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Follow Up on the
News
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Effective
Outcry
“The residents
made progress (with the legislature) last week when they
showed up in force and they weren’t crazy,”
said Parete of the Large Parcel tax protest at and outside
of the legislature’s meeting in Kingston. “Everything
was civil and orderly and that’s how you’re
most effective.”
With the meeting chamber packed to capacity, the hallways
crowded and comings and goings extending beyond 8 p.m.,
rally organizers felt the turnout was larger than the few
hundred reported by local media. Members of Olive’s
Large Parcel Committee also complained of the one-sidedness
of media coverage, consistently repeating the “fair
and equal” slogan of Parcel Law proponents, they claim,
and ignoring Olive’s side of fairness in the issue.
“The parcel bill is as ‘fair and equal’
as Fox News is ‘fair and balanced,” said one
demonstrator, standing near a make-shift pizza oven on wheels
that was busy serving free slices at the curb near the county
building on Fair Street. “If ORPS (Office of Real
Property Services) thinks that each home sold for a given
amount should be taxed the same no matter where it’s
located, boy, do I have some swamp land picked out for their
retirement lots.”
“There are many inequities in the system,” observed
Parete on Tuesday. “It’s an oppressive and distressing
way to fund programs from highway maintenance to health
care, largely because the value of a home is not always
indicative of a person’s wealth or ability to pay.
The 91% increase Olive residents are realizing is part of
an overall tax inequity that is being brought to light now...
It sounds like a no-brainer when you just cite house values
and taxes in the different towns, yet the valuation of houses
grows at a larger rate in Woodstock than in Olive, so that’s
a false argument. If the school has a budget increase of
10%, Woodstock may realize a 13% increase when Olive realizes
only a 7% increase because property has increased at a greater
percentage in Woodstock for that given year.”
“We have our work cut out for us,” said U.C.
legislator Peter Kraft, who also weighed in on Tuesday.
“It’s important, for example, when it’s
brought up that a $200,000 house in Woodstock isn’t
paying the same taxes as a $200,000 house in Olive, that
you’re doing an apples and oranges kind of comparison.
We’re in the process of looking at the impact of the
equalization rate on the Town of Olive and then looking
at like properties, so we can go back and demonstrate to
our fellow legislators that there is a difference.”
Kraft said that at the time of the legislature’s vote,
they were aware of the school tax hike of over 56% in Olive
and the town’s negotiations with ORPS on the reservoir’s
value but that the preliminary figures from Dorothy Martin
at U.C. Real Properties Tax Service suggested a 28% raise
in county taxes for the town rather than the 91% jump which
shocked them.
“At that time, we were hearing rumors that the county
administrator would be presenting a budget with a 40% increase,”
explained Kraft, who feels the Large Parcel Law would have
been rejected at the county level with better information.
“We eventually cut that down but that was the information
we were working with at the time of the vote.”
He said that District Legislators representing Olive, Hurley
and Marbletown, (Richard and Robert Parete and himself),
would be working in the coming months to educate the rest
of the legislative body, which adopted the law by a 17 to
15 vote, so that they will scuttle it when it comes up for
renewal later this year.
One of the more obvious inequities in the law is pointed
out by Olive resident Rita Vanacore, who notes that her
own home, reassessed less than 8 years ago, would be assessed
at almost 3 times the value in Woodstock because “Woodstock’s
financial needs are much greater than those in Olive...
basically because we have no town...we can’t even
have a parade because all we have is route 28 and 28A and
they can’t be closed.”
Vanacore touches upon the severe rules imposed by the reservoir’s
presence, such as the absence of a public rest room in a
pizza parlor and other such commercial restrictions which
are laced intricately into the legal agreements which brought
Ashokan Reservoir into existence both as a handicap and
an asset. But the importance of the historical context of
Olive’s plight is one paramount feature of their situation
which Large Parcel fans are consistently reluctant to acknowledge
argues John Tisch, who addressed the legislature on Thursday.
Tisch and others have complained in the past of the “mean-spiritedness”
of neighboring towns desire to impose this “tax assault”
on Olive for their own gains and questioned “not so
much their lack of compassion” but other tangibly
“missing ingredients in their sense of honor.”
One demonstrator on Thursday compared the refusal to take
into account the permanent crippling of Olive’s economic
base by the introduction of the reservoir with self-righteous
arguments against parking spaces for the disabled because
everyone should “park equally.”
For others at the demonstration it was a matter of sovereignty
akin to the state’s current desire to forget about
all those old treaties with Native Americans and impose
sales tax on tribal reservations. The reservoir REPLACED
other taxpayers and revenue sources, said another, stressing
that seizure of these “replacement funds” was
“outright robbery compound(ing) the takeover of Olive’s
prime properties.” One rally organizer raised questions
about the personal gains in tax relief being enjoyed by
the families of the
District 2 legislators who pushed so hard for the law behind
the scenes.
“The residents of West Shokan, Olivebridge, Samsonville
and Krumville are forced to drive miles to reach NYS Route
28 on narrow, winding, dangerous Route 28A,” Shokan
resident Robert Tischler told the assembly. “These
same residents are compelled to drive between 10 and 15
miles to get to the Town of Olive’s meeting hall and
police station. Residents of Shokan, Ashokan and Boiceville
have to drive between 10 and 15 miles to get to Olive’s
town offices and library. For weeks after the disaster of
9/11, when all roads across the reservoir were blocked,
Olive residents were compelled to drive between 10 and 30
miles to get to Route 28. What has made these restrictions
and inconveniences tolerable to the residents of Olive was
that the Ashokan Reservoir taxes were paid to the Town of
Olive. That was the trade-off.”
“Through manipulation of facts and figures, more wealthy
and articulate communities try to show us that we are not
paying our fair share of the taxes,” said Kathleen
Ruiz in her address to the legislature. “Well, it
is a fact, if one looks carefully at the figures, that Olive
has consistently paid a greater share of the tax burden.
In fact, from 1947 to 1988, Olive paid 32% to 57% of the
Onteora School District taxes- more than any of the other
towns in the district. Even when Olive was ordered by the
State
Supreme Court to reduce the value of the reservoir and to
not reevaluate properties, the Town of Olive lost a large
portion of its assessed value, yet during this time still
paid over 25% of the total Onteora budget.”
Ruiz, an Olive Large Parcel Committee member, said that
she regretted not
being able to get some of the research her group has done
on the impact of the law in Olive into her speech. She cites
a member of a family in Olive since 1800 declaring with
tears in his eyes that he did not want to have to move;
a resident who had to choose between his heart medication
and his taxes who chose to hold on to his home and other
examples of local economic distress.
On a positive note for Olive taxpayers, Robert Parete expressed
confidence that the protesters’ message was getting
through to some in the assembly who acted on misleading
information during the first vote.
“It’s always important that people are given
the opportunity to express their feelings on any type of
legislation proposed or implemented by - in this case, the
county government,” said Kraft. “Whether it’s
on a town level, a school board level, a state level or
a national level, it’s democracy in action.”
Redistricting
Time
According to
OCS Board President Marino D’Orazio, a recent conversation
with one of Bonacic’s aides resulted in the board
being asked to withdraw its request to be taken out of the
role of deciding on the special tax. Instead, Bonacic’s
aide suggested that Onteora either ask that the word “annually”
be taken out of the current law, making moot any future
changes of the “Large Parcel” tax re-apportionment,
or substitute the names of other entities that should be
making the decision in the school board’s place.
D’Orazio mocked the idea of taking “annually”
out of the wording, noting that it was illegal for one elected
board to dictate what a later elected board taking its place
can or can’t do.
Board Vice President Kathy Hochman proposed that the substitute
names for enacting large parcel decisions be first in line,
the three local legislators currently under fire for not
having helped, or even warned the Town of Olive about its
increasing tax burdens: Bonacic, Cahill and Orange county
legislator William Larkin. Second in line, Hochman suggested,
would be the state and/or county Office of Real Property
Services, who are actually supposed to be setting such tax
load matters. Third in line, she said, would be the county
legislature.
“I think their suggestion was a slap in the face of
the residents of Olive,” said board member Neil Eisenberg,
referencing earlier talk in the evening about the board’s
fears of an Olive reaction to any budget proposal put forth
by the board, which has been operating the school district
under the austerity measures of a contingency budget since
their proposal lost last year.
“This whole thing has been horrible for the school
district,” said board member Lev Flournoy, a resident
of Olivebridge. “It’s a cop out for them to
be saying what they’re saying.”
Hochman, also an Olive resident, pointed out how the legislators’
refusal to change the Large Parcel legislation, leaving
its decision-making with the school board, was “dividing
our community so it’s the kids who lose out.”
Further discussion yielded differences with this and other
publications about the actual tax hikes resulting from school
board decisions, which they said was no more than a 25 %
rise, with the remainder hikes resulting from valuation
changes effected by the Olive Town Board in an earlier attempt
to avoid the legislation altogether.
Flournoy read a letter from ORPS in 2002 that suggested
the law should be revisited once put into effect, in case
problems arose.
“We’ll keep pushing,” vowed D’Orazio,
with the entire board’s support, when asked by district
superintendent whether to change wording or continue pushing
Cahill and Bonacic for changes in the controversial Large
Parcel law.
As for redistricting, a presentation by the Future of the
District Commission saw four general recommendations unanimously
accepted: to stay with the current three elementary school
configuration for he foreseeable future; to redistrict Onteora
to fit this configuration better, including the shifting
of approximately 40 students from Woodstock to Phoenicia
schools, plus some changes to and from Bennett; to pursue
the creation of a separate facility for the district’s
Middle School program, which everyone labeled a success;
and to start seeking bids from, and eventually hire a consulting
firm to fully research facilities needs and possible capital
projects for the long run ahead.
According to current year figures, the Woodstock school
has a student body of 405 since the closing of the West
Hurley school last year, compared to 358 students at Bennett
School and 215 at Phoenicia.
Despite some disappointment that the recommendations were
vague and needed further explication via consultant’s
reports, the board expressed pleasure that they were starting
to move in a positive direction towards stabilizing the
district’s new look for the 21st century. But a number
of parents said they were tired of having had to go through
so many changes in recent years, and voiced not only exasperation,
but downright anger at the idea of going through more changes
in the years to come.
Redistricting, Winters said, would be put into effect for
the coming school year, following a series of administrative
presentations, and recommendations, over the coming months.
D’Orazio, Hochman and Flounoy all pointed out that
whatever changes were afoot would take a back seat to the
board’s collective concerns about Olive anger and
the dangers it could pose for the upcoming budget vote,
set for May 17.
A quick run down of instructional budget figures at the
meeting showed costs for salaries and other needs, barring
benefits (under a separate line item, according to OCS Business
Administrator Victoria Gerone) saw this large chunk of expenditures
rising by a total percentage of approximately 4.4 percent
to $17,546,857.
Board discussion centered on whether the district needed
to spend so much on outside instruction under BOCES programs
for occupational training and the like, or could start doing
such things in-house.
It was decided that these matters, along with a possible
trimming of district-wide clerical spending, would be continued
at a later point after Winters presents a full budget with
all line items seen together, and not separated out, as
has been the case in recent months.
Winters will make her recommendations for a 2005-2006 district
wide budget at a meeting at the Junior/Senior High School
on Tuesday, March 15, following meetings at Bennett School
and the High School, with further individual line item presentations,
on March 1 and March 8, respectively.
Creeping
Congestion
As presented
by co-developers Dick Lewis of Marlboro and Darren Davidowich,
senior vice president of New Jersey-based US Homes, a division
of Lennar Corporation, the the project stems from their
commitment to “open up the Hudson valley and New York
State for the building of ‘active adult community
products.’” Lennar, born in Miami in 1954, is
a $10.5 billion “national homebuilding company”
that prides itself on making home purchases easy: they design
communities, and individual detached and semi-detached homes,
to be complete “turn-key” ready, including access
to their own financial services. To date, they’ve
opened major developments in 18 states, including a number
of major “golf communities” and large developments
in close proximity to gambling meccas in New Jersey and
Nevada. Altogether, they delivered over 37,000 homes last
year.
Lewis and Davidowich went to Hurley town board member Jack
Gill to buy his property on the suggestion of Chester Straub,
president of the Ulster County Development Corporation and
chairman of the county’s Housing Consortium.
“We try to be very context sensitive,” Davidowich
explained as he showed a map of his planned development,
which he said would likely include elements of “stone-like
buildings” to better blend into the historic nature
of the region. There would be a large community center,
with pools and surrounding recreational opportunities, including
tennis and bocci ball, for residents of the gated community.
The developers would try to provide their own septic and
water systems, as well as their own roads and maintenance.
“Hidden Forest of Hurley,” as the development
plans from “Hurley 209 Company” (designed by
Barton & Associates of Pennsylvania) are called, will
be made up of 228 duplex “luxury twin home”
units and 424 single-family homes, mostly single-story “with
an option for lofts or basements.” The development
will be accessed by a “double boulevard” leading
into the central community center, from which circular roadways
of homes emanate like tent sites at a public campground.
There will be a manned booth at the main gates to the development,
an unmanned gated Lucas Avenue back entrance, and 303 acres
of green space buffer zones to give Hidden Forest “an
airy feeling like the rest of the town has now.”
Davidowich further noted he and Lewis’ intentions
to have Hidden Forest blend in with its surrounding community.
“We’re not designing a fortress here,”
he said, noting that the “security pavilion”
was more for the residents’ sense of comfort (“knowing
someone knows when they’re coming and going”)
rather than to keep the locals out. As if to prove his point,
the developer pointed out how there were plans to improve
the trailhead for the Hurley Rail Trail, including a paved
parking area and night lighting designed to make the “whole
experience” more “user friendly.”
Davidowich noted that hiring for the project, which he and
Lewis said would likely take several years to get to the
construction phases, would all be “local,” defined
in terms of being “not from Florida or Texas.”
His attorney, Geraldine Tortorella, then outlined what they
were looking from local planners, how the Hurley planning
laws could work in their favor, and how they thought it
best for the town to okay their plans as a “Planned
Residential District.” She said they would need sketch
plan approval before getting PRD approvals from the town,
and that public hearings could be held “if appropriate.”
“We’ve come here not to find out whether this
can be done, but how,” Tortorella said, noting that
the developers would be undertaking environmental impact
statements as required by state law.
Questions about the costs, and home prices involved yielded
that the developers were seeking to sell units for prices
between $250,000 and $400,000, for a total development value
of approximately $180 million. When asked about whether
their development would include affordable housing, Lewis
suggested that the house prices, being in line with recent
reports that the median house price in Ulster County is
now $299,000, were already “affordable.”
Hurley is in two school districts: Onteora and Kingston,
with the development in the latter. The project is the latest
in a series of major proposals facing the region, including
a 1,000 plus development slated for the banks of the Hudson
River in Kingston and Dean Gitter’s long-in-the-process
Belleayre Resort project for the town of Shandaken, which
has pegged itself as a jobs-producing and tourism-enhancing
development instead of a community of permanent residences.
Johansson, who
was given the board’s unanimous thumbs-up after a
series of public interviews before an audience of school
administrators, staff and district residents on February
3, will serve until the election of a regular board member
during district-wide voting on May 17, when whoever wins
Rosato’s seat will be sworn in for a two year period.
The three other seats up for election at that time are for
three year terms, and will be sworn in in June.
Unfortunately, the new board membver was unable to make
her own swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday, February 15 because
of the death of her mother, Kathleen C. Johannson, the previous
day.
Board president Marino D’Orazio said that everyone
on the board felt that Johansson was the best candidate,
showing previous experience with work on other boards, a
deft understanding of the myriad issues facing the board
as it enters its budget-making season, and the benefits
of being well-acquainted with Olive sentiments.
Olive has held several meetings on possible secession from
the Onteora School District, based on its continuing anger
over the district’s decision last summer to implement
new “Large Parcel” tax reapportionment formulas
that have seen town resident’s taxes rise over fifty
percent. Half of the candidates vying alongside Johansson
for the open seat this winter had noted that it was this
single issue that had led them to throw in their hats for
the position. Similarly, at least two candidates for the
May 17 district-wide board elections have stepped forth
from Olive, cogniscent of the power of their town’s
current anger at Onteora.
“Everyone felt she rose to the top. The board felt
she would be the best candidate to help us along with our
immediate needs,” said D’Orazio of the decision
to appoint Johansson. “She showed that she understands
the issues that are facing us and we felt she could be a
great help to us. She had a very, very good interview…”
Johansson has said, in the past, that she was instrumental
in helping the candidacies of D’Orazio and his fellow
board members, Kathy Hochmann of Olive and Neil Eisenberg
of Mount Tremper.
But instrumental in the board’s choice of Johannson
was her deep attachm,ent to the area.
Although born in Dlorida, she moved to Phoenicia at age
five and started school in what was essentially a one-room
school held at the time in the old Parish Hall. Her grandparents,
Jack and Catherine Crosby, ran the old Phoenicia Market
for years at its first home where Sweet Sue’s now
stands on Main Street, and later where the Phoenicia Deli
now is across the street.
When the Bennett School was opened, Johannson went there,
later transferring to Phoenicia Elementary when it was built.
She went to Junior High at Onteora and later graduated from
Coleman High School in Kingston before going on to Ulster
County Community College in its early years, gaining a degree
in business that led her to a career with IBM in Kingston.
Johannson moved to High Point Road in Olive 12 years ago,
after a number of years in West Hurley.
Her present term on the Olive Planning Board runs until
2010. In addition, she is also serving on the boards for
the Olive Free Library, the Olive Historical Society, and
the Tongore Garden Club. She is a past president of the
Shandaken Women’s Network.
“I had the pleasure of being in the audience for the
interviews,” said district superintendent Justine
Winters. “I was certainly impressed with Anne Marie,
finding her to be thoughtful and willing to roll up her
sleeves and get right to work on the budget.”
Johansson has commended the board on the organized and fair
manner in which they handled the whole interview and decision-making
process.
“I thought the questions they asked were reasonable
and well thought out,” she said. “Of course,
being from Olive, I had already been asked about my positions
by others before getting there.”
Johansson added that she was flattered to have been asked
if she were willing to serve with the board, and is planning
to sit with individual members to get up to speed on issues
before her swearing in.
“The biggest challenge everyone is facing now is to
educate our voters as to what they need to know to pass
a working budget that will benefit the students,”
she said. “Information is going to be key.”
She lauded the district for its efforts to start a new newsletter
and find other means of getting such information out to
the district’s residents.
She added that she would wait to decide whether she’ll
be running for a permanent seat to see how hostile the “environment”
becomes over the coming months.
“It would be a shame to see the board become divisive
again,” she said. “There are too many issues
at hand to move backwards now.”
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