Follow Up on the News

Reservoir Security

"Commissioner Christopher O. Ward announced today that after extensive traffic and security analyses, a decision has been made by DEP to close Monument Road over the Olivebridge Dam at the Ashokan Reservoir in Ulster County to vehicular traffic," read the terse release on the matter from city headquarters in Queens. "Monument Road is closed from Reservoir Road to Route 28A. The closure commenced at 7 a.m. on March 19, 2003. Motorists will continue to be able to cross the Ashokan Reservoir, but will have to observe posted detours."


Addressing the potential inconvenience, Commissioner Ward was quoted as saying, "We realize this will cause difficulty for residents of the area, and we apologize for any inconvenience. This decision was not made lightly, and ultimately is in the best interest of protecting the water supply that serves so many millions of New Yorkers both in the five boroughs of New York City and upstate counties."


Olive supervisor Berndt Leifeld said this week that the first he heard of any closing was after the fact, when a town resident phoned to tell him his normal driving route had been rerouted."It would be nice if they let us know a little more about these things," Leifeld said. "The only thing I know is that they've had a similar closing down at the Kensico reservoir
where they're saying it'll be lifted after three months."Continuing, Leifeld noted that at least the current detour for those seeking to go or come from Olivebridge is only a little over a mile, and not so inconvenient compared to recent closings that had people detouring clear around the causeway, or earlier, around a closed bridge along 28A just west of Watson Hollow Road.

"Quite frankly, we can all live with this," Leifeld said. "The dividing weir would be something else, but this seems okay... for now. The supervisor pointed out that during the interim after the booths went down, he was told that the city DEP had increased its own security road patrols around the reservoir.


Adding to her department's press release, DEP spokeperson Natalie Millner said everything was done after "extensive study" and with the "security of both the water users and the local populace in mind."
"WE feel we have good reasons for this," she said. "I can't really go into our reasoning any further than that without breaching security. All we want is for everyone to have the best security they can..."


Any questions about the Lemonsqueezer should be addressed to the DEP at 718-595-6600.

War


Even at the Legion Hall, something feels muted. The crowds are there and the television's running, as much on Fox as CNN. And there's much talk about the support our troops need, and the strong sense of loyalty everybody is feeling towards the Homeland. But more quietly, people delineate between what they support and what they fear. They're just not so sure everything's going to turn out all right… with the war, withthe economy, with the larger schisms that have uncovered themselves between us and Europe, us and the Islamic World, us and so much that has been made into "them."


"I don't think this is the right time. It just doesn't feel right," says Marty Millman, Phoenicia pharmacist and Onteora trustee, aswell as a longstanding Republican. "A lot of people I see are felling anxious about this one." "I've got mixed feelings… and that's as much as I'll say," noted Berndt Leifeld, Olive town supervisor and a lifelong Democrat. He said he's noticed many normally verbose folks voicing similar reticence towards making quick decisions on this one, even at the expense of the nation's usual patriotism.


Jean Paul Biassutto, head of the Phoenicia Fire Department and chef at La Duchesse Anne, spoke about threatening language he's heard because of his French heritage. He noted he's lived locally for over 30 years… but then adds that he's noticed much more tension than usual over the War."We've had a lot of people taking out books that address subjects involved in the Middle East, Islam and war," said the women at the Olive Free Library. "But people aren't talking about it much, except in protest. Those who are in support aren't saying a whole lot."


Which is just what folks were saying at Snyder's Tavern in Olive. There were better subjects to talk about. Everyone shared worries about those who were fighting… and some sense of questioning regarding the reasons we are in Iraq, as well as the possible outcome of all this. "All I care is that no one starts burning the flag," says one fellow at a local Legion Hall."We got to stick together, whatever happens," says one of his friends.

God bless us all in this time of tension. May our Army be home soon.

Austerity

At Monday night's board meeting, trustees questioned administrators on the four elementary options, and Rowe gave them a list of programs that are eligible to be cut because they are not mandated by the state, with the implication that the more the district could save with elementary reorganization, the less it would have to cut from programs. On the list were 43 high school advanced placement courses and career training programs and 23 other categories, including academic intervention services, the Indie program, assistant superintendent, assistant principals at the middle and high schools, life skills assistant, summer schools, field trips, mentor program, reading recovery, all but minimal music training, and other items.


"There may be things on this list as important or more important than what school your kid goes to," trustee Meg Carey told parents in the audience. "They will grow up, and you will want a highly functioning high school."Trustee Greg Walters said, "A lot of these are absurd to consider cutting. If we had to do away with all of them, how much money would we save?" Rowe replied, "We would never have to do away with all of them, it's just that none of them are mandated. When I make my recommendation, I'll tell you how much we can save."

Rowe asked the board to suggest a tax levy increase they would be comfortable with, but president Marino D'Orazio said he felt the board lacked the expertise to specify an increase and preferred to wait for Rowe's proposals."Is anyone in favor of closing West Hurley?" asked trustee Marty Millman.Drawbacks were discussed, including the stress on children to make an additional transition to a new school when going from third to fourth grade, just at the point when they have to prepare to take state standardized tests. Phoenicia principal Linda Sella said rather than dividing the schools into kindergarten through third grade and fourth through sixth grades, a more logical arrangement would be K-4 and 5-6.


There was some discussion of making Bennett a 5-6 school, with the other three elementary schools K-4, but it was decided that West Hurley did not have enough room for that configuration. Rowe presented an alternative he called Plan B-2, in which Phoenicia and West Hurley had grades K-2 and Bennett and Woodstock had 3-6. This option would yield a savings of about $1,050,000, slightly less than Plan B, due to possible increased transportation costs.The rise in transportation time and cost is another objection, with concern about children having to go all the way from Samsonville to Phoenicia or from Pine Hill to Bennett. Transportation supervisor Mike Grehl slightly raised his earlier projection of transportation costs, saying that a few new routes would probably need to be added, at a cost of $38,000 per route. Some routes would have to leave earlier, in order to transfer students from their home school to their destination school in time for the start of school, and there would be additional costs for staff to supervise children during the transfer period.

Rowe said no students would miss any programming as a result of the change.The board discussed and rejected Plan A, creation of multi-age classrooms at each school, which would avoid redistricting but save only $600,000. Sella reported on Phoenicia's experience with multi-age classrooms, which had worked well for some families and not for others. They began to be phased out when state standards were raised, and teachers felt they needed single-grade classes to focus their teaching and help students pass the state standardized tests.

Currently there are only two second/third grade classes at Phoenicia, partly due to requests from parents for single-age classes, and partly due to the hiring of new teachers who would require training to be able to teach multi-age classes. Tina Harp of the Phoenicia PTA stated her group's position that state test scores had improved significantly in the last two years, and that a return to multi-age classes in the upper grades would be unacceptable. Plan C, which involved multi-age classrooms at Bennett and Phoenicia, and the Princeton Plan at Woodstock and West Hurley, was rejected for the same reasons.D'Orazio lamented the state's threatened reduction of aid to the schools, blaming the government for the district's crisis, which Rowe said is reflected around the state.


Carey encouraged parents and staff to participate in the March for Public Education in Albany, scheduled for Saturday, May 3. The New York State School Boards Association is calling on administrators, employees' associations, and PTA's to send delegations to the demonstration to protest the proposed $1.2 billion cut to education, as well as government policies that hamper the operation of public schools, such as the repeated failure to approve state budgets before school budget votes. School districts across the state are planning to send representatives, and 100 busloads of supporters from New York City are already signed up. Grehl offered to arrange transportation for Onteorans who wish to attend. The school district cannot finance the expedition or provide buses, but Grehl will get pricing from outside contractors used by the district. He said drivers were willing to donate their time. The board voted unanimously to pursue the sending of a delegation.

Local Business

Jordan flips aside hangers of various Metallica and West Coast Chopper shirts to reveal Che Guevara portraits, Anti-Flag and American Head Change emblems, the latter with President Bush's face on it. There are also lots of the seemingly requisite "I'm With Stupid" brand shirts. And leather pants. And shoes with band and brand insignias. It's your usual mall-oriented over-supply of product.


"I wouldn't do anything if someone wore a peace T-shirt," Jordan says, when asked how the Mall handled enforcement of its little-known policy to keep "offensive" statements off people's shirts. "I don't know who would do anything, except maybe the security guys."


TSX owner Arthur Fine of Shokan, who also keeps a store at Crossgates, said he'd always thought of America as a free country… but added that he'd run into similar trouble back when he owned a T-shirt store in Danbury, CT, where a customer wearing a t-shirt with obscenities on it took his case to court.


"I urge people to be careful about what they wear in the mall," he said.
The Crossgates story started Monday evening, March 3, when Stephen Downs, a 60-year old attorney with the state Commission on Judicial Conduct, was arrested for trespass after he refused to either take off a T-shirt sporting the most benign of anti-war messages, or leave the premises. Downs had bought the offending shirt, and had the statements put on it, at a mall store much like TSX. On the back of his shirt was the statement, "Peace on Earth."

Downs' son, Roger, 31 of New Baltimore, also bought a custom shirt that read "No War With Iraq" and "Let Inspections Work." Subsequent news coverage of the arrest, which went international by Tuesday evening, noted how mall security guards were called by an employee of another mall store when they saw the two men emerge from the store wearing their new t-shirts.


Security Guard Robert Williams responded to the call, and confronted the Downs in the Crossgates Mall food court, where he asked that they take off their T-shirts, leave, or be arrested. Roger did so but his father, stating his legal occupation, said he didn't think he had to. Williams returned with a Guilderland police officer who arrested and handcuffed
the 60-year old attorney, then spoke with him for an hour asking Downs "to drop the whole thing and take the shirt off" according to reports. He was repeatedly told the mall was private property and what he was wearing was unacceptable, the same as if he went to someone's home wearing something unacceptable.


"I said it's not the same thing, it's not a good analogy," said Steve Downs, who later insisted he wasn't protesting or demonstrating by wearing the shirt. Guilderland Town Justice Kenneth Riddett released Downs on his own recognizance and set a return date of March 17. Two days later, The Pyramid Companies, a Syracuse-based company that owns 17 malls, countless senior citizen and student housing complexes, and office buildings throughout Upstate New York, dropped all charges. But then on Friday, they fired Williams, the security guard who was originally called in to confront the Downs.


Protests of between 100 and 250 people have occurred at the Crossgates Mall in defense of both Wiliams and the Downs, on three occasions since March 3. "Mall management determined the customers in question were violating mall policy," added Earl Wells of E3, speaking from a car phone in the Rochester area Monday morning.

"Courts have affirmed that shopping malls have the right to restrict actions and behaviors deemed inconsistent with a shopping environment.""I've ordered new t-shirts," Fine said about TSX. "People are asking for the Give Peace A Chance shirts. I'm also making Peace Is Not A Crime ones. We won't display them, but it'll be there," he said. "I'm pro peace, always have been. But I don't want to upset people."


Aren't you glad we don't have malls here in free-speaking Shandaken?

Defensive

Vice President Dick Cheney served as Halliburton's chief executive officer from 1995 to 2000. The company has since come under heavy pressure because of concerns about its liabilities and a probe by the Securities and Exchange Commission into its accounting for cost overruns on construction projects.


At the time Cheney retired as CEO of Halliburton, to run along side George W. Bush for control of the White House, the company awarded him a $20 million dollar retirement package, saying it was their legal prerogative to increase the size of that package at any time to any amount they desired.


KBR is the exclusive logistics supplier for both the Navy and the Army, providing services like cooking, construction, power generation and fuel transportation. The contract recently won from the Army is for 10 years and has no lid on costs, the only logistical arrangement by the Army without an estimated cost. The New York Times noted recently that the government business has been well timed for Halliburton, whose stock price had tumbled almost two-thirds in the last year because of concerns about its asbestos liabilities, sagging profits in itsenergy business and an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into its accounting practices back when Vice President Dick Cheney ran the company.


Halliburton has declined any comment and referred all questions to the
Defense Department. Meanwhile, Halliburton Co. the world's No. 2 oil field services firm, did announce last week that it has started a probe involving U.S. and Nigerian government officials over theft of a radioactive device used at its Nigerian operations.Halliburton said that it is concerned that the device's radioactive material could be used to create a "dirty bomb," an explosive device designed to scatter radioactivity in a densely populated area.


The device was in a locked storage box that weighs about 200 pounds (90 kg) and is the size of a small car engine block. The device, used in
oil detection, was stolen in early December. Halliburton is saying that its investigation also involves officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been involved in recent UN searches in Iraq. Cheney is still receiving deferred compensation from Halliburton, but neither the company nor the White House would specify how large his payment will be this year or how long the payments will continue.


This is cash that he's already earned. Yet it's also cash that Halliburton is accruing in part from its activities in Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan.

 
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