The long-awaited announcement of the winners of the $10 million Herkimer Revitalization grants is out. You can view them on the News Channel 2 website. The majority of them are sensible uses of this windfall and will greatly improve our worn-out, ever-collapsing village center.
I was concerned about the selection process, fearing it would turn into a feeding trough for buddy-money awards. I shared my concerns with the state project manager, Stefan Lutter of DOS, and smoked out several self-serving proposals during the survey process.
Mr. Lutter assured me that Albany would review proposals for worthiness, and indeed, the most obviously self-serving proposals were weeded out– except for the dentist’s: Albany was asleep at the switch when Dr. Larry Menlo’s proposal came in.
Dr. Menlo was awarded $150k to expand his dental practice. Dr. Menlo stated in his application that the funding would be to
… Better Serve Veterans and Patients [by building] an addition at 314 North Prospect Street to create new operatories and facilities that will improve access to dental care for residents and veterans in the region.
It’s unclear how this expansion would serve the veteran community and Herkimer residents unable to afford Dr. Menlo’s cash-on-the-counter practice. As with his other Herkimer dental colleagues, Dr. Menlo doesn’t accept Medicaid or Medicare, nor does he accept any insurance for payment. For that, you have to go to Utica. (The much maligned Aspen Dental accepts and direct bills Medicare PPO.)
It’s disingenuous to state that this award improves Herkimer. The only seeming advantage of this publicly funded expansion of a private dental practice is to give its practitioner a competitive advantage over other area dentists.
I wrote Governor Hochul, requesting a review of the worthiness of Dr. Menlo’s grant, arguing that “It serves only Dr. Menlo, not the Herkimer community. Allowing it to slip by undermines faith in the integrity of the awards process.”
Governor Hochul was very responsive to my previous issue. Hopefully she’ll be again.
If this troubles you, too, you can write her at her constituent email address.
How About Some Downtown Benches?
$150k would go a long way toward providing decent sidewalk benches in the village center. There aren’t any. Now that would be a genuine community resource we could all use.