November 15, 2007
School Board
Wayland-Cohocton Central School
2350 Rte 63 N
Wayland NY 14572
Dirk Traphagen, John Sick, Dave Wallace, Mark Perkins, Suzanne May, Valerie Stephens, Charlie Brewer
As elected officials and guardians of fiscal responsibility for all tax payers, it is crucial that the Wayland-Cohocton School District reject any PILOT for the UPC Industrial Wind Project.
The Cohocton assessors are obligated under NYS law and ORPS regulations to tax utilities on commercial value. NYSEG, RG&E and Frontier pay their taxes without “Special PILOT” treatment. UPC must be held to this same standard.
SCIDA has been notified that since construction is already well underway any future approval for a PILOT subsidy for the UPC project would be challenged in the courts.
UPC has already stated in writing to SCIDA a minimum PILOT payment of $2.9 million for the Cohocton project and $1.5 million for the Dutch Hill project per year was acceptable. The disclosed amount for the School District’s portion of the current PILOT amount is $37,500 as published by the Town of Cohocton.
In light of the offensive amount now proposed for a PILOT payment to the School District, it would irresponsible to agree to accept any amount less than the original figures that UPC represented that they would pay to SCIDA.
The Wayland-Cohocton School Board need not be a party to a bait and switch scheme to defraud the property owners of our district. A PILOT subsidy would be a fraud and if misrepresentation of the need for participation in a PILOT was made to the School Board by SCIDA it will proven to be in error.
Citizens and tax payers deserve relief from the burden of corporate welfare that is designed to reward a foreign LLC, dishonest public officials and special interest landholders. If the UPC project is commissioned, the commercial venture has a moral obligation and requirement to pay their full and fair share of school taxes to the entire community.
Cordially,
James Hall
cc: Andrew Cuomo - NYS Attorney General
Eliot Spitzer - NYS Governor
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