9/10/2009

Election News!
It seems that 2009 may go down as the Town of Olive’s most boisterous election year in, well, years. In the latest developments since last you read us, the town’s Conservative Party has weighed in with a mixed bag of its own candidate endorsements. And a wild card independent candidate entered the race, complicating what would have been a straight partisan face-off.
At the Conservative’s September 3 gathering, the light turnout (under 40) picked GOP candidate Vince Barringer, a former town supervisor, judge and Democrat, as its choice against longstanding incumbent Bert Leifeld; Republican candidates Craig Grazier and Donnie Van Buren over Dems Bruce LaMonda and Linda Burkhardt; Democrat incumbent Jimmy Fugel over GOP candidate Chet Scofield for highway superintendent, and the town Democrats’ incumbent judge Timothy Cox over Republican Earla Van Kleeck
In the surprise move, Rita Vanacore, a former Onteora board member and key player in the Olive Matters grassroots effort, has announced her candidacy as an independent, citing “the need for the infusion of new blood and new ideas into the executive decisions for the Town of Olive.”
Vanacore sent out a press release stating that she feels that “new board members are needed to learn the workings of the town and to hear the needs of its citizens,” making for “a smoother transition when the inevitable retirements begin to happen.
“After observing the ‘closed door’ politics of both the Democratic and Republican parties in this small town of approximately 6,000 residents, I decided to run without the support of any party,” she wrote.
She says she has filed the needed number of petitions with the Board of Elections and will be on ballots under the moniker of her own "Olive Branch," with a peace dove as the logo.
We’ll let you know in the next issue when the biannual Meet The Candidate event will be held...

Scenic Byway...
The Central Catskill Planning Alliance is ready to take the next step toward securing a scenic byway designation for the Route 28 Corridor, and they want some help to do it.
“The last meeting was the kickoff,” said Peter Manning, Regional Planner for the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development and the advisor to the Alliance, referring a to a recent session on August 27 where it was agreed to put the word out that volunteers are needed to help start accumulating all sorts of information about the corridor from Olive to Andes.
Old photographs, history, anecdotes about people and places, and just about anything that will help paint a picture of what makes this corridor special is welcome.
Manning said that volunteers are needed because the collaborative is proceeding with a shoestring budget. A $200,000 state grant has not come through as planned, due to last year’s budget pull-backs, so the Catskill Watershed Corporation put up $50,000 to get things moving.
Manning said the collaborative could accomplish what it intended to do with the once-expected $200,000 with volunteer help.
Another bright spot is the possible merger with a Main Street Planning effort in Shandaken, which Manning said would be redundant otherwise.
For now, all interested are encouraged to start thinking about everything that makes the communities along the route 28 corridor unique and begin compiling anything they might have or know about to support that.
Next month the collaborative will prepare a preliminary visions and goals statement following an input gathering session where residents get to help shape both.

Waning Football
Yet another local high school has closed up its varsity football franchise in the area recently, indicating a shift in the region’s, and perhaps even the nation’s sports profile. According to reports, it was health and safety issues stemming from a player shortage that prompted the Rondout Valley Central School District to cancel its upcoming varsity football season in recent weeks… even while athletic directors expressed disappointment over “the unfortunate situation and hardship placed on seniors unable to play football.”
With younger students now coming up through junior varsity teams from the junior, senior and freshman classes, the current decision is expected to be for one year only… at least for now.
A similar situation in the Onteora School District several years ago has yet to be reversed, with parents now pushing extracurricular Pop Warner and similar league play for elementary and middle school players as a means of rebuilding the region’s football presence.
In June, Rondout experienced a turnout of 72 potential players attending an organizational meeting, although it was determined that between 20 and 25 lacked any experience within the program. When weekly workouts started in July, however, participation dropped immediately to the point where only 14 players showed up for the opening day of practice.

DMV Hikes
As part of the enacted 2009-10 State Budget, drivers’ license and vehicle registration fees increased by 25 percent on September 1. Additionally, effective April 1, 2010, all registered vehicles will be required to get new license plates and renewed registrations. This will require all New York State motorists to pay not only the increased fees but also an additional $10 fee for the new license.
Stay tuned for more rising costs… and folks trying to make political hay out of all that’s become necessary to keep our governments working as we’ve all become used to.

Trail Mix Time!
Trail Mix Concerts will be hosting the opening fall concert of their annual season on Sunday September 20th at 2:30pm with Vista Lirica, a chamber ensemble combining music with environmental consciousness. Neil Rynston, clarinet, Lawrence Zoernig, cello, Beth Levin, piano and guest artist violinist, Laufey Sigur<eth>ardóttir will perform works by Khachaturian, Simic, Zemlinsky, Ives and Brahms.
Other concerts coming up include an October Classical Jam concert and an event in November with Ensemble Caprice, who recently won the prestigious 2009 JUNO Award for Classical Album of the Year. Winter concerts include three duos — Cello & Piano with Amy Sue Barston and Ieva Jokubaviciute in December, a Two Piano program with Babette Hierholzer and German pianist Jurgen Appel in January, and a dramatic young Violin & Piano duo, Guy Figer and Anna Khanina in February; while the series’ spring concerts start in March with pianist Inna Faliks returning with a beautiful program of Chopin and Schumann, followed in April with one of the crown compositions for the piano, Beethoven’s Diabbelli’s Variations, performed by pianist Beth Levin. Trail Mix’s final concert, in May, will be an afternoon of Brahms with pianists Ami and Pascal Rogé.
For further information on this sparkling locally-originated and based series, which takes place at the Olive Free Library on Route 28A in West Shokan and is run by the same folks behind Woodstock Pianos, call 657-6864 or visit www.trailmixmusic.org.

Candlelit Protest
Hundreds of candles were lit by Catskills residents protesting the possibility of natural gas drilling into the Marcellus Shale that underlies the region along the Delaware River in Sullivan County’s Narrowsburg recently, timed to affect the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s deliberations over a potential ban on the controversial new technology. Reportedly, thousands of people from New York State and adjacent Pennsylvania communities gathered in protest Sunday night, September 6, lighting candles at 22 spots along the river.

Local Governing
Registration is now open for the Ninth Annual Catskills Local Government Day, to be held Thursday, Oct. 15 at Belleayre Mountain Ski Center. The Catskill Watershed Corporation will sponsor the event, whose theme this year is “Climate Change Made Local.” To see the agenda and register electronically, go to www.cwconline.org. Registration materials may also be obtained by calling toll free 877-WAT-SHED, or 845-586-1400.
Elected and appointed government officials and employees, economic and environmental planners, and interested community members are welcome to attend. Space is limited; registration deadline is October 9. A $10 fee includes all presentations and workshops, as well as lunch.
The event will feature presentations on the science of climate change along with discussions of its potential impacts on municipal and community infrastructure and on the economy of New York and the Catskills. Examples of area municipalities that have already taken steps to address flooding hazards and insurance costs, reduce energy use and minimize their carbon footprints will be highlighted.
Members of planning and zoning boards may wish to take advantage of a two-hour training session on “Promoting Climate Protection Through Land Use Tools.” A workshop for town board members, highway department heads and other municipal officials will focus on examining the vulnerability of community infrastructure – from buildings and parks to sewer plants, water systems and street lights. “Green Means Business” will look at how businesses can save money using sustainable practices, and the potential for jobs in the renewable energy field.
The featured lunchtime speaker, Mimi Katzenbach, will explain the Transition Movement by which communities work towards locally-based energy, economic and social systems – not unlike the Catskills of the pre-World War II era — as a strategy for meeting a future of weather extremes, fossil fuel depletion and other challenges.
Local Government Day is being planned with the environment in mind. Promotion, outreach and registration are being handled electronically to reduce paper consumption. Those unable to register online will receive materials printed on 100% recycled paper. To encourage car pooling to the conference, CWC will give bottles of local maple syrup to all those who arrive in vehicles occupied by two or more people.
Belleayre Ski Center, the venue for the event, has been working diligently for the past few years to cut resource and energy consumption and to recycle waste. Attendees will have an opportunity to view plans for the new “green” lower lodge being planned at the state-run facility. Belleayre management and its food service purveyor, Boston Concessions, are working in collaboration with CWC consultant Hospitality Green to address potential areas of waste and redundancy at Local Government Day.
Currently expansion of the ski center, plus a conjoined proposal to build a mega resort on its borders, has been held up, in part, because of the state-mandated requirement that its review include ample data about possible effects of climate change, as well as possible mitigation elements.

At Onteora…
The Onteora School District still has its new 2009/2010 school calendars held up at the printers and wanted to remind folks of several interim calendar items: Middle School physicals and a Phoenicia PTA Back-To-School Breakfast for staff and bus drivers on Friday, September 11; Middle and High School fall photos, and a Phoenicia Elementary School book fair, on Monday, September 14, and Tuesday, September 15; and a 3:30 PM Audit Committee meeting on the 14th; a Middle School Back to School night event on the 15th; Middle School Physicals and a Phoenicia PTA meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 16; a High School Alliance meeting and Phoenicia Open House on the evening of Thursday, Sept. 17, and a Bennett School Welcome Back Picnic on Friday, September 18.

Living At Home
A new AFL/CIO survey, “Young Workers: A Lost Decade” has found that about a third of workers under 35 live at home with their parents, and they’re far less likely to have health care or job security than they were ten years ago in a similar 1999 survey,
A quarter of young workers surveyed said they don’t earn enough to even pay their monthly bills, a 14% rise from 1999. 35 percent are significantly less likely to have health care than older workers, only 31 percent make enough money to pay their bills while putting anything aside in savings, and almost half are more worried than hopeful about their economic future.
The 100,000 young workers surveyed also strongly prefered public investment to create jobs over reducing the deficit. And by a 50 to 23 percent margin, they think workers are better off with a union. They support Obama and identify with Democrats much more strongly than older workers.
Only 65 of every 100 men aged 20 through 24 years old were working on any given day in the first six months of this year. In the age group 25 through 34 years old, traditionally a prime age range for getting married and starting a family, just 81 of 100 men were employed.
For male teenagers, the numbers were disastrous: only 28 of every 100 males were employed in the 16- through 19-year-old age group...
Yikes…

The Martin Murder
Daniel L. Malak, 29 of Kerhonkson, but jailed in Attica for years now, was indicted by an Ulster County Grand Jury on the charge of second degree murder for the killing of Joseph Martin, then 15, on March 25, 1996. Malak is currently doing time for an unrelated murder and is the second suspect charged with killing Martin, who was murdered near the intersection of Schwabie Turnpike and Samsonville Road in Kerhonkson. Alexander Barsky pled guilty a year ago to a reduced charge of manslaughter. He was sentenced to up to 10 years in prison.
Barsky agreed to testify against Malak, as part of the plea deal. He claims Malak was the ‘mastermind’ of a ‘revenge plot’ to kill Martin.
For more than a decade the Joseph Martin matter has been the subject of intense investigation by the New York State Police. District Attorney Holley Carnright said, in announcing the indictment Tuesday.
The County DA’s office said Malak was to be transported from the State Correctional Facility at Attica to Ulster County for arraignment following the Labor Day weekend.

More Wireless…
Ulster County has submitted an application for $4 million in federal stimulus money to build a high-speed, wireless broadband system to provide Internet service to unserved and underserved areas of the county. County Executive Michael Hein said the entire county needs access to the global economy via broadband.
Targeted areas of Ulster County would include the towns of Rochester, Wawarsing, Denning, Hardenburgh, Woodstock, Shandaken, Shawangunk, Olive and other areas. The total project would cost $4.8 million with the funds not covered by the federal money picked up by other non-county sources, said Hein.
Also on the stimulus front, Ulster County Planning Commissioner Dennis Doyle has proposed the county seek the designation of Recovery Zone for the sole purpose of maximizing the flexibility of funds from two new bonding authorities made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
According to Doyle the term “Recovery Zone” as defined in the ARRA is, “any area designated by the county having significant poverty, unemployment rate, home foreclosures, and general distress.” To designate the entire county “gives the maximum amount of flexibility and allows you to look at funding regional projects.”
Doyle explained that what these two bonding authorities would make available is the allocation of about $6 million in economic bonds and about $8.8 million in facility bonds. The benefits of utilizing these bonds, he added, would be to lower bonding costs to the county and potentially lower bonding costs for economic development projects.

Developments...
While everyone else in Ulster seems aimed at governmental stimulus funds, the board of directors of the Ulster County Development Corp. has undergone a shakeup that shifts the weight of membership more toward the private sector than the public sector. Ron Marquette, the head of community relations at Ulster County Community College and chairman of the UCDC board for nearly two years, said 15 of the board’s 25 voting members are now from the private sector, and that the move is designed to “make the UCDC more relevant” and increase an emphasis on private enterprise in Ulster County.
Paul Rakov, the agency’s marketing director and a former top level employee at Dean Gitter’s Emerson Resort and Belleayre Resort developments, said the board’s new members are Ken Davenport of Heritagenergy; John Gill of Gill Farms; T.N. Thompson of Millrock Technologies; and Paul Hakim of Wilbur National Bank.
A new “Balanced Growth Committee” has been set up to help businesses that want to move into the area and create jobs “by educating the public about developers, providing a voice at public hearings and assisting them through any logistical problems with moving into the area,” according to Rakov, quoting Marquette. The committee will “help people move faster” and serve as a resource center for prospective businesses, he said.
The creation of more shovel-ready sites for new businesses will also be a priority, according to UCDC officials.

Health Alert…
A new alert from the State of New York Department of Health concerns a “health advisory” for an intestinal infection called vibrio parahaemolyticus, which has seen an increase from NYC up through Albany County since June 1. Vibrio, they’re saying, is caused by eating raw fish OR undercooked fish such as seared tuna. Symptoms can occur within hours to five days but the usual set of stool tests do not include the one for vibrio.
Also, it seems there is no treatment for relief, although the infection is self-limiting and does require constant hydration of your system.
The faxed notice was sent to all hospitals, healthcare providers, laboratories, and local health departments.
Watch that sushi, for the time being at least…

Tax Junk Food?
One of the most detailed investigations ever carried out into obesity in the US has proposed increased taxes on junk food and heavily-sweetened soft drinks, a move that will be aggressively resisted by the multibillion-dollar beverage industry.
The report, Local Government Actions to Prevent Childhood Obesity, written jointly by the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council, says: “In the United States, 16.3% of children and adolescents between the ages of two and 19 are obese. This epidemic has exploded over just three decades ... The prevalence of obesity is so high that it may reduce the life expectancy of today’s generation of children and diminish the overall quality of their lives.”
It suggests state legislators, governors, mayors, community leaders and others take action rather than waiting for a lead from the federal government. These actions include offering tax credits as an incentive for grocery stores to open up in poor neighborhoods, building pavements to encourage walking, creating more bike trails, and reducing video games and other sedentary pursuits in preschool and afterschool clubs.
“Childhood obesity poses a serious threat to health in the United States,” the report says.
Congress, while drawing up a bill before the summer as part of President Barack Obama’s drive for health reform, proposed a federal tax on soft drinks.
The Congressional Budget Office, set up to provide members of the House and Senate with independent advice, estimates that a three-cent tax would generate $24bn over the next four years, which would help pay for health reform.
But it appears to be backing down in the face of an intensive advertising campaign backed by the American Beverage Association, which includes Coca Cola. The association in July set up a new lobbying group, Americans Against Food Taxes. The group says: “Discriminatory and punitive taxes on soda and juice drinks do not teach our children to have a healthy lifestyle and have no meaningful impact on child obesity or public health.”
The group has been running an aggressive advertising campaign over the summer that shows a family enjoying soft drinks on a camping holiday, with a voice-over saying “this is no time for Congress to be adding taxes on the simple pleasures we all enjoy.”
US obesity rates rose 37% between 1998 and 2006 to the point where more than 26% of Americans are now obese.
Obese children and adolescents are more likely than their lower-weight counterparts to develop hypertension, high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes.
Obesity-related health spending has grown to $147 billion a year, double what it was nearly a decade ago, according to a study published by the journal Health Affairs.
Obesity-related health problems account for 9.1% of the total US health budget, up from 6.5% in 1998. Obese people spend 40% more - or $1,429 more per year — in healthcare costs than people of normal weight.

Help On The Way
The Rural Ulster Preservation Co. (RUPCO) and Family of Woodstock are teaming up to assist the homeless and those at risk of homelessness as part of a housing program that’s being financed with a state grant totaling $1,019,242. Both Kevin O’Connor, RUPCO’s executive director, and Michael Berg, who holds the same title at Family, say the partnership will make services for people who are homeless and nearly homeless more effective.
The two agencies worked together in applying for the grant from the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance. The local award — formally designated for RUPCO — is among $25 million that has come to the state from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, commonly called the federal stimulus package.
In the new effort, Family will provide case management services — including finding out whether a person needs job training, whether they have health issues, how a person can get needed services and whether they should go back to school so that they can get a “living wage” job.— and RUPCO will be dealing with the housing side.
The joint effort is called the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program and some of it will focus on people who are at the brink of becoming homeless.

Reservoir News
New York State, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and the City of New York recently announced an agreement providing temporary additional releases of water from three New York City reservoirs to the Delaware River in anticipation of a future shutdown of the Rondout to West Branch Tunnel. Under the terms of the agreement now in effect, total supplemental water available to be released from the Cannonsville, Pepacton, and Neversink reservoirs, which all feed the Delaware River, could be as high as 50 billion gallons over the course of this program that is scheduled to expire on May 31, 2010. These temporary releases will be in addition to water that will be released under the Decree Parties’ September 2007 Flexible Flow Management Program (FFMP) agreement that was amended in December 2008.
The supplemental releases will be based on National Weather Service (NWS) long-term probabilistic reservoir inflow forecasts, New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYCDEP) historical inflow data, and the water supply condition of each reservoir. Acting in cooperation with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, NYCDEP will determine which shutdown supplemental release quantity to use for the three reservoirs. The release amounts are expected to be reevaluated on a weekly basis in conjunction with the issuance of updated NWS probabilistic forecasts and be adjusted accordingly.
The 45-mile-long tunnel transports water from the city’s Rondout Reservoir to its West Branch Reservoir in the Croton Watershed. This tunnel is in need of repairs in order to improve the reliability and long-term sustainability of the city’s drinking water supply system.
The releases will not effect any of the reservoirs most of us know here within the Ashokan reservoir basin.

Casino Watch
Assistant Secretary of the Interior and head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Larry EchoHawk toured the three sites of proposed Native American casinos in Sullivan County a couple of weeks ago, but would only say he was on a fact-finding tour.
He will have to make decisions about those three and other proposals around the country, including elsewhere in the Catskills possibly including the lower Catskills, that would like land placed in trust so that tribes can build the gaming facilities.
Senator Charles Schumer made it quite clear that he supports gaming and what it would do for the tribes and the region.
Before the tour, EchoHawk met with Congressman Maurice Hinchey, Schumer, New York Senator John Bonacic, Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther and a number of local officials in separate closed door sessions with a group of people opposed to casinos and a group in favor of them.
Meanwhile, the recently closed and bankrupted Nevele Resort outside Ellenville was sold to unnamed developers in recent weeks and the watchdog group Catskill Mountainkeeper has started sending out alerts about what they’re dubbing “the Catskills casino scheme.” The latter notices point out how new financiers behind the Concord, and possibly the Nevele land ownership shifts included the same Malaysian company that financed the startup of Foxwoods Resort and Casino in Connecticut and the Seneca Niagara Casino in New York.
“The casino scheme is massive and unprecedented,” Mountainkeeper claims, pointing to the casino proposals’ estimates of over 6 million visitors a year. “A new ‘Casino City’ with multiple casinos - 3,4,5 even 6 tribes and multiple independent sovereign nations, police forces and interests will be created. So where is the cumulative economic, environmental and social impact study for this? Where is the traffic study? Where is the impact study on crime, addiction, healthcare and emergency services for this new Casino City? The answer is that there is none.”
Stay tuned…

Decriminalizing
Argentina and Mexico have taken significant steps towards decriminalizing drugs amid a growing Latin American backlash against the US-sponsored “war on drugs”. Argentina’s supreme court has ruled it unconstitutional to punish people for using marijuana for personal consumption, an eagerly awaited judgment that gave the government the green light to push for further liberalization.
It followed Mexico’s decision to stop prosecuting people for possession of relatively small quantities of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs. Instead, they will be referred to clinics and treated as patients, not criminals.
Brazil and Ecuador are also considering partial decriminalization as part of a regional swing away from a decades-old policy of crackdowns still favored by Washington.
“The tide is clearly turning. The ‘war on drugs’ strategy has failed,” Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a former Brazilian president, has said. “The report of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy has certainly helped to open up the debate about more humane and efficient policies. But, most of all, the facts are speaking by themselves.”.
Reform campaigners have long argued that criminalization enriched drug cartels, fuelled savage turf wars, corrupted state institutions and filled prisons with addicts.

The Star Effect...
The enacted 2009-10 State Budget eliminated the STAR Rebate Program (at a total of $1.6 million), which provided an average rebate to homeowners in the Mid-Hudson Region between $104 and $1,186, depending on each home’s individual assessment and income.
Enhanced STAR recipients received even more to reflect seniors with moderate to low incomes, decreased ability to pay property tax bills, some of which reach $10,000 or more in this area. In total, the loss of the rebate check is what’s made those school tax bills look so big. .

Ashokan Boating?
On Wednesday, September 23 at 8:00 PM, Trout Unlimited’s Ashokan Pepacton Watershed Chapter will be presenting a session on the pilot program currently underway for boating on the Cannonsville Reservoir at the Boiceville Inn on Route 28.
John Vickers, who is Chief of the Western Operations Division of the Bureau of Water Supply for the New York City
Department of Environmental Protection, will give a presentation about the program that was recently introduced and includes the daily use of sailboats, kayaks, canoes, and sculls on the reservoir.
This is the first time New York City has opened their reservoir property to recreational boating.
The Chapter1s monthly meeting
begins at 6:30 pm with a fly tying demonstration, followed by a short business meeting. The presentation begins at 8 pm. The entire evening is open to the public at no charge. For more information, please visit www.apwctu.org



Olivebridge resident David Delisio’s months-long fight over the way he kept his dogs, and property, reached a denouement in Olive Town Court recently when Town Justice Ron Wright agreed to his request for an Adjournment Contemplating Dismissal instead of taking the 18 counts of animal cruelty brought against him by the Ulster County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to trial. Under the ACD, all charges against Delisio will be dismissed in six months unless he gets arrested again. Also as part of the sentence, Delisio agreed to one announced inspection of his property by the SPCA. Brian Shapiro, executive director of the SPCA, said he was optimistic that, as a result of the court action, Delisio’s dogs would be cared for in the future. On April 8, the SPCA seized 18 dogs from Delisio’s property after the agency received a tip about the dogs’ living conditions. Among the dogs were six puppies and a number of purebred Rhodesian ridgebacks. On April 15, Wright ordered the dogs returned to Delisio, who retrieved them from the SPCA two days later. Shapiro characterized Delisio as cooperative and said the problems that led the SPCA to seize the dogs had been rectified. In reporting the recent news, however, he sent around copies of a press release that charged Delisio was found “guilty” in the ACD proceedings. A daily newspaper that reported the same, utilizing the SPCA press release, was later forced to correct its story. Friends of Delisio said that the dog owner had wanted to fight his case until his attorney deserted him and the cost of hiring a new lawyer proved prohibitive...