Just when we thought things couldn’t get worse with the scandal-plagued Samadhi addiction treatment operation, it did.

Earlier this week, local media reported that Samadhi had summarily closed its Saugerties treatment center, leaving 20 clients and staff on the street. County Social Services quickly responded in relocating about half a dozen individuals and is working to find places for the rest.

This has been one of the longer-running circular firing squads in recent memory. And what a cast of characters. What’s troubling is that it’s the same characters attempting to deal with the same situations.

Late last year we were informed via a Freedom of Information inquiry, that county Legislator Kathy Nolan, D-Shandaken, president of Samadhi’s board, had loaned the organization some $14,400 to meet its obligations. Around the same time, Nolan, as a legislator, was voting on county contracts for the organization she heads.

According to published reports, the ethics board gave the legislator a solid on that questionable vote, accepting from her that she had “inadvertently” voted for the Samadhi contracts in joining with colleagues for a catch-all, unopposed “consent” package of unrelated resolutions.

And then there was the secrecy surrounding the ethics board decision. Nolan told a reporter, apparently in pique, that she thought the board’s reprimand was a “private” matter between her and the board. An elected official is found at fault by a publicly appointed board of ethics and it’s a secret?

As the leading advocate for Samadhi in the legislature (against strong opposition from other legislators), Nolan has two obvious choices. Either resign as a legislator or as board president of this troubled agency.

County Comptroller March Gallagher, who filed the ethics complaint last June, didn’t go that far. She does advise that the loquacious Nolan cease and desist from talking about Samadhi while a member of its board. Good luck with that one, March!

Homeless Population Explodes

While all this is going on, the comptroller on Wednesday issued a not-unrelated report on the potentially devastating increase in shelter costs over the last four years.

According to Gallagher, daily emergency housing lodgings at motels around the county increased from 51,781 at a room cost of $74 in 2020 to 129,170 at $104 per last year. With state match matching funds, the county paid just under half of $13.3 million in charges in 2024.

County Executive Jen Metzger thanked Gallagher for her research in a separate release, but pointed out that the county is dealing aggressively to address the homeless situation.

Like Elizabeth Manor in Midtown Kingston, another fiasco born of either ignorance or bad intel. Launched by former county executive Pat Ryan shortly before his first election to Congress, the Manor project was meant as a shelter for the homeless. A burned-out hulk purchased for some $700,000, estimated reconstruction costs ballooned to over $3 million (from the Ryan administration’s initial estimate of just $1 million) before the legislature pulled the plug.

Metzger’s latest plan is to sell it for a dollar, thereby eating the purchase price and whatever emergency repairs were necessary, to a developer who will demolish the existing building and build a three-story replacement. Thirty-six units for the homeless are planned for the site.

I find this explosion of poverty in our community in stark contrast with reports from the federal government that the median income in Ulster County increased about $4,500 since last year. That increase will have an upward impact on already unaffordable rents which no doubt means more misery at the low-income end of the spectrum.

I find few people who got a $4,500 raise last year, but plenty who can’t afford a decent place to live for less than $2,000 a month.

Shrinkage!

The Onteora school board is dealing with the lack of students for its French classes in a practical way, it seems. With fewer than a dozen students applying for the once popular course, the board has decided to eliminate it.

Of much greater import is the continual shrinkage of overall student enrollment. Residents expressed concern a few years ago when Onteora graduated just 100 students. This year, according to school officials, it will be 90, maybe 70 in 2026.

The board has been trimming where it can, closing elementary schools and reassigning staff. But how long can taxpayers afford an independent school? If Onteora, already one of the geographically largest school districts in the state, decides to merge with an adjacent district, which one?