News

While the county executive has asked the town of Clarkstown and Palisades Center to come to an agreement on their expansion dispute, legal action between the two parties drags on.Pyramid Management Group LLC director of government affairs, David Aitken, says expansion will help them compete in a new and challenging retail climate…

Aitken says they just want to be treated like every other business in the town. 17 years ago, Clarkstown voters rejected the mall’s request to be released from the “Restrictive Covenant” that prohibits expansion.

East Ramapo’s district clerk, on the job just a few days, has stepped down. Catherine Navarro-Steinel was appointed by the school board last week, but board president Harry Grossman told The Journal News she stepped down for personal reasons. Former district clerk Catherine Russell retired after more than ten years on the job. The district is searching for a replacement.

Free income tax preparation is available for those 50 and up in North Rockland thanks to the AARP. Stony Point supervisor Jim Monaghan says, with the changes made to the tax code last year, help for some may be necessary…

The help is available at North Rockland High school starting this afternoon from 2:30 to 6:30. Future help sessions are being held Wednesday, February 27th, and every Wednesday in March at the same time.

New York’s governor met with the president yesterday to discuss a full repeal of SALT. That’s the part of the president’s 2017 tax cut package that capped the deductibility of state and local taxes. In a speech last week in the city, Governor Andrew Cuomo called SALT a political attack on New York…

Bloomberg News reported a Trump spokesman said the president “listened to the governor’s concerns” but offered no assurances on any changes. TheHill.com reported the president suggested opening the state up to fracking to improve its economy, and also expressed concern about the recently-passed abortion legislation. Cuomo has called the federal tax law a redistribution of wealth from richer, blue states to poorer, red states.

An upstate New York assemblyman wants a referendum to split the state into two. Republican Stephen Hawley, whose district borders Canada between Rochester and Buffalo, told the CBS TV affiliate in Albany that “the New York City voting bloc has forgotten upstate and is imposing their radical left-wing agenda” on everyone else. Assemblyman Colin Schmitt’s 99th district covers North Rockland and parts of Orange County, and while he’s not for dividing the state, which would cut right through his district, he says the true focus should be on reversing the actions of what he calls the New York City “liberal political machine.”…

Hawley is hoping to bring the proposal to the Assembly floor.