Summoning
Support
Leifeld told
the meeting that the grip of the Large Parcel Law extends
far beyond several towns and a school district in Ulster
County. Since the Sullivan County Legislature has now opted
into the law, you should realize that it can hit anywhere,
he noted, stressing that it was not merely an Ulster County
issue and towns all over the watershed should be prepared
for it.
Sure, Leifeld said, Shandaken supervisor Bob Cross Jr. read
a letter against the resolution. But then he had to leave
the meeting early, before a two hour discussion of the matter,
including a Power Point presentation by Leifeld’s
fellow reservoir impoundment town supervisor, Georgiana
Lepke, on how her town’s facing Large Parcel next.
And yes, he’s heard that Woodstock supervisor Jeremy
Wilber will be fighting tooth and nail against any resolutions
Leifeld suggests.
So what if the immediate decision to send a CWT resolution
up to Albany was tabled for now?
“They said they WILL come up with a resolution of
support,” Leifeld said. “They’re just
going to invite all the membership towns to the next meeting
first.”
Lepke, superviusor of the town of Neversink and a founding
member of the CWT, offered what Leifeld described as a strong
presentation to the assembly, which included a considerable
amount of information concerning the bill's preparation
which had evaded Olive-based researchers into the law's
conception.
Lepke, who spoke in opposition to the law before the Sullivan
County legislature earlier in the year, took them to task
again at a public meeting in the Tri-Valley Elementary School
near the Rondout Reservoir in Grahamsville in recent weeks.
According a story in the Sullivan County Democrat on December
2nd, Lepke tore apart the county's position on the vote
as
expressed by the Legislature's Chairman Chris Cunningham,
"shred by shred" and attacked that body for "not
pursuing remedial courses to the 74% tax hike" projected
in Neversink following its adoption of the law in November.
She also "blasted the local press for not bringing
the problem before the eyes of the public."
At Monday's meeting in Margaretsville, Lepke focused on
Senator Larkin's intentions in sponsoring the bill to exempt
reservoirs from the Large Parcel
Law and include a provision which would negate it if all
communities effected did not approve it. She also addressed
the aspect of the law's annual return as a voting issue.
Leifeld said that he told the meeting that when the law
comes to the areas governed by the attending supervisors
-- which it would, eventually, he promised -- it would be
wise for them to remember how it tore apart his community.
He mentioned school board members getting elected on points
having little to do with education, but where a candidate
stood on the parcel issue. Should you be playing politics
on the school board or worrying about education?, he asked,
noting that he was spending most of his time discussing
"a miserable, rotten law" when there were so many
other things he should be talking about.
Leifeld said that he felt that town supervisors who may
have been "sitting on the edge" of the issue learned
a lot from the presentations from Lepke and himself. It
was agreed that the CWT board, which includes Olive deputy
supervisor Bruce LaMonda, would write up a resolution to
the effect that reservoirs be removed from the law. A resolution
from the coalition would expand the opposition to attaching
reservoir taxes into nine counties and present the issue
to a wider spectrum of political leaders and interests.
Cross and Wilber say large parcel creates a fair tax structure
between the towns in their school district.
Meehan said he was tabling the issue, at Cross’ request,
and notifying all 50 member communities of CWT of the issue
because of the flack he ran into over a recent decision
to appeal a judge’s ruling for adjudication in the
Belleayre Resort process.
The next CWT meeting, where Leifeld’s resolution will
be discussed and voted on, is scheduled for January 16 at
6:30 p.m. at CWC offices in Margaretville.
Major
Flood Danger
Property may well get hurt, especially on the upper stretches,
according to City officials. But they won’t turn the
portal off to stem such matters.
They say they have a greater responsibility. It’s
a trade off between our land and lives in the Schoharie
Valley north of the Gilboa Dam.
This all in after the New York City Department of Environmental
Protection, in coordination with the Ulster County Office
of Emergency Management, held a pair of loudly-attended
meetings last week about the city's recently announced plans
to basically empty as much water as they can from their
Schoharie Reservoir into the Esopus Creek over the coming
months to accommodate mandated repairs at its Gilboa Dam
in Schoharie County. On Wednesday night, December 14, over
200 residents of the lower Esopus valley, who take the brunt
of overflow from the Ashokan Reservoir upstream, angrily
spoke at the Ulster Town Hall in Lake Katrine about the
devastating effects of floods this past April and asked
what the City, and Ulster County, would do to avoid similar
flooding in the coming months. On Thursday, December 15,
a smaller but equally vociferous crowd of upper Esopus Creek
residents met at the Olive Town Hall in Shokan and questioned
the use of their creek, already prone to significant property
damage from flooding on an almost-annual basis, as a release
valve to solve other problems not of their making.
The 78-year-old Gilboa dam, the second built as part of
the wide-ranging West of Hudson New York City reservoir
system inaugurated during the early years of the 20th century,
was recently discovered to be compromised by age to the
point where it MIGHT NOT be able to withstand a major flood
on a par with that of late January, 1996. After pressure
from the state and federal government, sparked by television
news reports of possible disaster throughout the Upstate
Schoharie Creek valley that stretches into Montgomery and
Herkimer counties, and saw the fatal destruction of a New
York Thruway bridge from heavy Catskills flooding in 1987,
the dam was fast-tracked for emergency repairs in the early
spring, before the traditional thaw and flood season. Massive
steel anchors will be driven through the dam into bedrock,
anchoring it from any possible slippage. But to achieve
this, and lower the possibility of dangerous flood damage
in the Schoharie Valley during the interim, the 19.5 billion
gallon reservoir needs to first be lowered.
At the recent meetings, a phalanx of DEP engineers, including
Deputy Commissioner Michael Principe, outlined the three
of doing this, and each way’s steps, including the
creation of a deep notch to increase overflow of the already
full reservoir system, the insertion of a series of massive
siphons to pull water out, and the opening of the Shandaken
Portal, at the end of a 20-some mile tunnel built in the
late 1920s, to send water cascading down the Esopus into
the Ashokan… itself already at capacity flood levels.
Principe and local system manager Paul Rush noted at both
meetings that they have already been sending an extra 500
million gallons a day into the Esopus for the last month,
an amount that will be raised to 600 million gallons a day
over the coming months.
Both meetings started at 6:30 with Power Point presentations
by Rush about the current situations that attempted to show,
using graphs, that the relative amount of creek risings
created by the Schoharie Reservoir was minimal, especially
the further downstream one got. Rush did admit, however,
that effects closer to the portal in Shandaken would tend
to be more pronounced.
Those in attendance at both meetings tended to characterize
the city’s presentation, and direct answering of all
questions and heated commentary, as “dispassionate”
at best and “arrogant” at worst.
In Olive, attendance of several dozen local home and business
owners was weighted towards those from Shandaken, whom supervisor
Bob Cross Jr. had urged to come out. Cross, in private,
accused the city of lying about how long it had known about
the dam problems. But when asked why the city had done nothing
to fix the Schoharie Reservoir during the near-drought of
last summer, Principe appeared completely honest when he
said his agency knew nothing of the problems at that point.
When several audience members pointed out chunks of dam
littering the Gilboa area in recent years, he said such
“veneer” break-offs were purely cosmetic, and
that the city has been responding to its new problems, and
threat of possible problems, as quickly as possible.
“You have a problem and are creating another problem
for all of us,” said Phoenicia business owner Gene
Gormley at one point. “How are you going to help us?”
People asked about what they could do to ensure FEMA help
later on, and not just a brush off saying that the feds
couldn’t help a problem created by other agencies
of government. They asked, as well, whether the DEP could
shut off the flow of water into the Esopus should a flood
situation arise in the coming months.
Principe said that the City couldn’t help, on either
count.
“We’re not assuming any liability,” Principe
said. “
“You’re filling the bathtub on us, destroying
our property,” said one enraged business owner, noting
how she had already lost access to some excavation equipment
she can’t get off an island now inundated by the risen
Esopus in Shandaken.
“Hopefully, we won’t have a major event in the
coming months,” Principe said.
When town officials started pushing him about timetables,
the DEP Deputy Commissioner outlined the hastened work process
ahead… noting that being the City, procedures were
key. Things, he said, have been pushed up from the Spring
into an early January start for the dam notching and drainage
siphons work. Hopefully, everything can be completed by
late February.
“The sooner we can get this all done the better,”
he said.
When Cross said some of the work should have been done earlier,
Principe pointed out that his agency is moving as fast as
it can. He noted that the cost of the mediation work, all
total, would likely top $200 million.
“We’re trying to balance risk to human life,
north of the dam, compared to the risk of property damage,
here in the Esopus valley,” said City DEP Police Chief
Ed Welch at one point during the heated back-and-forth in
Olive. “These are hard questions. For matters of liability,
which seems to be the main problem here, we suggest you
go to the lawyers.”
Towards the end of the Olive session, it was suggested that
the Catskill Watershed Corporation, the regional partnership
between the City and upstate communities charged with overseeing
conservation regulations and development issues in the Catskills
watershed, utilizing city funds, should set up a fund for
flooding problems. Principe, a member of the CWC board,
said he would look into the matter, as did Olive Supervisor
Berndt Leifeld, a fellow CWC board member.
“This is a tough period. It’s a real balancing
act,” said Principe, to none of his audience’s
comfort.
Town
Right, City Wrong
Prero’s fax was in response to a Freedom of Information
Law (FOIL) request from Olive in November to supply a representation
of the authority New York City used in setting speed limits
within the Town of Olive. It is a question town officials
have been asking since the New York City-owned Route 28A,
which semi-circles around the south side of Ashokan Reservoir,
was first posted with a uniform 35 mph limit in 1985.
The DEP’s initial response to the FOIL request was
to resend its three page response to the same question in
May of 2004 with Prero’s handwritten scrawl on the
cover sheet asking “please let me know if this is
what you are
looking for.” It wasn’t. The town was looking
for a New York City or State Department of Transportation
decision dealing specifically with Route
28A.
The 2004 letter cites New York State Vehicle and Traffic
Law Section 1643 rather selectively, in the eyes of Olive
officials. It quotes the law to the effect that “The
legislative body of any city or village with respect to
highways... may by local law, ordinance, order, rule or
regulation establish maximum speed limits... higher or lower
than the fifty-five miles per hour statutory limit.”
Read as quoted, it would appear that New York City did not
exceed its authority by posting the roads without consulting
the DOT or the town they were posted in. But, as Olive officials
have pointed out, in sections omitted, as indicated by the
dots, the law explicitly states that the legislative body
in question - in this case, New York City - may establish
such limits “within such city or village.” This
is specified in both sections of the law the DEP chose to
leave out of their quote and officials in Olive, in consensus,
have argued that when read intact, the law does not grant
New York City the right to post roads outside of their municipal
boundaries.
The 2004 letter stressed that “It is extremely significant
to note that in
contrast to establishing speed limits on county roads and
town highways (See NYS VTL 1622), no action by the State
Department of Transportation is required in establishing
speed limits on city
highways.” (Emphasis in DEP letter). Both the section
of the NYS Vehicle Traffic Law cited states that the department
of transportation may establish the limits “upon request
of the county superintendent of highways of a county and
the town board of the town or towns affected.”
A case note to the 1622 law quoted above states: “Regulation
of the speed on
the town highway in question must be established under Vehicle
and Traffic Law, section 1622, with the speed established
by the State Traffic Commission.” In such case, to
quote again DEP’s 2004 letter: “Prior to issuing
a Sign Order, the Bureau of Traffic Operations (BTO) conducts
a
speed limit study to determine the appropriate and safe
speed limit for the
highway evaluated. As part of the study, an official map
of the highway is prepared indicating the specific locations
for the positioning and placement of signs. Upon approval
by the Deputy Commissioner of BTO, Sign Orders are issued,
providing the City with legal authorization to post the
approved speed limit.” Evidence that such procedures
were followed is part of the
documentation that Olive is seeking but the question of
jurisdiction is an
even larger one.
When Olive Town Clerk Sylvia Rozzelle responded to DEP’s
missive by phone and reiterated to Mr. Prero that Olive
was seeking the particular judgment or decision on the Route
28A limits or a written statement saying that there was
no such specific decision, Prero sent a second fax, received
on Monday.
An attachment to the fax cites the “Rules of the City
of New York” setting
speed limits at 30 mph “except where official signs
indicate a different maximum speed.” Prero’s
handwritten comment reads in full: “Enclosed is the
NYC provision setting the speed limit for all roads under
NYC’s jurisdiction at 30 mph.” But no documentation
of that assertion is included.
Olive Supervisor Berndt Leifeld can understand why the DEP
may choose to interpret the law as they do but he notes
that others may interpret it differently.
”New York City may own the land,” Leifeld comments,
“but it’s not within their boundaries. The road
is in Olive.”
Rozzelle notes that the New State decision on same sex marriages
came through the Olive Town Clerk’s office a few years
ago. It began with a request for a marriage license from
a couple of the same gender in a nearby village. Uncertain
of the law, she began making phone calls to numerous officials
and, to shorten a long story, eventually triggered a state
ruling on the matter. (When the couple was later married
by the Supervisor of New
Paltz, Joel West, it triggered a national controversy).
She thinks it’s past time to seek a clear ruling on
the jurisdiction question.
Leifeld concurs. He has asked town attorney Peter Graham
to request a ruling on the matter from the state attorney
general, Eliot Spitzer.
Also in relation to the legality of the 28A speed limits,
Olive Justice Vincent Barringer, one of two Olive judges
reprimanded by state authorities for dismissing DEP speeding
tickets written on the road in question, has announced a
press
conference for December 28th.
A
Jar Of Olives... Elves
Among Us
Speaking
of wish lists, I would hope that Santa would bring Vince
Barringer a large bag of lemons to squeeze in hopes of opening
the road from Shokan to Olivebridge, Samsonville and West
Shokan. Bert Leifeld is asking Santa to find him a secretary
as competent as Bev Stein who is retiring as this January.
Bruce La Monda and Helen Chase are hoping for anything to
be gift wrapped in a small gift box; they are hoping for
NO LARGE PARCELS in 2006.
Actually, the Town of Olive will enter the New Year with
confidence. Brian Davis commented on the positive growth
in Olive. He did a tour of our country roads and noticed
how many new homes were in the works. Contractors in Olive
are all busy with a waiting list of customers. The new homes
and additions speak to the confidence our neighbors have
in the future of Olive. We want our children and grandchildren
to enjoy what we have loved—the simple beauty of nature
and the community of proud citizens.
Christmas and Hanukah are the holidays of giving. I am reminded
of the gift my mom received some fifty years ago. My dad
bought her a red velvet dress size seven. It had to be expensive
at a time when money was scarce. Besides, I think the dressiest
place my mom ever went was the PTA or the neighborhood New
Year’s Eve Party, and size seven would have been two
sizes too small. I don’t think she ever wore that
red velvet dress, but it hung proudly in her closet for
years to come. It was a symbol of my dad’s vision
of her. May we all give each other the gift of love and
senseless beauty. In this Christmas and Hanukah season,
I wish you fewer gadgets and more gifts of love. You never
know when you might need a special red velvet dress!
