I’m Allen Carstensen, the Democratic candidate for the trustee spot on the Village Board. I was born in Philadelphia in ‘52, moved to Maryland, then Rochester in 1960 where my father was a professor of biophysics at the University of Rochester. I graduated high school in 1970 and spent 2 years studying photography at Ohio University, but I was drawn to a career in building. I built my parents a vacation home on Kueka Lake, and have been in the building trades ever since. My wife and I bought an old church in Enfield, in 1984 which now serves as my cabinet shop. My wife, our 3 children and I moved here from Enfield, in 1996, and bought an old house on Strowbridge St. My wife, Christine, is an Architect at Cornell, and she designed, and I built a 2 story addition to the house, and I'm still trying to find the time and money to renovate the rest of it. Chris also designed, and I built, the fireplace at the Ulysses Philomathic Library as part of the volunteer building effort, a few years ago.
I managed a crew of carpenters building houses, additions and remodeling from 1985 - 1995. Since Chris began full time at Cornell I have been working alone, so that I have more flexibility to help with the kids and the house.
My family and I moved here from Enfield because we loved the feeling of villageness in Tremendousburg. I want to work with the board to maintain that feeling. We have excellent schools, a skilled volunteer Fire Department, a friendly police force, a dedicated ambulance/ems service, beautiful, historic architecture and a fabulous new library. We need progressive Democrats on the Village Board in-order to safeguard the aspects of Trumansburg that we cherish as we move forward and face the challenges ahead.
I was invited to join the steering committee of Back to Democracy, and I was instrumental in bringing Les Roberts, and Eric Massa, to Trumansburg to address gatherings of our group. Back to Democracy is a group of progressive grassroots volunteers who promote participatory democracy, with the aims of peace, social justice, sustainability, and liberation from corporate control. I have attended every village board meeting since last summer, because I have become concerned about some of the issues before the board.
I have also been a member of New Yorkers for Verified Voting (Bo Lipari executive director) We have had considerable success, in recent weeks, in our struggle for secure, reliable, and verifiable voting systems.
I was dismayed to hear that the Village Board was investigating the possibility of partially privatizing our ambulance and ems service. What we have now, is a fully taxpayer funded ambulance/ems which is as it should be. All health care and emergency services in our country should be taxpayer funded. We have taxpayer funded police and fire departments, and every industrialized country in the world except ours, has moved to some form of taxpayer funded health care while we in this village, are considering a move in the opposite direction. When your house is on fire, or you need the police, our fire department and police department are focused completely on helping you. They are not worrying about the bottom line, they are worrying about how best to put out the fire. Polls show that a strong majority of the country is in favor of universal single payer health care. We have a portion of that right here, and now, but the board is
considering hiring a private, for profit billing service to bill the recipients, and their private for profit health insurance companies. Movements in Washington are gaining strength that may result in major reforms to our crazy system of health care. Let's stand on principle and resist the temptation to collect money from corporations that care much more about their bottom line than the health of their customers. The board is looking at this, in an attempt to save taxpayer money, which should always be high on their priorities, but taxes are the the entrance fee to a civilized society. The tax dollars that we spend to support our excellent ambulance service, are well spent. I would prefer to save money by taking a hard look at, say for instance, overly expensive water infrastructure projects.
The Town Board is considering privatizing our dogcatcher. The Tompkins County SPCA was the first no-kill shelter in the country. They are a quasi governmental agency that bills most of the towns in our area for dog control. They had a manager that, while he did a great job in many ways, apparently didn't watch the books closely enough, and didn't bill enough to keep the operation afloat. They now have a new manager, and she has doubled their rates, which would bring them inline with national averages. Many of the towns have balked and are considering switching to private, for profit dogcatchers without the sterling credentials of the SPCA. There is a potential savings of less than $5/household here. I think that we as residents of the town and the members of the Village Board, should ask the Town Board to continue our relationship with the SPCA.
I've read everything I can find about Water District 5 . This is a complicated issue and it's difficult to find complete information on all the aspects of it, but it seems clear that the process could have been more open. One of the arguments made by proponents of WD5 is that it is necessary because the well water at Taughannock Park has been condemned by the DOH. It hasn't actually been condemned but the DOH did report that the well was "under the influence of ground water". Dr. Robert Howarth, a geobiochemist and an aquatic systems scientist at Cornell, has concluded that there is no imminent public health threat to any user of the Park's water system. I could be in favor of a inter-municipal water project, if it was developed openly with close cooperation between all parties involved, with everyone informed every step along the way. The Town Board has been called into special sessions twice in the last two weeks, because the Supervisor feels an urgent need to move forward with his plans. The majority of the current Village Board members have wisely taken a cautious and skeptical view of WD5, as it was last described. I would like to join them in searching for a better solution to the problem caused by the Department of Health putting a moratorium on extending our pipelines to new construction.
When I first became curious about our local government, I found it very difficult to find information about what was going on. The Clerk posts the minutes online, usually late, and they only consist of the agenda and the votes on various resolutions, none of the discussions. I've asked for audio CD's of meetings but they won't play. The Free Press usually has a reporter there, but they don't seem to write about the things that I have found interesting, since I've been attending. If elected I will try to have improvements made to the website, and I will begin a blog where I will report from a progressive perspective, what I consider important at the meetings, and I will invite all members of the Town and Village boards (past and present) to participate.
I have recently read the newest version of the Comprehensive Plan. We owe many thanks to the great work of David Filiberto, everyone on the committee and the Tompkins County Planning Department. The plan was adopted by the board at the February meeting. Now we are able to move forward with updating the Zoning Laws, which have not been updated since 1971. David has recommended several firms that could do this work quickly and efficiently. I look forward to seeing this done so that the village might have more to say the next time some one wants to build an ugly Movie Gallery next to an ugly Dollar Store on Main Street.
I was instrumental in getting the Village Board to hold a special meeting last September, to consider passage of a resolution to encourage our representatives in Washington and Albany to hold hearings into the impeachable offenses of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. We didn’t get the resolution passed, but I feel that it was successful in that we had the largest turnout for a Village meeting ever, and that these issues should be discussed more than they are. It cost the village virtually nothing. I realize that local issues must take priority over national issues and I want to alleviate any fears that if elected I would tie up the board with constant arguing for passage of the resolution.
You are invited to a Candidate Forum sponsored by Back To Democracy (backtodemocracy.org) at the Village Hall at 10 am Saturday March 8th. Marty Petrovic and I will speak and answer your questions. My opponent, Debbie Nottke has refused to participate.
My cell phone number is 273-2186
My e-mail address is whwoods@lightlink.com
Please feel free to contact me.
Thank You,
Allen Carstensen
