Early Harvest is an idea whose time has come in Cornithaca County. This week the Common Council voted to eliminate rental payments by tenants and place the burden on “people or entities who have greater resources to solve the issue.” They themselves will, of course, be the ones to decide who those entities are, what resources will be needed, and what further issues need to be addressed.
It’s notable that the University, by far the richest and most powerful entity; one whose expansionist policies have driven out the original residents and turned their College Town into one of the twenty most expensive cities in the US to live in, is not one of the entities they have decided to burden. They will target the old, the poor, and those they can separate from the herd.
There’s not much sympathy that this issue can squeeze out of rural poor living three generations in an old wood frame house that they’re trying to keep in the face of ever-rising assessments and taxes: not for upscale urban renters having a hiccup in their six-figure salaries — but then they don’t write stories about the rural poor in Cornithaca County.
