(News Briefs November 8, 2007)

Bear Season…
The regular season for black bear hunting in the Catskill Mountains region is starting two days early this year, on Nov. 17. The early start - which coincides with the start of the regular deer season in the area - is aimed at increasing the Catskill-area bear harvest to limit population growth and range expansion.
Black bear populations have been on the rise statewide in recent years, particularly in the southern and central Catskills, the DEC said. With the growing numbers of bears has come an increase in the number of bear-human conflicts. The DEC said it has had a growing number of reports of bears causing property damage.
State wildlife biologists estimate there are as many as 7,000 black bears in New York, up from about 5,000 in 1995, the last time a detailed estimate was compiled, Roy said. Last year, hunters took almost 800 black bears statewide, 365 of them from the Catskills. Since the bow hunting season for black bear started on Oct. 13 this year, more than 80 bears have been taken from the Catskills, according to the DEC.
The extra two days of hunting are expected to significantly increase the number of bears taken, in large part because bear and deer seasons will begin concurrently. When deer hunters take to the woods, they tend to scare the bears into hiding, making them more difficult to find when the season starts later.
The Catskill bear season change doesn’t affect the start of regular bear hunting season in the state’s two other main bear hunting areas - the Allegany area, which starts Nov. 24, and the Adirondacks, which starts Oct. 20.

Play Fest!
On Saturday, November 4, the second, all-new installment of The Skin of Our Shorts, concluding this year’s Actors & Writers fall season, will take place at the Odd Fellows Theater, Route 213, Olivebridge, with shows at 5:30 and 8:30 p.m. The program comprises short plays that are wry, poetic, side-splitting, twisted, and theatrically incorrect by company members Katherine Burger, Mikhail Horowitz, Adam LeFevre, Nicole Quinn, Laura Shaine, David Smilow, and Mary Louise Wilson, and special guest Edwin Sanchez.
Doors open half an hour before curtain. The theater is small and often fills up, so come early and pack a flashlight for the short walk from the firehouse parking lot. Although admission is free, donations are welcome. Sorry, we cannot take reservations. For more information about Actors & Writers, call (845) 657-9760 or visit the company’s website at www.actorsandwriters.com.

Crime Spree?
Police are looking for help in their investigation into a rash of burglaries that occurred in Shandaken along the route 28 corridor early last Saturday morning. According to Fred Holland, a Detective with the town of Shandaken Police Department, three break ins were reported. Holland said Russ’s Country Kitchen, an eatery in the Phoenicia Plaza was robbed of about $700 in cash. The Phoenicia Diner, just west on the highway about one mile from Russ’s, was also broken in to and about $60 was stolen. Several miles further west in Big Indian the Mattress Barn was burglarized. Holland said about $150 was taken from there.
The Diner and Russ’s had doors forced open with what appears to have been a crowbar. Holland said that while those two incidents are related, there is not yet substantial evidence to connect the Mattress Barn break in, although police believe it to be related.
Besides the Shandaken Police Department, New York State Police and the Ulster County Sheriff’s Department are working on the investigation. Holland said all three incidents occurred between Midnight and 6 AM on the morning of November 5. He urges anyone that noticed anything at all suspicious during those hours to contact police at (845) 688-9902.
County Budget
Ulster County’s tentative budget for 2008 calls for increased spending of about 3.4 percent up to $326.2 million, up from an adopted 2007 budget of $315.6 million. Paying those bills will require a 3.65 percent average increase in the county property tax.
While the announcement was greeted as surprisingly positive pre-Election Day good news for Democrats who control the legislature, Republicans expressed skepticism about the figures, saying county administrators have created overly optimistic revenue projections to enable them to arrive at and present the low tax increase. And they note that while total spending is projected as $326.4 million for all 2008, costs to date in 2007 already total $326.5 million, according to the county’s own figures.
And there are gaps in the math. For example, the figures, as announced, make no accounting for the fact that contracts will have expired at year’s end for all of the county’s five bargaining units, representing some 2,000 employees. Total salaries, not including benefits, now total about $90 million. Thus, if the workers receive only a 3 percent increase, in line with the last negotiated settlement with the CSEA, it would total about $3 million additional spending, not including benefits. Those benefits currently cost about $35 million annually.
With each percentage point of property tax increase equaling about $700,000 in the budget, including a figure of $3 million from contract settlement in the tentative budget would have increased the projected property tax increase to about seven percent.
County administrator Michael Hein said the county will pay for the contract settlement by dipping into the county fund balance - a.k.a. budget surplus - which is being projected to be about $17.5 million by the time the books are closed on 2007. That figure is within the state comptroller’s recommended 5 to 10 percent of the general fund, but that balance could come close to falling below the comptroller’s recommendation when the salary increase and benefits are figured in. Hein said he felt it was “inappropriate” to put a settlement figure into the actual budget because he said that would indicate the county is not negotiating with its employees in good faith. Hein also denied being overly optimistic, and said the modest increase budget news was possible because “We have been wringing the towel dry,” to garner savings from county operations.
There must still be public hearings on the tentative budget and tweaking by the county legislature before it is approved as a final budget. That approval must occur by mid-December.

Lottery Winner!
The Phoenicia Supermarket, once known as Kirk’s, is one of those places where the lottery tickets piled high next to the cash register are as busy a seller as any foodstuffs, newspapers, cigarettes, or drinks. It’s the kind of place people pop into regularly for their play, just hoping to hit the jackpot, to escape their lives of part-time jobs and scrambling to make do.
So who’d have expected that a scratch-off New York Lottery ticket worth $1 million should have been sold in this spot, possibly to a Delaware County man, according to sources, in the past week.
The $20 ticket for a scratch-off game called the “$500,000,000 Extravaganza” was sold at the Phoenicia Supermarket on Main Street over the weekend of November 3 and 4.
Officials with the New York Lottery confirmed the sale of the ticket Monday, November 5, but would not reveal the name of the winner. Because the amount won was $1 million, the winner must hold a press conference, officials said, but no date has been set yet. Lottery officials expect it to happen soon.
On that same day, Phoenicia Supermarket staff said they believe the ticket was sold to a man living in the Fleischmanns/Arkville area of Delaware County, just over the Ulster County border from the Shandaken hamlet of Highmount.
The story they told was of a regular lottery player with five kids and two foster children in his care who was “definitely in need of such a breakthrough.)
The scratch-off game offers eight $5 million prizes, 12 $2 million prizes and 84 $1 million prizes, lottery officials said. It remains unclear how many winners there have been thus far.

Sodomy Case
A developmentally disabled minor will face an Ulster County grand jury within 45 days following a hearing in Olive Town Court, District Attorney Donald A. Williams said last week. The suspect’s parents said their son has been accused of sodomizing another developmentally disabled minor in a bathroom of the Onteora High School. The 16-year-old suspect was charged with a felony sex crime by state police at Ulster on Sept. 25, according to police records. The alleged victim also is a 16-year-old male. The suspect’s parents said he has been in the Ulster County Jail since the time of his arrest. The county is not releasing the names of the suspect or the alleged victim because of their ages.

More Charges
Two grand jury cases tied to a fatal DWI following the Onteora High School prom last Spring have inched forward recently, with accused driver Zephyr Dresser-Peck, charged with a number of counts including vehicular manslaughter, pleading not guilty and set to go to a pre-trial hearing next month, and Alan and Gail Zwiebel, owners of the home where the deceased, Andrew Lipson, and Dresser-Peck supposedly stopped for an after-hours party, likely not to be charged when the grand jury returns for its final report on November 16
Stay tuned…

Local Shots
The Ulster County Health Department will host an additional influenza and pneumococcal vaccination clinic at the Town of Olive Legion Hall on Mountain Road in Shokan. the clinic will take place on Thursday, December 13, from 9 am-12 pm. For more information on other clinic dates and locations, please call the Ulster County Health Department Flu Hotline at 340-3093. Information can also be obtained through our website: www.co.ulster.ny.us/health .

Internet Limits
Internet Service Providers urgently need to roll out the next generation of net addresses for online devices, internet pioneer Vint Cerf has said.
Every device that goes online is allocated a unique IP address but the pool of numbers is finite and due to run out around 2010. A new system, called IPv6, has been awaiting roll out for 10 years.
Unless IPv6 is switched on in the coming years, some devices might not be able to go online, Cerf has warned. “The rate of consumption of available remaining IPv4 numbers appears to be on track to run out in 2010/11.”
Mr Cerf is about to step down as chairman of Icann, the body which oversees the net, and is also Google’s chief internet evangelist.

Heating Hikes
It could cost Hudson Valley residents $181 million more in home heating costs this winter, according to US Senator Charles Schumer, who recently announced efforts to increase funding for federal assistancethis winter.
Schumer said those hardest hit will be the people who can least afford it.
“Middle and higher income families are going to have to chose between putting on an extra sweater or putting an extra $100 in the college tuition fund,” he said. “But, the problem is with the low income, and particularly the elderly, the choices will be far more noticeable day to day. Because, you put the thermostat above 60 degrees and they might not have enough to eat the next month.”
Schumer urged the president to release the remaining $150 million in the Low Income Heating Assistance Program so that people will be able to afford the rising costs of heating their homes this winter.
Meanwhile, local residents should be aware the 2007-08 Home Energy Assistance Program began as of November 1. Starting now, families and individuals may apply for HEAP benefits at one of two locations:
Senior citizens (60 and over) are asked to apply at the Sullivan County Office for the Aging, 1st Floor, County Government Center, 100 North Street, Monticello, NY. The contact person at the Office for the Aging is Francine Sunshine, 794-3000, ext. 5000.
All other Sullivan County residents are asked to apply at the Sullivan County Department of Family Services, Travis Building, 16 Community Lane, Liberty, NY. The contact person at the Department of Family Services is Brenda Hornbeck, 292-0100, ext. 2302.

Rx Nightmares
Nearly 2 million low-income Medicare participants could be switched to different insurance plans for their prescription drug coverage next year. Millions more will have to shop around if they want to avoid double-digit increases in their monthly premiums.
The reassignment of the poorest beneficiaries and the higher premiums for many others are just two reasons why seniors and the disabled may want to look into other plans as the Medicare drug benefit enters its third year, according to both the government and AARP, among other entities.
The shopping season officially begins Nov. 15 - the first day of an open enrollment period that continues through Dec. 31.
Advocacy groups warn the benefit’s 24.5 million participants to take nothing for granted even if they’re happy with their current coverage. Under the drug benefit, Medicare subsidizes insurance plans that cover an enrollee’s prescription drug buys. The government pays insurers extra for covering the very poor. The plans adjust their coverage to reflect the changing marketplace. They change which drugs they will cover for safety and financial reasons. They also make adjustments to the monthly premiums they charge customers, trying to maximize demand for their product and profitability.
On average, Medicare Part D plans will charge a monthly premium of $28 in 2008, but the premiums vary widely across the nearly 1,800 plans around the country. The premiums range from $9.80 for a basic benefit to $107.50 for enhanced coverage.
About a quarter of the poorest beneficiaries don’t pay any monthly premium. They will still be entitled to that extra benefit next year, but they will have to get their coverage though other plans meeting Medicare’s requirements for offering coverage to low-income beneficiaries. Medicare officials sent letters in recent weeks to nearly 2 million people to inform them that they will be moved to a new plan.
The poorest participants can switch their drug plans at any time, so if they get a reassignment notice from the government, they should make sure their new plan covers all their medicine, Nemore said. They can do that by consulting 1-800-Medicare, or by contacting the State Health Insurance Assistance Program, which has counselors in every state.
But it’s not only the poor facing major changes, officials note. Enrollment in the drug benefit is highly concentrated, and some of the most popular plans will charge considerably higher monthly premiums next year. For example, the most popular plan, the AARP Medicare RX Preferred Plan, will increase its monthly premium by 16 percent. Humana Inc. will increase the premium for its standard plan by 71 percent. And the AARP Medicare RX Save Plan will jump 65 percent, according to Avalere Health.
The open enrollment season lasts until Dec. 31, but officials warn beneficiaries that it’s safer to make a decision sooner rather than later, if they want to be sure their new coverage is in effect when they pick up their first prescriptions in January.
Also of interest is the news that errors on bills for doctors, medical tests or hospitals can result in overcharges that run from a few dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. Nora Johnson, director of education and hospital billing compliance for Medical Billing Advocates of America, estimates “eight out of every 10” hospital bills she scrutinizes contain multiple errors. And while bills from doctors’ offices and labs tend to contain fewer mistakes, consumers can still end up paying unnecessarily.
Six out of 10 Americans with health insurance said they are paying more out of pocket for medical expenses, according to a recent survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, or EBRI. And the higher costs are hurting their household finances, with one-third reporting difficulty paying for basic necessities.
Be careful…

Ulster Soccer
Ulster County Community College men’s soccer team waded through rainy conditions caused by the remnants of Tropical Storm Noel to come away with a 2-0 victory over Suffolk in the Region XV championship game on November 7. It was the Senators’ fourth time playing in the title game and their third crown in the last eight years.
Ulster (19-2-1) advances to host District 21 championship against either Springfield Tech or Bunker Hill. A victory this week would put the Senators into Saturday’s national semifinals at Herkimer.

No Difference
A comprehensive global study of abortion has concluded that abortion rates are similar in countries where it is legal and those where it is not, suggesting that outlawing the procedure does little to deter women seeking it. Moreover, the researchers found that abortion was safe in countries where it was legal, but dangerous in countries where it was outlawed and performed clandestinely. Globally, abortion accounts for 13 percent of women’s deaths during pregnancy and childbirth, and there are 31 abortions for every 100 live births, the study said.
The data also suggested that the best way to reduce abortion rates was not to make abortion illegal but to make contraception more widely available. In Eastern Europe, where contraceptive choices have broadened since the fall of Communism, the study found that abortion rates have decreased by 50 percent, although they are still relatively high compared with those in Western Europe.
Anti-abortion groups criticized the research, saying that the scientists had jumped to conclusions from imperfect tallies, often estimates of abortion rates in countries where the procedure was illegal.
The study indicated that about 20 million abortions that would be considered unsafe are performed each year and that 67,000 women die as a result of complications from those abortions, most in countries where abortion is illegal.
In Uganda, where abortion is illegal and sex education programs focus only on abstinence, the estimated abortion rate was 54 per 1,000 women in 2003, more than twice the rate in the United States, 21 per 1,000 in that year. The lowest rate, 12 per 1,000, was in Western Europe, with legal abortion and widely available contraception.
Worldwide, the annual number of abortions appeared to have declined between 1995, the last year such a broad study was conducted, and 2003, from an estimated 46 million to 42 million, the study concluded.

Climatic News
A milestone, a landmark and “the political center of gravity is finally shifting on global warming.” Those were the accolades that greeted a Senate subcommittee’s recent of a bill to cap greenhouse gas emissions, mostly because it is the first of a dozen such measures that might have a chance of becoming law.
The approval vote - 4 to 3 - means the bill will be debated in the full Environment and Public Works Committee. Formally known as America’s Climate Security Act and informally by the names of its sponsors, Senators Joe Lieberman and John Warner, the bill is different from earlier efforts because of its details on how a U.S. plan to cap carbon emissions and trade credits for them would work. But Sen. James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who is skeptical about global warming, said the measure would put a heavy economic burden on U.S. citizens and the Bush administration, who has opposed mandatory limits on carbon emissions, arguing that they could hurt the U.S. economy and urging voluntary measures instead, has been aid to be poised to veto any such bill should it be passed.
In more cutting climatic news of late, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has proposed a national “pollution pricing” plan that would tax companies directly for the greenhouse gases they release.
“If you really want to reduce carbon emissions, tax carbon at the source, which would mean at the mine head, at the oil well, whatever,” Bloomberg told more than 100 other mayors at a climate summit sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Bloomberg suggested a fee of $15 for every ton of greenhouse gas companies emit, with the money used to reduce payroll taxes and finance tax credits for companies that reduce their greenhouse gas pollution.
Meanwhile, the action on both fronts has seen interesting developments.
On the one hand, a new report from two think tanks focused on national defense is saying that climate change could be one of the greatest national security challenges ever faced by U.S. policy makers. The report raises the threat of dramatic population migrations, wars over water and resources, and a realignment of power among nations.
During the last two decades, climate scientists have underestimated how quickly the Earth is changing - perhaps to avoid being branded as “alarmists,” the study said. But policy planners should count on climate-induced instability in critical parts of the world within 30 years. And it notes that while climate change is likely to breed new conflicts, it already is magnifying existing problems, from the desertification of Darfur and competition for water in the Middle East to the disruptive monsoons in Asia which increase the pressure for land, the report said.
The report was compiled by a panel of security and climate specialists, sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Center for a New American Security.
On the other hand, a New York Times story on climate change’s effects on winter sports centers, published in its tourism pages November 1, featured a photo of our own Belleayre Mountain Ski Center.
Time to take this seriously, eh?

Indoor Pool!
A public meeting seeking input for a community indoor swimming pool and recreation complex planned in Arkville will be held Thursday, Nov. 15 at 7 p.m. at Margaretville Central School on Main Street, Margaretville. Construction of the recreation facility is expected to begin in spring 2008. Organizers are soliciting comments and ideas from the public as they begin the design process. Members of the building committee anticipate that the pool and recreation complex will be utilized by residents from about a 25-mile radius of Arkville/Margaretville.
The community pool project will be built by the not-for-profit Catskill Recreation Committee Inc. Frost Valley YMCA, located in Claryville, will operate the facility. Arkville residents Kingdon Gould Jr. and his wife, Mary, are the driving forces behind the venture. One of their sons, Caleb, also serves as a Catskill Recreation Committee board member.
Suggestions received at the November 15 meeting will be taken into consideration in the final design process. A second community meeting will be scheduled on a weekend for the convenience of part-time residents.
Anyone who cannot attend a meeting, but would like to send comments, is invited to direct them to Karen Rauter, Frost Valley YMCA’s director of communications and marketing. Comments can be mailed to Karen’s attention at Frost Valley YMCA, 2000 Frost Valley, Claryville, NY 12725 or e-mailed to: pool@frostvalley.org.

Larry Speaks!
The Film Program at Bard College presents an evening with writer, director, and producer Larry Fessenden on Tuesday, November 13 . The program, free and open to the public, begins at 8:00 p.m. in the theater of the Avery Arts Center, and includes a screening of Fessenden’s most recent film, The Last Winter, as well as a question-and-answer session with him.
Fessenden, an Olive resident, is the writer, director, and editor of the award-winning art-horror movies Habit, No Telling, and Wendigo. He has operated the production company Glass Eye Pix since 1985, with the mission of supporting individual voices in the arts. Fessenden is the recipient of the Someone to Watch Award at the L.A. Spirit Awards.
For additional information, call 845-758-7253 or e-mail sforza@bard.edu.

New SWN Prez
Melody Newcombe has been elected as President of the Ulster County Wide Shandaken Women’s Network. She brings a life time of business, marketing, sales, public speaking, leadership and organizational skills to the women’s network and region. She resolves to help other business women in the region to gain new skills to help grow their businesses as well as commits to helping to network women to link businesses so that all may prosper.
Newcombe has been involved in the Shandaken Women’s Network for the past 10 years as a member. She has been Treasurer for one term, Program Director for 2 terms and on the Board of Directors for many years.
The Ulster County Shandaken Women’s Network announces the first of its fall series featuring ‘Women of the Catskills’. Angel Ortloff will be the featured speaker at the November 20th dinner meeting from 6 to 9 p.m. at La Duchesse Anne Restaurant in Mt. Tremper on the corner of Route 212 and Wittenberg Road. Ortloff is the inventor of the healing ‘Levitating Wand’T and is a NYS Licensed Massage Therapist as well as life long professional pottery maker and artist.
As a breast cancer survivor, she developed the ‘Healing Wand’ to gently bring back mobility and strength after surgery. The ‘Wand’s is now used by countless women in both preparation for surgery and post surgery. The ‘Women in the Catskills’ Series will continue on December 18th from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Copperhood Spa on Route 28 in Shandaken and feature Pauline Oliveros, founder of the Deep Listening Space in Kingston. For further information go to www.shandakenwomen.net. Or call Newcombe at 688-5472.

Income Split
The richest Americans’ share of national income has hit a postwar record, surpassing the highs reached in the 1990s bull market, and underlining the divergence of economic fortunes blamed for fueling anxiety among American workers. The wealthiest 1% of Americans earned 21.2% of all income in 2005, according to new data from the Internal Revenue Service. That is up sharply from 19% in 2004, and surpasses the previous high of 20.8% set in 2000, at the peak of the previous bull market in stocks. The bottom 50% earned 12.8% of all income, down from 13.4% in 2004 and a bit less than their 13% share in 2000.
The IRS data, based on a large sample of tax returns, are for “adjusted gross income,” which is income after some deductions, such as for alimony and contributions to individual retirement accounts. While dated, many scholars prefer it to timelier data from other agencies because it provides details of the very richest - for example, the top 0.1% and the top 1%, not just the top 10% - and includes capital gains, an important, though volatile, source of income for the affluent.
The IRS data go back only to 1986, but academic research suggests the rich last had this high a share of total income in the 1920s. Scholars attribute rising inequality to several factors, including technological change that favors those with more skills, and globalization and advances in communications that enlarge the rewards available to “superstar” performers whether in business, sports or entertainment.
In an interview yesterday with The Wall Street Journal, President Bush said, “First of all, our society has had income inequality for a long time. Secondly, skills gaps yield income gaps. And what needs to be done about the inequality of income is to make sure people have got good education, starting with young kids. That’s why No Child Left Behind is such an important component of making sure that America is competitive in the 21st century.”

Plame Finale
Remember Plamegate, which we kept harping on until it all sort of disappeared in a class D.C. shifting of attention to other matters? It now turns out that the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson outed by the Bush Administration as revenge for her husband’s questioning of WMD’s information in Iraq was involved in operations to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons.
“Our mission was to make sure that the bad guys, basically, did not get nuclear weapons,” Plame finally revealed in recent weeks in information later corroborated by the CIA. Plame also indicated that her outing in 2003 had caused grave damage to CIA operations, saying, “All the intelligence services in the world were running my name through their databases” to see where she had gone and who she had met with.
According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame-Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran. Speaking under strict confidentiality, intelligence officials revealed heretofore unreported elements of Plame’s work. Their accounts suggest that Plame’s outing was more serious than has previously been reported and carries grave implications for U.S. national security and its ability to monitor Iran’s burgeoning nuclear program. ...
Oh well…