The Aug. 9 editorial in the Press-Republican slams the Essex County Board of Supervisors for not giving North Country Community College a blank check for the campus reconstruction. Perhaps you should do a little research before pontificating on a subject you obviously know very little about.

To start with, you could read the article by Lohr McKinstry in your own paper, even though an editor reading his own paper is a novel idea. Lohr gave quite a bit of detail on how every supervisor supports NCCC and the idea of rebuilding the Saranac Lake campus. Perhaps you could expand your research and actually talk to Lohr and a few supervisors.

Then you could get real adventuresome, and talk to the people from NCCC. Both Mr. Smith and Mr. Chapin were at our meeting and I'm sure they would be willing to talk to you. I think you would find that they believe that the supervisors unanimously support rebuilding the campus over time.

While we support rebuilding the campus, we certainly aren't giving advance approval of any project based merely on artist sketches and rather vague price estimates. Does NCCC really need a 700-seat theater at the cost of several million dollars? How did NCCC decide on the size of the administration building and other buildings? Is something important missing or left out? Do we have other questions? Sure. Let's not forget this is taxpayers' hard-earned money.

Our 2008 tax levy -- the amount of money the taxpayers actually have to pay in county real estate taxes -- is $13,245,725. This is slightly less than 2007, and the decrease marked the fourth year in a row that the levy has been flat or reduced. Assuming everything will remain the same for 2009, what would be the results of a $3 million increase? The tax levy would jump to $16,245,725, and the county tax rate would rise from $2.204416 to $2.691892.

That means if you had a $167,000 camp on Willsboro Point, your county taxes would go from $368.14 to $449.71. You would be paying an additional $81.57 next year, and for five years a total of $407.85 just for the rebuilt campus. You might be able to embrace that if you have a good job, but the extra $81.57 per year is a substantial burden to someone on a small, fixed income already faced with higher food prices and exorbitant fuel costs.

Assuming everything else will remain the same is not a very safe assumption. The county has to pay the same increases in fuel and gas as everyone else. The cost of road salt has gone out of sight. Our construction costs have skyrocketed. Have you heard about the substantial cuts coming from Albany? There are several areas that these cuts will significantly increase county costs. The fact that Albany chooses not to pay for an expense anymore doesn't mean that they just go away. 2009 will be a tough budget year, and any increases will be hard to justify.

Essex County will pay $2,280,000 to NCCC next year for operations and capital expenditures. This was passed without any opposition at our Aug. 4 board meeting. In 2007, we spent an additional $601,527 to other counties for Essex County students who went elsewhere in the SUNY system. We will certainly be paying more for the campus reconstruction in the near future, but not without making NCCC justify every dollar -- just like everyone else. And yes, that reconstruction may have to be spread out for longer than just five years.

If you think we asked a lot of questions to the NCCC people and unfairly expected them to start justifying their proposal, I invite you to our budget hearings this fall. Come see how we grill all of our department heads on their proposed budgets. It would be nice to see someone from your Editorial Board actually in our board room.