

Today we had an editorial about bus safety, and new technology — a motion-activated camera afixed to buses — designed to catch motorists passing school buses picking up or dropping off passengers. Why would such a techno-whiz be needed? Because drivers don’t wait. They pass school buses that have their stop signs out and their red lights blinking.

It happens frequently.  Peter Brockmann, Clarkstown schools transportation director,
told me that districts know their “hot spots,” as he calls areas where drivers tend to sneak past stopped buses. Often they are major commuter corridors — in his district that’s routes 304 and 303 — rather than residential roads.

Just the combination of school buses and regular traffic ups the risk, even when appears everyone behind the wheel is following the rules. Just this week, a Nyack Middle School seventh-grader was hurt when she ran into a car trying to catch her bus.
As Jack Coxen, Brewster’s transportation supervisor, said, “Outside the buses is where they’re (students) most unsafe.”

On Wednesday, Finkelstein Library’s 2009-2010 passed overwhelmingly, an interesting commentary for in a community that struggles to pass budgets. The library, the largest in Rockland, serves the East Ramapo school district.

Last year, the library’s proposed $6.6 million spending plan was defeated at the polls. Cuts to weekend hours and some rules about circulation were made to trim costs. This year, a $7 million budget passed. Why? Well, certainly not because there was less opposition. Like the 2008-2009 budget plan, this year’s spending plan was lobbied against by the Southeast Taxpayers Association. Plus, the economy is even worse, and so is the real estate market, so it’s a big ask to convince homeowners to up their property tax bills.

So, why did the budget pass this year? Well, let’s look at the voter turnout numbers:

Last year, 747 voted against the budget and 567 voted for it.

This year, according to an unofficial tally that includes absentee ballots, 1,901 voted for the budget, and 822 against it.

It’s all about turnout: This year,  2,723 cast ballots. Last year, 1,314 voted. More than twice as many people voted this year (1,409).  So, does this vote reflect the community more than the other? Considering that there are 93,000 is Finkelstein service area (with 43,000 cardholders) even the more-than-double turnout is hardly a reflection of eligible voters. But this year’s lesson is a good one: You have to show up to be heard.

Today’s Journal News/LoHud.com article about a 40-year-old man being charged by Clarkstown with assault in a suspected road rage incident got a little perspective with a report from USA Today.

According to research from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, 78 percent of motorists in the United States say aggressive driving is a serious concern, but nearly half admit speeding on major highways in the past 30 days. They also said they have exceeded the speed limit on residential streets, honked at other drivers, tailgated and blown through yellow lights.

Serious stuff. USA Today reports that aggressive driving is a factor in 56 percent of fatal crashes, according to a AAA Foundation study of federal data of fatal crashes from 2003 through 2007, the most recent data available.

While it’s important to be alert and confident behind the wheel, there’s a big difference between assertive and aggressive driving. Know when it’s your turn at a four-way stop, and take it. But if someone jumps the order, is it really worth a fight?

More common (and easier to admit) are the sloppy driving habits most of us pick up after 30 or so years behind the wheel. Most of us have a bad driving habit.  (I never tailgate, always use by turn signals and double-check over my shoulder before changing lanes, but I do have to watch the speedometer.) What’s yours?

It’s time for the Great American Cleanup! (Or, in my “fun with commas” segment, Great American, clean up! See? Punctuation does matter!)

Keep Rockland Beautiful sponsors litter cleanups starting tomorrow through next Sunday. What better way to celebrate Earth Day and the county’s natural beauty than to grab a bag, gloves and a “grabber” and get rid of the litter that dots roadways, gutters, streams and parking lots.

Haven’t registered but still want to join a cleanup? Go here. Or, you can pick up the trash in your neighborhood. It gets there one piece at a time (mostly) so we can all get rid of it the same way.

GRAPHIC: Amelia Marino created this design. The ninth grader at Pearl River High School won KRB’s first annual t-shirt design contest for high school students.

Last week, my colleague, columnist Bob Baird, was writing about the holes in the fence meant to protect people from the temptation of taking a shortcut along the NJ Transit tracks near Lawrence Street in the Clarkstown-Spring Valley area. (Here’s the column.) He has long advocated for safety measures there, writing many columns over the years about people killed traversing the tracks to get to Route 59 directly, instead of taking a mile-long walkaround. NJ Transit put up fencing several years ago and Clarkstown has been working on installing sidewalks in the area. The fences, though, regularly sprout holes at the bottom where people can scoot underneath. Last week, Bob went out to visit the Lawrence Street area. He came back and began to write. He would look over and explain to me how the holes kept cropping up, and how frustrating it was to see people dip down under to walk across. He’s done a great job of keeping track of the Lawrence Street danger, advocating for safety measures to be taken in the area, and warning people that it’s a deceivingly dangerous path.

Well, today we find out that his call for safety measures, like those after the 11th person was hit in 2001, have gotten attention. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, has contacted NJ Transit, and wants them to fix the fence and put up signage to make clear the danger. Khurram Saeed writes about it in his Going Places blog. You may recall that Schumer put the pressure on NJ Transit in 2003 to get the fencing installed in the first place.

There’s plenty of pedestrian traffic in the working class area, and the tracks divide shopping and residential areas, adding long treks for those who want to run some quick errands. The temptation to cut the tracks has been documented since 1985, when a 15-year-old was killed crossing the tracks on the way to apply for a job at McDonald’s. Since commuter trains don’t run much midday, some don’t realize the tracks are in fact frequently used by trains. Plus, because of the Doppler effect, the train noise may not sound like it’s coming so close, and someone near the tracks may not notice it until it’s too late.

Just a couple days after a State Department of Motor Vehicles spokesman said mold abatement could leave the West Haverstraw DMV closed for weeks or even months, the facility in Samsondale Plaza re-opened for business. (See news story here.)
It’s better for Rockland motorists, but it’s hardly a shining example of government action, or communication.
DMV first closed for a couple days on March 9 to fix a water leak from the office above.
The water leak apparently sparked a mold problem, and DMV kept the office closed for remediation. But with little public outreach and even less accurate information about the closure, people kept showing up, often taking time off work, to renew licenses, register vehicles and take care of other important business.
On March 11, DMV issued a press release announcing the extension of the closing for another week, to March 17. Then the DMV posted a sign outside the Samsondale Plaza office saying the branch would reopen March 30.
On April 1, the DMV announced the office would be closed indefinitely. On April 2, County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef sent a letter to DMV stating that “it is intolerable that our residents must suffer such inconvenience for an indefinable period of time.” Vanderhoef and County Clerk Paul Piperato also offered county space for a temporary site to ensure Rocklanders could conduct important DMV business close to home. DMV officials said that would be unworkable.
At least someone was thinking about offering real relief to Rocklanders. DMV’s solution? Sending people north to Orange County or east across the Tappan Zee (and its $4 toll) to Peekskill while offering the public vague timelines for a reopening.
On Tuesday, DMV spokesman Ken Brown told staff writer Laura Incalcaterra that he hoped it wouldn’t be any more than few weeks or months before the office reopened. “The (West Haverstraw) office will reopen only when it is determined there are no potential health risks to the employees or the public,” he said.
Two days later, on Thursday, a DMV media advisory announced the office was open with its regular hours “after being closed for maintenance due to a prior plumbing leak in an office above the DMV.”
“All services will be available,” a media advisory stated.

PHOTO: Signs outside the Rockland County DMV office in West Haverstraw March 31 direct motorists to offices in other counties. The Rockland DMV offices have been closed due to a problem with mold. (Kathy Gardner/Journal News)

We had an editorial today about giving when disaster strikes in the world, this time, specifically, the earthquake in Italy.

Personal connections often foster giving around the world, and we’ve seen that many times in Rockland. But we’ve seen that giving spirit spread. Local Haitian groups rallied to bring food and financial assistance to Haiti after last year’s storms killed upwards of 1,000 people and wreaked havoc on food production and infrastructure in the nation that shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. But help was not limited to members of the Haitian-American community, said Renold Julien, who heads the Spring Valley-based Konbit Neg Lakay. “I always knew that Haiti has a lot of friends, but I did not expect for so many non-Haitians to get involved,” Julien said last year. (The file photo above shows members of North Rockland High School’s Aspira club, Desiree Hernandez, left, and Maneli Cortes both of Haverstraw, packing donated clothes at Quisqueya in Haverstraw Nov. 10, 2007, as part of the Haverstraw Relief Task Force’s collection of food and supplies for flood victims in the Dominican Republic.)

We saw the personal connection foster the giving spirit throughout the county after a tsunami swept over south Asia the day after Christmas in 2004. Nicole Varmon of Valley Cottage and Meaghan Carleo of Nyack were teaching English on the island of Phuket, Thailand. They witnessed the devastation from the disaster that left at least 165,000 dead in 11 countries. Varmon soon returned home while Carleo stayed. The pair raised $26,000 to help Thai victims, much of that through local fundraisers.
Sometimes, though, it is just the human connection, void of any personal ties, that spurs giving. In 2005, then-6-year-old Ashley Columbia of Stony Point raised $6,000 for tsunami survivors after viewing news reports. “”I felt like it was something I had to do,” she said at the time. “It felt right. If everybody got involved, it would seem like a lot more of a difference.” Indeed.

How to help
Donations for victims of the earthquake in Italy can be sent to:

• Rockland Lodge Earthquake Relief Fund, 46 Van Wyk Road, Blauvelt, NY 10919. For more information contact 845-359-9766


• IAF Earthquake Relief Fund, c/o Honorary Vice Consul Steve Acunto, P.O. Box 9001, Mount Vernon, NY 10552


• American Red Cross, 143 N. Broadway, Nyack, NY 10960. Please add “International Response Fund” in the memo.

We hosted and Editorial Spotlight last night with teens from Rockland high schools who had been trained as SAEDA counselors, which stands for “Student Activists Ending Dating Abuse.” We talked about their work helping teens understand healthy relationships and how they do prevention work to stop the “isms,” of sexist, racism, classism, etc. News reporter Leah Rae wrote an article out of the discussion, too. Read it here.

These teens are trying to influence their peers in a positive way—leading by example to create a society where dating abuse, from verbal putdowns to physical violence, is unacceptable. They are also leading the way to make the world a more respectful place for all of us.

But they are also just teens living teen lives. And that regular chatter among teens, and us, brought up some really interesting information. When asked about their biggest influence, teens all said  their parents. Then, they were asked, who was next? Silence. One said siblings, one said friends. Interestingly, no one said teachers, counselors or other school officials, which many automatically think are major influences. Now, I’m not downplaying the important role of teachers, and many of the kids spoke about those important adults in their lives. But, they really are influenced by their peer groups, for better or worse. That’s important to acknowledge. And, it also underscores the importance of such groups as SAEDA, and Reality Check (the anti-smoking-among-youth programs) and SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) and other peer advocate groups.

So, (as pictured above) Kapri Rosario, senior at Ramapo; Tyana Soto, junior at North Rockland;  Nana Adjei-Brenyah, senior at Ramapo; and Justin Mathew, a junior from Clarkstown South (and Rockland Family Shelter education director James Young): Thanks for sharing. And for the work you do on behalf of your peers.