$1.49 million in tax incentives for Malta project
Arnoff Global Logistics will begin a $12.1 million expansion in Malta next month after the Saratoga County Industrial Development Agency approved tax incentives to the tune of $1.49 million, the Albany Business Journal is reporting. The company will build a 120,000-square-foot addition on their 40-acre campus. Arnoff Global is a final-mile household goods distribution business. The company delivers household construction items such as kitchen cabinets and sinks to online consumers.
Hochul’s position on mask mandate shifts to financial pressure
New York State plans to financially support the counties that are actively enforcing Gov. Kathy Hochul’s mask-or-vaccine policy rather than going into counties for “spot checks,” the Times Union is reporting. The governor had said Monday Dec. 20, that the state would both inspect and withhold money, the story says. This is a response to a number of mostly Republican county leaders who said they will not enforce the mandate that went into effect on Monday Dec. 13. According to the story, Hochul said the state was doling out $65 million to counties to support enforcement of the mask policy to those counties that do enforce it, and to cover costs for testing, vaccines and masks. Another $65 million would go to all counties but just to help with booster vaccinations, the story says. [Saratoga and Warren county leaders have said they will not enforce the mandate, though Warren County Board Chair Rachel Seeber has asked the public for patience and to wear masks.]
Fred Monroe, “Adirondack icon” remembered
Local government leader from Chestertown, Fred Monroe died Friday Dec. 17 at the age of 76. Friends and colleagues said he was being treated for cancer, a story in the Adirondack Explorer says. An attorney known for defending private property rights in the heavily-regulated Adirondack Park, Monroe grew up on an island on Loon Lake. Among his positions in local government: supervisor of the town of Chester for 24 years, chair of the Warren County Board of Supervisors and head of the Adirondack Local Government Review Board from 2005 to 2018.
He was a founder and chairman of the Adirondack Fairness Coalition, formed in the late 1980s to fight then-Gov. Mario Cuomo’s Commission on the Adirondacks in the Twenty-First Century. Most of the recommendations of that commission ended up going nowhere.
Although a legal fighter, the story says: “Monroe preferred meticulous research and scholarly arguments to angry confrontations and raised voices.”