MY, MY. IF THIS COUNTY gets any more efficient it will make more money than it spends, and everybody who lives here will get a big fat dividend check at the end of the year instead of a tax bill. Sounds like paradise.

   You might think the county is well on its way to this mythical goal based on the crowing this week from the leadership of the Board of Supervisors over its latest proposal. Board Chairman Art Baer (R-Hillsdale) and his supporters believe the taxpayers could save as much as $400,000 a year to house, feed and transport our neediest neighbors if the county leases the St. Charles Hotel—the only sizeable hotel in the county—as an emergency housing facility. The hotel would also become a satellite office for the Department of Social Services (DSS) after that department moves to Claverack in 2011.

   That’s a big savings, and the figures have a basis in fact. But the way this proposal surfaced suddenly out of nowhere gives it a nasty odor that won’t go away anytime soon.

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ANYONE WHO’S VENTURED east of Claverack knows that darkness lurks there. This isn’t a metaphorical judgment on the far side of the Taconic State Parkway; it’s a fact. Along the highway and in many parts of the surrounding communities, cell phones might as well be pet rocks.

Engineers sometimes refer to places with no mobile phone service as “dark areas,” and folks familiar with this region know that the cell phone Twilight Zone along the Taconic extends north from the Columbia County line until you approach Chatham. Some people may welcome electronic isolation, but this technology has become an essential tool of life around the world, and almost nothing holds back its advance… except money.

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Fight obesity with knowledge

WHAT ARE YOU EATING? With all the health and food scares going around these days, maybe none of us really wants to know. But that’s not what the data say. As it turns out, when we know more—and more accurate—information, we make better choices. Sometimes.

   That fact came up in a new initiative by Governor David Paterson this week to have restaurants, convenience stores, supermarkets and other ready-to-eat food suppliers owned by large chains reveal to consumers how many calories are in the food they sell. New York City already has a law like this on the books.

   At least one local lawmaker has derided the governor for taking his attention off the more pressing problems facing the state. But that criticism misses the point. The nation has a big fat problem, and a labeling requirement that made everybody more aware of the calories in each serving of fast food might make a small but important difference in our wallets.

   That’s right. Obesity is a financial issue, but not because we spend more on fast food per capita than the rest of the world, although we do. The hidden cost of obesity lies in the impact it has on what we pay now and what we will pay in the future for healthcare.

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