The Olive Press

Valuation Trouble Town Gets A Setback As Real Property Comes Back With Unsuspected Lowball By Gary Alexander It's not news that the Town of Olive and the City of New York are miles apart in their estimations of just how much the city's miles of taxable property holdings in the town are worth. When the question was put to New York State's Office of Real Property Services for study, Olive officials felt they had substantial cause for optimism that the ORPS evaluation would fall heavily in their favor. But word came down toward the end of May that the ORPS decision boosted the assessment for the City's land holdings by a mere 7 percent. Continue>>> Heavy Traffic? All ears at last Thursday's session of the Belleayre Resort issues conference were on Brian Ketchum from Margaretville, the Catskill Preservation Coalition's traffic expert. The bottom line according to Ketchum, is that the project's actual impact on Route 28 traffic would be approximately double that projected in Crossroads Ventures' DEIS. Continue>>> ISSUES CONFERENCE TIMETABLE Crossroads Proceedings Sea Of Lawyers Battles Over Details Of Gitter DEIS With Few Surprises.. By Paul Smart With a loose huddle of nearly a dozen attorneys, the adjudication process for Dean Gitter's Belleayre Resort project got underway at the Margaretville Fire House in Delaware County the morning of May 25. The proceedings will be restarting next Monday, June 7, in the same location. See inside for a full schedule. Continue>>> But No Press Last week's two visits to the proposed Belleayre Resort project site by Judge Wissler and the attorneys for the parties involved was made by a group of about thirty people including expert witnesses slated to testify in future proceedings and DEC staff. Conspicuously absent was the press, barred from attending by Crossroads Ventures' Dean Gitter. Continue>>>	Whither The Vote? Onteora School Board Mulls Upcoming Second Round Of Annual Budget Vote By Violet Snow Reeling from the recent decisive defeat of the school budget by Onteora voters, the school board is expected to adopt a second, lower budget at the Monday, June 7, meeting, for presentation to voters at another election on June 22. Also at Monday's meeting, business administrator Chuck Snyder will make a detailed comparison of the district's per-pupil costs with those of nearby districts, as requested by a group of West Hurley parents. State senators Larkin and Bonacic and Assemblyman Cahill have been invited to address the intent of the large-parcel tax legislation, which has complicated the process of the budget vote. Continue>>> A Reel Teen Making Movies In The Catskills By Paul Smart Chance Fraser's "The Letter Guy," which premiered at the Woodstock Film Festival last year and is set to play as the only local finalist in the Reel Teens Film Festival at the Catskill Mountain Foundation Movie Theater in Hunter this weekend, is a perfect local movie. It involves a young man riding in a car with his father. He's looking out the window, watching the scenery pass along Route 28 when he sees a man in a really nice suit retrieving letters from a mail box situated in front of a particularly ramshackle home. The kid and his father wonder what the story is. Cut to inside the house, where the "letter guy" is slovenly dressed watching television when he decides to get the mail, dressing up for the occasion- only to return to his couch potato persona after emptying the mail box. So what if the film's only 3 minutes long. Fraser's 16, and the "Letter Guy," produced as part of the Onteora High School's Indie Works program, is an assured debut. Continue>>>