(News Briefs September 13, 2007)

Infrastructure!
Approximately $106 million has been programmed for countywide transportation improvement projects to be spun out over the next four years, with another $376 million for multi-county projects that will also directly benefit county residents via Thruway and rail line improvements, road signage upgrades, and hosts of more minor repairs on all bridges and thoroughfares throughout the region.
Of the amount pegged for the county in a new draft Transportation Imp[rovement Program document released by the UC Transportation Council on August 28, and set for further discussion on September 27 following a three week public comment period set to conclude September 17 after a sole public informational meeting to be held at Ulster County BOCES Conference Center in New Paltz on September 11, $76 million will be for highway projects, $20 million for bridges, and over $6 million for improvements to local public transportation.
On a local basis, bridge repairs have been scheduled for Route 28 over Birch Creek and in Big Indian, in Shandaken, And the Route 213 Tongore Bridge in Olive.
In addition, all of Route 213 between Route 209 in Stone Ridge and its intersection with Route 28A in Olive has been scheduled for next year, and over $13 million has been pegged for the creation of an Ulster and Delaware Rail Trail from Kingston to Highmount, to be built in two stages, the first lasting from 2010 through 2012 and the second from 2012 into the following decade.
“The Ulster County Transportation Council serves as the Metropolitan Planning Organization for Ulster County, responsible for ensuring that federal transportation funds are programmed through a locally driven, comprehensive planning process,” the 121 page document – filled out with many pages as yet blank – reads. “The Transportation Improvement Program is an important product of the overall transportation planning process, since it is through the TIP that the UCTC commits to the implementation of transportation projects. The TIP represents the formal capital program that assigns federal funds to highway, bridge, bikeway, pedestrian, transit, and demand management projects for implementation over the next five years.”
Members of the UCTC include the head of the county legislature, mayor of Kingston, Saugerties and Ulster town supervisors, state DOT commissioner representative, state Thruway director, seven town supervisors and one “rural voting member” representing the towns of Denning, Gardiner, Hardenburgh, Marbletown, Olive, Rochester and Shandaken.
The schedule of meetings that led to the creation of the current proposal, now on ther verge of becoming reality, included meetings about a possible rail trail two autumns ago that brought out a number of train fans worried that a rail trail would preclude completion of the resuscitation of the Catskill Mountain Railroad, which has been leasing the county-owned Ulster and Delaware rail bed since the early 1980s.
Some in the county legislature started questioning the CMRR’s stewardship of that property after the entity sprayed along tracks in the City of Kingston this past spring, against a county Environmental Council’s recommendations.
However, the scope of the current proposal, at least in budget form as presented within the new TIP proposal, suggests that accommodations may now be made to include both rail and bike and walking paths within the long right-away that rail trail aficionados are hoping will create a linked trail system throughout the county, as well as Catskills and Hudson Valley regions.
The actual process of infrastructure repairs included in the new TIP is scheduled to begin in 2008.
More on this entire process in our next issue, after we get a chance to look into the details of the various elements in the plan, from the rail trail to new busses for rural transport and a major welcome center for the county – as well as possible rail improvements throughout the Hudson Valley – via the current process.

Biker Tragedy
Members of the Town of Shandaken Police responded to an Ulster County 911 call for a reported Personal Injury Motorcycle Accident at 4:28 pm on Old Plank Rd. in the Hamlet of Mt. Tremper on Monday September 3. Upon arrival a Shokan resident, Floyd Osterhoudt, 45 years old, was found to have been operating a 1977 Harley Davidson motorcycle when he lost control of the motorcycle and left the roadway .
Osterhoudt was airlifted to Albany Medical Center via Lifeguard with numerous internal injuries. At 7 :03 pm he succumbed to his injuries at Albany Medical Center.
Floyd J. “Skippy” Osterhoudt, of Croswell Manor Drive, Shokan, was the assistant produce manager at the Hurley Ridge Market in West Hurley for seven years, and was a 1979 graduate of Saugerties High School. After working at several jobs, he previously was the manager of the produce department for Boiceville Supermarket, having worked there for 10 years. He was a hunter and fisherman in addition to being an avid Harley Davidson owner
Born October 16, 1961 in Kingston, he was the son of Floyd E. Osterhoudt and Delores Caunitz Osterhoudt. Survivors in addition to his mother of Saugerties, his father and stepmother, Floyd Emmett and Christina Osterhoudt of Boiceville; include his fiance, Debra Lloyd of Shokan, a son, Floyd of Saugerties, two sisters, Mary Lou Bradford of Cementon and Tina M. Osterhoudt of Brooklyn, maternal grandmother Mary E.Caunitz of the town of Ulster, paternal grandmother Marge Piccoli, and aunts, uncles, cousins, neices and nephews.
Funeral arrangements were through Simpson-Gaus Funeral Home, Kingston.
Shandaken Police were assisted at the scene by the Ulster County Sheriff’s Office, Phoenicia Fire Companies and Shandaken Ambulance. Old Plank Rd. was closed for about two hours.

Jail Probe…
The second and third days of testimony to a legislative committee assigned to find out what caused Ulster County’s jail problems have ended with a lot of questions, a lot of finger pointing, and a lot of trepidation about a final report on the matter set for release next Monday, September 17.
Much of the final back and forth seeking to put blame for what went wrong, and ascertain if any laws were broken besides that of common sense management skills, focused on the competency of Christa Corporation, once the overseeing contractors on the project, and who was really in charge from the county side of the project - the legislature or Buildings and Grounds Department.
“I got my marching orders from the politicians of the time,” former B&G head Harvey Sleight claimed after being told by Kraft “the buck must stop somewhere, but where.”
The bipartisan jail committee was further set to visit the New Jersey headquarters of Hill International, the company formerly charged with investigating the cost and time overruns that ended up forcing the county’s longstanding GOP majority out of power, as well as pushing the project $50 million over budget and almost three years behind schedule, last week to meet with officials that couldn’t make the time to come up to Ulster County for the hearings.
Other conversations with contractor Bovis Lend Lease and Christa Corporation were also scheduled for this week, albeit not in public.
Ulster County lawmakers on Thursday, September 6 were told that Bovis Lend Lease, while construction manager for the county’s Law Enforcement Center, feuded with county officials about construction delays while telling the manufacturer of jail cells for the facility that the county was not at fault.
Bovis was the second of three construction management firms overseeing the project.
Among new documents released by the committee on Thursday was a Feb. 4, 1999, memo from the architectural firm McNeice Hatch & Roblee showing principal Joseph Roblee had been given advance information about the needs assessment for the project by Sleight.
Questioned during the recent hearings were Sleight, former county Legislature Chairman Ward Todd, Gerentine, former County Attorney Francis Murray and former county lawyer Mark Sweeney, as well as members of the current committee.
Part of the discussion during the daylong hearing focused on notes taken by Todd showing that even during the Law Enforcement Center’s planning stage, officials were finding that questions were not being answered by consultants or details were not be provided. Furthermore, alternatives to the new construction seemed to have been routinely ignored, or even crossed out, during Todd’s watch as county head.
Todd was questioned about changes to meeting minutes in which unfavorable comments where taken out of a final version.
Todd was not allowed to make a closing statement but instead submitted a 12-page written statement saying the committee seemed to have already reached its conclusions and had lost credibility because representatives of general contractor Christa Construction were not being interviewed in public. He added that politics did not play a part in approving construction of the jail.
The facility ultimately opened in February 2007 and costs currently stand at $95.51 million, with contractor claims still outstanding.

Ulster Gets F
Citing five “core measures” of economic well being, the New York State Business Council has issued Ulster County and most of upstate New York a failing grade, adding a bit more tarnish to an area already mired in muddy economic development prospects. The state as a whole got a D.
The Council’s new Economic Growth Index, released on Aug. 30, ranks the five boroughs of New York City, the state’s 57 other counties and all 50 states, according to their growth rate in five key areas between 1995 and 2005. Those five areas are job growth, average wage per job; total personal income; per capita personal income; and population. The data used in the index come from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, and were compiled by the Business Council’s research affiliate, the Public Policy Institute.
The state avoided an F because its 10-year trend in average wage per job showed growth exceeding the national average. But that figure is to some extent skewed by the financial sector salaries that are largely limited to jobs in lower Manhattan. The state trailed national averages in all four other measures.
Ulster County trailed the national growth average in all five categories and received an F. Dutchess County received a B grade, exceeding the study averages in job growth, per capita income and population growth. Greene County got a C, exceeding the averages in job growth and per capita income. Orange County also got a C, exceeding averages in job growth and population growth. Sullivan County was also graded as an F. Thirty-one of New York’s 62 counties got an F. Only Saratoga and Putnam counties got an A.
For further information visit www.bcnys.org.

Friedel Honored
The School of Education at the State University of New York at New Paltz will award six of the region’s teachers with the 2007 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching at 4:30 p.m., Sept. 18, at a ceremony to be held at The Terrace Restaurant on the New Paltz campus. As recipients of this award, each of the teachers will receive an honorary appointment as an adjunct clinical professor within New Paltz’s School of Education. They will also be recognized at the Mid-Hudson School Study Council’s Award for Excellence Dinner in October.
Among the nominees will be Olive resident and Onteora School Board trustee Michelle Friedel, a teacher at Ulster BOCES.
Nominations for outstanding teachers are made by school principals and district superintendents. The awards are given by the office of the dean of education at SUNY New Paltz based on recommendations from a review committee of education professionals. The winners are teachers who have demonstrated their commitment to teaching, to excellence and, most importantly, to children and their education.
In additional to Friedel, recipients of the 2007 awards are Thomas Bemont (Pine Bush High School); Jennifer Lamoreaux (Livingston Manor High School); Frances Lang (John F. Kennedy Elementary School, Brewster); Sharon Stephenson-Rojan (Ramapo High School); and Cheryl Leopold (Wallkill Central School District).
Friedel teaches 11th & 12th grade for the Career & Technical Center at Ulster County BOCES. She has taught there for the last twelve years beginning her career with BOCES as the Coordinator of the Childcare Center and, for the last nine years, teaching in the early childhood education program at the high school. She is known for her “boundless energy and positive outlook”, and as a colleague wrote, “She is that teacher you will see in the classroom during summer break preparing the classroom for her students, making sure resources are easily accessible and that each student enters feeling welcomed. She truly believes that all children can learn and tirelessly works to ensure her students’ success.”

Kraft Pays Up
County Legislator Peter Kraft, who was charged with misdemeanor drunken driving last December, pled guilty in Olive Town Court last week to a reduced charge of driving while ability impaired, a traffic violation. Kraft, 46 of Glenford, representing a district including Olive, entered the plea in August and was ordered by Town Justice Ronald Wright to pay a $660 fine. He will have a conditional license until he completes a required class.
“I’m glad that the process is complete and I can put this incident behind me,” Kraft said.
Kraft was arrested at 3:49 a.m. on Dec. 17, 2006, after being pulled over on state Route 28 in Shokan by an Ulster County sheriff’s deputy. He was charged with misdemeanor drunken driving; driving with a blood alcohol content greater than .08 percent, also a misdemeanor; and crossing pavement markings, a violation.
The incident occurred after Kraft had attended a Christmas party.

CWC Grants WDC
The Catskill Watershed Corporation recently handed over a check for $1 million to the Delaware County based grant Water Discovery Center, the major world-class museum being planned for the Catskills as a pumped-up version of a watershed museum originally planned 10 years. The “irrigation” money, designed to “grow the endeavor,” was handed over to the WDC project’s board president Gary Gailes in a recent event also attended by State Senator John Bonacic and other local political dignitaries.
Among the guests on hand was Paul Sherlock of UNICEF, in charge of coordinating the international response to water emergencies worldwide.
Gailes explained that, with these funds, the trustees could now seek the ideal executive director to raise the $25 million needed to “make this unique educational and exhibit center a reality. Funds will also enable the creative team to continue developing its already ambitious exhibit and architectural designs.”
Architect Joe Hurwitz and exhibit designer Leonard Levitan are currently planning an exhibit center with 20,000 square feet for special exhibits and three times as much space overall: with a restaurant, cafeteria, event and conference spaces and classrooms in addition to interactive exhibits, exhibition gallery, shop and a huge rooftop garden.
“It’s gotta be fun, or as we say in the business, edutainment,” said Levitan.
He emphasized that, just as the solutions and issues in the global water crisis are constantly developing, so would the infusion of creativity and changing exhibits of the Discovery Center. Visit www.waterdiscoverycenter.org for more.

Bee Deaths…
Scientific sleuths have a new suspect for what’s been killing billions of honeybees: a virus previously unknown in the United States. A new report using a novel genetic technique and old-fashioned statistics have identified Israeli acute paralysis virus as the latest potential culprit in the widespread deaths of worker bees, a phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder. Next up are attempts to infect honeybees with the newfound virus to see if it’s indeed a killer.
“At least we have a lead now we can begin to follow. We can use it as a marker and we can use it to investigate whether it does in fact cause disease,” said Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, a Columbia University epidemiologist and co-author of the study. Details appear this week in Science Express, the online edition of the journal Science.
Experts stressed that parasitic mites, pesticides and poor nutrition all remain in the lineup of suspects, as does the stress of travel. Beekeepers shuffle bees around the nation throughout the year so they can pollinate crops as they come into bloom.
The mysterious deaths have struck between 50 percent and 90 percent of commercial honeybee hives in the United States, sowing fears about the effects on the more than 90 crops that rely on bees to pollinate them.
Scientists previously have found blasting emptied hives with radiation apparently kills whatever infectious agent that causes the disorder. That has focused their attention on viruses, bacteria and the like, to the exclusion of other noninfectious phenomena, like cell phone interference, also proposed as culprits.
Australia is being eyed as a potential source of the virus. That could turn out to be an ironic twist, since the Australian imports were meant to bolster, not further damage, U.S. bee populations devastated by another scourge, the varroa mite.

Tonche Honored
Lancer Insurance Company. the nation’s leading provider of liability and physical damage insurance coverages to passenger transportation companies, has announced that Tonche Transit Inc. of Mt. Tremper, NY has received its prestigious Gold Safety Award. The award recognizes Tonche Transit’s safety excellence for the 2006 policy year.
Way to go, guys!

RAPP Meetings
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County’s Relatives as Parents Program (RAPP) is sponsoring two new support groups in Ulster County in Kingston and Ellenville, for anyone who is raising the child of a relative. Both groups will meet for the first time in September for a special “Back to School” event. At these meetings, free school supplies will be provided to families.
The first meeting of the Kingston group will be held on Monday, September 17th from 10:30am-11:30am at the Clinton Avenue Methodist Church in Kingston. Lunch will be provided by Clinton Avenue Methodist Church after the group. The Ellenville group will meet from 9:30-11:00 at the Ellenville Public Library’s Community Room. Breakfast will be served.
Regular meetings of the Kingston support group will be on the third Monday of the month from 10:30am to 11:30am, Clinton Avenue Methodist Church, 122 Clinton Ave., Kingston. Regular meetings of the Ellenville support group will be on the last Monday of the month from 9:30am to 11:00am, Ellenville Public Library, 40 Center St., Ellenville. All programs are free and are available to any person in Ulster County who is the primary caregiver of the child of a relative.
For further info call 340-3990 or e-mail emh56@cornell.edu.

Bike For Care
The fourth annual “Bike for Cancer Care” will be held on Sunday, September 23, to benefit the Rosemary D. Gruner Memorial Cancer Fund at Benedictine Hospital. This year’s ride will again offer three routes (5 mile Family Ride, 25 and 50-mile rides) and all will travel throughout Ulster County. All rides will start and finish at Ulster Savings Bank’s 180 Schwenk Drive headquarters in Kingston. Registration for the event begins at 7:45am and rides will start as follows: 50-mile ride – 8:30am, 25-mile ride – 10:00am, 5-mile ride – 11:00am. The post-ride barbecue and awards ceremony will begin at 12:00pm.
In partnership with the Cancer Center and Health Foundation at Benedictine Hospital, the Fund, created in 2004 by the Gruner family, provides financial assistance for cancer patients and their families who are receiving treatment in Ulster County. To date, over 150 patients and their families have been assisted by the Gruner Fund in all areas of Ulster County, including Kingston, Saugerties, Kerhonkson, Ellenville, Accord, Woodstock, High Falls, Margaretville and Shandaken.
Applications and fund-raising guidelines for the “Bike for Cancer Care” are available at www.bikeforcancer.com. For additional information, please call Dan Gruner at (845) 417-1865.

Teen Abuse
Abusive relationships are becoming increasingly common among teenagers, according to recent studies, with one in three teenage girls likely to be involved in an abusive relationship before graduating from high school. According to Dr. Jill Murray, the pattern of abuse in teen dating violence is the same as in adult domestic violence.
Murray, a leading authority on abusive dating relationships, will present “Dating Abuse, Violence and Destructive Relationships – Choosing to Have a Relationship That Works” at Ulster County Community College’s Quimby Theater on Monday, September 24, from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on the college’s Stone Ridge campus.
Her best-selling books include: But I Love Him: Protecting Your Teen Daughter From Controlling, Abusive Dating Relationships; Destructive Relationships: A Guide to Changing the Unhealthy Relationships in Your Life; her newest book is But He Never Hit Me: The Devastating Cost of Non-Physical Abuse to Girls and Women. Lifetime Television has optioned her book But I Love Him for a television movie.
Sponsors of the presentation include FAMILY of Woodstock, Family Services, Kingston Hospital, Never Alone, Prevention Connections, St. Cabrini Home, STEP ONE, SUNY Ulster, Ulster County District Attorney’s Office, Ulster County Mental Health Association, Ulster County Substance Abuse Prevention Services, Veritas Villa and the YWCA.
Registration is required for the Murray presentation by calling (845) 687-5192.

Firemen!
If you like firemen, parades, or a general good time, make your way to Hudson this Sunday afternoon, September 16, when the state Firemaen’s Home celebrates its new home with a massive kick-off celebration set to include marching outfits and trucks from over 100 fire companies throughout New York. A formal dedication of the new 92-bed Firemen’s Home of the State of New York, which houses New York State volunteer firefighters, their spouses and auxiliary members, will take place on the Association’s campus just north and east of the city itself, adjacent to the marvelous state Fireman’s museum, itself home to hundreds of fire trucks and other historic equipment.
The parade of approximately 100 fire departments from communities throughout New York State will march through the City of Hudson to the Firemen’s Home, starting off on Warren Street at noon and taking three hours to complete. The actual dedication program runs from 3:00 to 4:30 PM at the new home on Harry Howard Avenue.
All are expecting the events to be the home’s biggest in its 115 year history, as well as one of the biggest gatherings of firemen in the state in decades.
For further information visit www.firemenshome.com or call 518-828-7695.

Home Sales…
Sales of existing single-family houses in the Hudson Valley and Catskills were up in July as compared to the same month last year, according to figures from the New York State Association of Realtors. The largest growth spurt was in Greene County with 76 percent more homes sold year over year. Sales rose by over 26 percent in Rockland County, by 18 percent in Delaware County, by just under seven percent in Westchester County, by a little over six percent in Ulster and Putnam counties, and by over two percent in Columbia County. Sales fell by 12 percent in Dutchess County and by under three percent in Orange County.
The highest median price for a single-family existing home was in Westchester County, at $730,000; the lowest was in Delaware County at $135,000.
Homes sold in Rockland County for $518,000, in Putnam County for $440,000, in Orange County for $327,000, in Dutchess County for $322,000, in Ulster County for $275,000, and in Columbia County for under $225,000. Statewide, home sales fell by 2.5 percent year over year in July and the median sales price was $252,000.

Watch The WiFi
People should avoid using Wi-Fi wherever possible because of the risks it may pose to health, the German government has said. And Germany’s official radiation protection body also advises its citizens to use landlines instead of mobile phones, and warns of “electrosmog” from a wide range of other everyday products, from baby monitors to electric blankets. The Environment Ministry recommended that people should keep their exposure to radiation from Wi-Fi “as low as possible” by choosing “conventional wired connections.”
Florian Emrich of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection says Wi-Fi should be avoided “because people receive exposures from many sources and because it is a new technology and all the research into its health effects has not yet been carried out”.

New Center
SUNY New Paltz has announced the creation of the new Center for Research, Regional Education and Outreach, which will be directed by Gerald Benjamin, the former GOP county legislator who is dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at New Paltz. The center will lead the college’s efforts to increase its engagement within communities, government and businesses across the Hudson Valley. It is expected to focus existing college resources on service to the region and New York state.
Among the center’s activities will be conducting and publicizing research on regional topics; encouraging faculty members to make regional service part of their scholarship and teaching; creating and directing institutes on topics of regional interest; leading the college’s academic outreach to local governments and non-profit and for-profit organizations; and creating programs to train newly elected regional officials.
Benjamin, a former chairman of the Legislature, will have the title of director of the center, as well as associate vice president for regional engagement. He will step down as dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in May 2008 after 12 years in the position.
Benjamin chaired the commission that proposed the first charter for Ulster County, which was adopted by voters in November 2006, and was appointed to Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s Commission on Local Government Efficiency in 2007.

No To Green
Members of Preserve Marbletown, a group of citizens concerned about the prospect of a housing development at the Stone Ridge Orchard, are skeptical of the orchard owner’s assertion that the project is dead. Orchard owner Dan Hauspurg said recently that he was abandoning his proposed Marbletown Green project because he had received too much negative feedback from the community.
Hauspurg’s plan was to create an environmentally friendly, or “green,” project, comprising 350 or more houses, that would incorporate the ideas and concerns of citizens. But the response from opponents was to place green signs throughout the town that condemned the proposal. Hauspurg said he didn’t want to engage in a fight with the community.
A community meeting on Aug. 25 at which the housing project was discussed drew nearly 300 people.
Among the concerns of Preserve Marbletown were the proposal’s size and whether a development so large could be environmentally friendly.