(News Briefs October 12, 2006)

Budget Season
The Town of Olive has a preliminary budget, as required by law. But Town Supervisor Berndt Leifeld isn’t letting it out to the press yet, saying it still needs working on. Last year, during the budget season, the Olive Press ended up running with a budget story based on figures minus a very key element: the use of the town’s sizable unexpended balance as a means of minimizing the amount to be raised by taxes, which hadn’t been included.Suffice it to say, everyone’s a bit gun shy about figures this season.
For the coming year, all we know for sure is that the budget document is at town offices and runs about 30 pages, all total. Leifeld has said spending looks to be going up about 9 percent, based on an 8.1 percent hike in General Fund costs and an 11.8 percent rise in highway department expenditures. The main culprit? Health insurance and workman’s comp. And the uncertainty of fuel costs in a town with increasing driving distances because of the many detours.
Salaries will go up three percent. How this all settles out will be decided by revenue stream amounts, which depend on valuation of such things as the city-owned reservoir. Last year, what seemed to be bad hikes worked down to a final effect on taxes of just under 4 percent.
We’re hoping to have full figures for you by the next issue. The town’s annual budget hearing is set, by law, for Thursday, November 9 at 7:30 pm.

Bribery Charges
Roger Rotella, 28 of West Shokan and a former sergeant with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection Police Department, as well as a former Shandaken police officer, was indicted last week on charges that he accepted a bribe with a promise to make a drunk driving charge against another man “disappear,” according to an Ulster County Grand jury decision, which charged Rotella with one count of bribe receiving, a felony, and official misconduct, a misdemeanor.
Rotella had been suspended from his job as a police officer for the Department of Environmental Protection for 30 days and then quit after the suspension was completed.
According to charges from the county D.A.’s office, Rotella had made a promise to Dale Ford on July 9 that he would make a charge of driving while intoxicated go away if Ford paid him $30,000 to do so after Ford had been arrested on DWI charges on July 4. The district attorney said that Rotella apparently had mounting mortgage and credit card bills and noted that the arrest occurred after state police were contacted about the bribery scheme and set up a sting operation on July 10.
Rotella later confessed to police.

New Kennel
Olive Supervisor Brendt Leifeld accepted a check for $5,000 from Beverly Stein, the head of a volunteer group who raised the funds toward the construction of a new six-stall kennel and dog run at the Davis Park pound.
“The kennel itself is going well,” said Stein, who updated the progress of the project and noted that it was hopefully to be completed by Thanksgiving Day, weather permitting. “It’s the reward for six months of hard work.”
A three foot wooden carving of a bear by Hoppy Quick, which was the grand prize in a raffle that was part of the group’s effort, was won by a scout master from Saugerties named Ken Skidmore.
Meanwhile, the first pups born in Olive’s custody were delievered two weeks ago by a Bluetick Beagle found astray in the Sheldon Hill region shortly before the births. The proud mother and five female pups are being cared for by volunteer Carol Roberts at her home until adoptive familes are found. Contact Town Clerk Sylvia Rozzelle at 657-2320 for further information.

28 Repair Delays...
Look for delays in road repairs in the area as an expected pushing-back of a November 1 opening date for State Route 23A between Haines Falls and Palenville to mid-November pushes back similar plans for repairs on Rout2 28 just east of Boiceville, possibly into the Spring. According to Hunter town Supervisor Dennis Lucas, who works for the state Department of Transportation, DOT design personnel have told him the “tensioning of the horizontal anchors at the retaining wall site” took more time than was originally expected.
The DOT was planning to hold an informational meeting Wednesday, October 11 at Hunter Mountain Ski Bowl to give an update on the repair project and go over the timeline for its completion.
Route 23A between Haines Falls and Palenville was closed due to the failure of a stone retaining wall following heavy rain in late June. During that rain, a mudslide closed the road and crews that were sent to clean up the mess discovered the retaining wall had been breached due to the large amount of precipitation. An approximately 40- by 25-foot section of the wall along the downward slope below the roadway had failed, taking out a portion of Route 23A.
The Route 28 repairs involve a culvert buried 50 feet below the roadway and will necessitate the closing of one lane, and considerable detouring, for up to three months. It, too, results from summer rain damage.
Meanwhile, Shandaken Police report that in response to citizen complaints of speeding vehicles in Chichester, they patrolled the area over this past holiday weekend, issuing 21 tickets for speeds between 48 and 55 mph.
The speed limit on 214 is 35 mph, from the Greene County line all the way down to School Lane in Phoenicia, where it drops to 30 mph.

At Onteora...
The Onteora school district said they could soon restore funding to continue services from the Ulster County mental health program called, Family And Child Early Treatment Services, or FACETS, providing that the district’a auditors accept the contract.
In August when FACETS contracts were presented for renewal, interim superintendent Jack Jordan would not allow voter-approved money for the program based on advice from the district’s lawyers regarding a new law allegedly prohibiting such funding. The intent of the law was a revision to an already existing law to expand access to mental, dental and physical health programs.
Because of the school’s interpretation of a passage prohibiting the use of local tax money, FACETS social workers operated on a limited basis at the Boiceville site with only the hope of a funding clarification from the State education department for the past year.
FACETS provide two social workers at a cost of a little over $60,000 including benefits and the use of a psychiatrist at no cost to the district. If the program were dropped, students would need to utilize services at the Ulster County mental health facility in Kingston. Currently there are 33 families using the services in the district and once money is restored, each social worker will have a maximum of 20 students.
Although people have spoken out at school board meetings, the board has yet to discuss FACETS programs and it’s future. In a phone conversation, School board president Marino D’Orazio said he wants to follow the law but reserved caution, noting conflicting interpretations on the funding. But he said the school board would discuss FACETS stating, “Clearly this is an education decision to be made of funding, philosophical and educational importance.”
FACETS works with Head Start, Saugerties and Kingston schools offering on-site services. The school district covers 50 percent of the costs and the other half comes from private insurance, Medicare or out of pocket expenses based on a sliding scale. Advocates stress the need for mental health services for teens noting that the public tends to overlook its seriousness.

Sex Offenders
County legislators Frank Dart of Kingston and Brian Shapiro of Woodstock, both Democrats, have been battling over a proposed county sex offender law that would set limits on how close a sex offender could live to a school and other facilities frequented by children. Shapiro has said crafting the law is better left to the professionals and worries that if passed, the new law would “create a purge of sex offenders from Kingston city and send them sporadically throughout the rural areas of Ulster County.” Dart has replied that Shapiro’s objection is simply that, “ he doesn’t want these people in Woodstock.”
Only three people spoke at last week’s public hearing on the proposed law. It now goes back to committee for further discussion and consideration to place it before the full legislature for a vote in the coming week.

Probation…
Joseph Gilsinger, the 40 year old hit-and-run driver from Mount Tremper who struck and killed a bicyclist on state Route 28 last spring, was sentenced to five years of probation recently, despite calls from the family of the deceased asking for prison time..
Gilsinger struck 43-year-old Richard “Ricky” Shultis of Hurley, riding a bicycle in the Town of Ulster, on April 19 and did not stop. He was arreseted on April 21 after police traced a piece of his pickup and reports from eyewitnesses. He pled guilty to a felony charge of leaving the scene of an injury accident without reporting it on July 27.
The terms of Gilsinger’s probation will include a mandate that he provide a DNA sample for registration and that, at the discretion of a probation officer, he could be subject to intense supervision, electronic monitoring and substance abuse counseling. If Gilsinger violates any part of his probation, he will be sentenced to 2-1/3 to seven years in state prison.
Gilsinger apologized in court to Shultis’ family and said he fled because he was scared, panic-stricken and irrational.

Todd Thinks Small
Ulster County’s businesses are stronger than ever, and efforts are in full swing to keep small business thriving in the Hudson Valley region according to a speech by Ulster County Chamber of Commerce President Ward Todd at his outfit’s 10th annual Business Showcase at the community college last week. Todd, who is now saying that the business base in the region is the small business, had pushed for increased tourism and large business ventures when head of the County Legislature five years ago.
Over 100 businesses participated in this year’s business showcase held at Ulster County Community College in Stone Ridge.
Much discussion at the event also focused on both the county’s long slow recovery from IBM’s leaving a decade ago and, moreover, the effects on county government spending on infrastructure brought about by huge overruns on the county’s very late new jail project, which was started during Todd’s tenure.
The Ulster County Law Enforcement Center committee, meanwhile, spent its most recent meeting battling over job finishing lists and new needs for finishing funds to cover such costs. There are differing opinions on what needs to be done.
The hope is to start moving inmates in before year’s end.

Voting Questions?
The Ulster County Legislature will conduct a public hearing on October 30 to brief county residents on the type of voting machine lawmakers support as the county changes over to comply with federal law. Gary Bischoff, chairman of the Efficiency, Reform and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee has said legislators support going one step further than the two types of machines suggested by the state.
“It would mandate that any machines used in Ulster County for local, state and federal elections must have a paper record that is the actual paper manually marked by the voter.”
One machine offered by the state would have the resident vote on a touch screen and the results logged on a paper strip similar to a gasoline receipt. The other would have the voter fill out a paper ballot and place it into an optical scanning reader.

Smokey Attention
About one-third of attention deficit disorder cases among U.S. children may be linked with tobacco smoke before birth or to lead exposure afterward, according to new research. Even levels of lead the government considers acceptable appeared to increase a child’s risk of having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, the study found.
It builds on previous research linking attention problems, including ADHD, with childhood lead exposure and smoking during pregnancy, and offers one of the first estimates for how much those environmental factors might contribute.
The study’s estimate is in line with a National Academy of Sciences report in 2000 that said about 3 percent of all developmental and neurological disorders in U.S. children are caused by toxic chemicals and other environmental factors and 25 percent are due to a combination of environmental factors and genetics.
ADHD is a brain disorder affecting between 4 percent and 12 percent of U.S. school-age children - or as many as 3.8 million youngsters. Affected children often have trouble sitting still and paying attention and act impulsively at home and at school. Researchers are not certain about its causes but believe genetics and environmental factors including prenatal exposure to alcohol, tobacco or illicit drugs may play a role.

Flu Season!
As the flu season nears, the Centers for Disease Control reports that despite shortages in years past there should be an adequate supply of flu vaccines this year.
“What we understand from manufacturers is that we’ll have about 100 million doses this year, which is about 20 million more than we’ve ever had before,” said Curtis Allen, a spokesman for the CDC, which is based in Atlanta.
Allen said there are four manufacturers that produce the flu vaccine. The manufacturers are businesses that hope to make a profit, so they make only as many vaccines as they hope to sell. The flu virus changes every year and the vaccine is only good for this year, Allen said. So, manufacturers make a best guess.
“Influenza is very unpredictable. You don’t know when it will hit or how severe it will be,” Allen said.
To help gauge how much vaccine to produce, manufacturers observe flu outbreaks in the southern hemisphere, where the flu season is in our summer months, and try to estimate from past usage. The flu vaccine is recommended for children ages 6 months to 5 years, people 65 or older, people who give care to those two groups or anyone with chronic illnesses.
The largest number of vaccine ever distributed in a year is 83 million.
Ulster County has ordered 2,200 vaccines. Private clinics in Ulster County will likely occur during November and December.

Fly To FLA!
With two words – AirTran Airways – Stewart International Airport went from the minor leagues to the majors. Senator Charles Schumer, airline President Robert Fornaro and Stewart President Charles Seliga announced recently that the low-cost carrier would provide five daily flights from the Hudson Valley’s main airport near Newburgh beginning January 11, 2007. The airline will fly twice per day to its hub in Atlanta and once daily each to Orlando, Fl. Lauderdale and Tampa. Introductory fares will be in the $79 to $89 one-way range. Officials said the service will be a win-win for both the leisure and business traveler. The leisure traveler will be able to capitalize on popular vacation destinations and the business person will be able to take advantage of air fares that could be between 60 percent and 70 percent lower than the full fare carriers, said Fornaro. AirTran will use its 117-seat, Boeing 717 jets, the youngest fleet in the country. Schumer said the service could be the first step toward making Stewart the fourth New York metropolitan area airport.

Reservoir Help!
The Catskill Watershed Corporation is offering to help local residents spend more time on City-owned reservoir lands by asking those interested in fishing, hiking and hunting licenses to bring drivers licenses or photo IDs to the corporation’s offices at 905 Main Street, Margaretville (Delaware County), so a CWC staff member can go on line to secure an instant recreational use permit. The permit and accompanying vehicle tag will be laminated and trimmed, and a list of recreation areas and designated uses provided right there.
The NYC Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) recently eased its application process so that permits are obtainable in just a few minutes on the internet. More than 74,000 acres of city land is now open to the public, with 36,000 acres available for deer hunting, 7,700 acres for small game hunting, and 25,000 acres and 21 reservoirs available for fishing. Hikers, snowshoers, birdwatchers, cross-country skiers and other outdoor lovers with valid permits also have access to thousands of acres of city
land.
To get one’s permits online and find out which management units are available for hunting, fishing and hiking, go to www.nyc.gov/watershedrecreation. The minimum age of access permit and hunting tag eligibility has been lowered from 16 to 14 with parental consent. Non-drivers must use a government issued picture ID to obtain a permit.
Meanwhile, The CWC also is developing a new website developed around an interactive mapping system that incorporates multi-layered maps and links to community information, tourism sites and geographical highlights from throughout the six-county Catskills. On the recommendation of the Corporation’s Tourism and Marketing Committee, the CWC is now seeking a web design consultant to obtain the optimal promotional benefit from the maps and information gathered on the technical GIS site. The new website will define, promote and market the region by serving as a directory, or umbrella, for existing websites that have already been established by the counties and other tourism promotion entities in the region, the CWC says.

Everywhere?
The review of an all-terrain vehicle policy on state-owned land has taken longer than expected, but officials with the state Department of Environmental Conservation hope to finalize it this fall. The policy was initially expected to be ready at the beginning of the year, then the summer.
The policy would not be a new law governing all-terrain vehicles, but would clarify current regulations and specify criteria that need to be considered for environmental impacts, according to state officials. The policy would require agency employees to use due diligence in evaluating every opportunity for all-terrain vehicle use on state land on a case-by-case basis.
Last year, the Department of Environmental Conservation gathered comments throughout the state on a draft version of the policy. The agency was supposed to use that information to come up with a revised policy that reconciled the use of all-terrain vehicles on state lands, while protecting environmentally sensitive areas.
Some people felt the vehicles had no place on state land. All-terrain vehicle owners, however, argued that they have to pay registration fees to the state, so should be given a place to ride in return.
The state has said it is struggling to come up with a policy everyone can live with.

No Bargaining
New York State Police brass in Albany have sent out an edict stopping all plea-bargaining of traffic tickets, but the result is that local prosecutors are finding themselves in court far longer than in the past and simple traffic cases are appearing to snarl the courts. Under the policy that went into effect Sept. 1, state troopers no longer are allowed to offer plea bargains to motorists issued traffic tickets. The state Legislature in August passed legislation prohibiting the state police from instituting the policy, but Gov. George Pataki vetoed that bill and the policy was allowed to take effect.
Prosecutors say the practice of state police plea-bargaining tickets has been sanctioned by the state Court of Appeals, but Glen Valle, chief counsel for the state police, called the idea of troopers plea-bargaining tickets they issue “repugnant.”

College Prepped?
Community colleges in Ulster, Orange, Sullivan and Rockland counties have joined together to develop the Hudson Valley Domestic Preparedness Community College Consortium. Students will be able to pursue a two-year associate degree at any of the four colleges, which will be linked together via cyber technology. The project is financed with $4 million in state funding secured by State Senators John Bonacic and William Larkin.
Bonacic said the initiative is being driven both by a post-9/11 sense of need for new ways to address homeland security, and by sensing a desire by some high school students to pursue a career in this area. Larkin called the program an opportunity to bring more men and women into the emergency services and first responder communities.
The consortium will allow students to pursue degrees in emergency management, fire protection science, paramedic and cyber security. The hope is some successful students will pursue four-year degrees.

Yo, Trailways!
The Tannersville Village Board, angry at possibly losing its bus service as a result of recent road closures, has adopted a resolution opposing a plan by Adirondack Trailways to discontinue service to Tannersville and Haines Falls. If the company drops its Haines Falls and Tannersville service, sticking with its current routes through Palenville to Windham and to Hunter, they say, the nearest stops for people in those communities would be Palenville and Hunter, respectively.
The change, according to a notice from bus company, would allow the company to provide new services to Cairo, Acra, Durham and Windham and resume service in Saugerties and Palenville.
Anne Noonan, vice president of marketing and traffic for Adirondack Trailways, which is based in Kingston, said the company wants to establish new services to Cairo and Lexington and move off the routes that use state Route 23A, part of which has been closed for more than three months.
She said the company has not been able to serve Haines Falls and Tannersville so it decided to change its routes, and found its temporary route to Hunter via Phoenicia and Lanesville non-productive.
“We think there’s a bigger market in Cairo than there currently is in Haines Falls and Tannersville,” Noonan said.
Noonan said the bus company is working with the state Department of Transportation to obtain public comment about the route changes and would have to get operating authority from the state to make the planned changes.

Soccer Brouhaha
The town of Shandaken has entered into a five year lease agreement with Mount Tremper landowner Dean Gitter to use Gitter’s soccer field. The measure was passed at the town board’s October 2 session, but not without some dissension. Supervisor Robert Cross Jr. failed to supply the board with a copy of the lease for review but asked for a vote anyway, causing some town board members to question the arrangement.
A draft of the lease shows that the town will be responsible for mowing and maintaining the property and includes a mysterious requirement that the town not file the lease with the County of Ulster or any other entity other than the ShandakenTown Clerk’s office and the office of the Supervisor. Filing it with the county would make the lease immediately void.
Cross explained that the lease was to allow all local organizations to use the field, including the Onteora School District, which has already been using the premises for soccer activities. But things went into an uproar when Councilman Robert Stanley complained that the decision to sign the lease was made in an informal meeting on August 28th between Cross, Gitter, and local newspaperman Blake Killin. Holding aloft a stack of e-mails that were between Killin and local Soccer Coach Chris Fisher, Stanley angrily quoted phrases such as “it’s a done deal’ and guarantees that such a measure would pass unanimously.
“I’d like to know why Mr. Killin knew about this before I did,” Stanley said. “I’m a town board member.”
Other board members claimed no knowledge of the deal being reached, Cross however, acknowledged that he did have a meeting with Killin and Gitter about the matter.
The measure passed, with Stanley and Peter DiSclafani voting no. Stanley said it was ridiculous to vote on a five year commitment without seeing the details. Cross said it was okay to decide because the town attorney was going to look the lease over.
This marks the latest chapter for the infamous soccer field. Plagued with problems from the get go, it was created 5 years ago for Shandaken Area Youth Sports, a local non-profit group that ran a popular soccer program and needed larger facilities. Neighbors of the field tried to stop the project and failed, but along the way forced SAYS to get a special use permit to use the premises, complete with several conditions that severely restricted use of the field, where cars could be parked, who could use it and what dates and times it could be used. The lease ended in July.
SAYS wanted to extend it for another five years but, according to Donna Fischer, a member of the organizations board of directors, Gitter denied the request but indicated he would allow soccer to continue anyway. Fischer claims this arrangement created problems that led to no soccer program this year.
“Our Special Use Permit states that the Special Use Permit would expire the day the lease does and would be renewed if the lease was renewed,” said Fischer in a prepared statement. “I wanted people to fully understand why SAYS will no longer run recreational soccer for the town of Shandaken.”
Cross believes SAYS can run the program under the town’s lease. The season however, is almost over.

LaPaglia Says...
Former Ulster County Sheriff Michael LaPaglia, a leading Republican, has endorsed Democratic sheriff candidate Paul Van Blarcum. He will face Republican candidate Kevin Costello in next month’s general election.
LaPaglia, who was the longest tenured sheriff in Ulster County history, said Van Blarcum is the best candidate for the post, given his 30 years with the sheriff’s office.
The race is not about politics, but about the most qualified person for the job, LaPaglia said. “The former sheriff said he may get some heat from fellow Republicans for crossing party lines, “but, I’m used to that.”
Ulster County Democratic Party Chairman John Parete said there is no Democrat, Republican, Conservative or Independence Party way to run the sheriff’s department.
Costello, a retired lieutenant with the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation, was endorsed by retiring Sheriff Richard Bockelmann.

The Arts Upstairs!
The Arts Upstairs Gallery announces the opening of its next show, Open Show, on Saturday, Oct 21, with a reception for artists, patrons, and friends from 6 pm until 10. As always, the theme of the show is optional - all work is accepted, depending on space limitations. The opening party will feature a pot-luck buffet - please feel free to bring a dish or beverage, or make a contribution. Drof off for the show is this upcoming weekend during regular gallery hours - Friday Oct 13 from 3 to 6, Saturday, Oct 14 from 10 to 6, and Sunday, Oct 15 from 10 to 4. The Arts Upstairs Gallery is located at 60 Main Street, Phoenicia. For more info call them at 688-2142.

Oil Prices…
Although gas prices at the pump have fallen back in recent days, Congressman Maurice Hinchey warns they will go up again, and most likely after Election Day.
Those prices may have declined, but by varying amounts depending upon where you are in the Hudson Valley. Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, Dutchess and Orange counties must include ethanol in their gas, which drives the cost up by well over 25 cents per gallon. So, in Ulster County, pump prices are lower to begin with.
Hinchey blames the prices, high or lower, on the lack of competition among US gas companies, which he said are making record profits for their top executives.
“Although the prices have dropped back, they are still not where they ought to be,” he said. “If we had a fair, organized system here that did not permit this kind of monopolization and no competition by price by these corporations, then the American public would be paying less for gasoline than we are paying today and we wouldn’t be facing the likelihood that these gas prices would be jumping up again very soon.”
Hinchey said the Congress has failed in its responsibility to regulate the monopolistic oil companies.
Meanwhile, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has announced that Citgo, the U.S.-based refining arm of Venezuela’s state-run oil company, plans to more than double the amount of heating oil it is making available under a program to aid poorer communities in the U.S. to 100 million gallons this winter, up from 40 million gallons. He said the oil will reach people in 17 states including all of the Northeast, Alaska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Virginia, Maryland, and the cities of Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh, Pa.
Chavez started the heating oil program last winter, accusing Bush of neglecting the poor. Citgo says up to 1.2 million people will benefit this winter.
The United States continues to be the top buyer of Venezuelan oil, bringing the South American country billions of dollars in earnings that help fund Chavez’s popular social programs.