SCIDA December 18, 2007 Letter by James Hall

December 18, 2007

Steuben County IDA
7234 Route 54 North
PO Box 393
Bath, NY 14810-0393

RE: Public Hearing on UPC Windfarm Prattsburgh

Members of the SCIDA Board,

Attached is a copy of a Cohocton Wind Watch letter of November 14, 2006. Note that SCIDA has not answered or even made an attempt to disclose most of the information in the thirteen listed section of the FOIL request.

CWW formally opposes the approval of any PILOT for the UPC Windfarm Prattsburgh project for the reasons already submitted. The UPC developer has violated segmentation and attempts to deceive and defraud NYS taxpayers by an intentional misrepresentation of their coordinated development of the Prattsburgh and Cohocton project.

SCIDA is part of this fraud. Local employment and economic benefit is absent from the actual circumstances of the development. The lack of SCIDA authority to impose a PILOT on the independent Naples School District is evident, since it is in the jurisdiction of Ontario County.

The Superintendent of the Prattsburgh School District has confirmed that this school district has opted out of any PILOT. Mr. Sherron's representation to the Naples School Board that there is no choice but to accept a PILOT for the UPC projects is demonstrational proof of a willful policy to deceive independent governmental jurisdictions. This same con has been perpetrated upon the Wayland-Cohocton School District which includes part of Livingston County.

Cohocton Wind Watch has several members that own property in the Town of Prattsburgh. In the event that the UPC Windfarm Prattsburgh is built, only full industrial utility commercial tax rates must be assessed and collected. NYS ORPS has been notified that an evaluation of the assets of any wind project must be determined and that local Town Assessors must assign corresponding tax values.

The Board is clearly aware that questionable conduct and administration of SCIDA has placed members at a liability risk for damages stemming out of violations of NYS laws. SCIDA should reject any PILOT for UPC Windfarm Prattsburgh. Taxpayers of Steuben County must not be forced to pay for the greed of a foreign developer and SCIDA need not be named in future litigation.

Cordially,


James Hall for CWW