Agency’s new board members need training

KINGSTON, N.Y. » The purge of five people from the Ulster County Industrial Development Agency’s sevenmember board has made it necessary for the remaining two members to compensate for lost institutional knowledge.

Training the new members was among the topics discussed during the board’s reorganization meeting Wednesday, at which returning member Randall Leverette was appointed as chairman to replace ousted board member John Morrow.

“I think my role will be to make sure that new members are informed and have the information that they need and continue to work as we always have,” Leverette said.

Leverette and James Malcom are the returning members. The new members are Paul Andreassen, Michael Ham, Richard Jones, Daniel Savona and Faye Storms. Malcom and Savona were absent from Wednesday’s meeting.

Policies and regulations are to be discussed during a training session on July 25 to help the new members understand nuances of the agency and its fiscal counterpart, the Ulster County Capital Resource Corp. Industrial Development Agency board members serve in the same capacity on both boards.

Among issues about which new board members need clarification is which of the two public authorities provides tax breaks and which offers financial assistance for business startup and expansion.

Jones said there are about 20 questions he has that will need to be ad-

dressed during the training session, which will be lead by county Economic Development Director Suzanne Holt.

“I started off,” Jones said, “by ... attempting to set up a chart that could be used for discussion purposes, as well as when we actually get into the work of the board and need to make decisions about various PILOT (payment-in-lieu-of-taxes) applications that is a comparison between what a PILOT provides versus what a 485-b (business exemption) is.”

Jones also said he has questions about the roles of committees and what issues they address.

Among the reasons for the Industrial Development Agency board being

nearly remade was dissatisfaction by some county legislators over the perception of favoritism for some applications. Ham, a union representative who was appointed in May, objected to a crane operator being allowed to amend a PILOT application several times.

“They just repeatedly coming back to the board by altering their application, like ‘I lost this time, hold on . ... Now I’m going to modify it again,’” he said.

“How many times do you keep calling the mulligan?” Ham said. “You don’t want that to set a precedent.”

The PILOT application ultimately was denied.

Holt, who provides assistance to help all applicants navigate agency requirements, said that request for tax relief was unique.

“I would just say that ... we haven’t seen another project like that before or since,” she said.