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Follow Up on the
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The
Battle Lines Harden
No one seemed
happy by the surprise, whether they had been for or against
the long-pending resort when they arrived. And many quietly
asked how they could be offered such a gargantuan proposal
for winter-based developments when all evidence seemed to
indicate a diminishment of the season over the next few
decades, if not sooner.
The next evening, as news that the polar caps were disappearing
exponentially faster than expected, almost twice the crowd
from Monday evening showed up to make public commentary
at a formal “Scoping Session” required by state
law to outline concerns to be addressed in formalized proposals
by the state and Gitter’s development corporation,
Crossroads Ventures, set to match the AIP announced by Governor
Eliot Spitzer and other state and federal officials in September…
and then trumpeted around the state by Spitzer in recent
months.
By a margin of nearly eight to one, people rose and spoke
counter to DEC officials’ requests against the evening
being about people’s opinions or a “publicity
contest” and denounced the state agency’s audacity
to claim objectivity reviewing its own project, as well
as utilize public funding to aid a private developer when
the region, and state, was sorely in need of straight infrastructure
investment.
At one point it seemed the evening would be drawn to a close
as a trio of elderly citizens claiming to be the “Go
Go Gitter Girls” used irony and satire to lampoon
the entire proceedings in a discomforting bit of classic
agit-prop. Their microphones were briefly turned off as
people started shouting at each other.
But by then what may have been the evening’s most
potent statement had already been made.
“We are not preparing for the demise of skiing in
the Catskills, I can guarantee you that,” said Coalition
for Belleayre chairman and Belleayre Conservatory president
Joe Kelly, after noting a $100 million New Jersey investment
in a private ski area as answer to a growing litany of concerns
about spending such large public sums for private ski resort
development in the Catskills. “The area has to move
forward. We’ve all seen the shrill letters in our
papers. Delay does not solve our situation. The economy
can’t take any more or we’ll end up with a new
endangered species here… people!” The proposal
to be reviewed, according to the DEC press release on the
matter, includes a private development (the proposed construction
and operation of the Wildacres Resort and Highmount Spa
Resort complex by Crossroads Ventures LLC) and related proposals
by DEC that include the expansion of Belleayre Mountain
Ski Center, including “ski-in, ski-out” access
to Gitter’s Highmount Spa Resort; the acquisition
of a parcel known as the Big Indian Plateau (1,200 acres);
and the acquisition of the former Highmount Ski Center (78
acres) and an easement (21 acres) on the Highmount Spa property.
The latter acquisitions total $14 million, according to
the agreement in principal announced by Spitzer in September,
and have raised hackles among competing ski resorts in the
state at the amount being paid by the DEC to shore up its
own holdings in competition with the private sector. Earlier,
Ulster County Legislator Brian Shapiro of Woodstock gave
what ended up being the first of a series of speeches greeted
by a majority of the assembled audience with cheers and
applause. After raising questions about the planned development’s
effects on local roads, community character, ands run-off,
the head of the county Environmental Committee asked for
full studies of similar developments around the nation,
the closing of any “sunset clauses” on environmental
requirements within the proposal, from gold courses to shuttle
buses, and “a full disclosure of all DEC Tie-ins,
business relations, and so forth.”
Shapiro furthermore asked for an extension of the current
Scoping Session’s January 7 deadline by at least two
weeks, especially given that the DEC official in charge
of its review had not been able to even make it to the hearing.
Project-supporting declarations from town supervisors Bob
Cross of Shandaken, leaving office at the end of this month,
and Martin Donnelly of Andes, were met with boos and hisses,
as was a statement by Gene Bruner of the Ulster County Chamber
of Commerce that his group was in favor of the project.
Margaretville businessman Lew Kolar, president of the new
pro-resort Patterns for Progress, read at length from a
statement speaking about the region’s economic woes,
“underutilized businesses” and “silent
majority of project supporters” ignoring DEC officials
attempts to have him keep within time limits for the 100-plus
speakers lined up to talk.
Late on Tuesday evening,, the DEC’s Region 3 Director,
Willi Janeway, announced that the evening’s meeting
would be extended into Wednesday night… even though
such an extension could not be properly advertised.
But by then the Scoping’s tone was well set…
with people asking repeatedly for a deeper look into how
the DEC could judge a plan it would be profiting by, and
which the state had already trumpeted as though a done deal.
With folks ignoring calls for specifics to express anger
over what they felt was a steamroller effect on the governor’s
part. And with project supporters, most of them from the
region’s business elite, expressing horror at the
lack of respect they had been offered via the proceedings.
What specifics that did arise regarding issues in need of
added review in the upcoming impact statements to be put
together by Crossroads and the DEC, then coordinated by
the state agency for their own review process, tended to
concentrate on community character, further growth potential
created by the accumulated effects of the two developments,
storm runoff, possible harm to local water sources, economic
feasibility and completion assurances, and deep worries
about how a shift to the state-owned ski resort of such
a major nature would effect its current appeal to middle
income families.
And, of course, the entire proposal’s failure to address
anything to do with climate change.
Several parties who had been involved in the closed door,
gag-order silenced negotiations that led to Spitzer’s
announcement of the current public/private development plan
in September said that the subject, although big in other
areas of state environmental policy all year – and
the subject of a growing number of major, regionally-specific
reports in recent months – had never come up before
or from the governor.
Neither, they said – still under threat of past gag
orders – had anyone talked up in Albany about the
shrinking of the high carbon footprints necessitated by
snowmaking and other ski industry requirements.
“All the checks and balances are out of order,”
several people said in their comments, taken down faithfully
by a state-paid court stenographer.
“This proposal needs lesser and no build alternatives
put into consideration,” said former Woodstock Land
Conservancy Director Dale Hughes at one point. “We
need to ensure that the flood standards being used are up
to date and revised to flooding occurrences of recent years.”
Moreover, he said, the very precepts for buying new state
land for development purposes in the Catskill Park, as well
as more obtuse issues such as the shifting of water resources
from the Hudson River to the Delaware River basins, needed
constitutional clarification.
“One of the biggest challenges facing this community
today is whether it can come together in coming months and
find ways of bridging the remaining differences with respect
to this project,” said Eric Goldstein of the Natural
Resources Defense Council late in the evening, showing his
signatory support for the current “lower build”
proposal for a project he had once fought. “ The Supplemental
Environmental review process provides the best vehicle in
years for rational dialogue and analysis. Let’s hope
that all of us can seize this opportunity.”
Yet he also asked for a lengthening of the process, despite
others saying enough was enough.
The night before, Crossroads attorney Dan Ruzow had said
that although his own estimates had his part of the new
plans being finished by March, he expected full DEC plans,
and coordination of parts for the actual review process,
could take another six months beyond that.
“This agreement in principle is not perfect; however,
the Belleayre Resort alternative, which is the subject of
tonight’s scoping session, represents in our view,
a substantively and significantly improved project over
the original plan,” said Catskill Center for Development
and Conservation Director Tom Alworth, once the spokesperson
for the consortium of environmental groups that formed to
oppose and fight Gitter’s project, on Wednesday. “We
are glad to see that the draft scope includes community
character and secondary and cumulative growth impacts. I
mention it here for emphasis. We all need to understand
fully these two important impacts because the more we know
about them, the more affectively they can be mitigated…particularly
along the Route 28 corridor and route 49A.”
Silently, both men smiled and nodded when it was suggested
that the issue of Climate Change might end up being the
stumbling block all the best new plans can’t surpass.
And yet it was singer/songwriter James Krueger who may have
earlier summed things up best, as evidenced by the three
nights of skewed presentation and scoping December 10 to
12.
“All our arts and imagination, our donations, community
centers, schools, emergency response teams. Seniors, youth,
and those social services we still have… all have
had to take a back seat as we argue with each other like
bickering school children about this project,” he
said. “It’s already destroyed our community.
Why sell it all off to someone who says he can make it better
for us? Has he?”
In the week following the sessions, Janeway announced that
the DEC was extending its deadline for written comments,
per Shapiro’s request, by a week to January 14.
There also seemed to be a battle brewing between project
proponents and opponents with press accounts of the scoping
sessions.
Finally, it was noted that although invitations for the
upcoming January 26 Belleayre Conservancy Snowball, sent
by Kelly, had mentioned that Spitzer would be on hand to
accept a Spirit of the Catskills award in the coming month,
a press alert from the Governor’s office adamantly
noted that would not be the case. The governor would not
be going to Belleayre this season, at least officially,
and would be sending his environmental advisor Judith Enck
to the event in his stead.
Ring
In 2008
Leifeld took time out this week from dealing with Olive’s
current emergency, the collapsing of the transfer station, to
look ahead at the year to be.
“We’ll just go along like we always have,”
said the multi-term Supervisor after spending the day at the
site of the transfer station, which he estimates will cost close
$100,000 to replace.
Saying that he awaits word from the insurance on how much they
will pay, Leifeld quickly shifted gears to what he said was
the big issue for Olive in 2008: The impending court case in
April against the City of New York, which is seeking millions
of dollars from the town after claiming Olive has over assessed
the city’s holdings, which include the Ashokan reservoir
and related infrastructure.
“We’re gonna see whether the City gets paid back,”
he said.
Another City related issue, Leifeld said, is the beginning of
construction for the Boiceville sewer system, which was ushered
in through a referendum vote last summer. While not a town project,
the installation of the $10.7 million system by the Catskill
Watershed Corporation is sure to have an impact on Olive, not
only in the long run, but in the short term with the Hamlet
getting ripped apart to make way for the sewer mains and laterals
that need to be buried.
While that could make travels difficult in Boiceville, Leifeld
said he hopes there is progress on making life a little easier
in Shokan, where efforts will continue to build a by-pass route
for reservoir road, which stands to be undergoing major repairs
soon.
“They’re still getting right of ways,” Leifeld
said of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection,
which is going to do the work on Reservoir Road.
On January 3rd the town board will hold a reorganization session.
Leifeld says there are no new appointments planned, but there
will be the swearing in of Councilman elect Pete Freidel, who
ousted incumbent Linda Burkhardt in the November elections.
Asked how his all Democrat board will function with a member
of GOP now involved Leifeld said “We’ll work with
him.”
As for hopes for 2008, Leifeld wants to see the South Mountain
Cell Tower fully operational. The tower finally got running
just last week, Leifeld said, with Nextel sending signal outwards.
Word at town hall in West Shokan is that cellular users in the
building enjoy four bars of signal.
Not Leifeld though.
“I don’t have a cell phone,” he said.
Rethinking
OCS Transport
According
to Superintendent Leslie Ford, the school policy states that
elementary children who live within 1/2 mile of the school and
within one mile of the Middle/High School are not eligible for
bus transportation. This particular bus route will affect approximately
20 students along Route 28 within the parameter of the high
school.
Spencer voiced anger that they was not given enough notice of
the change, giving him two business days to make other arrangements
“For my child and my immediate neighbors children, this
means walking 1.8 miles a day or more depending on where you
start to measure on Route 28.” Spencer said, “I
believe there is a stiff penalty or an instant suspension that
the school enforces should a child leave the Onteora school
premises during the day for even crossing Route 28 because of
the dangers.”
He said that implementing this law will cause a safety hazard
for children on a daily basis, which is why in the past it was
never enforced. He also recommended, as a change to the policy,
that safety zones be created for bus pickup.
After discussions with Moraca and Ford, the board decided Tuesday
that students can continue to take the bus until January when
the board will officially take up the matter as a policy matter.
Ford said any changes to this particular policy must have a
public approval by voter referendum. The State recommendation
is two miles for middle/high school students and one mile for
elementary school students.
In other transportation news, Moraca reviewed the transportation
contracts with recommendations for next school year. He believes
the district was well balanced by using in-district transportation
and one bus contractor, currently held by Mulligan, “because
it offers the most flexibility to routing.”
In 2006, the school board bid for one bus contractor to cover
most of the district, and awarded a contract to Hoyt’s
bus company, since sold to Mulligan. The stipulation of the
contract was to charge an hourly rate, instead of by route,
therefore offering more flexibility. In the past, the district
used multiple companies and charged by route.
Moraca also said that in-house transportation was less expensive
in general, especially on field trips and overtime. School board
trustees Rita Vanacore and Richard Wolff disagreed with this,
noting that the district in the long run must pay more for in-house
employees because of health care and retirement.
Moraca recommended that the board continue using in-district
transportation and a single contract company. He noted that
the two go hand in hand when they are short a driver, where
he can call up Mulligan for help or vise versa. Morale and communication
among the drivers, he reported, was very good and since he cannot
see the drivers from Mulligan every day he tries to get letters
to them with district announcements.
Some of his employees were in the audience at the meeting and
applauded him in support.
The school board will discuss in January how to proceed with
transportation contracts either by rolling over the current
contract with Mulligan or calling for a re-bid.
In other business, school board trustee Rita Vanacore said the
Early Childhood Committee is looking into a Kindergarten fair
as part of their annual registration and assessment process
for incoming students. She would like to persuade the district
to have it on a Saturday so parents do not have to take a day
off work in order to participate in the registration process.
This left Trustee Herb Rosenfeld asking if there was already
a school registration where the students come into their home
school with their parents. Ford said registration policy had
changed and been centralized to one area for all students but
did not say specifically where registration would be. The change
was an administrative decision in order to use time more wisely.
Students will still take the bus and visit the school the day
before school begins.
The next Onteora board meeting is scheduled for 7 PM the evening
of Tuesday, January 9 at the Bennett School in Boiceville.
On Thursday, December 20 there will be a Bennett School Holiday
Concert and on Friday, January 4, a Middle School Winter Concert.
Drain
The Reservoir?
Leifeld’s
affidavit in reply to a filing by New York City DEP Deputy Commissioner,
Paul V. Rush, accuses Rush of "incomprehensible" statements,
including reference to the "danger of a terrorist attack
which would send billions of gallons of water gushing out of
the reservoir inundating us all, and what kind of protection
do they offer for this? - CLOSE MONUMENT ROAD...The utter insanity
of this statement leaves me speechless..."
Seligman’s response stresses anew the dangers and inconvenience
of the road closure, relying heavily upon the 1905 laws she
claims it violates. Calling the action "wilful, wrongful
and in direct violation" of the law, she adds that "the
closing of the road serves no useful purpose, is arbitrary and
capricious, indefensible, an abuse of power, dangerous to the
public safety and welfare of the residents...and without proper
authority."
The decision to close the road was made by DEP Police Chief
Ed Welch, since resigned, who said his decision was based upon
an alleged confession by accused terrorist Khalid Shakh Mohammed,
mentioning reservoirs as an area of interest; a confession which
has since been declassified and largely discredited. The City’s
defense makes no mention of this document, depending instead
upon a still classified Army Core of Engineers study, which
they claim states that a vehicle-borne explosive could threaten
the stability of the Ashokan Dam. Local skepticism at the time
was typified by 53-year Olive resident John Parente’s
disbelief in the document’s existence as quoted in the
New York Times (9-14-03)
William McCarthy was another Olive resident with doubts about
the claim. When McCarthy was with the FDNY, he was chosen to
be a member of Urban Search and Rescue Task Force #1, whose
leader, Chief Raymond Downy, perished on 9/11. Before spending
a couple of weeks at Ground Zero helping to organize rescue
operations around "the pile," McCarthy had gathered
disaster experience with his squad at the Plattsburg ice storm
scene, in Puerto Rico and other places but, most pertinently,
he recalls, was their first assignment at the Murrah Building
bombing in Oklahoma City in 1995. There, he observes, a moving
truck with 4,500 lbs of explosives left an 8 to 10 foot crater.
"We asked (the DEP), since the report was confidential,
to pick an independent person to read it, a judge, perhaps,
but they ignored us," said McCarthy, who wonders why the
Corps would think a blast at the road surface would threaten
a dam some 190 feet deep. "We thought we were being very
cooperative, We went to Assemblyman Cahill’s office and
he assured David Rosenbaum and myself he would get a copy of
the report but he never followed up on it. So, no one but the
DEP has seen it but that’s what they’re hanging
their hat on."
These are the kind of doubts which, in part, prompted Seligman
to include a demand that the entire reservoir be closed and
drained. Closing the road and adding $8 million of surveillance
equipment, she observes, is "wholly, utterly and woefully
inadequate to stop a terrorist attack" if the road is,
indeed, such a desirable target. The water infrastructure can
be attacked at numerous places, including by air, and the Pentagon,
arguably the most highly-defended structure on earth-ringed
with radar and anti-aircraft missiles, did not prevent a strike
on its building.
Since "because of the negligence of the defendants in the
design, construction and maintenance of the reservoir...plaintiffs
are in serious and grave danger...distraught and seriously traumatized,"
Seligman petitions that the site be shut down because "by
continuing to operate the reservoir, defendants have negligently
and carelessly permitted, suffered and allowed the reservoir
to remain" as a hazard for Olive and surrounding communities.
"I think it’s appropriate to respond to an absurdity
with an absurdity," notes McCarthy, who has since moved
to a neighboring town because of the issue. "I don’t
think anyone in Olive wants to deprive New York City of its
water but they need to be good neighbors."
Local accusations of what New York City is "getting away
with" have lately embraced what some residents think is
the REAL reason Monument Road was closed during an upward spurt
in the Homeland Security budget in 2004. By closing the road,
critics believe, the City expanded its slice of the funding
pie by increasing its threatened areas.
When Homeland Security funding replaced other spending priorities
in 2001 and the billions began to flow to high-tech surveillance
firms and bio-defensive products from pharmaceutical companies,
competition for what chair of the House Homeland Security Committee
Christopher Cox (R-Calif) called a "grant funding system
that doles out cash first and requires plans later" heated
up between states and cities. In 2005, amid rising concern about
"government waste" and soaring profits for bidless
high-tech companies, Washington D.C. was criticized for not
having spent $120 million of $146 million given it, while NYC
could boast of having spent at least 86% of the over $500 million
it had received. Olive residents claim they squandered some
of it at Ashokan.
One thing they have not done, points out Olive Councilman Bruce
LaMonda, is the reconstruction of the Rt. 28A detour which had
been promised within two years. The twisting alternate road,
upon which McCarthy observes a fire truck could not pass a school
bus, has shifted its corrections into the future but now, since
the White House’s November 26th announcement of intentions
to drastically slash the Homeland Security budget, LaMonda’s
concerns have deepened.
Since the September 11 attacks states and local communities
have received $23 billion to protect against terrorist attacks.
The proposed $3.2 billion budget for 2009 was just cut to $1.4
billion in the new plan- which will eliminate many local emergency
management operations entirely, although continued funds for
state and regional "intelligence fusion centers" is
promised. Some of the money is being shifted into an enhanced
national ID system, yet, despite the uproar when counterterrorism
funds for New York and Washington D.C. were cut by 40% in 2005,
further cuts across the board are proposed in the 2009 budget.
New York State received $38.8 million in 2007 while New York
City got $134 million. How the cuts might effect upstate projects
is uncertain at this point.
"I think the DEP uses all the Homeland Security hype like
a big hammer over the courts," LaMonda said. "We went
to the (May) meeting thinking we could work out a reasonable
compromise on the road but, when we got there, they just dictated
what they were going to do- which is not unusual. Their attorney
told us that even if we won the Article 78 suit, they’d
appeal it and, if we won again, they’d appeal again. She
said ‘We have a lot of attorneys just sitting around,
waiting for something to do.’ That’s the whole legal
attitude they have- same as with the Coalition of Watershed
Towns, when they told us outright in one of our conferences
over the (tax assessment) lawsuit a year or two ago, ‘We’re
going to eat that fund up that the Catskill Watershed Corporation
has and then you won’t have any money to defend against
us. Then we’ll beat you on the cases.’ So, they’re
going to throw the legal department at us at every turn and
wear us down.
"Right now, we’re trying to get a municipal agreement
going with the county and the (Onteora) school, so we’ll
have funds to keep fighting them (on assessments)," LaMonda
continued. "One small town alone couldn’t come up
with the funds it takes to defend these law suits."
Other points of Seligman’s case include a point that "Defendants
exceed their authority. Under the circumstances of this case,
defendants have neither statutory not contractual authority
to make a determination to close a state-mandated road nor are
they empowered to issue a final and binding determination."
She discards each of the City’s law case citings, arguing
in each one that they are not applicable in the present case
and questioning if they had even been read by the defendants.
Scoping
Time... Again
Word started leaking last week but official word came out from
the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
(DEC) on Tuesday, November 27 that it will be holding two meetings
in early December to “provide information and receive
comments” about “developments proposed for properties
around and including the Belleayre Mountain Ski Center in the
Catskill Mountain region.” To be specific, the announced
meetings are for 1. A public information session, set to include
discussion of growth plans for the ski center itself, as well
as the multi-hotel and condo-heavy ski and golf resort proposed
by Gitter and given a provisional go-ahead by Governor Eliot
Spitzer in September, set to take place at the Belleayre Mountain
Ski Center’s Discovery Lodge on Monday, December 10, from
6 to 9 PM; and 2. A meeting designed to receive comments about
the scope of the environmental review to be conducted on the
joint projects the following day, Tuesday, Dec. 11 from 6 to
10 p.m., at the same Belleayre location. The DEC has added that
it will welcome written comments on the scope of the upcoming
SEQRA review, through January 8. The proposal to be reviewed,
according to a DEC press release on the matter, includes a private
development (the proposed construction and operation of the
Wildacres Resort and Highmount Spa Resort complex by Crossroads
Ventures LLC) and related proposals by DEC that include the
expansion of Belleayre Mountain Ski Center, including “ski-in,
ski-out” access to Gitter’s Highmount Spa Resort;
the acquisition of a parcel known as the Big Indian Plateau
(1,200 acres); and the acquisition of the former Highmount Ski
Center (78 acres) and an easement (21 acres) on the Highmount
Spa property. Also up for a first view on December 10 will be
the DEC’s plans for its own growth, which has yet to be
released in an official Unit Management Plan that needs to be
released according to similar scoping guidelines before the
resort SEIS can begin to be reviewed. Included in that plan
should be plans for the concurrent creation of a new 1500 seat
performance shed for the Belleayre Music Festival, to be located
within walking distance of the ski resort (see News Briefs inside).
The cost of the state acquisitions total $14 million, according
to the agreement in principal announced by Spitzer in September,
and have raised hackles among competing ski resorts in the state
at the amount being paid by the DEC to shore up its own holdings
in competition with the private sector. Those resorts, which
have been rumored to be discussing funding help for organizations
fighting the new resort proposal, are expected to be present
at the upcoming meetings, as well as in all future dealings
regarding the combined review. And although a total of six national
and state environmental organizations publicly signed on to
the Spitzer agreement when it was announced, thus ending their
high-powered opposition to Gitter’s development (as well
a longstanding SEQRA review process that had become bogged down
in legal adjudication for the past two years), remaining regional
and local opposition groups have joined together with the Sierra
Club, America’s largest environmental organization, to
continue fighting the standing proposal as it currently exists.
Those organizations, working under the consortium Save The Mountain,
were quick to spread news of the coming Belleayre meetings via
e-mails and phone calls over the recent Thanksgiving weekend,
as well as at their ongoing series of film screenings and discussion
events being held around the area. As of press time, the possibility
that next week’s informational hearing would be a major
event was noteworthy in a variety of local events, from the
Town of Shandaken Code Enforcement Officer’s request that
a Save The Mountain sign be taken down from lands belonging
to former town councilwoman Edna Hoyt across from Gitter’s
Emerson Resort, to a press release from the Catskill Heritage
Association noting its decision to fund an upcoming Arkville
holiday celebration in Delaware County after the developer’s
Crossroads Foundation purportedly nixed its own grant for the
occasion based on one of its sponsors having also sponsored
a screening of an anti-ski-resort documentary, “Resorting
to Madness,” and discussion session in recent weeks. Further
such screenings and discussions are scheduled for the evening
of Thursday, December 6 at Claude’s Restaurant in Phoenicia
and Saturday, December 8 at the Saugerties Senior Center. In
an official “Notice of Intent to Prepare a Draft EIS Determination
of Significance” filed November 21, the day before Thanksgiving,
DEC Environmental Analyst Daniel T. Whitehead notes that although
the revised project proposal was shaped by Spitzer, the New
York City Department of Environmental Protection and approving
environmental organizations to reduce the environmental threats
posed by the previous proposal, it still presents a number of
potentially significant impacts including the city reservoir
system’s water quality, aesthetics, water supply, noise,
transportation and the region’s, and local towns of Shandaken’s
and Middletown’s “community character.” “While
the current integrated project proposals represent an attempt
to create a lower impact overall project as compared to Crossroads’
original proposal, it may still have significant adverse impacts,”
wrote Whitehead in his determination. “In addition, as
a consequence of the modified project plan for the proposed
Crossroads development in relation to the expansion of the Belleayre
Mountain Ski Center, significant cumulative adverse impacts
on some resources are also possible.” Eric Goldstein of
the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the environmental
groups that ended up signing on to Spitzer’s agreement
in September, said this week that he and other former watchdog
opponents of the resort proposal would be on hand next week,
and throughout the upcoming process, to ensure that all proceeds
according to state environmental regulations, and making comments
about the areas where they feel more emphasis needs to be made.
“We’re very happy that both developments will be
reviewed alongside each other,” Goldstein noted. But asked
whether he expected anyone to question the state’s economic
propriety making large investments in skiing at a time when
it has also pledged to fight Climate Change – as noted
in reports that suggest local winters will be substantially
compromised within the next quarter century, the NRDC attorney
said such matters, “didn’t even arise in any of
our negotiations about these matters.” To counter the
effects of the joint Save The Mountain/Sierra Club opposition,
a number of key Gitter supporters, mostly in the Delaware County
community of Margaretville – and including a number of
key advocates for the state-owned ski resort itself –
have formed a new organization, Partners for Progress, to show
support for the project at upcoming meetings. According to their
own e-mail alerts, they seemed to have gotten news of the coming
meetings before any others. Paul Rakov, vice president and spokesman
for Gitter and his Crossroads Ventures development company,
refused comment on the upcoming informational meeting and scoping
session this week except to refer all inquiries to the state
DEC press office, which then referred to the published press
materials. The scoping session is the part of the review process
in which the public and involved parties outline environmental
issues that need to be reviewed, possibly resulting in an issues
conference should new matters arise that appear unsolvable via
a straight review process. For more information on the permit
application, go to http://www.dec.ny.gov/enb/20071121_not3.html
or http://www.dec.ny.gov/permits/6061.html . Written comments
on the proposed scope for the environmental impact statement
may be sent via mail to Daniel Whitehead, NYS DEC, Division
of Environmental Permits, 625 Broadway, Albany, NY 12233-1750.
Or comments mail be e-mailed to wildacre@gw.dec.state.ny.us
- be sure to write “Scoping” in the subject line.
A Jar Of Olives
A
Horse Story...
Alison Tosi and cousin Patty Parete began their shopping quest
at Black Friday Eve at midnight at Woodbury Commons. Traffic
was backed up on the Thruway for an hour with eager buyers ready
to out-race and out-bargain-shop each other. There is nothing
out there that could get me to shop at midnight or four in the
morning. In fact, I am still tying to mentally match a gift
to a person. There’s time for me to shop at non-peak times
now that I am retired.
Actually, I began to shop at the Library Craft Fair this past
weekend. It’s a place where you can shop, visit and have
coffee or lunch with friends like Bev Stein, Margie Jones, Carmen
Ajce, Jack Molloy and Ann Leifeld. Going to the Olive Library
Craft Fair has been a thirty-year tradition with my friend Judie
Rank. I missed her this year, and felt guilty as I carried on
our annual shopping trip while she is still at Kingston Hospital
having dialysis and recouping from renal failure.
This Friday, December 7, there will be a Tree Lighting Ceremony
at the Town Meeting Hall at 7:00 p.m. The little shrub has grown
up to be a fine, respectable tree requiring more lights this
year. Santa and his elf, Linda Burkhardt will be there to give
out candy canes. Children can decorate cookies and make an ornament
to take home. The best part is being able to huddle and sing
and listen to stories. The Sorbellini’s and younger Leifeld’s
are coordinators of this annual event.
A number of people have responded to my idea to donate to charity
and send out our greetings via this column. Sheila Drouet and
Rosie Burgher were the first ones to respond. E-mail me at clamonda@hvc.rr.com
if you want to have your name published as a holiday contributor.
You make the donation to your charity, and the paper will acknowledge
it and send your greetings.
It’s a good time to think of others. After all, that is
the message of the season. You can help Patty D’Errico,
who is in need of funds to support the expensive drug Interferon
that is helping her to cope with Hepatitis C and complications,
by going to the breakfast fundraiser. It will be held on Saturday,
December 15 at the Olivebridge Fire House from 8:00 a.m. to
noon. The cost is $8.00 for adults and $4.00 for children twelve
and under. Tommy D’Errico will serve his famous French
toast and pancakes with real maple syrup, bacon, home fries,
coffee, tea and juice. There will be a raffle for a door prize
worth $300. The winner will have dinner for two at the Phoenix
Restaurant and a spa treatment at the Emerson Spa and Resort.
If you can’t join us for breakfast, donations can be made
to Patty’s Fund and sent directly to the Wilber National
Bank, PO Box 369, Boiceville, New York, 12412.
It is a season to think of others and share what we have. There
are three dogs at the Olive Dog Kennel who are hoping Santa
will find them good homes. Glory is an older (9), sweet and
gentle female lab. Sugar is a big lover who was probably named
“Sugar” because of the color of Brown Sugar and
her sweet disposition. Oliver is a four-year old male lab who
was found wandering around Olivebridge. Wouldn’t a nice
home be a wonderful gift for these dogs? It would be a reciprocal
gift too. A dog repays you every day with unconditional love
and tail wags. The added benefit, in this time of expensive
gas and oil, is that their body heat is four degrees higher
than that of a human. They are natural “hot-water bottles”
if you snuggle up to them. Call Bev Stein to go see these potential
pets.
Our chocolate lab Diva watches television. She loves the public
access station that advertises the dogs in the Shandaken Pound.
She looks and barks and fawns over one particularly handsome
dog. I keep telling her it is only “Puppy Love!”
“Tis time to gear up for this season of love and light.
Just don’t get lost in all that tinsel and wrapping paper.
Sans lights, sans malls, sans hype is the essence of loving
each other and saying so. Happy Holidays!
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