Casino gambling

The contract was originally approved by county legislators on April 11, 2002 and signed by county legislature chairman Ward Todd and county attorney Frank Murray on April 15, 2002. It was set to run for nine months, but legislators last week approved an extension for an additional three years by a 20-10 vote. The contract calls for the tribe to pay the county $15 million per year for seven years, if the casino is ever built, in exchange for which the county must support the Modoc's application, and actively help it to get situated.

But the signed contract resulted from a series of apparentlyunannounced, unrecorded meetings that included Todd, Murray and county legislative majority leader Richard Gerentine with tribal respresentives. How long the meetings have been occurring is unclear, but they began no later than the winter of 2002. The April 11, 2002 vote to approve the contract initially was 25-8 in a body where Republicans hold a 24-9 majority. But legislators learned of the contract for the first time the night of the vote, and were not given a chance to examine it before voting. At least some of the meetings that led to the contract were under auspices of a five-member special committee appointed by Todd, and chaired by Gerentine. The meetings were apparently attended by Murray. At least some of the meetings took place in Todd's office, but those involved say no records are available on who attended or when they took place.

"First of all, I didn't know it had to be in the public eye," said Gerentine regarding the Special Committee to Study Casino Gambling. Gerentine was responding to a Freedom of Information act request for minutes and other records of meetings that the special committee or any other county officials had in relation to the Modoc Tribe and its casino applications. "We had various meetings, there were no official minutes taken at those meetings," said Gerentine. "There's no minutes. And I was not aware that any minutes had to be taken."But the lack of meetings is an apparent violation of existing statutes.

"It's been part of the state law since 1977," said Robert Freeman, executive director of the state Committee on Open Government. He said public officials are obligated to keep written records recording what transpires, even motions that fail. The outcome of any votes, who voted and what their vote was are the minimum acceptable records required in minutes. "That is the function of minutes. The minute constitute the official record, so we can look back and say, this is what we did," Freeman said.The meetings of the special committee have never been announced to the media or the public, either before they occurred or even afterwards, which violates the open meetings law.

"Every meeting of a public body must be subject to public notice, given to the news media and the public," said Freeman. Special legislative committees must comply with open meetings statutes. "The law applies in the exact same way to the committee as to the governing body," he said.

Even the appointment of the special committee was done quietly. On March 7, 2002, one month before the county legislature approved the deal with the Modoc, Todd sent a letter to the county clerk appointing its members. But rather than notifiy the entire legislature of such key appointments, as is customary, Todd's letter reads only "cc: All appointees" County legislator Joan Feldman, the lone Democratic appointee to the committee, was the only Democrat on the legislature to vote in favor of the contract. She said the special committee has had "about four" meetings, but is not certain if she attended all of them. "When there was a meeting, they would call and tell me, Joan there is a meeting at such and such a time. I was personally informed," she said. But when asked what had precipitated the three-year extension of the contract, she said, "I didn't sit in on that. There wasn't any meeting, I
just got a phone call."

The committee was not given any charge but was officially titled Special Committee to Study Casino Gambling. Despite a resolution passed by the county legislature requiring use of county departments and personnel, including the planning department, sheriff's and mental
health, no studies were ever done. Who was in charge of ensuring follow up? "Ward Todd and Gerentine, they were running this thing," Feldman said.

Todd said that it is not his responsibility to ensure that minutes are taken at meetings of the county legislature, even if he is attending those meetings. "I didn't call the meetings, I didn't schedule the meetings and I didn't do any of the work that went along with those meetings. So it was not my responsibility," he said. At least some of the meetings took place in Todd's office at the county office building in Kingston, but Todd said, "I'm not sure if I attended all of them or not." Feldman said that David Lenefsky, an attorney working for the Modoc Tribe, had turned in at least one study to the special committee. She said she believes it isa transportation study, but has not seen it, saying Lenefsky said he had only one copy and would leave it with Todd.

Gerentine said he did not know what had become of the study Lenefsky provided. "I have no idea," he said. "I don't have a copy. I don't know who has a copy." Asked what the committee had done to study gambling in Ulster, he said he was researching consulting firms. "That's part of my job as committee chairman," Gerentine said. "I
wrote to two or three different firms, I specifically outlined things I would like them to look at and that's what I asked them to look at."

Those documents should be available, since all Gerentine's official correspondence to private vendors is a public document, but the letters were not in the file for public viewing available at the county office building. The new contract brought forth by Todd and signed on April 15, 2002 and extended last week between Ulster County and the Modoc Indian Tribe contains some potentially unsettling and costly clauses for the county environment and taxpayers. The contract acknowledges that state environmental laws will not be the standard used in determining the environmental mitigation measures associated with the casino, "by reason of variances, grandfather provisions or other similar laws or provisions." As a sovereign nation, Indian tribes are not held accountable to state laws. Todd and county attorney Frank Murray say the environmental review for any Modoc casino will be the responsibility of the federal bureau of Indian Affairs. They saidsafeguards in that law are comparable to state law.

The $15 million annually paid to the county "are in full and complete satisfaction of all local government" claims against the Modoc for impacts from the casino, "whether or not [the impacts are] identified in this Agreement," reads a clause on page two. School taxes may be jolted even higher by a casino project. The contract, on page four, says the Modoc may be responsible for providing funds beyond those agreed to in the contract, for public school enrollment increases attributable "to persons residing on tribal lands."Asked abut the provision, Todd said, " I'm not sure whether the contract would provide
additional money to impacted school districts, but claimed it will protect local towns and villages."

However, the Modoc cannot be asked to pay any additional money beyond the $15 million annually to the county. And Ulster County has "sole discretion" over how that money is spent, and will compensate what the contract calls Locally Impacted Entities "according to their impacts as determined by the county," reads a clause on page five.
But to receive any payment, the clause requires the community must" Support and not oppose the 'Project.'" Additionally, the contract requires the county "Assist the Tribe in responding to negative
comments about the Project."

The county must also go to court in support of the tribe. Todd and Murray defended the contract as an insurance policy to Ulster County taxpayers they would at least receive some financial considerations if a casino is sited and built in the county.

ROWE

Hal Rowe taught in small Nebraska prairie towns while continuing his education at U-Nebraska. He took his first principalship in 1962, his first superintendency in 1963. By the late 1960s, Rowe was teaching high school administration at the University of Illinois, and participating first-hand in some of the major changes taking place in education on a national basis.

But it turns out the man, despite great friendships in the academic world, wanted back in the trenches of actual administration. So he moved back to Nebraska. He went on to Ohio, took a second stint teaching at Bowling Green University in the late 1970s, and eventually remarried on condition that he move east. Thus, Hal Rowe ended up as superintendent of the East Lyme School District in coastal Connecticut. And from there he moved to Onteora 11 years ago, eventually settling in Woodstock.

What drives the man? He loves the field he's in. He's proud of the work he's done bettering staff, tweaking the education processes he's been put in charge of.And as a person, what gets him. "I love seeing people live up to their greatest potential. I love the mentors I've had, as well as the mentoring I've done."

Moon Haw

The morning had started, Pastor Granger said, with the Church Youth Group's annual pancake breakfast. Perfect, again, given how Nelson Shultis, the local legend being celebrated that afternoon with a rousing, crowded funeral service and afternoon Church Supper, had always supplied the maple syrup for the occasion. At first from his own Sugar Bushes, first in Wittenberg and then up on his thousand-acred stretch of land in Olive's Moon Haw, and then as bought from those he'd originally taught the maple arts.

"Wittenberg was the place where he grew up, where he took over the family sawmill when his dad died when Nelson the woods were his cathedral." Mike Shultis spoke of what Nelson used to call the "Shultis Curse." "He told me any Shultis who puts up a chainsaw in his hand is destined to have only daughters," he said, describing the birth of his four daughters. Then finally he had a son, at which Nelson said, definitively, that the curse was finally gone. Alice Bailey, Nelson Shultis' "kid sister, " spoke at the service about how her brother would pick a skunk up by its tail and heave it out of spraying distance.

Later, from home, she explained how the first Shultises came into the area in 1709 from Germany's Rhine Valley. Three brothers arrived at the Livingston's Clermont estate on the Hudson in Germantown, where they worked chopping pine trees for the pitch tar used in shipbuilding. Within a few years, they headed across the river and inland, where two settled in the Bearsville valley, and one up in Wittenberg. "Only two of their names are remembered now, for some reason," Bailey said with a little laugh. "Oh my, there are now so many Shultises around here, with relations in every other family you can think of, that it's impossible to get them straight."

"We grew up in a very nice time, when church, school and home defined who we all were," Bailey said, quietly. "Everybody knew everybody and you made your way in the world by helping others. My brother showed people how to do the things he'd learned to love, like hunting and fishing. He'd give people wood, and he'd take his bulldozer out to help when that wasn't enough."

"Towards the end of his life, we'd put together a group of carolers eachholiday and go to Nelson and Fran's house the Sunday before Christmas and sing for them," Pastor Granger said. "This last year, it took more effort than usual for Nelson to get out of bed. But he did it, and he blessed us. There was a feeling that he was saying goodbye to all of us. It was like the closing of a great chapter...