Dear Editor,
I am writing to invite the involvement of all constituents in the Onteora Central School District Community in an important series of meetings with our architects that will take place in the weeks ahead.
As you may know, our Board of Education has employed an architectural firm to conduct a thorough analysis of our buildings and grounds so that thoughtful decisions can be made about the future use of our facilities.
Key issues under discussion include the future use of the West Hurley Elementary School (the Levins Building and the Ryan Building), the location of a separate and distinct Middle School, and renovations needed to upgrade instructional space, infrastructure, safety and energy efficiency at all of our schools.
The architects have completed extensive tours at each of our facilities and have met with the Board of Education, the administration and the Commission for the Future of the District. Meetings have been scheduled for them to meet with faculty members and other employees. Their goal is to gather as much information as possible from members of each group regarding our facilities before they bring recommendations to our Board of Education. It is the ideal time to share both practical and innovative ideas, dreams and visions for the future of Onteora.
Now is the time for members of our community to speak up and offer suggestions, ask questions and participate in a dialogue with our architects. I hope that you will consider attending one of the meetings that has been planned for PTA and Community Members. Your input is important to us! Here is the schedule:
Monday, November 28 at 6 p.m. at Phoenicia Elementary School
Thursday, December 1t at 6 p.m. at Woodstock Elementary School
Monday, December 5 at 6 p.m. for West Hurley School at Woodstock Elementary School
Monday, December 12 at 6 p.m. at the High School/Middle School
Monday, December 19 at 6 p.m. for the Bus Garage & Central Administration at the High School/Middle School
If you can't attend the meetings, and you have input to share, please either email me (jwinters@onteora.k12.ny.us) or call me at the District Office (657-8851). I will be glad to listen to your suggestions and questions and bring them forward at our meetings. This is an exciting time for the Onteora Central School District when each of us can have a voice in plans for future generations of Onteora students. I look forward to seeing many community members at our meetings.
Justine Winters, Superintendent
Onteora Central School District

Dear Editor,
I have all respect for the Courts and other State Commissions, but, when they fail to interpret the laws as written I find it necessary to defend those who were affected by the misinterpretations.
Of late, the press has brought to the attention of the public a complaint brought on against two Town Justices in the Town of Olive by the City of New York causing them to be censured by the State Commission of Judicial Conduct.
The Motor Vehicle Law states that Villages and Cities can control the speed limits only within their own municipalities. All others must apply to the State Traffic Commission for approval.
New York City on their own posted 35 mile per hour speed limit signs along the Route 28A corridor and on Reservoir Road. This area is not within their municipality, therefore making the posting illegal.
If this posting is illegal, how then can the Town Justices, in all good conscience, and with common sense, honor summons which were issued in this area which violated the 35 mile per hour speed limit.
If the Higher Courts interpreted this area as part of the New York City Municipality and honored the reduced speed, shouldn't the summons have been written and returnable at a Municipal or Traffic Court in the City of New York?
Further, if this area is not part of a municipality and the courts honored the illegal posting of speed limit signs, then, wouldn't it be legal for all property owners to regulated the speed limit in front of their personal residences?
This whole problem could have been voided if New York City had followed the proper procedures when they decided to change the existing speed limits.
I sincerely believe the censures on the speed limit sign problem were inappropriate and should be withdrawn.
Arthur Sampsen
Olivebridge, NY

Dear Editor,
I would like to thank the voters of Olive for choosing me to replace retiring Judge Barringer as Town Justice. My campaign wouldn't have been possible without the support of so many Olive residents, from allowing me in your homes to speak about my qualifications to helping address mailings introducing me and my family to all our neighbors (no matter where you live in Olive). Following the election, I've also
already had the pleasure of sitting down and speaking with Judges Wright and Barringer. In the next four years as one of your town justices, I will work to ensure that our town court remains the fair and impartial court that we all expect.
Thank you again for your support and trust.
Timothy Cox
Olive Town Justice Elect

Dear Editor,
Sadly, this letter is not germane to anything in the Olive Press but I find both incidents quite interesting and remarkable for the callousness and "devil may care" attitude(s).
The Seattle Times of November 11, 2005 carries an account of a fight breaking out in a Tacoma courtroom after a 19 year old man is sentenced to 30 years for first-degree murder. The antagonists are the family of the convicted perpetrator one of whom yelled out following the sentencing , "the man [the victim] was 69 ; he wasn't going to live forever". The brawl lasted for 20 seconds before Sheriff's deputies broke it up and detectives were going to run the video to determine if any laws were broken.
The victim was a Navy submarine veteran and used a cane following hip replacement when he was attacked by three young men aged 17, 19 and 21. The 17 and 21 year old are awaiting trial on the same first degree murder charges.
The remark that the 69 year old victim "wasn't going to live forever" is absolutely true, though bizarre and the perpetrator's family believes that prison time should be based on the victim's age at the time of "execution". Perhaps sentencing in capital crimes should be determined by the insurance companies who are experts in life expectancy and let the judges just "legislate" from the bench. Instead of the family counting their blessings for the prison term in lieu of the death penalty they became angry, belligerent and menacing. That's real gratitude.
The second account is from my own experience watching the evening news the last few evenings. [Yogi declares, "you can see a lot by watching"]. It is a scene of a US Senate hearing room in which American Oil Barons are about to be questioned on their alleged gouging of the American automobile and truck operators. Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, the committee chairman was in the process of denying the committee and the American people of the time tested practice of administering the oath [to tell the truth] to these oil company CEO's. When Senator Barbara Boxer of California requested a committee vote as to whether the oath would be given or not Senator Stevens became quite arrogant and nasty in denying that simple exercise. Sen. Stevens is a Republican who would deny a fair and revealing hearing for whatever reason and it is these tactics among others that let corporate pirates break the [moral] law with impunity. Won't it be delightful when Kenneth Lay [of Enron fame] comes before a committee and avoids prosecution for possible or probable lying. Lay will most likely be immunized from prosecution for testifying so "truthfully".
Rafael Palmeiro, a major league player obviously had to take the oath last October when testifying before a congressional committee in relation to using steroids and vitamin B-12. Perjury charges for Palmeiro were avoided this week in a 40 page report while Senator Stevens was acting the role of potentate par excellence.
My question to Sen. Stevens [and other high and mighty defenders of the current Washington mind set] is this; Is the alleged use of steroids by a sports figure more serious than the oil moguls reaching into our pockets and stealing more than what is fair just because they can.
Now that the Democrat party has thrashed the Republican legislators of Ulster County and removed that bit of arrogance we need to move to the next level. Remember our Military folks and their families. Some "talking heads" declare that "if you support the troops, you support the war". Yeh, right!
I still wonder what we are doing in Iraq. I appreciate a "good" old fashioned war and have myself participated in a couple. Many veterans of various conflicts just today [Nov 11] registered their displeasure with the charade in Iraq for numerous reasons while marching in or observing the parade. "Unidentifiable enemy" was the main concern. "They did nothing to us was another. WWII vets were the most confused.
Glenn T. Anderson
Olivebridge, NY

Dear Editor,
Did Saddam have chemical weapons? NO, but we do!
Recently an appalling story from a brave soldier with a conscience has emerged but, as usual, it is being covered up. WE ARE MELTING PEOPLE IN IRAQ! Yes, melting people, including women and children, with a chemical weapon called white phosphorous. This courageous soldiers first hand account said “I received the order use caution because we had used white phosphorus on Fallujah. In military slag it is called 'Willy Pete'. Phosphorus burns the human body on contact--it even melts it right down to the bone.”
How can we, the American people, let this happen? Can you even imagine what being melted to death feels like? Don’t be fooled by Bush’s cowboy ways, he knows and doesn’t care, he's gotta win at all costs! Apparently, it’s just an unfortunate dirty side of his righteous crusade. I wonder what Jesus would do?
P.S. Don't forget that we have killed 30,000 (or more) Iraqi's. Thats way more than Saddam. Who wins?
David Turan
USAF Veteran, Iran-Iraq War
Stamford, NY

Dear Editor,
Corpses in an open grave. A huge old warehouse. A huge furnace. A cemetery, or rather, a place where bodies were in unmarked graves, secretly and illegally. I was about to be part of this or was I already part of it? There were people about, youths who I had to chase away. I decided to call the police and not be a part of it, put a stop to it. I called 911. I said, "I have discovered some dead bodies," and I was immediately cut off. I turned around there were four distinguished men in suits looking at me. I realized they had intercepted my call. I had not given the police the name of the street were I was but hoped they could trace my call.
Is this dream of a death factory, the death factory that the Bush administration and the Congress and we, the American people, have created in Iraq?
Robert Jacobson
Mt. Tremper, NY

Dear Editor,
I was in Jerusalem this summer for the 13th Annual Conference of Women in Black. Seven hundred and fifty women from fifty countries attended. Women in Black originated there in 1988 when Israeli women took to the streets to protest their government's military occupation of Palestine. As part of the conference, international women traveled to Ramallah to speak with Palestinian women, who were, by Israeli law, prohibited from entering Jerusalem; likewise, the Israeli women could not join us in Ramallah, as it was illegal for them to enter the Occupied Territories.
We visited the village of Bil'in near Ramallah and participated in a peaceful vigil: We accompanied local families down a path past their homes to the end of the way where IDF soldiers guarded the construction of the Separation Wall that will enclose the village and cut its people off from neighbors and their livelihood - the olive groves. Old and young stood quietly together as a community.
Just as I feel a deep responsibility as an American citizen to be aware of and respond to policies and actions of the U.S. government's military occupation of Iraq, I also feel (perhaps especially as a Jewish woman) a responsibility to keep aware of and share what is happening in Israel and the Occupied Territories - no matter how painful. And when I see grave injustice, to speak out.
The weekly peaceful protest I was part of in Bil'in is now being met with unleashed force by the IDF: tear-gas, rubber-coated bullets, night-time raids on homes, arrests of children, detention in jails. The faces of these men, women and children who greeted us in peace are seared in my memory.
I recently received a moving text from the Woodstock Jewish Congregation that brings home the necessity of seeing "the other":
An Hassidic rabbi asked his students, "When is it at dawn that one can tell the light from the darkness?" One student replied, "When I can tell a goat from a donkey." "No," answered the rabbi. Another said, "When I can tell a palm tree from a fig tree." "No," answered the rabbi again. "Well, then what is the answer?" his students pressed him. "Only when you look into the face of every man and every woman and see your brother and your sister," said the rabbi. "Only then have you seen the light. All else is still darkness."
Jane Toby
Catskill, NY

Dear Editor,
We would like to invite everyone to participate in a very special event. For the very first time, the Onteora Girls Varsity Softball Team has the opportunity to attend spring training in Orlando, Florida. Spring training is an invaluable way to prepare for the upcoming softball season. We need your help in order to make this trip possible.
Here’s how you can help:
1. In order to raise the needed funds, the girls will be holding a silent auction on December 10th from 1 to 4 PM at Hickory BBQ on Route 28 in Kingston. Please consider contributing an item to our silent auction. Items that we are looking for include: gift baskets, wine, holiday décor items, food items and books.
2. We invite you to attend the auction and encourage you to bring a friend. There is an admission price of $10 per person and includes a light lunch provided by Hickory BBQ.
3. Another way that you can help is to make a donation directly to the softball team. For a donation of $1000, you can sponsor one of the players. However, donations of any amount are welcome.
Thank you in advance for your support of this important event. Together we can make a difference!
Sincerely,
Marie Shultis
Parent Coordinator
(845)417-1483

Dear Editor,
Just a few very important words of thanks to the good folks that stopped to be sure I was alright after I struck a deer on Route 28, the night of Nov. 14.
A couple folks could see that there was damage to the front of the car and took the time to turn around to make sure I was okay - but there was one individual in particular, who not only stopped and offered to call someone, but came back to let me know that police were on the way.
For that I am indebted, and hope that someday, I will repay the favor by stopping along the road to make sure someone else is okay in a similar situation.
It will really be a welcome relief when cell coverage comes to Olive.
Cindy Johansen
West Shokan, NY