WNY - Should we move back? (New York, Buffalo: environment, property taxes, salary)

[Andzia74]

Originally Posted by oxymoron

Do you mind sharing why you regret your move?

I am really curious about other people's experiences. I guess it helps to know that there are others like us out there.

First of all is weather. For us is really too hot. We are originally from Poland. There are four seasons weather. And, we miss beautiful winter and snow during Christmas.

Secend of all: Job market. My husband is high end Chef with 20 years experience as Executive Chef, the best offer he got in Orlando in marriott Hotel was for $9.50 per hour. I am graphic designer with 13 years of experience and I do not make even 1/3 of what I used make in NYC.

Next thing: We love to go out to eat, try different tastes from different countries, We cannot find this in Florida. And like I wrote already, we are from Poland, we miss polish goodies, in NY we have planty of them. Our doughter can go to polish-speaking school at polish church, learn our tradition, meet children her age who are speaking polish. Here in Florida in my area the polonia is not so big.

And I thing the very last: we have bunch of very good friends up there, we miss them every day.

There is also very personnal thing, but I don't want to make this "public".

[itSmellsBAD]

Originally Posted by Muggy

So approximately Wednesday, July 12 2007 is when this spill occurred? I was in Skaneateles for the entire month of July... not once did I smell manure and I didn't get sick. I also did considerable amount of hiking and biking in the area. Not to mention I googled the address of the farm and it is at least one mile from the lake. I do not like factory farms either, but you're basically a troll at this point. You should restrict your CAFO poop rants to CAFO poop rants-related threads.
I think you're afraid of losing your town (wherever that is) to outsiders. Scare tactics won't work, sorry. Your audience here at CD is way more diligent than the average forum crowd.
Now, a moment of silence for the 100 minnows destroyed in the Skaneateles Cow Turd Kill of 2007.

They have SIX MILLION GALLONS of liquid cow manure in an unlined open air hole in the ground ONE MILE from the lake and you are NOT concerned?? To give you an idea of how much manure slurry this is, it would fill TEN Olympic sized swimming pools and this is ONE factory farm! There are now 23 Factory Farms in the Finger Lakes region with more coming every year and almost all of them are expanding. The finger lakes are a national treasure that are being destroyed by FACTORY FARMS! Your towns and villages are soon to follow along with your property values. Do your homework before moving to the Finger Lakes or you'll regret it. Read the comment below from a Finger Lakes CAFO victim named Connie Mather:


I live in a small hamlet called East Genoa, by what has become one of the largest dairy CAFO’s in the Northeastern United States. It is one of about 23 dairy CAFO’s that reside in the once beautiful Finger Lakes Region of the Empire State. My husband and I moved to this agricultural district and bought 10 acres in hopes of raising our son in a clean, safe environment. I was going to try to teach school and fulfill a lifelong goal of having a successful organic strawberry u-pick farm, with a possible second high-profit low yield crop to allow for back-up diversity if needed. I was raised on a farm in Pennsylvania and knew that I wanted to farm as a second profession after teaching for 10 years in Philadelphia. None of that was to happen. Staying outdoors, getting healthy enough, or affording water filtering systems and sources has made that impossible here.
First of all, most days of the year, the stench on my property and in my house is so bad that it makes us sick. I mean it makes us literally SICK. I didn’t need to see the research results of latest studies of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide emissions to believe that the CAFO next door is emitting noxious gases. I didn’t need more research studies that showed the particulate matter and the ascetic acid from the silage bunkers are making it very near impossible to work outside or sleep inside in my house many nights.
Year-round spraying of liquid manure has made most of the fields around my home simply dumping grounds for seas of waste. In our community, upwards of 7500 bovine creatures contribute to huge cesspools that are uncovered and “geo” lined. For those of you who are wondering about “geo’ lined pits, that means no cement or synthetic linings, just holes dug into the ground. The detergents and any bad milk that can’t be sold is also dumped or piped into those open lakes of manure, along with the hormones and antibiotics tbat might be in the milk and manure. After that waste ferments for an undetermined amount of time, it is sprayed from the backs of huge tankards the size of tractor-trailers, onto the land or the snow. Summer, fall, winter, spring, it doesn’t matter. The waste is thrown on the fields. I am not a soil specialist, but somehow I can’t see whcre soil is benefiting from that kind of dumping. I see the runoff going into road ditches and small tributaries as I drive along the road. Those waterways feed the lakes of Cayuga and Owasco.
Huge trucks and large farm machinery barrel down the highways (Route 34 is yards away from my front door), The roads get wet with liquid manure, it dries and with the heavy traffic, becomes a fine dust that enters our home, our barn, our cars, and our lungs. Mowing the lawn, tending to our few animals or trying to garden is usually a “noxious affair”, after which we are sometimes sick with respiratory illnesses, headaches and even dizziness and nausea. This year, we couldn’t put up Christmas lights or decorations for the winter holidays because we couldn’t stay outside in the smell long enough to put up the lights.
In my opinion, the unnatural environment that the dairy creates has created an unnatural number of mosquitoes and flies.
Mosquito swarms seem to be a growing problem in our fields, yard and gardens. Could it be that the swarms of mosquitoes are coming from the thousands of tires that cover the silage bunkers kitty-cornered from our property? For the rest of the residents in Cayuga County, a fine of $35.00 per tire is levied if we have tires on our properties. That is because the County Health Department believes that tires lying around are breeding grounds for mosquitoes that carry West Nile Virus! Maybe those farm-exempt tires are marked somehow so the mosquitoes won’t breed there.
Swarming flies are also in abundance where we live. Even if the smell doesn’t get us if we try to BB-Q, the flies will swarm our food and us on a really busy spreading day. This type of swarming in excess is being sighted all around rural America where CAFOs proliferate.
One of the most disappointing aspects of living here is seeing the creeks, brooks and wetlands disappear.

[diamondplayer]

Originally Posted by oxymoron

We've been living in NE Florida for 3 1/2 years. There are thing we like and things we don't. It's great to wear flip flops 12 months a year. It's great to visit the Keys and go to the beach once in a while. It's hard for us to live with the rebel flag and prayer in public school. We're considering moving back to WNY or Finger Lakes region, but we're not sure.

We're teachers and we have two school-aged kids, if that bit of info helps at all.

Has anyone else out there left WNY and moved back? Are you happy? Do you regret it? What should we make sure we consider in making our decision?

Thanks!

I guess oxyMORON would rather have metal detectors than prayers in her school!

[diamondplayer]

Originally Posted by Andzia74

First of all is weather. For us is really too hot. We are originally from Poland. There are four seasons weather. And, we miss beautiful winter and snow during Christmas.

Secend of all: Job market. My husband is high end Chef with 20 years experience as Executive Chef, the best offer he got in Orlando in marriott Hotel was for $9.50 per hour. I am graphic designer with 13 years of experience and I do not make even 1/3 of what I used make in NYC.

Next thing: We love to go out to eat, try different tastes from different countries, We cannot find this in Florida. And like I wrote already, we are from Poland, we miss polish goodies, in NY we have planty of them. Our doughter can go to polish-speaking school at polish church, learn our tradition, meet children her age who are speaking polish. Here in Florida in my area the polonia is not so big.

And I thing the very last: we have bunch of very good friends up there, we miss them every day.

There is also very personnal thing, but I don't want to make this "public".

I was a graduate of St. Stans school in Greenpoint! Left the neighborhood over 30 years ago and return every once in a while for my goodies. Lived one block from the church. The neighborhood has changed little since I left but you see a lot of co-ops and condos being built $$$

[Andzia74]

Originally Posted by diamondplayer

I was a graduate of St. Stans school in Greenpoint! Left the neighborhood over 30 years ago and return every once in a while for my goodies. Lived one block from the church. The neighborhood has changed little since I left but you see a lot of co-ops and condos being built $$$

I heard about this. We are concern about comming back, but for us, is the less worse than stay in Florida. Are you from Poland?

[itSmellsBAD]

Originally Posted by diamondplayer

I guess oxyMORON would rather have metal detectors than prayers in her school!

AMEN to THAT! Buffalo Public Schools have some openings. The non-prayer saying students follow the teachers out to the parking lot after school and beat the heck out of you! Sounds like the PERFECT FIT for our secular expatriate teachers looking to come back to the homestead. Of course they will put their own children in private schools...like almost ALL the public school teachers do in NY. Good schools in NY are a myth. High Taxes don't mean good schools. High taxes means you have high paid teachers as little of this money goes to your kids. Read below for what "no prayer in schools" gets you:

"School violence sparks outrage in Buffalo." March 09, 2007. NYSUT: A Union of Professionals. www.nysut.org

Phil Rumore, president of the Buffalo Teachers Federation, summarized the evening's critical order of business: "What will it take, short of a violent death in a school, before the superintendent and board stop condoning violence in our schools?"

Moderator cut: do not repost copyrighted articles

[oktaren]

its like that in all inner city schools.

[oxymoron]

Please, people! How infantile can you be? You're equating a school's failure to follow the law with students who are following people out to the parking lot to beat them up???? What on earth?

You have, however, proven one point to me...people who are willing to sacrifice the constitution and the rights of our citizens for their own personal beliefs live everywhere. Thanks for making that clear.

Can we get back to the topic at hand, please? If you want to continue to harp on the no school prayer equals apocolypse discussion, go start a different thread.


P.S. Both of my kids attend public school. As for the quality of the schools in Western New York (inner city, excluded), look at SAT scores, graduation rates, etc. and compare then with Florida schools. Your taxes go to a good cause. You should also know that teachers in NY are paid well because they are REQUIRED to get a masters degree. That means your children are getting a high quality education. It also means that these well-educated people are sacrificing higher paying careers to do what they love...teach.

BTW, where were you educated?

[silencedogood]

I fail to see the impact that prayer would have on the issue. It doesn't seem to be God's problem. It sounds to me like the failure of an administrative official. Maybe we should expect people to take responsibility for their actions and leave God out of it.

It's good to have information on issues at school in Buffalo. Does this happen all of the time? It seems likely that it is an isolated incident. I grew up in Western NY and graduated from high school and eventually attended UB. NY has one of the better school systems in the country if you ask me. Also, if you look at the statistics, it’s much better overall than the southeastern United States. And, you are less likely to feel oppressed by ultra right-wing zealots like our angry friend itSmellsBAD. Sure does.

TTFN.
Silence.

[itSmellsBAD]

It's called LIBERALISM. It's what NY is all about. The schools are so great here that most of the high school graduates move to OHTER STATES by the time they are 25. Here is a SUBURB of Buffalo with one of the highest school tax rates in Erie County NY....and YES all the teachers have a Masters. It's Frontier High School AKA "HEROIN HIGH". $75,000 + teacher salary..hardly the ghetto............and no prayers. They assualt teachers here also. MAybe you and your secular husband can get a job a Heroin High? Almost ALL the teachers at Heroin High have their own kids in CATHOLIC SCHOOL. Enjoy!

Frontier High School Ranked poorly in WNY « Hamburg First

Yesterday Western New York’s Business First Magazine ranked the top 25 High Schools in Western New York. Frontier High School and Hamburg High School were no where to be found. I really can’t comment on Hamburg High School since I know very little about that district. However the Frontier High School has been rated poorly for some years now.
Frontier School District has a lot of problems recently with poor school rankings, drugs in school, and unruly students that give the school district problems. Frontier High School is famously known throughout WNY as “Heroin High”, meaning how easy it has been to purchase heroin on school grounds. This very issue prompted the district and the Town of Hamburg to hire a full time police resource officer to stem the sale of drugs in the high school.
http://buffalo.bizjournals.com/buffalo/stories/2007/05/28/daily8.html?page=2
Business First Magazine ranked the top 25 High Schools in the area and this year they added private schools to the mix. For those who followed this site before the switch of our web master you would remember that I spoke openly about how poorly the high school and middle school perform for the money they get from our taxes. Last year Frontier Middle school ranked in 17th position and the High School ranked in 20th position. This year they aren’t even on the list. That disgusts me.
Do you realise that our school district is literally paying $4,000 more per child then if we sent every child to the number 1 ranked school in wny. That school was all girl Nardin Academy. Actually Nardin has been top of the list for several years and there is no end in sight. I wish that the Frontier School District would just pay for my kids to attend the private school of their choice and they probably would pocket at least 3-4 thousand dollars extra each year. It would be a win/win situation. The kids win with a better education and the tax payers would win with decreased taxes from all the money saved from nixing the School District all together. Makes sense to me.