1) This technology isn’t fully developed yet and hasn’t been deployed commercially anywhere, meaning even if somehow fast-tracked this scenario could be a decade away in North Tonawanda.
2) The council and residents (present) unanimously don’t want it anyway.
3) Health risks from a tragic accident, environmental contamination, tanked home values, radioactive material storage concerns, disposal problems and more were cited from community members as reasons a “micro” nuclear reactor (they aren’t necessarily “small” but certainly much less so than current large-scale reactors) should not be permitted anywhere in North Tonawanda, including [...]
“Old habits are hard to change in people and especially hard to change in government,” said Paul Wolf, President of the non-partisan, non-profit New York Coalition for Open Government.
“Elected officials should begin 2022 by conducting the public’s business in an open and transparent way,” he said.
“To show their commitment to open government, elected officials serving on a village board, town board, city council or a county legislature should introduce and pass a New Year resolution stating they will:
(1) Post timely notice of all meetings at least one week prior to a [...]
New York City, 2002 — “Sometimes your feelings become your memories.”
Steven Whipple said that’s when he realized his recollection of Sept. 11 was bogus.
Because he lived just two miles from the smoldering, stinking, spewing nightmare of Ground Zero, the former Albion resident reported his Greenwich Village neighborhood seemingly deserted for weeks.
“It was a ghost town,” he said. “No cars, no horns, no people and the restaurants were all shut down.” Then he consulted his journal, which told a different story. “Actually, it says here that it lasted only three days.”
Three days. Three weeks. Or 365 [...]
After months of trying to keep the Erie Ave. project away from public eyes, failing to hold a proper public hearing on what many argued was a new land use in the city as well as addressing air quality and other concerns from sources that didn’t have a financial stake in the project … members of the Planning Commission — including the NT Republican Party chairman Mike Carney (above left) — voted to approve Digihost’s site plan and send it on a path that will likely see the “bitcoin mining” facility operating at full blast by this time next year.
Despite the misdirect at the beginning of the meeting from Planning Commission President Tom Jaccarino (five [...]
There’s considerable concern regarding a proposed plan to operate a “computer farm” on Erie Ave. — performing energy intensive “bitcoin mining” in trailers there —and run the power plant full blast to power it.
There are also many questions remaining after the presentation (which was absolutely not a public hearing and would have included experts without a bias-inducing financial interest).
Digihost CEO Michel Amar (above center) was finally on hand Aug. 18 at a meeting of the NT common council to ostensibly to answer questions and assuage neighbors’ concerns. But as one speaker remarked, it only raised [...]
A former translator for U.S. forces in Afghanistan — who’s now living in North Tonawanda — has been trying desperately for weeks to aid his family trapped in Kabul.
Phone messages and emails left to senators and congressmen have gone answered during that time, and the University at Buffalo graduate in structural engineering is losing sleep while feeling helpless at his family’s plight. (Because of the extreme danger facing his family in Kabul, the subject’s name is being withheld.)
After working for the U.S. government from 2010-2014, he was granted a visa and eventually became a U.S. citizen.
He’s now pursuing a [...]
This needs to be said in no uncertain terms: before this proposed sale takes one step further the City of North Tonawanda needs to schedule and publicize a public hearing to bring together the community, city officials, relevant experts as well as the individual who’s looking to buy this power plant and run it at nearly full capacity.
And for what?
To generate enormous amounts of power to operate a “computer farm” to “mine bitcoin.”
To most residents, that sentence alone is probably mostly incomprehensible and truly requires the owner to come before them and patiently explain it.
Secondly, what’s the [...]
