The Editorial Board met today for an Editorial Spotlight with three officials from Entergy, operators of the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan. Fred Damico, vice president for license renewal at Indian point, John Curry, senior project manager, and Jim Steets, vice president for communications updated the board on Entergy’s plans to construct screened filters to its water-intake systems. Last week, the state Department of Environmental Conservation announced it wants to cut water intake at power plants and other industrial sites along the state’s waterways in an attempt to preserve “vital fisheries.” Indian Point is one of those sites and Entergy officials may be tasked with developing a technology to cut the plant’s intake of water — billions of gallons are used to cool the plant’s operations each day — by as much as 95 percent. The cost for a closed-cooling system, which would involve the construction of massive cooling towers and is endorsed by the DEC and uses the same river water over and over again to cool the reactors, is estimated to top $1 billion. The screened system, Entergy contends, would cost in the neighborhood of $200 million.

To watch the complete broadcast, visit LoHud.com/editorialspotlight.

• In an editorial, we concur with Rockland County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef, who, in his 17th State of the County address Tuesday, made it plain that the status quo at all levels of government is no longer acceptable. Vanderhoef joins the regional chorus of Putnam County Executive Robert Bondi and Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, who’ve both made similar statements in recent days and weeks.

• Christopher P. St. Lawrence, Supervisor of Ramapo, defends plans for a minor league ballpark in his town in a Community View piece today. Replying to a March 14 Perspective piece from Rockland County Editorial Page Editor Nancy Cutler, St. Lawrence writes, “If a formal business plan doesn’t exist, and minor-league facilities are not money-makers as the editorial asserts, individuals would not be investing millions in our project. Project “Grand Slam” has investors, and I receive calls daily from individuals expressing interest in being financially involved.”

• In his column, Phil Reisman reveals the diary that tracks his descent into delirium since the start of last weekend’s storm.

• In an editorial, we ask the Democratic majority of the Westchester County Legislature and Republican County Executive Rob Astorino’s administration to lay their partisan turf wars and come together to provide relief to a projected $166 million deficit in 2011. Taxpayers, we argue, deserve results.

• Health and safety officials should keep a watchful eye over the Bobover Yeshiva as the school moves forward with plans to construct a new facility on its Route 306 property, we conclude in an editorial. The Yeshiva, infamous with some of its neighbors who witnessed the slaughter of a cow on the property, received a 4-1 approval on those plans from the Ramapo Zoning Board on Monday.

• Mark Gilliland, chairman of the Greenburgh Environmental Forum’s LORAX working group, replies to a Feb. 27 editorial on Consolidated Edison’s clearing of trees from transmission lines. Gilliland encourages readers to support the moratorium on transmission line corridor clearing, which limits the utility from cutting trees beneath large, high voltage feeds.

As seen in the video above, Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino this afternoon pledged to veto the county of Board of Legislators’ tiered health care contribution plan for the county’s nonunion managers. The county executive made the announcement during a visit with the Editorial Board of LoHud.com and The Journal News.

The plan, passed by the Board of Legislators on Monday, requires nonunion managers to pay 5 percent to 15 percent of their health insurance premiums depending on their seniority. Workers with more than 20 years of service are exempt. For more, read Gerald McKinstry’s report on Astorino’s announcement.

During his visit this afternoon, Astorino also talked about the response to this weekend’s rain and wind storm, the specter of a $166 million county budget deficit in 2011 and Gov. David Paterson’s proposed “soda tax.” To watch his entire session with the Editorial Board, visit LoHud.com/editorialspotlight.

To watch the LIVE session, go to www.LoHud.com/editorialspotlight; to submit a question, engage the “Cover it live” feature on the right side of the screen.

• Village elections are being held today in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties. We’ve made endorsements in a selection of villages that feature contested races for trustee seats and mayor.

• At the height of the economic boom of the mid-2000s, the city of New Rochelle was on course for major downtown redevelopment. A number of projects, including Capelli Enterprise’s $500 million Le Count Square, Joseph Simone’s $225 million residential and retail project at Church and Prospect streets and Echo Bay, Forest City’s proposed waterfront development, have all come to a screeching halt since the start of the recession. In an editorial today, we conclude it’s time to rethink these projects.

• Gov. David Paterson, who held a town-hall forum Monday in Greenburgh in which he said that massive cuts to the state’s budget were inevitable, deserves credit for telling the cold, hard truth, columnist Phil Reisman writes today. “It’s only right that Paterson should answer for his highly questionable personal conduct, but it’s also true, as well as ironic, that he is among the few politicians who is telling the hard, unvarnished truth about how bad the situation really is,” Reisman writes. “And right now, he’s the only governor we’ve got.”

Paul Feiner, supervisor of the town of Greenburgh, has an answer: No.

In a community view piece published in today’s editions of The Journal News, Feiner advances his case for merging the operations of the Putnam and Westchester county governments.

Using Bondi’s questions and news that Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino is mulling layoffs for as many as 1,600 county employees to bridge a projected $166 million budget gap in 2011 to frame his case, Feiner writes:

Merging the counties would enable county governments to continue to manage regional programs like social services, transportation, county governments and clerk functions It might be easier (and less controversial) to accomplish a merger than it would be to eliminate.

Consolidation of two or more county governments would save taxpayer dollars. There would be an immediate reduction in the number of elected officials (saving taxpayers millions of dollars). The county governments could sell surplus county buildings since there will be fewer employees. We could reduce the number of commissioners, deputy commissioners and management.

As Feiner points out, a good deal of legal wrangling in Albany would be necessary for his proposal to advance. At the least, he suggests, the Legislature would have to consider allowing residents to petition for county consolidation.

Some of our readers, commenting on Feiner’s piece in LoHud.com’s forums, have wondered if, despite the fact that Putnam and Westchester already share some services and regional concerns, taxpayers in Putnam Valley have much in common with their peers in Yonkers.

What do you think?

Tune in to LoHud.com/live to watch Paterson’s dialogue.

• On Saturday, we cheered New York City’s decision to settle for as much as $675.5 million with the more than 10,000 police officers, firefighters and other Sept. 11 first responders who claimed they suffered effects from asthma to cancer because of fumes they inhaled while working at ground zero after the terrorist attacks. The settlement, which will only be completed if 95 percent of those who filed claims against the city agree to it, will be paid largely from a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

• In recent weeks, as reports about the development of a minor-league baseball stadium in Ramapo have emerged, our readers have asked lots of questions. The plan, backed by Ramapo Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence, calls for the construction of a $25 million facility that could play host to a team from Canadian American Association Professional Baseball. Nancy Cutler, Rockland editorial page editor, weighs arguments for and against the proposal in a perspective piece that was published in Sunday’s editions.

• In an editorial published today, we urge Westchester taxpayers to pay close attention to the ongoing conversation about the county’s budget. Last week, County Executive Rob Astorino, a Republican, said Westchester faces a deficit of $166 million in 2011. To start to bridge that gap, Astorino has committed to a zero-percent increase in tax increases and proposed $16 million in short-term cuts. Democrat Ken Jenkins, chairman of the county Board of Legislators, responded to Astorino’s grim forecast by calling it premature. Regardless of who you believe, however, we contend that there’s no doubting the county’s fiscal situation is anything but discouraging. “Likewise,” we wrote, “who still needs convincing that the status quo in Westchester — as it applies to county, town and village government or the public schools — isn’t ripe for change?”

The SPCCs were outlawed after 17 out of 24 chapters, including some in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties were found to be just fronts for vigilante groups who had found a legal loophole that allowed them to carry guns and sport badges. Those societies were abusing a century old law that gave peace officer status to SPCC members so they could protect the rights of children. The societies became obsolete when governments developed social service agencies to look out for children, but the law allowing the formation of SPCCs remained on the books and an underground network of gun-lovers took full advantage of it, until the law was changed in 1989.

I started to research an editorial on this week’s Yonkers SPCA case, thinking maybe there was a network of rogue, vigilante SPCAs out there, too. But, no. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s press office assured me that Yonkers SPCA was just an isolated case. The state’s other SPCA’s all actually work hard to prevent cruelty to animals.