Small communities know the value of nonprofits

Glens Falls arena bungles schedule on wrestling, basketball championships

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What kind of world we want to live in is at stake now.

Hopefully, that gets your attention.

At the heart of why we love our small towns is the belief we can count on friends and neighbors for their caring and giving.

We know there are organizations, non-profit groups to turn to in times of need.

Many of us volunteer or contribute to their success.

It's part of who we are, too. That belief we are all in this together.

Just this past week, readers chastised me for saying "we all" hate to pay taxes. I was informed that many of you are happy to pay your fair share and do it proudly because you believe you are contributing to the greater good.

It may be the largest disconnect between billionaires and the rest of us.

They don't understand that sense of community; of looking out for each other.

We get it.

Our lives are not all about monetary riches. There are spiritual riches that are just as important.

On Tuesday, the Trump administration told us we are on our own.

They issued a funding freeze affecting charities and nonprofits which many in our community count on for support. The goal was to end federal spending it doesn't like, but what it proved was it does not understand the value of the programs being offered and why they are so important to us.

It appears the order is illegal since the funding has already been approved by Congress and just before it was to go into effect Tuesday, a judge paused the order to study it further.

The spending freeze is not only illegal, it is immoral.

Nonprofit Quarterly, a national print journal that was launched in 1999, wrote Tuesday that the freeze on funds "threatens to have a catastrophic impact on the U.S. nonprofit sector."

Diane Yentel, president of the National Council of Nonprofits, told Nonprofit Quarterly said it is "a potential five-alarm fire for nonprofits and the people and communities they serve."

That's us.

"From pausing research on cures for childhood cancer to closing homeless shelters, halting food assistance, reducing safety from domestic violence and shutting down suicide hotlines, the impact of even a short pause in funding could be devastating and cost lives," Yentel said.

Consider those services for a second.

So if you have a favorite charity, if you volunteer, the organizations you support are likely affected.

Nonprofit Quarterly reported about a third of all nonprofit funding comes through direct grants and state pass-throughs. This funding is used for everything from scientific research to education to arts and culture programs to critical services for children and families.

Which brings us back to the type of world we want to live in.

Do we want to have museums, theaters and children's support services or will we abandon things which give our communities character and heart?

Isn't that what we are talking about here? All these organizations give our communities its beating heart.

So where is Elise Stefanik in defending that?

Or Dan Stec?

Or any other Republican leading our communities?

Where is the outcry from the county board of supervisors?

These folks know their communities, they know what is important. Will they allow these organizations to be gutted and for constituents to die?

Having a different political party in power does not mean rural communities are understood any better in Washington, D.C. by the rich and powerful.

In this case, it is clear they do not understand the heart of America and what we stand for. According to The Washington Post, the Trump administration went so far as to warn nonprofits not to complain to the media about the freeze in aid.

So much for transparency.

You have to wonder if there was an "Or else" attached to the warning.

This is what Trump voters approved back on Nov. 5.

Hopefully, none of them need any of these services in the near future.

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About that chicken

One eagle-eyed reader followed up on my concerns about chicken inspections with an NBC news report from January 2018 that praised the Trump administration for proposing a plan to overhaul meat inspections at pork processing plants.

Actually, the report isn't all praise, there is some concerns from the workers.

Looking a little deeper I found that the Trump administration during its first term took major steps to deregulate the food industry.

It was able to increase assembly line speeds at meat processing plants in opposition to USDA limits. It also wanted to reduce the number of inspectors while delegating those responsibilities to the workers themselves.

This time around it has proposed eliminating probationary workers from the USDA to result in fewer inspectors. That was the point of my earlier column.

In another irony, one of the inspector generals who was fired last week by Trump was monitoring the USDA.

Further digging found that during Trump's four years as president he made workplaces more dangerous by rolling back critical federal safety regulations.

Check out this headline from the Center for Public Integrity in 2020: "Fewer inspectors, more deaths: The Trump administration rolls back workplace safety inspections."

It was revealed the Trump administration refused to publicly disclose fatality and injury data reported to the U. S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and slashed the number of federal workplace safety inspectors and inspections to the lowest level in the agency's 48-year history. The administration also repealed rules requiring employers to keep and report accurate injury records and proposed eliminating the U.S. Chemical Safety Board while also cutting workplace safety research and training programs.

This was who the voters elected to help the working men and women.

It also proposed revoking child labor protections, weakened the Mine Safety and Health Administrations's enforcement of mine safety and reversed a ban on chlorpyrifos, a toxic pesticide that causes acute reactions among farmworkers and neurological damage to children.

So after digging a little deeper, I guess the future of our barbecues is the least of our problems.

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Section II events lost

One of the sports events I look forward to each year is when the finals and semifinals of the Section II Boys Basketball Tournament are played at the Civic Center.

For decades, those dates were set aside by the arena to make sure the hockey team was on the road that week.

Except this year.

Jeff Mead, the general manager of the arena, told The Post-Star last week that the ECHL said it was too difficult to schedule around the weekend basketball games this year.

So not only did Glens Falls lose the state basketball tournament for the next three years, it lost out on two days worth of Section II basketball as well because of the hockey schedule.

The hockey schedule also bumped the Section II Wrestling Tournament from the arena.

It sounds like someone screwed up.

Officials are saying that things should be fine for next year, but city officials should make sure that is a certainty.

The wrestling tournament has been moved to Guilderland High School and the final two days of Section II basketball has been moved to Hudson Valley Community College.

Considering that Glens Falls looks like a lock for the Section II championship game again this year, that is rather unfortunate.

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Sound familiar?

A reader shared with me a recent Substack post about news deserts. It is a good reminder for all of us.

Since 2005, more than 3,000 print newspapers have closed. Some 130 newspapers have closed in the past year.

Those that have not closed have far less resources in which to do important local journalism.

The local Post-Star now only prints three times a week and its staff is a fraction of the size it was two decades ago.

I addressed the rise and fall of newspapers in my book The Last American Newspaper - soon to be a play - pointing out that studies have shown that regions without a newspapers suffer "more political corruption, higher taxes, lower bond ratings, greater social alienation and rising misinformation, as well as the loss of social cohesion when subjects such as high school sports, local obituaries and community projects aren't covered."

Steven Waldman, the Rebuild Local News' President, said some of the most common victims of the collapse of local news are the same people who voted for Trump.

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Stelter reporting

If you are looking for a measuring stick about how well the press is doing in covering government, consider Brian Stelter's "Reliable Sources" blog from CNN.

Here are just a few of his blurbs from last week:

- Out of the 52 presidential directives (excluding pardons and appointments) that Trump signed between Monday and Friday, "28 contained language resembling text published as part of Project 2025." - (Washington Post).

- The health-focused site STAT says the administration's "pause on health communications, science meetings, and reviews" has sparked "chaos" across agencies, and asks readers to share their own accounts. - (STAT).

- A database "detailing the vast array of criminal charges and successful convictions of January 6 rioters" has been removed from the DOJ's website. - Donie O'Sullivan and Katelyn Polantz report. (CNN).

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Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.