The best thing about dealing in cliches, as I have done for decades, is that most people know what they mean, thus enhancing the connection between writer and reader. It doesn’t always work out that way, however.

To wit:

Veteran reporter Terence Ward, formerly with the old New Paltz Times and lately Hudson Valley One, ran afoul of a common phrase, apparently unaware of its roots in reporting on next year’s town budget, Ward used the words “slush fund” to describe what seemed an overly-generous town surplus, therein drawing the ire of longtime town Councilwoman Kitty Brown.

In a letter to the editor in this week’s HV1, Brown offered the dictionary definition of slush fund as “a reserve of money used for illicit purposes, especially political bribery.”

“Political bribery,” the mother’s milk of politics? That’s one for the books.

Thoroughly chagrinned, Ward offered an abject apology in his own letter in the One.

There was more. Not satisfied with just calling out the errant reporter, Brown offered a limerick on the subject, again, to wit:

“There once was a paper in town

That with facts did not mess around.

But when fact-checking stopped

Readers’ eyes popped

As mistakes and efforts did abound.”

OK. The unsinkable Kitty Brown’s limerick was hardly in the league of say, there once was a man from Nantucket … but how many ink-stained wretches get poems written about them?

As for Ward’s miscue, he offered a straightforward, sincere apology. It was nothing like your typical political mea culpa which goes something like this, “I’m sorry if you thought what I said was offensive.”

Speaking of Budgets

Other than being required by law, I don’t yet understand why executives turn their annual budgets over to legislatures only to have them rubber-stamped with minuscule changes.

Legislatures, in our system of checks and balances, are supposed to check on excessive executive spending and/or wrongheaded priorities The two go hand in hand: executive policies need to be funded. Or, at the least, be subject to some modicum oversight.

Take next year’s Ulster County and Kingston budgets. Last October, Kingston Mayor Steve Noble handed the Common Council a $63.4 million budget for next year, which increased spending by over $3 million and raised the property tax by almost 6 percent. Working diligently, the all-Democratic council managed to squeeze $2,500 from the mayor’s proposed salary raise.

Uptown, County Executive Jen Metzger offered the legislature a $491.5 million budget, which called for some $16 million in additional spending and a $34 million transfer from the county’s bulging surplus. Legislators conducted budget hearings around the county for more than a month and inexplicably added some $3 million to an already-bloated spending plan.

Both bodies will meet this week to place their (rubber?) stamps of approval on those budgets.

Snipe Like an Eagle

The occasionally published Lincoln Eagle reached new heights of bile in its ongoing war with trail supporters, just in time for the holidays.

Photos of arch-enemies Kevin Smith of the Catskill Conservancy and Shandaken County Legislator Kathy Nolan were featured beneath a blaring front page headline: “Stop these ‘train robbers in their tracks before they destroy the Catskill Mountain Railroad and our county!”

Hyperbolic Eagle editor Mike Marnell might have taken a different approach, given recent development in the years-long battle between trail/bike advocates (like Nolan and Smith) and railroaders.

To the surprise of some, at last week’s monthly meeting of the county legislature, a resolution that would have a county-owned (former) railroad bridge demolished was instead withdrawn by sponsors and sent back to committee for consideration.

That committee, whatever it will be called, will be staffed by at least a few of the eight newly elected legislators who, I hope , will bring a fresh approach to a county policy that has favored trail over rail for far too long.

Rather than calling trail advocates names, the Eagle might better conjure up some goodwill in the legislature with a softer sell.

Besides, it’s the season for the railroad’s hugely popular Christmas/Hannukah runs from Kingston to Shandaken. What better way to make their case?