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Follow Up on the
News
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The proposed
plant, to be built for a projected $8,828,000, entered its
second stage of development last month when the Olive town
board agreed to proceed from the preliminary study to the
preconstruction phase of the
project. Engineer Henry Lamont of Lamont Engineers in Cobleskill
pointed out earlier this week that the CWC has now obtained
notification from New
York City of an offer of a block grant in the amount determined
by his study to cover not only the “main service”
area in Boiceville and the Onteora school complex but also
the “extension area” of the study which reaches
along Route 28 to the Bread Alone Bakery and the end of
DeSilva Road. Once
built, however, the cost of operating and maintaining the
plant, estimated at $559,000 a year (or $533,000, depending
upon the type of facility chosen), would become Olive’s
responsibility.
The overall budget is first mitigated by Section 1104 of
NY State Health
Department law, which stipulates that when a downstream
entity requires greater than normal water treatment, it
must bear the increased cost directly itself. In this case,
since the plant is in the watershed, DEP rules and requirements
insist upon phosphorous removal, disinfection, sand filtration
and microfiltration in addition to regular wastewater treatment
and must assume those annual costs, which work out to 22%
of the budget or
$117,373, leaving a burden of $415,963 to commercial and
residential
properties in the sewer district.
With any additional costs of the plant to the Onteora school
complex covered by a separate “upgrade” program,
the remaining fees fall to residents and commercial properties.
At a price of $7.03 per gallon treated, the 111 households
in the affected area would owe an estimated $168,172 without
a promised $158, 932 subsidy from the DEP. With that subsidy,
owners of residential property will be charged only $100
a year. As of now, however, there are no subsidies to cover
the daily per gallon charge to the 30
businesses involved. In some cases, those costs could be
devastating.
“If it goes to wastewater treatment, I would opt (to
have my establishment)
metered,” said Paula Minew, who operates the Sunoco
Station and Pitstop on Route 28 in Boiceville, “because
I would also have to shut down the carwash. I’d have
no choice. They meter your well usage and the car wash uses
5 gallons a minute for each (4 minute) wash. At the $1.50
or $1.75 that I charge, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist
to figure it out.”
Mario Occhi, owner of the Boiceville Supermarket since 1989,
said he attended the meeting earlier this month which discussed
the wastewater project and felt that the plant “will
have a long term impact on our viability as a community.”
It would be imperative, he thought, for NYC to subsidize
businesses in the area involved. His market, which has 45
employees, doesn’t produce anything which requires
water, he noted, and uses water primarily for cleaning before
and after business hours.
“I would appreciate some kind of subsidized program
because I have two
restaurants in the plaza here,” said Kevin Scanlan,
former president of a Boiceville Business Association which
he said disbanded over a decade ago. “I have the Chinese
restaurant and Subway and both of them use a lot of water
for washing dishes and so on- almost 1,000 gallons a day.
I already have a meter on the building and it’s over
20,000 gallons a month. I didn’t
realize that this would be as expensive for the business
owner as they’re
saying now.”
With 75 employees, the standard estimated flow of 15 gpd
per employee would hit the Stucki Embroidery hard but owner
Murray Feinwick was out of town
this week and unavailable for comment.
A commercial subsidy, Henry Lamont observes, is “a
very important ‘if’.” He doesn’t
know how much, if anything, the “commercials”
can get in the way of
subsidy from New York City.
“First, we have to get the cost down below $533,286
and we’ve got to get a subsidy for the commercials,”
he said, noting that the DEP granted yearly
subsidies of $10,000 to be divided by commercial taxpayers
in 6 of the first 7 communities targeted by the water infrastructure
program (NIP). “The commercial flow here, however,
has a higher percentage than the other communities - Andes,
Phoenicia, Fleischmans, Hunter all have a higher residential
base and can pick up a greater percentage of the cost but
here
the commercial is over 60%. In Bloomville, Hamden, Bovina
Center, it’s not even 10%. So, we’re recommending
that the town asks for a higher subsidy
than the $10,000 in order for the project to be acceptable.”
And then there are questions like upgrading the plant once
Olive “owns” it. Will the Health Department’s
Section 1104 cover the addition of new processes to remove
compounds like drug residues, which Lamont admits are only
partially addressed by technology already in the plant’s
design?
Olive Supervisor Brendt Leifeld looks at the plant as a
kind of Hobson’s
Choice- (or very little choice at all).
“If you don’t (approve the plant) and, down
the road the state comes down
and says you WILL do it, well, now you pay for the whole
thing,” Leifeld
said. “That’s the carrot and stick trick they
have. But I don’t think this plant should get our
okay if it’s going to screw up the few businesses
that we have. What sense does that make?”
“It isn’t like there’s raw sewage running
down Upper Boiceville Road.
Everything seems to be fine,” he said. “They
just spent God knows how many
millions fixing up everybody’s septic system and now
they want to come
around and tear them up. The whole thing doesn’t make
sense to me, to be
honest with you.”
Despite
Olive’s Protest
On a district-wide basis, though, the $44,644,222
budget, a 3.08 percent tax increase, passed 1455-1263
with Olive as the only town to defeat the proposal.
The two board seats up for election went to Maxanne
Resnick, with a majority of 1544 votes, and incumbent
Herb Rosenfeld with 1204 votes. Write-in candidate Haug
was defeated with 919 votes, 729 directly from Olive.
Rosenfeld, who is considered a controversial board member,
often debates the board majority and voted recently
against deep budget cuts such as the closure of West
Hurley School and recent cuts in special education.
He was thrilled and surprised of being re-elected. “You
almost got rid of me,” he yelled out jokingly.
As everyone was analyzing the numbers school board trustee
Marino D’Orazio voiced surprise at Rosenfeld gaining
votes in Olive. Laughing he said, “177 votes,
this must have been me and my extended family in Marbletown!”
Resnick breathing a sigh of relief that campaigning
was over said she was thrilled of her majority lead.
“I want to thank everyone for coming out to vote,”
she said.
School board members offered hand shakes of congratulations
to the winners.
Haug said, “A lot of people discovered that they
had a way to vote that they did not know they had.”
He was glad he offered people a choice by running as
a write-in candidate. The town of West Hurley also cast
one vote each for Robert Campbell, Danielle Smith and
Donna Sharp.
The school board members will serve a three-year term
beginning July 1, 2006 and ending June 30, 2009.
The transportation proposals saw defeat on both counts.
Proposition two asking voters to purchase two vehicles
were defeated 1248-1362. Woodstock and West Hurley were
the two towns supporting the proposals, but it was not
enough to tip an approval. Proposition three that asked
for an additional two years on a three year contract
for Hoyt bus company was also defeated, 970-1613. This
proposal stirred the most anger through the school community
because the re-bidding of contracts eliminated the use
of four contract bus companies, down to one. Woodstock
was the only town that supported the proposition. With
the proposal defeated, the school board will need to
either re-bid the contract or renew the contract next
year.
Yet at
the same time, the CWT, as evidenced at its May 15
annual meeting, is willingly turning its back on new
issues involving New York City sewer building projects…
in particular, one facing growing community opposition
– and consequently raising eyebrows –
in Phoenicia.
The CWT, founded in the early 1990s to fight New York
City’s proposed watershed regulation changes
– a series of battles eventually won with the
signing of the 1997 Memorandum of Agreement and founding
of the Catskill Watershed Corporation — came
under fire in recent years for having weighed in on
the ongoing battle over Dean Gitter’s plans
to create a mega-resort in the central Catskills,
as well as the Large Parcel issue that roiled the
town of Olive and Onteora School District.
In the past year, the Coalition has countered complaints
that its executive board does not communicate with
its constituent towns by promising regular release
of minutes and other information, as well as the eventual
creation of an online presence, while simultaneously
browbeating those towns that have questioned their
authority and manner of governance – such as
Woodstock – with stories about their importance
a decade ago.
At the May 15 meeting in Margaretville, CWT officials
put out a warning to any community thinking of not
paying or submitting only a portion of the $500 annual
dues that their interests will not be represented
by the Coalition if they do so. The CWT repeatedly
stressed how it goes to bat for locales that are under
attack by the New York City Department of Environmental
Protection.
When the Town of Halcott said it could not afford
all of the proposed fee hike, the Coalition’s
Executive Committee responded that Halcott would be
notified that the town would not receive any services
from the Coalition unless the dues are paid in full.
Should Halcott decline, the Committee’s members
continued, it would forego Coalition representation
during a time when the Coalition is negotiating changes
in the watershed deal, made in 1997, between New York
City and the 51 watershed communities that make up
the watershed region.
It was also mentioned that information circulated
by the Coalition to membership towns would no longer
be sent… even though promises had been made
in recent weeks to the contrary.
Halcott Supervisor Innes Kasanof said the day after
the CWT meeting that her town board decided to only
pay $200 in dues because, with an annual budget of
$152,000, they felt they could not afford the hike.
She added that right now there are no concerns in
town about the watershed deal so the benefit of being
a Coalition member was not apparent. According to
sources, many in Halcott don’t think membership
is even worth $200 and are expected this week to urge
the town board to follow the lead of nearby Hardenburgh
and drop out of the coalition altogether.
Of all the Coalition members, 42 have paid in full.
Another 9, including the County of Ulster, have either
not paid anything or only a portion. The same letter
sent to Halcott will go out to those communities not
in good standing.
And although it exists to help watershed communities
resolve conflicts with the City of New York, the Coalition
of Watershed Towns appears to have no interest in
helping out Phoenicia, where the city is partially
financing a long-awaited sewer project.
For reasons not explained the Executive Committee,
the CWT has not come to the aid of Phoenicia, where
many fear crippling costs if the City builds the sewer
plant. Concern has reached fever pitch, even to the
point that the community may opt out of the program.
Even more perplexing than the Coalition’s stance,
Shandaken Supervisor Bob Cross Jr., a member of the
CWT Executive Committee, has not yet asked the Coalition
to come to his hamlet’s aid, choosing instead
to complain on Monday about a separate and benign
issue. The city, Cross claimed, was trying to get
a conservation easement on a 25 acre property in his
town. It was agreed that the City was well within
its rights to pursue the easement.
Also confusing is that while the Supervisor sees no
need for CWT assitance in the sewer debacle, he instead
attempted to get the Catskill Center for Conservation
and Development involved. CCCD Executive Director
Tom Alworth could not be reached for comment.
At the annual meeting May 15, committee members were
asked if they would help Phoenicia, which is reluctantly
pinning it’s hopes for an affordable system
on current negotiations between Cross and the City’s
Department of Environmental Protection.
The committee’s silence in response to the query
was deafening. Cross said nothing. Other committee
members glanced at Cross looking for some lead on
the matter, but got none and remained quiet as well.
The committee’s attorney, Jeff Baker, attempted
a response, saying that the Catskill Watershed Corporation,
a separate agency, was reviewing several programs
and that Coalition officials would be involved in
that process.
Next year the Federal Environmental Protection Agency
is expected to renew the city’s permit to avoid
building a massive multi-billion dollar filter system
for its drinking water, but only after a review of
how the partnership between the city’s Department
of Environmental Protection and the watershed communities
is working. By the end of this year plans should be
in place to fix bad programs, enhance good ones and
in general refine the details of the complex filtration
waiver.
Part of the process includes the Coalition giving
its blessing to the renewal. Such a blessing will
presumably be offered after the Coalition negotiates
arrangements to better the programs designed to help
the watershed communities. Topping their list of grievances,
which has not included anything about local wastewater
plants, the Coalition has complained that the City
does not allow for enough recreational use of city
owned land.
This all marks further decay for the Coalition, which
came under fire last winter from the Ulster County
town of Hardenburgh over the issue of dues. Hardenburgh’s
town board refused to pay and declined membership
in the Coalition this year. Similar complaints from
other Ulster County communities, as well as municipalities
elsewhere throughout the sprawling watershed, including
the Delaware County towns of Masonville and Stamford,
have also surfaced… only to be quieted when
the CWT promised better communications over the coming
year.
With those on hold, everything seems to be I a “Wait
and see” situation for the coming year.
Stay tuned…
She
Was A Friend Of Ours
“The
school board knew when they hired me that I was just
ending my chemo-therapy and I had a clean bill of
health, I felt great,” she said. As for her
reasons for resigning: “Emotionally, I am there,
but physically-not always… I love my job --
I cannot say that enough and it never occurred to
me that I would have to leave, but the district deserves
someone with 100 percent good health.”
Winters, 59, died last Thursday, May 18, at her West
Hurley home, three months after she gave the above
quotes.
Before coming to Onteora, Winters spent seven years
as superintendent of the Webutuck school district
in Dutchess County, incorporating the Route 22 corridor
towns of Armenia and Millerton, among several. Prior
to that, she was an assistant superintendent in Webutuck
for three years and a principal in that district for
nine years.
Winters signed a three-year contract to be Onteora’s
superintendent in July 2004. Her retirement was to
formally take effect June 2.
Winters succeeded Hal Rowe, who retired after a long
tenure in Onteora. Peter J. Ferrara, a former Ellenville
schools superintendent, was hired earlier this month
to succeed Winters on an interim basis.
Winters is survived by her husband, Charles; her mother,
Madalene Cobb of Wappingers Falls; two daughters,
Amy Winters of Greenfield, Mass., and Rebecca Winters-Keegan
of Los Angeles; and one sister, Judith Potter of Fayetteville,
N.Y. Funeral arrangements are pending at the Lasher
Funeral Home in Woodstock.
I recall how open she was the first time I interviewed
her, just after being hired the summer before last.
And how she always got back on every call for information
or a quote I gave her. She sent a heartfelt letter
of best wishes when I told her about how my wife and
I adopted a newborn this past January. She felt like
a friend… and yet she was always utterly professional,
a word that means little without the heart she applied
to her work.
Everyone I’ve spoken with about Justine’s
passing feels the same, from the many fine administrators
she brought to OCS with her in the past two years,
to the two different boards she worked with, various
teachers and students in the district, and our current
reporter in the district, Lisa Childers.
“Justine loved and cared about her family, and
job, sharing her pride with everyone. Before she was
hired as superintendent, she attended a parent’s
meeting where we got to know about her job experience
and her husband attended the meeting with her. I was
impressed that she found it important that we meet
him,” Childers noted this week about meeting
Winters before she started working for this paper.
“I once went to her office for a story interview
and we first we had to look at photos and talk about
her daughter’s wedding in Ireland. I learned
a great deal about her family and how proud she was
of them.”
“She did tremendous things in a very short time
for this school district,” Current Board President
Dave Patterson said of Winters. “She was very
communicative and developed a collegial style. I felt
comfortable talking with her whether I agreed or disagreed
with her on a topic… She certainly helped me
grow to understand the finer points of what it meant
to manage an educational system and what the intricacies
were.”
Patterson’s predecessor as Board President,
current board member Marino D’Orazio, praised
Winters’ fiscal responsibility and ability to
do a board’s bidding.
“She brought really good people on board, and
she brought in one of the lowest budget increases
in our area,” D’Orazio said. “Some
of the cuts weren’t popular, but with really
with good management, she was able to start paring
down some costs. She was one of the most gracious
and professional people that I ever met and worked
until the day that her doctor said to her, ‘You
just can’t work anymore.’ Even after the
doctor told her that she couldn’t work anymore,
at home she continued to contribute. She received
phone calls from the assistant superintendent, the
business administrator, from her secretary, and she
just worked until she physically was not capable of
doing it.”
“Justine was a fine woman. I am saddened at
her passing much too early,” said OCS teacher
and Olive Press columnist Carol LaMonda. “I
felt she had a good vision for Onteora, and she was
the consummate diplomat. I hoped she would be the
one to bring us all back together in the purpose of
education. I feel like her life, her career and our
District Vision was untimely interrupted.”
Winters began her job as superintendent in July of
2004 after district voters refused the budget forcing
a contingent budget. The district was divided because
of the closure of West Hurley Elementary School and
the so-called “Large Parcel Legislation.”
“Before she became ill, I would see her at community
events,” Childers said. “She always remembered
my son’s name and would give him a friendly
hello. She visited my son’s classroom on occasion
and he found her to be very kind. Talking to her was
easy. I will miss her and my heart goes out to her
family.”
Moving..
My philosophy
has changed with this move. I now look at every single item
and ask, “ Is it worth wrapping, lifting, heaving
and finding a new home for this melon baller, shrimp deveiner,
dried up ball-point pen or handleless splitting mall? My
answer is a resounding, “NO!” Consequently we
have become perpetual visitors to the Olive Transfer Station.
Seven truck loads moved us up the hill to our new home,
and an equal number went to “the dump.” Antiques
were sold, “junque” went to neighbor’s
yard sales, and about one third of our “treasures”
made it to our new house. Math is not my strong suit, but
half of that one third still resides in boxes and bins in
the garage.
A philosopher once said that our lives are spent in three
phases: wanting, getting, and being. I happily enter phase
three. Interestingly, looking back, the wanting and getting
didn’t always bring that happiness that just plan
“being” does. This morning I read the obituary
of Justine Winters, our recently retired Superintendent
who died of Cancer. It was a tribute to being the best teacher,
the best educator, the best administrator, the best wife
and mother. There was not one mention of what car she drove
or how many pairs of shoes she closeted. She was very good
at “being.” She will be missed at Onteora.
Speaking of Onteora, the budget vote is over and Maxanne
Resnick and Herb Rosenfeld were elected. George Haug tallied
an amazing 916 write in votes. Voters at the Bennett School
visited and socialized as they waited a half hour to one
and a half hours to vote. No one grumbled. They were there
to support a neighbor that we all know and respect. Unfortunately
George, being from Olive, was tagged with the Large Parcel
issue so other towns, once again, divided on political issues
rather than educational ones. He became “Olive’s
candidate” in the press. I, for one, look forward
to having the Onteora District: Olive, West Hurley, Woodstock,
Lexington, Marbletown and Shandaken move beyond property
tax issues and head back to providing the best education
possible for all the taxpayers’ investment.
Memorial Day weekend is approaching. As we make plans for
vacations, picnics and parties, remember why we have this
time off. My uncle Eddie perished with the 82nd at Normandy
when I was an infant. Everyone out there can name someone
dear to them who died serving his or her country in World
War II, Korea, Lebanon, Vietnam, Iran, Bosnia, Iraq. Isn’t
the purpose of war to bring peace? This Memorial Day I will
reflect on that goal of peace.
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