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Valley News
February 22, 2020
suncommunitynews.com
• EDITION •
The future Cuomo, Little share strategy for growth looks dark
contribution to the local economy. “It’s $5 billion which is a lot of money, but I say to the legislators every year and to the people of this state, it’s an investment,” the governor told a standing-room-only crowd gathered at the Hotel Saranac on Sunday. “We’re not taking $5 billion and throwing it out the window. We’re investing it in economic development and it will pay dividends and it has.” Cuomo outlined several key strategies put in place to support growth in the North County, through Regional Economic Development Council programs and infrastructure updates, including $240 million currently being spent to modernize Olympic Regional Development Authority ski, skate, bobsled and ski jumping venues. Another $1.2 million is set aside to fund hiking shuttles to help end the bottleneck on travel corridors around the High Peaks. “If you want to be current,” Cuomo said, “you have to modernize.”
Vermont filmmaker brings new work to Lake Placid From Staff Reports
LAKE PLACID | Jay Craven, one of Vermont’s leading and award-winning independent fi lmmakers, will be bounding across Lake Champlain this winter to introduce and discuss his latest movie, “Wetware” — a sci-fi film noir that tells a story of what happens when new technologies collide with human needs in a changing world precariously close to today’s. Craven will be on hand at LPCA to introduce his fi lm and participate in a post-screening Q&A discussion with audience members. “I wanted to tell an entertaining and timely story that had potential to engage audiences in open-ended consideration of our near future,” Craven wrote in an essay about the film. “And although ‘near future’ was totally new for me, it felt suddenly upon us.” The Adirondack Film Society (AFS) Screening Series at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts (LPCA), Version 6.0, continues Friday, Feb. 28, at 7 p.m. with this futuristic narrative feature that marks “a huge departure” for Mr. Craven, its writer-director, who says “Wetware” provided him with a chance to work with imaginative actors discovering “fresh details, in every moment, of what it is to be uniquely human in trying times.”
DRIVEN BY LOCAL LEADERSHIP
U.S. Sen. Betty Little with Gov. Andrew Cuomo as the two shared common ground and methods they’ve used to achieve economic growth in the North Country.
Photos by Darren McGee, Office of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo
“Make it work” STAFF WRITER
Country in 2018, he said, a figure up 21.6 percent since 2011. The added visits reflect a direct spending increase of more than 23 percent to $1.26 billion, according to data from SUNY Potsdam.
SARANAC LAKE |New York’s newly launched winter tourism “push” is part of continued investment throughout the North Country; it’s a “push” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he believes is and will pay dividends long term. Over 13 million people visited the North
Since taking office in 2011, Cuomo said New York has invested over $5 billion in the North Country, supporting infrastructure, tourism, priority projects, international commerce and economic development. He agrees that it’s a substantial
By Kim Dedam
See FUTURE » pg. 4
INVESTING IN THE NORTH COUNTRY
Depot Theatre unveils 2020 season Shows focus on heroes, storytelling and music By Tim Rowland STAFF WRITER
W E S T P ORT | As the g reat African-American vocalist Billie Holiday lay dying of liver and heart disease in a New York hospital in 1959, police burst into her room, charged her with drug possession and handcuffed her to her bed. For security, a cop was posted at the door of the room she would never leave. Within a
month she was dead at age 44. It was the fi nal indignity in a life of discrimination and abuse, which likely had a significant contribution to her struggles with drugs and alcohol. There are notes of Jackie Robinson in the life of Billie Holiday, as she broke down color barriers, but not without consequence. Today, said Kenney Green, Producing Artistic Director for the Depot Theatre, her music is remembered, but not her confrontations with white America in the mid 20th century. “There are a lot of things people don’t know about her trials and tribulations,” Green said. Heroism, Greene said, is a theme of the Depot Theatre’s
2020 season, subscriptions for which are now on sale. Holiday’s story is told in the musical “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill,” one of four main-stage productions in a season that runs from June 19 to Aug. 27. The season, which expands from three to four shows this year, opens with “Working: A Musical” that celebrates the everyday heroes who keep the nation’s wheels turning by doing their daily jobs. Adopted from a book by Pulitzer Prize winner Studs Terkel, “Working” is derived from interviews with people from across the country, representing a cross section of vocations.
The impetus came from local leaders, he said, crediting U.S. Sen. Betty Little for her tireless work. The senator, from Queensbury, is retiring at the end of this year. “You have a tremendous advocate in Sen. Betty Little. You have local officials and people who just are the best we have...and you know that if you invest with them it will pay dividends, and therefore I feel good on behalf of people of the entire state saying we’re going to invest in the North Country.” Cuomo said Little helped shift the focus in Albany in the nine years they’ve worked together. See GROWTH » pg. 3
Unfair fares cited Essex County could be penalized for state’s medicab fiasco By Tim Rowland STAFF WRITER
ELIZABETHTOWN | Two weeks ago some of the state’s top law-enforcement officials sent out news releases triumphantly announcing fi nes and jail time for a band of scofflaw Essex County taxi cab owners who, the officials said, had bilked Medicaid out of millions of dollars in cab fares. Medicaid reimburses the cost of travel allowing the poor access to doctors, addiction counselors, specialists or most any other sort of health care. Up until a few years ago, these travel arrangements were made by Essex County, but the state decided to step in and do the job itself. “They told us they could be more efficient,” said County Manager Dan Palmer.
See DEPOT THEATRE » pg. 5 See MEDICAID TAXI » pg. 7
Love Governor, Cuomo daughters enjoy snowmobile adventure Trail funds, free visitor weekend highlight remarks By Kim Dedam STAFF WRITER
SARANAC LAKE | Gov. Andrew Cuomo came to the Adirondacks Sunday to spend a day riding snowmobiles with his three daughters and a group of their friends. He took about an hour early in the day to announce funding for snowmobile tourism and extend an invitation that will open New York’s 10,000 miles of snowmobile trails for out-of-state sleds. There will be no fee for sleds registered in other states that travel New York’s trail system on
March 14 and March 15. The weekend welcome is getting support through a $4 million I Love NY winter tourism campaign, Cuomo said Sunday. The winter invitation will reach across America and Canada, complete with a “I Snowmobile NY” logo with the famous heart replaced by a snow machine. Cuomo announced $4.2 million in grant funds will be dispersed through municipal coffers to the some 230 local snowmobile clubs that groom and maintain trails. This funding comes from snowmobile registration fees. Another $4 million has been allocated to build and improve snowmobile trail infrastructure in the North Country. Snowmobiling is another great way to experience winter in the North Country, the governor said.
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See SNOWMOBILE» pg. 2
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Fresh Oranges .......................................................................... 2/$1.00 Fresh Blueberries ..................................................................$1.99 pt. Fresh Seedless Cucumbers ................................................$1.99 ea. Fresh Yams ..............................................................................$1.39 lb.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced March 14-15 will be free snowmobiling weekend for all out-of-state and Canadian snowmobilers, a move that will further strengthen the winter tourism industry in the North Country. Cumo made the announcement before heading out for a snowmobile adventure with his three daughters, Cara, Mariah and Michaela. Photo by Darren McGee, Office of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo
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