(News Briefs September 28, 2006)

Budget Time!
Town supervisor Bert Leifeld will present his preliminary 2007 budget at the next Olive Town Meeting at the Meeting Hall on Bostock Road next Tuesday, October 3, at 7:30 pm. According to Leifeld, rising fuel costs have hit the town’s highway department hard and he’s currently working to wrangle in what is presently looking like a 7 to 10 percent spending hike for the coming year. Leifeld added that the rising cost of fuel, combined with the loss of pre-pay deals, is starting to effect maintenance schedules for rural towns such as Olive.
More in our next issue...

28 Repairs!
At its recent hearing at the Olive Meeting Hall, the State Department of Transportation announced a decision to make repairs to Route 28 in Boiceville without closing the highway and detouring traffic.
Flooding last June damaged a culvert under the highway near Dancing Rock Road, but the pipe is so deep underground the job is expected to take up to two months to complete.
The project, expected to begin in November, will be done in sections so at least one lane can be open to traffic at all times.
Engineers estimate that a 140 foot wide excavation is needed to dig down to get replace the culvert at it deepest point, which 50 feet underneath the eastbound lane.
Drivers of smaller vehicles will be encouraged to use the small side roads to avoid the construction zone, but large trucks will need to continue to use Route 28, as none of the side roads are large enough to accommodate them.
The project cannot begin until other DOT crews complete work on Route 223A in Greene County, which suffered severe damage during thee same flood last June. If DOT cannot begin the Route 28 project next month, the project might be put on hold until after the New Year, officials said.

Super Search II
The Onteora school board is once again interviewing candidates for
school district superintendent. Board president Marino D’Orazio said
that they are scheduled to interview two candidates.
“I do not know too much about them,” he said, “we found them through our consultant and they are both superintendents.”
One is coming in from California and the other is from New York, but D’Orazio did not have any other information available. He said, “if these two don’t work out, than the search continues.”
If the school board considers the two new candidates a viable option, than they will present them to the public sometime in the near future.
Richard Lerer Consulting Services have led the search for superintendent. Lerer found Justine Winters to replace Dr. Hal Rowe who retired in 2004. Winters retired, due to cancer and passed away in May. The school board recommended two candidates in June, but neither were
chosen due to negative feedback from the public.
In other matters, the school board has set aside a couple of hours on Wednesday, October 4 for a Board Retreat, after which they will move into a special session, open to the public, where they will discuss the setting of goals for the coming year. The retreat will take place in Central Administration offices, meeting in the High School Cafeteria... both in Boiceville.

Dam Update
A year-long process designed to stabilize the New York City-owned Schoharie Reservoir’s Gilboa Dam is currently scheduled for completion in mid-December, a little ahead of schedule, according to the City’s Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Emily Lloyd.
To achieve the stabilization, a complicated process involving the installation of 79 anchoring cables drilled into bedrock costing upwards of $24 million, the city not only installed water release siphons and cut a chunk out of the existing dam, but opened its water release tunnel emptying into Ulster County’s Esopus Creek full-throttle for the past nine months via the so-called Allaben Portal.
Responding to area concerns about mass flooding brought about by the stabilization project, which was triggered after city and state standards were updated to take into account the sorts of changing weather patterns that have resulted in recurring floods throughout the region in recent years, as well as such national disasters as last year’s Hurricane Katrina devastation of the city of New Orleans, Lloyd added that the city DEP will also be searching out ways to use the City’s reservoirs to assist in flood management throughout the region.
Last March, Lloyd committed the DEP to extending a snow pack-based flood management program, running from December through March, to the Pepacton and Neversink reservoirs on the Delaware River, as well as the Schoharie. In the coming months, she said in the recent announcement, the Department “will be seeking to develop additional spill mitigation programs” throughout the watershed area, including the Ashokan, which many downstream of it along the Esopus have blamed for a series of recent floods.
Lloyd’s statements came during a press conference held with Schoharie County Board of Supervisors Chairman Earl Vanwormer on Monday to announce that the DEP has committed to funding a full $370,000 for an early warning system and emergency flood planning costs, including the installation of new floodgates at the Gilboa Dam.
A full scale, four-year reconstruction of the dam that had been scheduled to begin in 2010 has been advanced, Lloyd said, and will begin in 2008 at an estimated cost of $300 million. The full-scale reconstruction project will bring the decades-old structure up to State standards for new dam construction.
At one point, in an attempt to deflect possible flood damage from snow melt-off and the Spring’s heavy rains, the DEP opened up old flood channels on the Ashokan Field Campus in Olivebridge, ostensibly closing down the facility, which later went up for sale (still pending), for several months.
Concerns about raised water levels along the Upper Esopus Creek were voiced by a number of Shandaken landowners, and the town’s supervisor, at a public hearing held by the DEP in Olive last winter. Similarly, concerns about high Ashokan Reservoir water levels on downstream flooding in Marbletown, Hurley, Ulster and Saugerties led to the formation of an ad hoc committee of those town’s supervisors that have been meeting to discuss mitigation over the past year.

Re-Discovered
“The Catskill Water Discovery Center will be a one of a kind center—and the world-class architectural design will reflect that,” reads the website description of the multi-million dollar project set for a presentation to the Woodstock area curious at the Woodstock Artists Association and Museum this Thursday, September 28, at 7 pm. “With roofs rising to mountain peaks, stone works and flowing water, the building will actually be a miniature example of the way the watershed works.”
The “free presentation” will likely mirror a series of similar events last Spring in Shandaken and Middletown where a model of the $20 million proposed museum by West Hurley architect Joseph Hurvitz was shown, expecting the fact that the entity has since been renamed The Water Discovery Center in the Catskills.
The project, slated for 44 acres of land in the Delaware county community of Arkville, was originally based on an idea by local developer Dean Gitter’s, who insisted that a watershed museum be funded by one million dollars of New York City money under the 1997 memorandum of agreement. At the time Gitter, who was alleged by a Sullivan County Planning Director to have come to fisticuffs over allocation of the included museum funds, had yet to announce his plansto build the controversial thousand-room Belleayre Resort, still pending.
The original Watershed Museum, presaged by a briefly existing Visitor’s Center located at Gitter’s Catskill Corners complex in Mt. Tremper (later renamed Emerson Place), was to have originally been built in Shandaken adjacent to his planned resort. When the then Shandaken town board refused to release saved town funds of approximately $400,000, received as part of the City-Upstate MOA agreement as “Good Neighbor Monies,” the project decided to move across the town and county line to Arkville. Around the same time, Gitter divorced himself from direct involvement with the project.
Most of the city’s original $1 million commitment was lost after organizers failed to build the project within the time frame originally agreed upon in 1997. In 2004, it was announced that $5 million was needed to really do the job right and a major fund raising campaign was launched. But when funding proved elusive. it was decided by Board president Gary Gailes, a former consultant to, and associate of Gitter, that funding would flow more freely if the plans were expanded... and the budget quadrupled.
The Catskill Water Discovery Center is now envisioned as 20,000 square feet of exhibit and classroom space, plus a sculpture garden, art gallery, amphitheater, restaurant, and a network of nature trails.
Refreshments, if the past is any indication, will likely be served.

Health Help?
Consciously seeking not to repeat last year’s 37 percent tax increase, the County Legislature is currently entering its annual budget process seweking to find savings… possibly via its allocation of health benefits. Chairman David Donaldson has submitted a plan he says could knock four percent off the property tax rate by rolling back health care costs to $17 million, the county’s 2005 spending levels… without a reduction in access or quality of health care.
Donaldson said the savings would come largely through doubling the current $10 health care co-pay for county employees. He said for many county employees, there could actually be a net savings because by increasing the co-pay, the premium for membership in a health plan will go down. Employees pay 15 percent of that premium.
County Manager Michael Hein endorsed Donaldson’s outline of the potential savings, and Republican Minority Leader Glenn Noonan appeared to give Donaldson’s plan a perhaps begrudging endorsement.
The increase applies to all county employees, though managers still can recoup much of the expense through the County Plus Plan. Employees covered by MVP will not see a change in prescription co-pays. Inpatient service co-pays also will be applied to health maintenance organizations, with the highest at $500 for CDPHP and MVP 20. However, Donaldson said employees will not see a change in net cost for inpatient services because the county plans to reimburse employees… and a hardship fund will be established for union members who cannot carry the added expense.
The county’s 358 Medicare-eligible retirees, meanwhile, will be required to apply for Medicare and use the county’s insurance as a supplement.
“This is similar savings to having 100 people laid off,” saidl Hein. “This kind of thing can save jobs and really protect the property owner, which is our real goal.”
Even so, Donaldson still expects layoffs after the county 2007 budget is released Oct. 19. He said health-care cost reductions will shave 4 percentage points off an anticipated 30 percent tax increase for 2007.

Onterora Merits
Two Onteora students, Matthew V. Panico and Jonathan L. Perrin, are among about 16,000 nationwide to be named this month as National Merit Scholarship semifinalists. The semifinalists will be considered for some 8,200 Merit Scholarship awards, worth $33 million, that will be offered next spring.
To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award, semifinalists must advance to the finalist level of the competition by fulfilling several requirements. About 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, and about half will be selected as Merit Scholarship winners, earning the Merit Scholar title.
More than 1.4 million 11th-graders in nearly 21,000 high schools entered the 2007 National Merit Program by taking the 2005 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants.
The nationwide pool of semifinalists, which represents less than 1 percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.
To become a finalist, a semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by the school principal and earn SAT scores that confirm the student’s earlier qualifying test performance. The semifinalist and a school official must submit a detailed scholarship application, including the student’s self-descriptive essay and information about the semifinalist’s participation and leadership in school and community activities.
Merit Scholar designees are selected on the basis of their skills, accomplishments and potential for success in rigorous college studies, without regard to gender, race, ethnic origin or religious preference.

Charter Talk
Ulster County residents had a chance recently to hear different opinions on the proposed county charter that will be on the ballot in November. The event, which attracted approximately 50 people to Temple Emanuel in Kingston, wass presented by the League of Women Voters. The featured speakers, Gerald Benjamin, chairman of the former charter commission and a former Legislature Chairman, and William West, a former Legislature chairman and Woodstock town supervisor, offered opposing points of view on the proposed charter. Both are Republicans.
Benjamin, dean of liberal arts and sciences at SUNY New Paltz, said the county needs a new form of government to keep up with changes in the county’s economy, population and way of doing business. He said the proposed charter answers the demands of the public, which include full-time leadership, a locus of authority, proper fiscal oversight and accountability, and a fail-safe system.
West favors the idea of a charter, but opposes the current proposal, which he said “emasculates the legislative branch and gives dictatorial powers to the executive.” West suggested a county management system headed by a county manager who is not involved in politics and already familiar with the day-to-day duties of managing a large entity. He encouraged listeners to vote against the proposed charter and support a management system instead.
Benjamin said an elected executive could better carry out initiatives than a county manager, with strong leadership skills and a political knowledge needed to bring people from different points of view and backgrounds together. West argued that the proposed charter would foster a corrupt and powerful political machine, since department heads serving at the pleasure of the incumbent executive will try to bolster his or her re-election.
“The driving force of a career in politics is to get re-elected,” West said. “This is not the good government we would all like to see.”
Residents raised questions about the amount of power a county executive might wield and why the Health and Mental Health department boards were demoted to advisory roles in the proposed charter.
Benjamin said the elected executive will have a controller looking over his or her shoulder for fiscal accountability, as well as a Legislature to oversee operations.

County Honorees
Mark Braunstein of Saugerties-based Markertek and Tower Products has been chosen Businessperson of the Year by the Ulster County Development Corp. and the Chamber of Commerce of Ulster County. Braunstein was cited for one of the six Ulster County Business Recognition Awards to be presented at the second annual ceremony Oct. 19 at the Wiltwyck Golf Club. Others to be honored are: Sono-Tek Corp., Business of the Year; Skate Time 209, Small Business of the Year; Shadowland Theatre, Cultural Business of the Year; The Birches at Saugerties, Building Project of the Year; and the Woodstock Film Festival, Tourism Business of the Year.
The awards recognize individual and business leadership, as well as investments and contributions to the economic future of Ulster County and the Hudson Valley, according to Chester J. Straub Jr.. president of the Ulster County Development Corp., and Ward Todd, president of the Chamber of Commerce.
For reservations and additional information about the awards dinner, seating for which is limited, call Linda Clark at (845) 338-8840, ext. 10, or e-mail her at lclark@ulsterny.com.

Paul’s Wins…
Democratic Ulster County Sheriff candidate Paul Van Blarcum defeated Republican Kevin Costello in two primaries Sept. 12 – for the Conservative and Independence Party lines. Van Blarcum appeared on the ballots and Costello was a write-in candidate.
Van Blarcum is hopeful this will be the forerunner to a November general election victory. “I think it shows the broad range of support I have in the community and in different parties,” he said. “It’s a good upbeat result for our campaign.”
Van Blarcum is a long-time member of the Ulster County Sheriff’s Office. Costello is a retired state police BCI lieutenant.

County Benefits
The County Legislature is currently reviewing a proposal to extend its employee health benefits to domestic partners of county workers is under rigorous review by the Domestic Partnership Assessment Subcommittee. Under the proposal, gay, lesbian and heterosexual couples who have lived together for at least a year and are financially interdependent would be eligible for benefits. A legislative subcommittee looking into the benefits extension is mulling whether to rely on two, rather than three, proofs of financial interdependence as evidence that a couple is living together, as a means of appeasing conservatives who oppose the extension.
Albany, Westchester, Suffolk, Tomkins, Rockland, and New York counties currently offer a domestic partner benefit program. None has yet reported a significant financial impact. Also, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service has ruled that if a domestic partner does not qualify as an employee’s dependent, excess health insurance coverage is considered a taxable fringe benefit. The IRS also says that an employee can only elect to provide coverage for a domestic partner, and not for any children of that partner.
Heath Committee Chairman Robert Parete, D-Boiceville, has said the issue is “not a pro-gay or pro-lesbian issue, nor is it a pro-heterosexual issue, but a way to make benefits available” to more county employees.
District two representative Brian Shapiro has added that although domestic benefits would be of “interest” to gay and lesbian couples “for obvious reasons... This would all go away if New York State did the right thing and let gay and lesbian couples get married.”

More TVs
The average American home now has more television sets than people. That threshold was crossed within the past two years, according to Nielsen Media Research. There are 2.73 TV sets in the typical home and 2.55 people, the researchers said.
With televisions now on buses, elevators and in airport lobbies, that development may have as much to do with TV’s ubiquity as an appliance as it does conspicuous consumption. The popularity of flat-screen TVs now make it easy to put sets where they haven’t been before.
Half of American homes have three or more TVs, and only 19 percent have just one, Nielsen said. In 1975, 57 percent of homes had only a single set and 11 percent had three or more, the company said. And in the average home, a television set is turned on for more than a third of the day - eight hours, 14 minutes, Nielsen said. That’s an hour more than it was a decade ago. Most of that extra TV viewing is coming outside of prime time, where TVs are on only four minutes more than they were 10 years ago.
The average person watches four hours, 35 minutes of television each day, Nielsen said. But while people are watching more television, ratings for the big broadcast networks have declined steadily. That’s a function of the greater number of channel choices available in each home, the company said.

Job Stats…
The number of jobs created year over year in August in the Hudson Valley and Catskills regions grew by over 9,000, according to statistics from the state Labor Department released this month. At the same time, the unemployment rates for many counties inched up by a few tenths of a percentage point.
John Nelson, a Department of Labor analyst said the regions’ economy is doing very well.
“When industries like the financial activities sector and the professional and business services are doing well, that’s a very good indication that our region is doing fairly well,” he said. “Professional and business services, they added 2,200 jobs, and not to be out done, educational and health services, they added 3,000 jobs over the past year.”
The largest job growth was in the Putnam-Rockland-Westchester area, followed by Dutchess-Orange, and then Ulster County. Greene, Columbia and Delaware counties all had job losses.

Gay Conference
Hot-button topics such as same-sex marriage, gay and lesbian youth, sexual health and aging will be showcased in seminars and workshops at “Come Out & Find Out,” the first-ever conference devoted to issues facing the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) community of The Mid-Hudson Valley.
“Come Out & Find Out” will take place on Saturday, September 30, 2006, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Holiday Inn, 503 Washington Avenue, Kingston, NY. The event is sponsored by the Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center Inc. and co-sponsored by Stonewall Communities.
“The LGBTQ Community must still struggle to attain the rights accorded all other Americans,” said Ginny Apuzzo, President of the Board of the Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center, Inc. “We remain second-class citizens. The Come Out & Find Out conference was designed to provide people with the knowledge, legal tools and inspiration to move forward to achieve this goal. Once our community center has a home — and we’re very close to realizing that dream — the services and information offered at this conference will be available year-round at the center. Gay or straight, we welcome you to attend Come Out & Find Out.”
The Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center, Inc., was established in 2005 and currently seeks a permanent home in Kingston. Already, 600 individuals and families have registered as Center members. The Center would provide social services, as well as cultural outreach and advocacy on issues important to the entire Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community. Center events and fundraisers are held throughout the year, including an upcoming Halloween party on October 28 in Stone Ridge.

Cancer Options
Breast Cancer Options, a local nonprofit organization with a mission of making sure that women with breast cancer get the support and information they need to make informed health choices, especially at a time when they are under stress is holding a “A celebration of life” Breast Cancer Awareness Fundraiser and Silent Auction on October 7, at the Bridgewater Bar & Grill, 50 Abeel Street, Kingston, featuring the band Sonando.
Breast Cancer Options serves the counties of: Ulster, Columbia, Greene, Dutchess, and Sullivan and in many areas provide the only services that exist for women with breast cancer. Services include 10 breast cancer support groups located throughout the Hudson Valley, Companion/Advocates (trained breast cancer survivors) to accompany newly diagnosed women to initial medical appointments, weekly e-news (BCO News) updates and sign-up is on their website and an annual Complementary Medicine conference, held in the spring featuring MD,s and healthcare providers who are experts in the field. In addition to all of that, a Healthy Lifestyles calendar is published yearly featuring information on risk reduction, chemicals consumers should avoid and a list of products they are in, diet, stress reduction, detoxification and other relevant information. The 2006 calendar can be seen at http://www.breastcanceroptions.org/ (click on Healthy Lifestyles) and can be ordered by phone. It is free except for shipping charges.
For information or to pre-register for the fundraiser: 845/339-HOPE (4673) www.breastcanceroptions.org

Government Day
Guest speakers at the upcoming Catskills Local Government Day will discuss how some communities in the region are utilizing and promoting renewable energy to fuel municipal operations. This timely topic will be the focus of the afternoon session at the Sixth Annual Local Government Day, to be held Thursday, Oct. 19 at Hanah Country Inn, Margaretville. Registration deadline is October 12. For an agenda and registration materials, go to www.cwconline.org/special/gov_day, or call the Catskill Watershed Corporation (CWC) at 845-586-1400.

Harvest Table
The Olive Library will be hosting a special Harvest Table and Lunch from 10 am to 2 pm on Saturday, October 7 at the Library. For sale will be books, baked goods, and such harvest items as maple syrup, jams and pickles, as well as local produce and plants.
Then a special homemade soup lunch will be served.
The event is free.