Follow Up on the News

How Many Bridges Is That?

Actually, the current estimate of 30 months time encompasses work on 5 of the 10 bridges in Olive owned by the City, including the "twin bridges" on 28A near Snyder’s Tavern in West Shokan which the DEP designates as the "North Bushkill" and "South Bushkill" bridges as distinct from the county’s "South Hollow" bridge a half mile upstream, which local residents call the "Bushkill Bridge."
Slated for full replacement, the twin bridges will be supplemented by a temporary one lane bridge with traffic signals on each end, according to DEP media representative Mike Saucier, who also noted that Monument Road will NOT be reopened during the construction period. The diversion of traffic at the site is anticipated to begin on a yet-to-be determined date during the summer.
Other City bridges subject to overhaul include the 5-arch bridge in Boiceville, the 15-arch bridge across the Dividing Weir at mid-reservoir, the "waste channel" bridge in Olivebridge and the railroad overpass on 28A in Boiceville. Town and county bridges, as well as the few state bridges on Route 28, will not be effected.
The county owns and maintains six bridges on the roads of Olive, according to Ed Pine, an engineer for Ulster County’s Department of Highways and Bridges. Any expanse short of 20 feet in length abutment to abutment, Pine notes, is technically considered a "culvert" by state standards.
Olive Highway Supervisor Jim Fugel observes that the town is responsible for maintaining the road surfaces over the county’s bridges but claims ownership duties for only 7 of the bridges in Olive, each somewhat shorter than the 20 foot standard.
"We’ve got a lot of pipes as big as the bridges we have," said Fugel. "One place I remember, where we took out a bridge when it needed replacement and put back a big pipe, which is a bit easier to maintain than a bridge, is at the intersection of Brodhead and McMillen roads."
Counting off town bridges, Fugel cites one on Longyear Road; one on Hillside Drive; two on Broadhead; one on Mill Road in Olivebridge by the Fox Farm; one of the two bridges on Sailor Mill Pond Road..."the other pond bridge is the county’s and the one ‘down in the dip’ on Upper Boiceville Road between Brunel and Bostock roads...The town’s bridges are inspected annually, with the reports going to the county."
All of the City’s bridges, raised during the construction of the reservoir (which eliminated many of Olive’s then existent bridges), are approaching the century mark. One of those vanished bridges, a once famous covered bridge at Bishop’s Falls which gave Olivebridge its name, had been a symbol of Olive as a tourist center prior to the building of the reservoir.
"It’s the one you see on old postcards. Many, many tourists took pictures of it and it showed up on a lot of cards because the horseshoe falls underneath it made it so strikingly picturesque," said Bob Steuding, a professor of Humanities at Ulster Community College and author of several books about the local region, including The Last of the Homemade Dams: The Story of the Ashokan Reservoir and the forthcoming The Heart of the Catskills: A Local History. "It was just above where the dam is today."
While there are the ghosts of numerous other bridges on the survey maps New York City commissioned before the construction began-maps so detailed that they included even the positions of outhouses, Steuding highlights the Shokan Bridge across the Esopus which connected Shokan to West Shokan and another upstream at Brodhead which the Ulster & Delaware railway went over as the most significant of the lost bridges, along with the one at Bishop’s Falls.
It was still vivid memories of the hardships endured during the last major bridge construction across the Traver Hollow chasm which prompted town officials to push so hard to keep a lane of traffic open during the up-coming work. Councilman Bruce LaMonda, although confident that the DEP will adhere to the agreement he and Supervisor Brendt Leifeld ironed out with then DEP Deputy Commissioner Michael Principe stipulating an open lane at each site, still considers the Principe document a valuable one to have on file.
LaMonda had his own memories of incidents during the road closure to inspire his efforts to close that deal. Although he recalls with some amusement the difficulty the City crews had in demolishing the old bridge at Traver Hollow in the late 1970s, remarking that "they had trouble blasting out the old bridge that was supposed to fall down because it was made of that old Rosendale concrete and they don’t come down too easily," he remembers the 2 to 3 years of detour before the road reopened in 1981 as no laughing matter.
"People were driving 20-some miles around the reservoir. If you were in Boiceville and wanted to go to a house just across the bridge, you had to go all the way around to Winchell’s Corners and come back, or the reverse to go to work in Boiceville. School buses had to go all the way around. It was terrible," he guffawed darkly. "They wouldn’t let us drive across the old bridge while they were working on the new one and I remember one time there was a call for oxygen (for the father of a resident two houses from the end of the bridge). John Parete and I went to the Boiceville firehouse to pick up the tank (and apparatus) and took it to the end of Traver Hollow Bridge because the ambulance had to come all the way around."
Anyone who has gazed down into the rocky canyon below the Traver Hollow Bridge can readily appreciate the dimensions of the feat of racing down and back up that terrain, lugging a heavy oxygen tank.
"John and I ran it from there, switching (the oxygen gear) back and forth up to the house," LaMonda recalls. "To be truthful with you, by the time we got there, we needed it more than (he did)."
That’s why, LaMonda said, the town wanted to be sure that the City put in bypasses for every bridge they work on.

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Another Seat Opens Up

As a result of the surprise action, an additional seat will now open up for school board elections on May 20. This leaves four seats vacant and up for grabs, with only three of those held by incumbents Cindy O’Connor, Rita Vanacore and board president MaryJane Bernholz.
To date a number of meetings have been held to gauge and potentially shepherd growing dissatisfaction with the incumbent school board majority, which seems to have alienated many outside their hometown by pushing forward an unpopular redistricting plan that will force the closure of another elementary school, and doing so in what has been termed an unresponsive fashion. One candidate, Woodstock parentDonna Flayhan, has already announced while another three have been speaking about candidacies from Woodstock, Phoenicia and Olive off the record.
Come next month’s elections, three seats will be for three-year terms while Rosenfeld’s will go to whoever ends up being the fourth highest vote getter, He or she will be sworn in and take their place on the board election night., but their term will then come up for re-election next year.
Petitions are still available at the district office, with a deadline of April 21 for submission. Petitions will need at least 47 signatures from qualified voters who live in the district to be qualified.
In other matters raised at the recent meeting, the school board voted unanimously to approve the settlement of the tax certiorari proceeding filed by New York City against the town of Olive on the assessed value of the Ashokan Reservoir between 2001 and 2007 (see accompanying story). Superintendent Leslie Ford called it a “Wonderful moment” and said the actual time of the settlement is over a ten-year period. Bernholz added that it would all last, “Until 2017 at a tax savings of over $14 million.”
Vanacore said, “That is the tax certiorari savings, but the fact still remains that the reservoir is assessed for about $100 million less than it was assessed by the town, so I am not so sure that is going to be a tax savings.” She asked for the actual “fact and figures on the tax levy before we herald that as a tax savings.”
Assistant Superintendent for Business Victoria McLaren said, “In terms of the levy it’s going to be the same as what we projected; what will change is the total assessed value of the district. We don’t get our assessment rolls until late June and the reservoir is down by $100 million… we don’t know what the rest of the town assessment looks like…”
Bernholz said the Office of Real Property Services (ORPS) still needs to agree on the value of the reservoir.
In separate discussions, both Olive superintendent Bert Leifeld and tax assessor Bill Cook have said that they believe the new deal, once accepted by ORPS< will render moot any further discussion of the Large Parcel issue that brought the Olive majority to the board in recent years.
Meanwhile, regarding this year’s hot topic issue… The Onteora board held the first of its two parents meetings on the proposed 5-8 middle school configuration at the Middle/High school on March 27. The school board has said that it will decide where to put a five-through-eight middle school on May 6, just before the upcoming elections, but not discuss which elementary schools might get closed until after the election.
There are two proposals; to convert Bennett elementary into a middle school or extend the high school by two grades and close an additional elementary school.
Around a dozen or so administrators and teachers attended the meeting to speak in favor of creating a five-through-eight middle school, with an equal amount of parents in attendance speaking against the proposal.
According to the latest demographic reports by the year 2014 the district will have roughly 1,420 students. But actual enrollment numbers do not match the projections, and also the latest reports appear to be changing. This leaves parents doubtful of the school board’s intentions. Are they really trying to update education standards, while fixing the old buildings? Or are they cutting costs that will leave students in crowded classrooms?
The late superintendent Justine Winters, prior to her employment with Onteora, successfully implemented a six-through-eight configuration in her old school district (Webutuck), that seemed to be the direction that the district would go… before Ford’s arrival and board shifts. Demographic reports have been highlighted since 2003 and resulted in the closure of West Hurley elementary school in 2004. KSQ architects Armand Quadrini and Scott Hillje spent four months meeting with the school community in 2005. This included evening meetings at each elementary school where the public was invited. Quadrini and Winters then recommended a plan in February 2006, which would create a six-through-eight middle school and three elementary schools. In his findings Quadrini said he learned it was important for each community to have their own elementary school.
At the March 27 meeting, transportation proved a point of contention. Transportation director Dave Moraca said, “There are a couple of different options of how we want our kids bussed.” He noted that the district could stay with the two-tiered system, where the middle/high school kids are transported together followed by the transporting of elementary kids on a second run. There was also discussion’s of grades five and six taking the bus with the elementary kids and starting at a later time.
Many parents voiced concern about ten year old kids riding the same bus with high school kids for what may take longer travel time. Moraca said out of safety it would be ideal to put the younger kids up front and older kids in the back. Other administrators chimed in to add that based on their experience, they have never seen problems between older and younger kids. Parents still disagreed, noting that this is the second largest geographical area in the state, with longer bus time than most school districts and complained about current discipline problems.
“One of the things we are looking at is a new type of camera system that we’re going to have a demonstration on in the next couple of months,” Moraca answered.
Ford said, “We all here need to look at the community that we are focusing on as the children; it’s not a Phoenicia community, it’s not a West Hurley community, it’s an Onteora school district community, which is something we share and create because there is no Onteora town so we make this up as a construct and bring the children to it and that is what we need to maintain.”
On Thursday, April 3, the new Community Based School Group (CBSG), an ad hoc parents organization, got together with Russell Richardson, the executive director of Onteora’s popular INDIE program, at the INDIE building on Route 28. After four hours of heated debate, the group of a dozen or so folks from all corners of the district agreed on a list of common grounds including that they would start working together to replace the existent school board, seek a moratorium to stop progress with the Middle School proposal and its bonding, and seek funding for alternative studies on redistricting.
The most heated topic of the meeting was a CBSG proposal for splitting of the Onteora district, which is also being brought up at local town board meetings.. One side wanted it stopped until after the election, while supporters of the proposal said no.
“I’m very concerned about the agenda of partitioning the school district and that it does not become the main agenda for re-voting the members of the school board,” said Richardson. “A lot of voters will run a mile from that.”
Richardson said INDIE will not support two separate districts and believes the issue will drive a wedge between communities.
The Onteora school board would not be responsible for the study of a separate school district. This is in the hands of the State commissioner and BOCES superintendent. CBSG approached the Woodstock town board and requested that they work with BOCES on a feasibility study in order to keep community schools intact. The group is asking for a moratorium, to stop further progress on a potential $70 million to $86 million bond that would close an additional school and create a five-through-eight middle school. They are petitioning to ask for the study and the moratorium.
People from the Onteora parents group said they were baffled by the amount of people who attended the Woodstock town board meeting, where they made a resolution to petition BOCES. “I agree that there was a tremendous amount of energy Tuesday night…” said parent Tim Rands a member of the Onteora parents group, “but we need that many people at board meetings, opposing the five-through-eight plan.”
A similar turnout was on hand when a similar presentation was made at Phoenicia Town Hall on April 7, although most there were brought out by other town matters, including a presentation by Ford flanked by Bernholz, Vanacore and O’Connor, and including a budget-cutting presentation by members of the Budget Study Group that has been extolling the Reaganesque virtues of running school districts more like businesses, with similar ruthlessness in regards to “the bottom line.”
The Onteora Parents group have been protesting over the School board’s decision to create the middle school, believe that community based schools within a centralized district are what is best. They are against the closure of any elementary school. They have been petitioning businesses and locals to gain support against the school board’s proposal.
Richardson countered a defense of the current board by O’Connor’s sister by noting how the new administration, “Has been shutting down everything, which doesn’t fit the grid of the lowest mandate possible.” He listed cuts that included teachers, art and music programs. “The board members have failed the school and its population, the children.”
Included in budget reductions are INDIE programs for at-risk kids and the entire INDIE future.
Large Parcel legislation, now considered a moot point, was discussed as having a damaging effect on education where the candidates were elected for “that one issue,” all coming from the town of Olive. Ideas were explored on reasons why people do not attend school board meetings that ranged from a feeling of being disenfranchised to it being a waste of time since the school board “will not listen.” Complaints were heard around the room about too many committees, long waits during equally long board meetings and lack of information given out during the meetings and on the district’s website.
The Onteora Parents Group has promised to announce a slate of its own candidates soon.

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Suddenly It’s Settled

“The 800 pound gorilla finally learned to line dance with its country cousins,” said Olive supervisor Berndt Leifeld of the agreement reached late last week in a stamenet he proudly said he’d worked on his drive to work Wednesday norning, April 2. “Who knows why? I’m glad it turned out this way.”
The Olive Town board unanimously passed a resolution authorizing Leifeld, town assessor William Cook and the Latham-based attorney who helped reach the agreed-upon settlement to sign the negotiated deal as soon as possible. Leifeld later noted that “somebody has to start the thing running so we went first,” adding that a similar resolution would now have to be passed by the Onteora School Board, involved in the case as an Intervenor because of its status as a key taxing entity affected by Olive’s assessment figures, as well as the City itself.
“They will sign,” Leifeld said of the school board, noting that a majority of its members had already voiced approval of the new deal.
As for New York City, he said, just as confidently, that “The city’s going to sign. It’s a done deal unless someone dies in the meantime.”
The new deal follows a March ruling by tate Supreme Court Justice Gerald W. Connelly that dismissed a City lawsuit over Olive’s tax assessment of the Ashokan Reservoir for the years 2001-2002, 2002-2003, 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 that could have cost town and Onteora School District taxpayers over $14 million in back taxes, if lost.
As outlined in the resolution passed by Olive Tuesday evening, it notes that all litigation between the years of 2001 and 2007 previously filed by New York would be discontinued with no costs to the town or school district, and no property tax refunds required to be paid; and that the City has “covenanted and agreed not to sue the Town” on Ashokan Reservoir assessments for the coming ten years, and settle all past pending litigation.
A schedule of future assessment values for the Reservoir was also adopted as part of the new deal, with figures of $550 million in value for the next three years, through 2010, $560 million for 2011,, $570 million for 2012, $580 million for 2013, $590 million for 2014 and 2015, and $600 million for 2016 and 2017.
Another major win for Olive, the Onteora school district and Ulster County, which were also joined in the case, is that none will be required to pay back over $20 million the city argued it was due in back tax payments it’s lawyers claimed were unfair.
Olive had valued the reservoir at over $600 million in a 2006 revaluation, while the City claimed its value at $150 million. The New York State Office of Real Property Services most recently came down in the middle with a valuation of $340 million for the giant Reservoir.
The recent reval came after nearly 30 years wait when Onteora, under a previous school board, okayed implementation of recent state legislation known as the Large Parcel Law designed to address perceived tax inequities in large tax districts combining multiple municipalities that shared a property or properties that made up over 5 percent of local tax valuation, was valued at over $5 million, and involved a five percent discrepancy between valuations.
The idea behind the reval was to shrink any difference between apportionment and equalization rate to remove one of the law’s requirements so as to remove the huge tax hikes entailed by Olive residents after its enactment. But remaining discrepancies between the City and Olive resulted only in further worries of potential tax settlements and the law’s re-enactment.
Three years ago, Olive candidates won a majority of the Onteora School Board based on a protest vote against Large Parcel’s implementation, cemented last year with the election of two further members to the entity, giving the town a 5-2 majority of its membership. That board was instrumental, late last year, in getting the school district involved in the ongoing litigation, which many have said was key to the recent dismissal of previous lawsuits… and possibly the new deal.
But Leifeld said this week that the new compromise deal over the Ashokan’s value may have made any and all questions about further Large Parcel implementation moot. First, though, the state ORPS folks have to accept the valuation that the city and town have agreed upon (as does Judge Connelly).
Was there any chance the state could mess what now looks like a golden deal up?
“What we’re being told is that they’re working on all this and will make their decision known in a timely fashion,” Leifeld said. “I would kind of think that they’d be glad to get this thing off their table and feel they’ll be happy with what we’ve all come up with. But who the hell knows.”
As a result, in his roundabout way, Leifeld added that Large Parcel, the key local issue that’s been key to all Olive, and Onteora, politics over the last four years, was most likely “eliminated.”
Early letters of support for three of Olive’s incumbent Onteora board members running for re-election in May have mentioned Large Parcel as a key motivating force for bringing out the town’s vote… and staying paramount over other issues in taxpayers’ minds.
Did the deal, soon to be signed by all parties, also represent any sort of shift for all reservoirs?
Leifeld said he couldn’t say yes or no, except to note that as a board member for the regional Catskill Watershed Corporation, he certainly hoped so.
“Grahamsville, from what I’ve heard, did a deal like this some time ago,” he said. “And I know Gary Bellows over in Hurley is trying to negotiate something similar just now.”
Over at CWC Headquarters in the Delaware County community of Margaretville, Executive Director Alan Rosa echoed Leifeld’s sense that the recent “coming to terms” between the City and one of its key reservoir towns would be precedent-setting, given that there are still ten different challenges pending in other communities.
“At least everyone’s now sitting around the table and talking,” he said.
As for Leifeld’s own political future, the supervisor was less talkative than usual. He spoke about putting up a new transfer station building where one fell down in December and then trailed off.
“Maybe I’ll buy a news company,” he quipped. “All I can say is it’s nice not to worry about this… It took a long time.”
Olive tax assessor Bill Cook has not yet checked the complicated formula to determine what percentage of the Olive tax levy the City will bear now that a deal has been reached.

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A Jar Of Olives...
Spring?
Signs Are Popping Up Everywhere

I am longing to open doors and windows, rake the very wet leaves away from budding plants, and put away my winter coats. Enough already!
I assure you that there are some heartening signs of spring. Ernie Beesmer actually drove his shiny new truck to the Hot Dog Festival this weekend. People are venturing forth from their dens to be out and about in the community. John Parete hosted a Frankfort Festival to be the antidote to our collective cabin fevers. Paul Van Blarcum, our Ulster County Sheriff spoke about the URGENT task force that is doing such a great job in ridding drugs and related gang activity from the area. Mike Hein, Ulster County Comptroller, explained the role of the County Executive that he is seeking. Ben Rounds (Have you seen Ben around?) and his great band, the Famous Lees of Krumville played as dozens of people ate hundreds of hotdogs made with Lisa Leiter’s spicy chili sauce. Allison Fraser joined her dad by singing a few songs as he played keyboard and guitar.
The Tongore Garden Club is resuming its meetings. They meet this Thursday, April 10 at seven at the Library. The Reservoir Church is planning its annual Memorial Day Yard and Rummage Sale. At the mall winter clothes are on the 70% off clearance racks. Brightly colored clothes and skimpy bathing suits hang on lonely racks and are sported by the dummies in the display windows at the mall. Only a real dummy would wear that stuff yet. I’m not letting go of sweaters and sweats until it hits sixty degrees two days in a row!
The birds are back, but I haven’t heard of a bear sighting yet. They must be sleeping in this season.
The calendar reminds us that, yes, it is spring. The days provide more daylight. The dogs are tracking in mud instead of puddles of liquid snow. Soon that last mound of dirty snow, heaped by the snowplow, will melt away. Winter will be a memory of the past.

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