What
is it about Olive? Last Saturday’s benefit for Shannon
Ryan brought out the community for one of those events made
up of eating, dancing, and just hanging out with one’s
neighbors that seems, well, pure Olive...
Budgets
Rising Fast
Olive’s Preliminary 2009 Spending Plan, Like All In
State, Readies For Some Cuts
10/9/2008
By Paul Smart
Town Supervisor
Berndt Leifeld put forth a preliminary budget for the coming
year at the October town board meeting on Tuesday night, October
7, making sure that everyone knew the spending plan in front
of them now, as well as its revenue numbers, were nothing but
a starting point.
“It looks, at this point, like an 8 or 9 percent increase,
with the highway department going up 27 percent,” Leifeld
said before Tuesday’s board meeting. “Will there
be cuts? Yes, there’ll be cuts.”
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A
Blessing On Wall Street
Our Intrepid Columnist Makes His Way Into The World Of High
Finance
10/9/2008
By Sparrow
I’d heard that Mama Donna, the Urban Shaman, was planning
an “emergency Equinox Blessing” in front of the
Stock Exchange at 11:44 Monday morning, September 22. I arrived
on Wall Street at 11:37 to find a 63-year-old woman laden with
necklaces and African bracelets conferring with security guards
by the barricades. (The Stock Exchange has been closed to visitors
since September 11.) This must be the Urban Shaman herself!
“I cleared everything with them,” she reported back
to her five supporters. “This won’t be another one
of Mama Donna’s equinox arrest excursions.” She
was making an in-joke about being arrested with 43 celebrants
at South Beach in Staten Island in 1998.
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A
Jar Of Olives...
Money Markets
10/9/2008
By Carol LaMonda
John Parete decided to give up two of his three full-time
jobs to do what he likes best—kibitzing with friends
and neighbors who visit the Boiceville Inn for food
or drink. John has been the Democratic Chairperson of
Ulster County, an unpaid and often demanding position,
for the past ten years.
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Belleayre’s
Still OK
State Cuts, But Vows To Up
Stewardship, Catskills Keep
Drawing Increased Focus
10/9/2008
By Paul Smart
According to DEC officials
these days, the state Department
of Environmental Conservation’s
key mission now and for
the foreseeable future is
to beef up its stewardship
credentials, to do the best
it can with what it already
has.
That means going along with
across the board state budget
cuts and using new challenges
as a means of bettering
its core functions…
including operations at
Shandaken-based Belleayre
Mountain Ski Center, which
the state Department of
Environmental Conservation
says will operate as usual
this year, albeit with a
number of cut backs.
John
Parete’s Legacy
Ulster
Democrats’ Political Architect
Steps Down From County Politics
10/9/2008
by Brian Powers
There were Democrats in Ulster
County before John Parete became
party chairman in 1999, but
you had to know where to look
for them. There certainly weren’t
many in elected office, just
6 of 33 county legislators at
the time, and things weren’t
much different at the town government
level. And while people’s
party registration is of course
public record, many Democrats
used to be reluctant to offer
that information casually, for
fear that sharing their formerly
non-mainstream leanings sometimes
entailed a degree of risk.
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