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Volunteers aided seniors at Oneida Public Library

On behalf of Oneida Public Library and the many, many seniors in the Greater Oneida Area who took advantage of their free tax-preparation services, I wish to express our deep gratitude to the sterling volunteers who came to the library six hours a week from Feb. 1 to April 13 to file both federal and New York state income tax returns electronically for 356 senior individuals or married couples.

The Oneida cohort of trained and certified volunteers in Tax Counseling for the Elderly, a program operating under the auspices of the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Madison County, were Tom Clarke, Al Cohen, Kathy Garner and Kitty Warner. They were ably assisted by Barb Johnson, who acted as gatekeeper, registrar, scheduler of filers and “printer’s devil.”

The four volunteer tax counselors were truly knowledgeable about current income tax regulations and the sophisticated electronic filing program used. No wonder, for they had previously undergone more than 35 hours of training by Internal Revenue Service personnel over the course of 10 weeks. In addition, they had to pass three to four IRS certification tests. Surely, their willingness to undergo such arduous training is proof of extraordinary dedication.

Their knowledge and expertise certainly paid off for their clients. According to Judy Parker, county coordinator for Tax Counseling for the Elderly, the volunteers at Oneida Public Library helped their senior filers get $165,986 in federal income tax refunds and $19,332 in N.Y.S. income tax refunds, for a total of $185,318 in savings. She also reports that the IRS calculates that tax-help volunteers can save each senior taxpayer, on average, the $175 that a commercial tax-preparer would charge for an individual filing.

Tax Counseling for the Elderly receives bi-annual grants from the IRS to train volunteers and organize senior tax help services around Madison County. This year, the program had volunteers at seven sites, five of which scheduled tax filing by appointment. Only Oneida Library and the Canastota Public Library sites worked on the “first come, first served” basis.

On May 5, Tom Clarke, Al Cohen, Kathy Garner, Kitty Warner and Barb Johnson will join their fellow county tax-preparation volunteers at the Lincklaen House in Cazenovia for a banquet in their honor. In spirit at least, we at Oneida Public Library will raise a toast to them that evening for a good job well done. And we hope to see our Oneida cohort of volunteers back here at the library the first week of February 2017. burned within the city for transportation and for heating, but even when they’re burned beyond the city for electricity, the pollutants make their way to us.

That’s why Indian Point is so important. It produces 30 percent of New York City’s power with zero emissions. Yet the state wants to close it — even as it’s trying to help upstate nuclear plants survive. If we lose Indian Point, it will be replaced by fossil fuels spewing carbon, nitrous oxide, and sulfur dioxide into our already impure air, because renewables won’t meet baseload power needs for many years if ever.

The health of urban communities should never be sacrificed for the sake of political machinations and unrealistic expectations about technology. African-American New Yorkers struggling for breath need and deserve environmental justice — and that means keeping Indian Point open.