Dave Colavito

It's puzzling for some of us to reconcile the continuing rise of gasoline prices with the current boom in domestic oil and natural gas production. We were promised "drill baby drill" was the answer to cheap gas. But as economist Paul Krugman has pointed out, the emptiness of...

New York's Governor Cuomo and DEC Commissioner Martens should be commended for their deliberative efforts to regulate high volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking) thus far in our state, but the time has come for both men to lead.

Fracking in its current form shouldn't be permitted, and nibbling around its edges...

Ours is a culture replete with euphemisms, and I imagine they've evolved as a coping strategy. I realize it's human to shy from what makes us uncomfortable, but if "taking the dirt nap" makes it easier to speak of our mortality, what's the harm? Yet there's no denying their darker...

Dear Governor Cuomo and Commissioner Martens:

I've read your 1,500-page Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) on how you intend to allow high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HF) for natural gas in our state and offer the following for your consideration.

Indemnification

I couldn't find anything in the SGEIS that...

Recently the New York Times reported that Governor Andrew M. Cuomo suggested it was time for the state to "come to grips" with the proliferation of gambling in New York and neighboring states, that he was weighing the legalization of commercial non-Indian casinos here.

The governor went on...

Governor Patterson is betting heavily on proceeds from natural gas extracted from New York's Marcellus Shale, a geologic formation abutting Sullivan County and much of the State's Catskill Mountain region. This is understandable, given New York's deep fiscal difficulty. But this rural region of the State is a popular destination...

There's no question New York State faces unprecedented budgetary challenges, so it's understandable that policy makers would be searching far and wide for potential revenue generators. However recent developments should cause all state residents to ask, "at what cost"? For Sullivan County, that cost is too high.

State Senator...

Of all the factors responsible for the 2009 financial melt-down, you'd be hard pressed to find one more destabilizing than executive compensation, a model for those high-flying Wall Street executives piloting companies whose collapse drove our economy into the rocks. Lucrative packages rewarding reckless risk-taking and abject greed served as...

Congressman Boehner, are you listening?

Like climate change, the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, to remove restrictions on corporate America's ability to finance political campaigns, makes everything we need to do more difficult.

The "money buys elected official, elected official determines public policy, public...

Recent polling fails to suggest the reasons for public cynicism and disappointment with the health care reform bill passed in the Senate. The polls do reveal however, important questions that the public is not being asked and what the press has chosen to ignore, or refuse to cover.

On...