(News Briefs March 29, 2007)

Coalition Shift...
Woodstock town Supervisor Jeremy Wilber has been elected to serve as an Ulster County delegate on the Coalition of Watershed Towns executive committee, replacing incumbent Bruce LaMonda, a town of Olive Councilman who was appointed to the committee two years ago to fill a vacancy left by Olive Supervisor Bert Leifeld. The only voting was by town boards of towns within the watershed portion of the County: Shandaken, Olive, Woodstock, Denning, Hurley, Marbletown, Rochester and Wawarsing.
Just prior to the mid-March vote deadline LaMonda was shocked to learn that he was in a race at all and said he suspected Wilbur’s name was thrown in by Shandaken Supervisor Robert Cross Jr., who was on the losing end of a battle with LaMonda last year when LaMonda asked the Coalition to support Olive’s efforts to get the controversial large parcel bill shot down in the Onteora school district.
Wilbur, who supported the large parcel bill along with Cross, made a few appearances at Coalition meetings in Margaretville to try and sway the board, but did not succeed.
At the same session the committee quietly replaced longstanding Attorney Jeff Baker. Baker, a partner in Albany-based Young, Sommer, Ward, Ritzenberg, Baker and Moore, will step aside to make room for the firm’s founding member Kevin Young, who will take over the day to day responsibilities. There was no explanation for the change.

More Floods?
There’s plenty of water flowing throughout the area of the Esopus Creek running through Shandaken and Olive. This water, which creates problems because it runs wild, is not going to go away, and on March 20th at Shandaken town hall, experts told a crowd of water watchers that the flooding isn’t either.
But its better than it was 20,000 years ago, when receding glaciers made the whole area a lake with Panther Mountain in the middle.
Dan Davis, the project manager of a $750,000 study of the upper Esopus and its tributaries, explained how those glaciers were also responsible for the clay and silt that turns the streams chocolate during high water events today.
These and scores of other fascinating details are now in one data base thanks to a team of scientists from Cornell University Cooperative Extension, the Army Corp. of Engineers and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection.
Davis and Cornell’s Jeremy Magliaro and Michael Courtney explained that the management plan the team developed is not a set of laws or regulations but a tool to be used by communities and residents as they deal with the ever changing streams and creeks.
The plan does make recommendations. Several trouble spots were identified as in need of immediate attention. The plan also suggests that people consider moving out floodplains rather than deal with the problems that are inevitable, according to the results of the study.
Shandaken Supervisor Robert Cross Jr. said “This is a living document that will help us in the future with identification, education, and in some cases implementation of areas in need of stabilization or repair.”

Olive Matters!
Michelle Friedel and Richard R. Wolff attended an Olive Matters meeting in March to announce their intentions to run for positions on the school board which will be voted on in May. Both indicated that their focus was foremost upon educational issues although they each acknowledged that the Large Parcel option remains as an annual source of divisiveness in the school district.
Wolf is a school bus contractor in the Kingston school district who has lived in Olive since 1985. He has also served on the Olive Zoning Board of Appeals and boasts an 11 year record of attendance of local school board meetings. He said that he supports the continuation of three elementary schools within the district and an expansion of the middle school in the long-range plan.
Also in attendance at the March 7 meeting were OCS school boardmembers Maxanne Resnick and Rita Vanacore, an OM member.
Seats up for election this year are currently held by Dave Patterson of Hurley, a former board president, and Marino D’Orazio of Marbletown, current board president.

Todd Out At CWC
Ward Todd, a longstanding member of the Catskill Watershed Corporation, will step down from his post next month when the CWC hold its 10th Annual Meeting of member towns Tuesday, April 24 at 6 p.m. at CWC offices, 905 Main Street, Margaretville.
Results of the election of representatives from Greene, Ulster and Sullivan Counties to the CWC Board of Directors will be announced, but since no one faced opposition it’s no secret that Town of Hurley Supervisor Mike Shultis will takes Todd’s place as an Ulster County delegate. Once officially elected Shultis will represent the watershed towns of Ulster County alongside Ulster’s other delegate, Olive town supervisor Bert Leifeld.
There were two other delagate seats available but those, currently held by Sullivan County’s Georgianna Lepke and Greene County’s Michael Flaherty, are expected to be kept by both, who are running unopposed.
Also at the annual meeting a new video about the CWC, its history and its programs will be screened.
The 15-minute film, produced by Drew Harty of Treadwell, is timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the New York City Watershed Memorandum of Agreement, which created the CWC to develop and run environmental protection, economic development and education programs in the City’s Catskill-Delaware Watershed.
The floor will then be open for questions and comments from representatives of member towns and villages.
Following the Annual Meeting, the regular monthly meeting of the Board of Directors will be held.
The public is cordially invited to attend.

Missed Meeting
Verizon representatives scheduled to meet with town officials on March 8th in regard to a possible cell tower site at the Shokan landfill were delayed by an accident which stalled traffic on the New York State Thruway for hours and the meeting will be rescheduled.
Bet you didn’t get that news on your cell phone!

Ulster Summit
Ulster County officials unveiled their new master plan for the county this past month, one that includes greener buildings and a continued targeting of culture, the arts, and technology. The first piece of the 12-part strategy, according to Glenn Sutherland, chair of the steering committee for the project dubbed Ulster Tomorrow, will be to coordinate a group of community leaders who all have personal and business stakes in the community, and will help the vision for the county become a reality.
Sutherland added that culture and technology are going to be a major part of where the county will be headed in the upcoming years.
“We’re talking about culture, the arts, and other things of that nature. We’re talking about enhancing our agricultural base. We’re talking about obviously enhancing our tourism base and working in the area of bringing in our green technologies and our renewable technologies as an industry.”
Sutherland said from there, the county will begin to look at more in depth, economic development and open space usage.
Pledging to make the new plans more active than similar past efforts, 16 individuals have been recruited to help turn the ideas of the development strategy into reality.
Sutherland is co-leading with county Legislator Hector Rodriguez, D-New Paltz. Others include Joseph Deegan, of Deegan Sanglyn Commercial Real Estate, charged with recruiting a diverse business base; Hurley planner Paul Hakim of the Wilber National Bank, in charge of streamlining the local permit review process; Robert Ryan, chairman of the Ulster County Development Corp., in charge of “cultivating a community of leaders,” Ward Todd, president of the Ulster County Chamber of Commerce, looking to develop measured accountability; Sam Kandel of the Small Business Development Center; targeting assistance to emerging businesses; March Gallagher, chairwoman of the Ulster County Industrial Development Agency, looking to redesign service networks; Dennis Doyle, director, Ulster County Planning Department, seeking to develop appropriate infrastructure; Jennifer Schwartz, deputy director, Ulster County Planning Department, in charge of preserving and enhancing local quality of life; Irene MacPherson, interim president of the Ulster County Development Corp, looking to retain and expand existing businesses; Nancy Schaef, of the Ulster County Workforce Development Board, seeking to create a labor force in line with business needs; Paul Rakov, of the Emerson Resort and Spa and Crossroads Ventures, tooking to “enhance the travel and tourism industry; Michael Siegel, of the Rondout Valley Growers Association, in charge of the strengthening of agricultural efforts; Melissa Everett, of Sustainable Hudson Valley, in charge of developing a strategic advantage in ‘green’ and renewable technologies and products; and Ron Marquette, vice chairman, Ulster County Development Corp, looking to nurture a creative economy.
Stay tuned…

No Casinos...
Ulster County lawmakers are planning to vote next month on resolution excluding the development of gambling casinos from the entire county. Members of the county Legislature's Environmental Committee are bringing forward a resolution in support of a similar measure being pushed by state Assemblyman Kevin Cahill calling for Ulster County to be removed from the list of counties in which Gov. Elliot Spitzer can enter into compacts with American Indian tribes to establishing gaming facilities.
Several Ulster County towns, including Gardiner, Hardenburgh, Marbletown, New Paltz, Plattekill, Saugerties and Woodstock, have already adopted resolutions outlining their opposition to gaming facilities.
State Sen. John Bonacic, R-Mount Hope, said the governor has assured him he does not support a casino in Ulster County.

Artist Friendly
Business Week magazine has put Kingston and the rest of Ulster County on its top 10 list of places for artists to live in the U.S., saying attracting the creative can be a driving economic force and noting that a burgeoning arts community is an indicator of neighborhood gentrification and economic prosperity. Also on the list were Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Nashville, TN., Santa Fe, NM; Carson City, NV; Boulder, CO, Nassau-Suffolk counties of New York state and Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, CA. The rating by the magazine was done in conjunction with Sperling’s BestPlaces. It gave points for an arts and cultural index, which considers the number and size of an area’s arts resources. In that category, Kingston rated 87 out of 100. The magazine also listed a diversity index, which considers the likelihood of meeting another person of different race. A higher number indicates more diversity, with a maximum score of 100. Kingston rated 33.2.
The magazine said that the percentage of the population between 25-34 was 12.24 percent and put the cost of living index at 103. That index is based on a national average of 100. If the cost of living average were 300, it would indicate three times the national average.

New At UCDC
An out-of-state economic developer and lawyer was chosen by Ulster County business leaders as the new president and CEO of the Ulster County Development Corporation.
Lance Matteson, a Vermont native, was the clear choice of the 90 resumes sifted through over the past few months for the top development corporation job. A Harvard graduate, he has a background in economic development, including positions as the past executive director of the Bennington County Industrial Corporation, and the president of the Bennington County Micro-Technology Center.
Matteson said his main focus will be keeping jobs in the county, and creating new ones.

Grannis Solid
The GOP-controlled State Senate which normally all but rubber-stamps gubernatorial appointments, has finally moved forward on Governor Spitzer’s DEC Commissioner-designate Alexander “Pete” Grannis. On Tuesday, via secret vote, the senate’s Environmental Conservation Committee, held its second confirmation hearing since March 20 and moved the nomination to its final & formal approval stampers, the Senate Finance Committee. Common wisdom in Albany seems to be that Grannis’ appointment and the restructuring of DEC that’s expected to follow has been delayed pending agreement on the much larger and wholly unrelated state budget. As of press time, that agreement appears to have been reached.
Grannis, a Manhattan Assemblyman and long a key figure in State environmental policymaking, is broadly supported for the job by Democrats and the environmental community, while his 30+ year legislative record has drawn opposition from trapping, hunting, smoking, and gun rights interests.
In a prepared statement for the Senate “EnCon” committee, Grannis characterized his priorities for DEC as rebuilding the long-understaffed agency, climate change, dam safety, smart growth and sustainability, environmental justice, and conservation.

Septic Help…
Eligibility requirements for the Catskill Watershed Corporation’s Septic Rehabilitation and Replacement Program have been revised to allow more homeowners to participate. If you live within the New York City Watershed in Delaware, Greene, Schoharie, Sullivan or Ulster Counties, and your septic system is within 150 feet of a watercourse, or 500 feet of a reservoir or reservoir stem, you may sign up to have your system pumped out and inspected.
Homeowners within the newly expanded eligibility distance should have received a letter explaining how to participate in the program. A toll-free call to the CWC (1-877-928-7433) to arrange an initial visit with technical staffers is the first step.
Participation is entirely voluntary. Those who sign up agree to have their system examined. If the system appears to have failed, or is likely to fail, the CWC will reimburse full-time residents 100 percent of the cost of replacement. Part-time or non-resident property owners will be reimbursed 60 percent of eligible repair or replacement costs.
Your one-or two-family residence or home-business combination must use less than 1,000 gallons of water per day.
If your system is farther than 150 feet from a watercourse, and you have received a Notice of Failure or Violation from the NYC Department of Environmental Protection, you are still required to make the repairs. Keep receipts from all design and construction work done on the system and you may be eligible for reimbursement at some point in the future.
The CWC Board of Directors recently authorized reimbursement of eligible costs for residential septic repairs and replacement conducted anywhere in the West-of-Hudson Watershed between Nov. 23, 2005 and January 31, 2007, regardless of whether those systems are located in the current priority areas for the CWC.
If you have questions about whether you are eligible for reimbursement for past repairs, or whether you qualify for the revised program, please call the CWC at 845-586-1400 (toll-free 1-877-828-7433).
In addition, homeowners who meet income requirements may qualify for hardship assistance from the CWC, whether or not their property lies within an eligible area.

Rural Life…
“Rural Life in the Catskills: A Forum on Food, Water and Wood for the Future,” will bring together scholars, authors, practitioners and producers to consider these critical aspects of life in the Catskills on Saturday, April 14 at the Andes Hotel, Andes, Delaware County. The event runs from 9:30 to 3:30. The $20 registration fee includes lunch. To reserve your seat at this stimulating event, send a check payable to the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development (CCCD) to the Catskill Center, PO Box 504, Arkville, NY 12406. Registration deadline is March 30.
A downloadable program and registration form can be found at the website of the Olive Natural Heritage Society, one of the event’s sponsors: www.onhs.org
The heritage of the Catskills encompasses a long legacy of managing the land for agricultural and forest products, clean drinking water, wildlife, outdoor recreation and scenic open spaces. How best to support and encourage the continuation of these treasured aspects of the region will be the focus of the day-long forum.
The forum is the fourth symposium on regional environmental issues sponsored by the Catskill Institute for the Environment (CIE), a consortium of representatives from area colleges and other educational organizations. In addition to CIE, the Catskill Center and ONHS, the Andes forum is co-sponsored by the Watershed Agricultural Council, Bard Center for Environmental Policy, the Agroforestry Resource Center, Catskill Forest Association, NYC Department of Environmental Protection, and the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation.

OCS Football?
The Onteora Community Junior Football Committee, committed to helping the Onteora School District rebuild its football program by enlisting children ages 8-13 to learn the fundamentals of contact football in a community league, held an informational meeting and early registration for its planned team on Saturday, March 24 at the Olive Town Hall on Bostock Road in Shokan. On hand was Mark Keyser, president of the Kingston Area Junior Football League. The goal of the Onteora Community Junior Football Committee is to organize two new teams, a junior and senior team, each with 20- 25 players. All games will be played at Dietz Memorial Stadium.
“By joining forces with the Kingston Area Jr. Football League in Kingston, children in the Onteora communities of Woodstock, Shandaken, Hurley, Marbletown and Olive will have the opportunity to play the game of contact football prior to entering
seventh grade,” said a press release from the committee. “The committee’s philosophy is that of engaging and teaching children football fundamentals so they have basic skill before entering the Onteora Middle School and join the Onteora Modified Program. We can see this philosophy working with the sport programs in baseball and soccer.”
The Kingston Area Junior Football League was started in 1971 to provide a safe and healthy environment for young people to learn the game. The league is a non-competitive instructional league with a junior division which allows 8-10 year olds to play together and a senior division for 11-13 year olds.
Contact Cindy O’Connor at 657-2620, Wally Fulford at 657-6741, or Gene Sorbellini at 657 –6570 for further information.

New CPR News
Chest compression - not mouth-to-mouth resuscitation - seems to be the key in helping someone recover from cardiac arrest, according to new research that further bolsters advice from heart experts. A study in Japan showed that people were more likely to recover without brain damage if rescuers focused on chest compressions rather than rescue breaths, and some experts advised dropping the mouth-to-mouth part of CPR altogether.
More than a year ago, the American Heart Association revised CPR guidelines to put more emphasis on chest presses, urging 30 instead of 15 for every two breaths given. Stopping chest compressions to blow air into the lungs of someone who is unresponsive detracts from the more important task of keeping blood moving to provide oxygen and nourishment to the brain and heart.
Another big advantage to dropping the rescue breaths: It could make bystanders more willing to provide CPR in the first place. Many are unwilling to do the mouth-to-mouth part and become flummoxed and fearful of getting the ratio right in an emergency.
Sudden cardiac arrest - when the heart suddenly stops beating - can occur after a heart attack or as a result of electrocution or near-drowning. It’s most often caused by an abnormal heart rhythm. The person experiencing it collapses, is unresponsive to gentle shaking and stops normal breathing.

Mt. Tremper Crash
Timothy Smith of Shandaken was found dead the morning of March 13 in a drainage ditch along state Route 28 in Mt. Tremper, apparently the victim of a motor vehicle accident the night before. Shandaken police said the body of Timothy P. Smith, 45, of Fox Hollow Road, was found by members of a state Department of Transportation crew who were inspecting damage to a guard rail on Route 28 near state Route 212. While checking the rail, the DOT employees saw an overturned 2001 Dodge pickup in a drainage ditch at the bottom of a steep embankment, and they found Smith’s body about 10 feet away from the vehicle, police said.
Police believe Smith was westbound on Route 28, on his way home from work, between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m. Monday when his truck went off the road, through the rail and down the embankment. Smith was thrown from the truck, which came to rest upside down in the 25-foot-deep ditch, police said. They said there are houses near the crash site and that homeowners the next morning reported hearing the crash. But no one saw anything out of the ordinary Monday night - neither the vehicle nor Smith’s body were easily visible from Route 28 - and no one called police, they said.
It was not clear whether Smith died in the crash or sometime afterward. Police added that they did not find evidence that Smith was wearing a seat belt.
Route 28 was closed for about 2 1/2 hours the morning of the 13th, and traffic was rerouted onto Wittenberg Road.

Eat Yr Veggies
Fewer than a third of American adults eat the amount of fruits and vegetables the government recommends, a trend that’s remained steady for more than a decade, health officials are now saying. That’s “well below” the government’s goal of getting 75 percent of Americans to eat two servings of fruits and having half of the population consume three servings of vegetables each day by 2010, said the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The diet survey, part of a huge federal health survey of every state, is based on responses from 305,000 adults in 2005. It indicates the country is only about halfway toward meeting its healthy eating goal three years from now. Although the rate of fruit and vegetable consumption has remained unchanged since 1994, health officials said the goal is still within reach.
Specifically the survey showed that 27 percent of adults ate vegetables three times a day, and about 33 percent ate fruit twice a day. A serving size is a half-cup for most fruits and vegetables, one cup for leafy greens.
Senior citizens were more likely than others to follow Mom’s advice to eat more veggies, with slightly more than a third of that group eating three or more servings each day. Younger adults, age 18 to 24, ate the fewest vegetables. Nearly four-fifths of that age category scraped the veggies to the side of their plates - if they had vegetables on the plate at all.
Likewise, seniors also ate the most fruit, with nearly 46 percent eating two or more servings of fruit daily. People age 35 to 44 ate fruit the least, with fewer than 28 percent eating the recommended amount of fruit each day.

No Plame?
Dr. James Knodell, director of the Office of Security at the White House, told a congressional committee in recent weeks that he was aware of no internal investigation or report into the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame. The White House had first opposed Knodell testifying but after a threat of a subpoena from the committee he was allowed to appear.
Knodell has testified that those who had participated in the leaking of classified information were required to attest to this and he was aware that no one, including Karl Rove, had done that. He said that he had started at the White House in August 2004, a year after the leak, but his records show no evidence of a probe or report there.
Rep. Henry Waxman recalled that President Bush had promised a full internal probe. Knodell repeated that no probe took place, as far as he knew, and was not happening today. Knodell said he had no conversations whatsoever with the president, vice president, Karl Rove or anyone about the leak.
Asked by chairman Waxman if he knew this was an issue of concern, he said “yes.” Asked if he learned this from the White House or the press, he said, “through the press.”
Knodell, who is a career employee and not a Bush appointee, said he would go back and “review this with senior management.” He admitted that leaking classified information called for action, whether the leak was accidental or on purpose.

IRS Favorites?
The head of the Internal Revenue Service is facing questions in Congress about auditors’ complaints that they are being forced to close corporate cases prematurely, allowing billions in tax dollars to go unpaid. In interviews, these revenue agents warned that unless they were free to pursue what their instincts tell them, their focus would end up being only on known abuses, and new ones created by the tax advice industry would go undetected.
The agency countered that it had increased the number of companies whose tax returns it examined by a fourth since 2001, even though the number of auditors was virtually the same. Agency officials said this was accomplished by cutting back slightly on audits of the very largest companies, which produce more than 80 percent of all corporate profits, while increasing audits of those with assets of $10 million to $250 million, as well as those of regular citizens.

Rot The Teeth?
Root beer could be the safest soft drink for your teeth, new research suggests, but many other popular diet and sugared sodas are nearly as corrosive to dental enamel as battery acid. Prolonged exposure to soft drinks can lead to significant enamel loss, even though many people consider soft drinks to be harmless or just worry about their sugar content and the potential for putting on pounds, the study says.
The erosive potential of colas is 10 times that of fruit juices in just the first three minutes of drinking, a study last year showed. The latest research reports that drinking any type of soft drink hurts teeth due to the citric acid and/or phosphoric acid in the beverages.
Non-colas are less acidic than colas overall, the study found, but they erode the teeth more effectively than colas.
“This study simply doesn’t mirror reality,” said American Beverage Association spokesperson Tracey Halliday. “The findings cannot be applied to real life situations where people’s eating and drinking behaviors are very different and there are many factors at work.”