News stories tagged with "st-lawrence-county"

(05/22/12) Long-time Canton resident Peter Van de Water is out with a new book, This is What I Thought at the Time. It's a collection of his essays originally published in the St. Lawrence Plaindealer: everything from farming to politics.

Todd Moe spoke with him about writing essays based on what he was reading, childhood memories on the farm and changes in society. Van de Water has spent most of his life in Canton, graduated from St. Lawrence University, retired in 1984 and says his essays were inspired by his father's newspaper columns in the Watertown Daily Times.

(04/12/12) Participants in a series of dance workshops tomorrow and Saturday will help create the mood for a final dance concert Saturday night in Potsdam. The St. Lawrence County Arts Council has invited the Sasha Soreff Dance Theater to bring their interactive dance piece, titled "The Shoelace Project," to the North Country this weekend.

Director Sasha Soreff told Todd Moe that audiences will participate by writing their hopes and fears on wide shoelaces before the show, and during the performance the company's dancers will use the shoelaces and translate the thoughts into movement. She says the workshops will be open to people of all abilities.

(02/16/12) A St. Lawrence County official says a redistricting plan proposed by the state legislature would give his county much less political say, by dividing it among four different state Assembly members and three senators. The county is currently represented by two of each.

The plan has drawn fire from good government groups who say the new political maps are unfair and biased, and from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has threatened to veto them.

St. Lawrence County Planning Director Keith Zimmerman and other county officials testified Tuesday at a hearing of the "LATFOR" redistricting commission in Syracuse.

Zimmerman told the commission the plan would make it hard for lawmakers to effectively represent the county.

Nora Flaherty spoke with Zimmerman Wednesday.

(02/02/12) St. Lawrence County legislators are scheduled to take another look at a Climate Action Plan next week. When legislators asked the County Planning Department to write the plan last March, they wanted ways to save money by being more energy efficient.

The climate plan was tabled last summer, when students and professors at the four universities in Canton and Potsdam started a cost-benefit analysis of some ideas in the plan. more

(01/25/12) St. Lawrence County legislators are urging the Adirondack Park Agency to fight a recent court decision that designates the water and bed of Lows Lake as wilderness. That's according to the Watertown Daily Times. more

(11/09/11) St. Lawrence County voters chose Republican Mary Lou Rupp as their next county clerk. Her margin over Democrat Gavin Regan was better than two to one.

Regan had been appointed to the post by Gov. Andrew Cuomo when then-clerk Patty Ritchie won a seat in the state Senate. Rupp had served as deputy to Ritchie in the clerk's office.

Rupp says she's ecstatic and thankful about the win. She says she was part of making the clerk's office a money-maker for the county, so voters supported her.

"I think it's because people know how hard we've worked to make our local offices so well run and efficient - customer friendly and revenue generating offices. There was no need for a change." more

(11/02/11) The election of a county clerk usually doesn't get much attention. The office processes paperwork: passports, pistol permits, mortgages, and vehicle registrations. But this year, people are watching the race for clerk in St. Lawrence County. And the two candidates think that's largely because the office has started making money. Julie Grant reports. more

(11/01/11) We are media sponsor for the 24th annual Artists' Studio Tour in St. Lawrence County this weekend. Works by artists and craftspeople will be on display in studios and galleries across the county on Saturday and Sunday. The St. Lawrence County Arts Council is also celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. Todd Moe talks with Executive Director Hilary Oak about some of the challenges and successes in the local arts community, and goals for the next decade. Oak helped rebuild the arts council in 2001.

(10/25/11) The late Roger Huntley was a lot of things: auctioneer, farmer, pillar of the Pierrepont-Crary Mills community. He was also a knowledgeable collector of historic farm equipment, and he liked to share his enthusiasm.

A few years ago, Huntley's neighbor, David Sommerstein, got a call that Roger and his wife Ann had brought out their early-1900s mechanical corn harvester to make corn bundles for Halloween with their granddaughters. Here's David's heard Up North from October 2007.

(10/17/11) There's a new wrinkle in the budget process for municipalities and school districts across New York. At Gov. Andrew Cuomo's urging this spring, state legislators approved a new 2 percent cap on how much local property taxes can go up in a given fiscal year.

But with expenses rising and revenues flat, counties and towns are weighing the possibility of overriding the cap. As Martha Foley reports, one St. Lawrence County town has reluctantly taken the first step. more