The Olive Press

Tabled For A Year? Onteora Holds Back The Big Parcel Tax Issue 12 Months, Pending Changes... by Violet Snow The Onteora school board voted unanimously on August 20 not to invoke the large-parcel tax legislation for the coming school year, which would have raised the Town of Olive’s taxes by 57.27 percent as of September 1. But board members did vote 6-1 to apply the measure for next year if the Ashokan Reservoir still meets the critera for separation from the Olive tax roll. Continue>>> Anti-Yuppy Sentiments Resentment & Threats of Boycott Target Local Business Owners By Paul Smart An anonymously-penned letter addressed, “Dear Yuppy stores” has been all the talk, in certain crowds, around the area over the last two weeks. “We would like to take this opportunity to say that you are perpetrating the influx of New York City people to this area and driving out the local people who have lived here for generations,” It starts. “Due to your lack of comprehension in the way we live our lives up here your yuppy centered store is sucking the marrow out of the community life known as Olive. Among businesses to whom the letter was sent, and mentioned in its two-page, approximately 1300 word length were the new American general Store in West Shokan, the Country Inn in Krumville, Bread Alone, Winchells Corner and The OlivePress. A list of alternatives to the listed offenders was also presented at letter’s end, including such businesses as Tetta’s, the Boiceville Market, Pine View Bakery, Boiceville Inn, Snyders, Village Pizza and the Daily Freeman. Continue>>> The End Of Summer... Looking Back To School Days Past, Our Writer Finds A Bittersweet Poker Game By Martha Frankel I remember when I used to mark the end of summer with new notebooks, clean pink erasers, a pile of shiny pens. As much as I would miss being outdoors, these new school supplies filled me with hope: this year, things would be different, better... I would be the good student everyone was sure I could be, I would take perfect, legible notes, earn all A's. I would, finally, live up to my potential. By the time it was apparent that these things were not really going to happen, winter would have set in and I could again dream of summer. When I stopped going to school, end of summer would be marked by different things--- a new maroon sweatshirt made of velour; placing a ball in my gloveand wrapping it with rubber bands, dreaming that next season would certainly be our year; being able to pull out on Route 28 without waiting for the traffic to slow. Each year there would be reason to hope. Continue>>>	A CHANGE IN THE WEATHER... A summer that seemed all rain, and then a bit of heat. And now the comforting chill of what we’re all hoping will be a beautiful Catskills Indian Summer... Percussive Garry Kvistad Talks About His World Business By Annie Nocenti Olive resident Garry Kvistad turned something he loved, music, into a life-support system that allows him to do what he loves, make music. The story of Garry’s Shokan company, Wood-stock Percussion, is a micro-economic model of small business mastery, a case study in the artistic and financial success of an entrepreneurial spirit. Garry made his first wind chime by hand in 1979 and grew the company, with his wife Diane, until they had computer robotics making their products and 150 employees. In an ironic twistthat reflects the larger, macro-economic story of global business trends, his chimes are now made in China; again made by hand as they once were, but by Chinese not American hands. Continue>>>