The Auctions International online auction for the County owned Hartford Eldridge Lane Property is now up and running. This 485 acre property is owned by the County but they are now selling it after much prompting by Hartford because the need to construct an ash landfill for the Hudson Falls burn plant never happened.

The property is listed as 3 deeded parcels; 241 acres, 129 acres, and 115 acres.
All parcels own road frontage on Eldridge Lane.

I have pasted the link below which will take you to it. From this site, you will need to copy and paste it into your browser.

I have heard that there will not be much real action until the very last day but I think it is encouraging that there is some action at this early point.

If you want to see the bidding history and who is bidding, go to each parcel and click on “more info” and then click on “bidding history”.

http://www.auctionsinternational.com/servlet/Search.do?auctionId=1966

Dana

Hartford Group,
The Alternative Sentencing project to paint the exterior of the Town Hall and Highway Garage is complete. The building looks very nice. Pasted below is an article from this past week’s Granville Sentinel about the project. Dana

County offenders work off sentences
By.Jaime.Thomas
While they may not be on a chain gang, local offenders are working hard around Washington County.

As part of an alternative sentencing program, these workers are repainting the exterior of Hartford’s town hall and highway garage.

According to its website, “Washington County Alternative Sentencing offers an array of Alternative to Incarceration programs that focus on reducing the costs associated with incarceration and/or placement in juvenile detention facilities, holding offenders accountable, restoring the community/ victim back to a pre-crime state, maintaining public safety using ‘best practices’ to ensure positive outcomes, reducing recidivism and providing pre-trial/sentencing options to courts.”

Hartford Supervisor Dana Haff said this is not the first time Hartford has benefitted from this setup; several years ago the same program provided manpower to paint the old highway barn and the Hartford Baptist cemetery iron fence.

“They asked us because they were really pleased with the work we did before, so they asked us to do it again,” said Scott Stoughton, who runs the community service program. Anyone who is sentenced to service as an alternative to jail time does so through him. He said the youth and adults he works with have all committed low-level crimes, violations or misdemeanors.

Haff believes this is beneficial in multiple ways.

“Seeing them sit in jail is useless other than punishment; this way they get to work off their crime. At least they’re being productive and contributing to society,” he said.

And perhaps benefiting the most from this program are those who are doing the projects, rather than the recipients. Stoughton said a lot of them are trying to turn their lives around, and a l t e r nat ive sentencing helps that endeavor.“Some of them learn they’ve made a mistake. It gives them a chance to talk with each other in a different environment—it’s therapeutic for them,” he said. “A lot of people from felony treatment court come back as volunteers because they want to see it through. They really take ownership of the project.” Additionally, Stoughton said these participants, especially the younger ones, learn valuable life skills to which they might not otherwise be exposed. Some have even found jobs through their worksites. He said few counties have someone in his position, but that he does many projects and saves a lot of money for not-forprofits, schools, churches and municipalities.

In Hampton, for example, Supervisor Dave O’ Brien said last fall that the town received up to 800 hours of labor from alternative sentencing participants during the construction of the community’s town hall.

He estimates that labor saved the town as much as $60,000 in skilled labor.

“People hear about community service, but now they’re actually seeing if it’s being done. It really stretches Hartford’s tax dollars. It’s a nice product, and it’s free. All we’re paying is about $3,500 for materials— how can you beat that?” Haff said.

Highway Superintendent Greg Brown agreed, and he said the offenders’ work is as good as professional services.

“I thought they did very good quality work. Scott does a good job overseeing the project. I think it’s a good program; instead of sending people to jail they’re putting them to work,” he said. He and Stoughton estimated the workers had put about 240 hours into the project as of Thursday for work that might have cost at least $12,000 otherwise.

Stoughton said in addition to special projects, his workers do regular maintenance at cemeteries, parks and a church. They’ve previously taken on such tasks as working on Hadlock Pond when the dam broke, cleaning up the Salem courthouse for months after Hurricane Irene and more.

Any nonprofit organization interested in setting up a project can contact Washington County Alternative Sentencing at 518-746-2333.

• JON ALEXANDER — Post Star Newspaper 7/19/13

FORT EDWARD — Washington County supervisors might soon cover a year’s worth of property taxes for local residents who lost their jobs or experienced financial hardship because of a serious illness.

Hartford Supervisor Dana Haff introduced the Compassionate Relief Assistance Program, or CRAP, at Friday’s monthly meeting of the county Board of Supervisors.

“This could give some kind of short-term, compassionate relief,” Haff said, noting that his plan’s acronym might need some work. “I think I can come up with something better.”

It would be paid for by proceeds from the county’s annual foreclosure auction, potentially $50,000 similar to the county’s recently adopted brownfields cleanup fund. The county made more than $400,000 in last month’s foreclosure auction.

The county can foreclose on a property-owner if three years of taxes go unpaid, under state law. Haff’s proposal would pay the first year’s county taxes after diagnosis of anyone who was gainfully employed prior to becoming ill.

Most hospitals have staff who negotiate with the cancer patients creditors’ because the afflicted so often go from gainfully employed to out-of-work upon diagnosis, according to Vickie Yattaw, a resource navigator at Glens Falls Hospital’s C.R. Wood Cancer Center.

Three Washington County residents told her within the last six months that they couldn’t pay their taxes because they could no longer work, Yattaw said.

Haff’s proposal sprang from discussions with Yattaw, a Hartford resident.

“I can work with the creditors, I can write grants for medical bills, utilities and even food, but there’s nothing I can do right now about county taxes,” Yattaw said following the board’s meeting.

Properly vetting potential recipients of the aid could pose an issue, some supervisors said.

Haff countered that allowing local goodwill organizations, Community Action Angels and hospital staff with access to patients’ financial records to administer the program would assure applicants are properly vetted before receiving the funding aimed at keeping the sick out of government foreclosure.

“In my opinion, we should just be the bank and let Action Angels administer it,” said county Treasurer Al Nolette, when asked what oversight guidelines the county should put in place if the program is adopted.

“If you look at The Post-Star, you’ll see there are more and more cancer victims in this county, said Cambridge Supervisor William Watkins, a brain cancer survivor. “This is exactly what we need.”

Hampton Supervisor Dave O’Brien worried the program assumes constant positive revenues from county tax auctions.

The program would be for any serious illness, not only cancer.

Haff is traditionally the county board’s most conservative member. He noted that his proposal was more in the traditional wheelhouse of Greenwich Supervisor Sara Idleman, a Democrat.

“Maybe everyone else in the middle will see this is a valid proposal,” he said.

CRAP will be initially discussed at Monday’s meeting of the county board’s Government Operations Committee. It will come up again later this month at the Human Services Committee, supervisors said.

“There are a lot of details involved,” said Granville Supervisor Matt Hicks, chairman of the Government Operations Committee. “But I think it has some merit.”

The link at the bottom of this email is from a PostStar story today about plans the County has to sell the 485 acre Eldridge Lane “LandFill” property.

The details of the sale not included in the story are;

The sale will conducted by Auctions International via an online auction for 60 days to be listed on two websites starting around July 22nd. These sites are auctionsinternational.com and auctionzip.com.

Auction.zip is made available to over 850,000 users. Because Auctions International pays $24,000 per year to auctionzip.com for advertising, they have preferred customer front page advertising on their state specific sites for Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, NY, NJ. and the New England states. They are now ranked #1 in NY and #6 in the nation, in the last 3 months they have received over 1 million hits.

There is a lien agreement between Washington and Warren County that says if the property is ever sold it shall be by an auction. Washington County decided to do this via an online auction in order to reach the most potential customers. Also as per this lien agreement between the two Counties, Warren Co gets 50% of the sale proceeds.

Auctions International will budget $4,000 to advertise the property which includes the above websites plus; The PostStar half page ad, Greenwich Journal & Salem Press, the three Manchester newspapers (The Granville Sentinel, White Hall Times, FreePress), Hill Country Observer, and the Lake George Mirror.

The cost of advertising will be paid by Auctions International which will be paid out of the commission they receive. The commission is a 5% buyers premium.

Washington County will also display a poster size ad for the property in the County building at the Washington County Fair.

The auction will be open for 60 days starting around July 22nd and ending Sept 23rd at noon. If you are interested in bidding please do not take my word for details in case I have an error. Please go to the websites and get specific info about the exact closing time and how to do it. This info should be up on the sites around July 22nd.

The plan is to bid this out as three separately deeded parcels. The largest parcel 241 acres will be listed first. Then 10 minutes later the next larger 129 acre parcel. Then 10 minutes later the final smaller 115 acre parcel. After this 10 minute delay between each parcel rollout, they would then be available for bidding for the next 60 days until Monday Sept 23rd.

I have been told not to expect much activity on the bidding until the last day. People do not like to tip their hand too early and it may end up looking like the Oklahoma Land Rush at the end.

At the end of the 60 day bidding for individual parcels, the bidding will close and the totals added up. 10 minutes after the close of individual bidding happens, the bidding will re-open for the entire 485 acre property. The requirement to bid will be the total prices so far added together plus another $3,000. The bidding will continue as long as a bid comes in at least every 59 seconds. If 59 seconds elapses without a fresh bid then the auction closes and high bid gets all of it.

At the end of the auction, all successful bidders will be required to submit a $10,000 deposit via credit card immediately upon notification of winning bid.
The fee for accepting the credit card payment is 4% which is what Auctions International is charge by the card provider.

There will be no reserve price or minimum bid required because any bids have to be approved or rejected by the Washington County Board of Supervisors at the Oct 18th Board meeting anyway. If the Board rejects any or all bids, then the County must pay back the advertising budget up to $4,000 expended by Auctions International.

Once I get a color flyer on the property and sale, I will pdf email it to you. Plus I will attempt to send it to the Amish communities that have been driving around Washington County lately asking about parcels of farmland 60 acres and larger. I think an Amish community would give Washington County a new unique agricultural flavor. I have been told that the Amish, even though they shun electricty/computers, etc. have agents that can represent their interests for an online auction.

http://poststar.com/news/local/county-to-auction-landfill-site-online/article_81f0865e-ecdc-11e2-9315-0019bb2963f4.html

Dana

BELOW IS AN ARTICLE THAT IS IN TODAY’S POST STAR NEWSPAPER – DANA

Amish contingent toured county-owned property

• JON ALEXANDER — [email protected]
Q: Why the sudden interest by the Amish to buy farmland in northern Washington County? Rumor has it they have bought one in Whitehall and inquired about a second in Fort Ann.

— Patricia Henry, Fort Ann

A: Scuttlebutt about a potential Amish boom in Washington County has been circulating for a few months.

The talk apparently started when, this spring, a half-dozen Amish men from the Fort Plain area of Montgomery County hired a driver and were stopping at farms in Hartford asking about available land.

That’s when Hartford Supervisor Dana Haff, tipped off about the interest in his town’s farmland and hoping to market the county’s soon-to-be-auctioned property on Eldridge Lane, jumped into his truck and tracked the visitors down.

Haff escorted the men to the 580 acres on Eldridge Lane, and the men immediately started asking if the county would bypass the auction and sell it to them directly, Haff said Friday.

“They make good neighbors. They’re not known for raising hell, they pay their taxes and just want to be left alone,” Haff said.

Amish family farms are typically sited within 10 miles — a horse-and-buggy-ride — from another Amish farm, officials said.

Luddite Amish populations have for years faced development pressure from the ever-expanding modern world. Finding 60- to 80-acre lots each family needs to sustain itself is becoming increasingly hard in many traditionally Amish communities.

A local dairy farmer last year hired a group of Amish to build a new barn. That may be how the sect heard about the rolling fields in Washington County, Haff said.

The Amish, who build their own houses in 19th-century style, have increasingly run into spats with local code enforcement in some areas. Most local fire codes, for instance, require new homes have hard-wired fire alarms, a problem for a people who reject electricity.

The St. Lawrence County town of Morristown eventually dropped criminal charges last year against 12 Amish men who refused to install smoke detectors and larger windows.

Morristown officials are now installing smoke detectors in every newly built Amish home in the town, but whether the devices stay up will be up to the homeowner, under a settlement agreement. The Amish agreed to install larger windows.

Marketing the Eldridge Lane property to the Amish before September’s auction could be a challenge, as traditional sources, like online advertisements, won’t reach them.

Kingsbury Supervisor Jim Lindsay jokingly suggested sending smoke signals, at a recent meeting of the county Board of Supervisors Public Works Committee.

Haff said the county should ask its auctioneer to travel to Fort Plain and hand out fliers to the Amish community.

Haff said he thinks an Amish farming population would greatly add to Washington County’s cultural complexity.

“I’ve had a lot of Hartford people say, “If they come back, take them to my place,” Haff said.

The Amish are a quickly growing population, according to a 2012 Ohio State University study. Fifteen new Amish communities have popped up in New York since 2010, researchers found.

The Amish and code regulators have clashed throughout the country.

Bourbon County officials in Kansas are clashing with Amish farmers who use outhouses instead of modern septic systems. A Pennsylvania man was sentenced in 2009 to 90 days in a local jail for using an outhouse, the Associated Press reported.