Straw Poll signoff

I didn't think this day would come so soon, but life is full of surprises, some wonderful, some tolerable and some downright ugly.

This is a good one. My fiancee recently took a job in Hartford, and I'll be heading out there with her later this month. The downside is that I'll be saying goodbye to the Poughkeepsie Journal on Thursday, and the short, happy life of Straw Poll shall come to an end.

This blog has developed a small but devoted following in the past few months. I suspect that most of you are folks on the inside of government keeping tabs on the folks around you, though I'm sure other readers are average people on the outside looking in. (Like spectators at the zoo, perhaps?)

At any rate, I'm sure this won't be the last, nor the best, local politics blog to be launched by the Poughkeepsie Journal, so stay tuned. And in the meantime, I hope you all do your part to keep government officials in check.

More TGIF tidbits

Members of Congress voted themselves a 2.7 percent cost-of-living pay increase starting later this year. U.S. Rep. John Hall, D-Dover Plains, who voted against the $4,400 a year increase, said he would donate the extra pay to charity. He'll decide which charity later this summer, before the increase takes effect Oct. 1.

Meanwhile, Hall also drew fire this week from potential election opponent Kieran Michael Lalor of Peekskill, who criticized Hall for not staking a clearer position on immigration. Lalor touted his own hard-line approaches to cracking down on illegal immigration. He is considering a run for the Republican nomination to challenge Hall in November 2008.

In Dutchess County politics, a proposed domestic partnership registry is back on the county Legislature's agenda. Republican leaders had pulled the legislation creating the registry, citing a missing dollar figure, but Democratic sponsors submitted a revised copy with the figure. It is scheduled for discussion Thursday at the Government Services & Administration Committee meeting.

And finally, expect to see local party faithful scurrying about town the next few weeks as they gather signatures by the July 19 deadline for nominating petitions. You might say the election season doesn't officially start until the close of business that day. Or you might say the last election season never really ended.

Have a good weekend. Straw Poll will return on Wednesday.

TGIF tidbits

Dutchess County Executive Bill Steinhaus participated with other county executives from the region in a forum Thursday on potential solutions to a variety of problems in the Hudson Valley. Steinhaus makes a reference in that story to affordable housing, but Westchester Executive Andrew Spano has the more colorful quote, about dancing the Funky Chicken.

Dutchess Legislator Joel Tyner, meanwhile, is preparing for one of his long walks to raise awareness of county issues. Tyner, D-Clinton, plans to leave at 10 a.m. today from the Rhinebeck town hall and trek 13 miles to the Clinton town hall carrying a sign promoting a county-coordinated, privately funded program to distribute compact fluorescent bulbs that would conserve energy. (On a fitness note: Tyner must have calves of steel after walking so many miles for so many causes.)

Republicans in the state Assembly are holding a two-hour forum on property tax reform at 10 a.m. today at the East Fishkill town hall, 330 Route 376, Hopewell Junction. Ball, Molinaro and Miller should be there, as well as several representatives of taxpayer groups and school districts. The public is invited. And my apologies for an error in today's print edition of the Journal, which reported the wrong starting time of the forum. It's correct here.

And if you're around Saturday, stop by the LaGrange Community Day at Freedom Park on Skidmore Road. U.S. Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-Hudson, plans to be there at 2 p.m. for the latest stop in her "Congress at Your Corner" series. You can call it, for one day at least, "Congress at Your Community Day."

More to come...

... but not until later this month. I'm on vacation next week, so Straw Poll will be on a short hiatus. If you have tidbits in the meantime, send them to me at dpaulsen@poughkeepsiejournal.com and I'll try to come back and hit the ground running.

Enjoy yourselves.

Introduction

Welcome to Straw Poll, a Poughkeepsie Journal blog on Dutchess County government and regional politics in which I’ll offer some insights in passing about what’s going on with your elected officials, the programs they manage, your money they spend and the politics that surrounds it all.

Reporters constantly face an uphill battle in parsing the often banal inner workings of government in search of interesting stories. The challenge is to convey how these public institutions affect the lives of ordinary residents. The blog format lends itself to insider tidbits for political junkies – and I’ll type those up as I get them – but I also hope to give readers relevant information on politics and government and maybe have a little fun in the process.

A little about myself: I’ve been reporting on Dutchess County government for only about six months, but I have several years of municipal government reporting experience, much of it while working for a small newspaper in Wisconsin. I spent my first year at the Poughkeepsie Journal reporting on the growing communities of southern Dutchess before moving to the county beat.

I’ll be looking for feedback from you to help refine the direction of Straw Poll. Send me your questions and concerns, and let me know whenever you hear any juicy political gossip.