ULSTER COUNTY IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS

Ulster County is OPEN for business once again! As if we were living in a cave, new business starts on a grand scale stopped like a derailed train a few years ago when the Ulster County IDA implemented the "Prevailing Wage" requirement for any business looking for IDA assistance.

The rule is suspended for one year to see what affect, if any, the proverbial "welcome mat" will have as our County's financial crisis worsens. Cross your fingers.

Michael Berardi, chairman of the IDA’s board, said in the Freeman: The six-member body voted unanimously last week to suspend the wage rule for one year and that
members agreed to the suspension for different reasons.

Whatever the other members thought to bring this vote outcome, I don't care. I'm just thrilled to see a change in the approach to how we offer help to struggling business in this county. Large or small, new business needs coddling in these tough times.

The Freeman reports: The prevailing-wage policy was put in place a few years ago and was amended in 2007 to grant exemptions to businesses that employed at last 100 permanent workers, paid at least 75 percent of them $12.50 per hour or more and were at risk of leaving Ulster County.

Although it didnt have any affect on Empire Merchants North, they left for the Greene County anyway because of demographics and a lack of shovel ready sites in the UC region. Their building on Flatbush Ave will be a prime location for a business looking to utilize this window of cognitive thought in the IDA.

My thanks to Board Member, Jen Fuentes for giving this change of rules a chance to end the retrospective arguments that followed the "Prevailing Wage" stipulations. Jen, we need a shot in the arm, and this might be just that.

Economic advocate and friend Shelly Zimbler had railed against the Wage issue when it was first introduced and warned that the applications would stop coming in the day we implimented such a rule. The applications stopped the day it went into affect. From 3 or 4 a month to zilch.

He, like so many others suspect there was prodding from Hein and company, I have no confirmation either way, but it's a good idea. Now how are we to alert the business community that Ulster County has changed the ground rules to induce serious investment? Are we putting up fliers on light poles or are we actually stepping out of the 20th century?

LOCAL AUTHOR SHELLY ZIMBLER

Earlier this week, our former Alderman from the first ward was featured in the Times Herald Record.

Shelly Zimbler has written an historic account about the survivors of a once forgotten battle, capture and torture of a large group of American POWs in Japanese Prison Camps.

In UNDAUNTED VALOR, Shelly describes in great detail how he came to write the book and the long arduous task of finding the dwindling number of survivors from the Bataan Death March and the Battle of Corregidor. His research took him to Beijing and Shenyang where he discovered the remains of the prison camps being turned into a museum with the help of the Truth Council.

Shortly after setting on his mission to research these events he found that our military would rather forget the Battle of Corregidor ever happened. Considered military failures, these men had been ordered to surrender by their superiors, and though many did survive the 90 mile Death March, their stories had been untold, until now.

Zimbler was quoted “Imagine if the firefighters and police and office workers who shouldered the burdens of Sept. 11 had been intentionally ignored by Americans, their sacrifices and heroism buried in some dusty filing cabinet in an attic room in the Pentagon. Ironically, that’s what our military did in the case of Mukden”

The book gives a fresh insight to some of the sensationalized battles that most of us have heard of or studied.

Like Pearl Harbor [pictured left]

Shelly, although he didn’t serve in WWII, should be the “go to” guy for anyone wants a no-nonsense account of American Military History.

With about 30 pages read, and having skimmed through enough to bring this posting to you, I can safely say, buy this book and you will be drawn in. The personal stories from the men who made it through one of the darkest episodes in our wartime history, will take you on their personal journey and we have Shelly Zimbler to thank.

To contact Shelly, just email him at: shelzanne@aol.com and get your copy today.