Anti-Casino!
The Olive town board approved a resolution at the September 6th meeting
which opposes casino gambling within town borders and supports Home Rule
decisions on the issue for all municipalities with the Catskill Forest Preserve.
Coming as a response to a request from the Town of Denning for Olive board to pass the same resolution against casino gambling in all of the Catskill Park which had been passed by the Town of Shandaken, the board followed councilman Bruce LaMonda’s adamant insistence that the larger and more important issue was Home Rule and modified Shandaken’s parameters. Noting that the Town of Olive is located entirely within the blue-line
designation of the Catskill State Park, Olive Resolution #5 for 2005 ”supports the municipality’s right to regulate local matters through home rule and solidly opposes casino gambling in the Town of Olive and the Catskill Forest Preserve here in town.”
The distinction in the resolution, observed Olive Town Clerk Sylvia
Rozzelle, was inserted because the board felt it would be presumptions for Olive to tell other towns in the Catskill Park what should be done within their own borders.

Tragic Accident
An 18-year-old former Onteora student, Ashley M. Fauci, was killed late Sunday night, September 4 when the car she was driving struck a tree off state Route 375 in West Hurley. Fauci was an honor student, accomplished viola player and halfback for the Onteora High School field hockey team. The oldest of four children, she planned to complete her high school diploma and move in with family on Staten Island to attend college in New York City. Fauci is survived by her father, Vincent, mother, Virginia Miller of Shandaken; and three brothers, Joseph, 15, Victor, 9, and Michael 8.
Onteora Superintendent of Schools Justine Winters said a note was sent to faculty about Fauci’s death and crisis counselors were available for students and teachers on the first day of the new school year September 6.
“It’s a very sad way to launch the school year,” said the superintendent.

Gitter Decision
Call it a knock out punch, if you will, even though no one’s hit the mat yet.
A long-awaited final decision on which issues will face full adjudication regarding local developer Dean Gitter’s controversial Crossroads Ventures’ proposal to build its proposed Belleayre Resort in Shandaken and Middletown was handed down by state Department of Environmental Conservation Administrative Law Judge Richard Wissler on Wednesday morning, September 7, listing 12 of 16 issues within the developers’ proposal for adjudication, to the surprise of even those fighting Gitters’ contention that none be taken to such court-like lengths.
The twelve issues that Wissler set for in-depth review, pending an appeals process, are 1) water supply and groundwater and surface water impacts; 2) aquatic habitat impacts; 3) stormwater impacts; 4) impacts to the Catskill Forest Preserve; 5) impacts to wildlife; 6) noise impacts; 7) traffic impacts; 8) visual impacts; 9) impacts to community character in the area; 10) secondary and induced growth impacts; 11) cumulative impacts; and 12) the developers insufficient discussion of alternative plans to those submitted for review.
The only issues Wissler said would not need extensive adjudication were forestry impacts, wastewater discharge (SPDES) plans, mining impacts and any question regarding the applicability of review standards for the project under the 1997 state-negotiated Memorandum of Agreement that set up regulation of the Catskills for the safety of New York City water needs.
Along the way, Wissler as often faults his own state agency, The Department of Environmental Conservation, as the applicants (Crossroads) for their arguments against adjudication, extensively backing up each of his decisions with voluminous case records and references to state environmental law totaling 167 pages.
Moreover, Wissler set the stage for deeper discussions of several key issues that could effect further development, and planning, for the entire Catskill Park and environs, particularly as regards extent and nature of recreation uses for the park, growth at state-owned Belleayre Mountain Ski Center (which Crossroads and the DEC had tried to make off-limits for current discussion purposes), and “fundamental questions of balance” in regards to the size of developments in regards to the longstanding character of Catskills communities.
The law judge also asked that the upcoming issues adjudication be “bifurcated” between the proposed resorts two halves, with an emphasis on the issues surrounding its Big Indian half within the Town of Shandaken, over its “Wildacre” portion located near the ski center on the border between Ulster and Delaware counties.
The surprising number of issues okayed for full, trial-like adjudication will now likely push the ongoing review process for Gitter’s proposed mega-resort, set to include two golf courses, hundreds of hotel rooms and dozens of condominium and single family vacation homes, back another four to twelve months, depending on the interim appeals process that gives Crossroads Ventures until October 4 to file an appeals, for ultimate consideration by the state DEC Commissioner. Crossroads Ventures’ Belleayre Resort proposal has already been in the DEC’s SEQRA review process for approximately five years, a record according to Gitter, who recently opened a new restaurant, The Emnerson at Woodstock.
Judge Wissler started his review of the issues involved in the Belleayre Resort proposal in January, 2004, shortly after the state DEC finally accepted an Environmental Impact Statement for review after several years back and forth over draft EISes that numbered in the thousands of pages. Following a series of heavily-attended public hearings during the winter of 2004, Wissler heard testimony from attorneys representing Crossroads Ventures, a consortium of national, regional and local environmental groups, and several local towns and counties throughout last summer.
In his 167 page comments released this week, Wissler noted that although there was some support for the project at public hearings, the majority was definitely opposed to it, raising numerous issues in their opposition. The major parties seeking adjudication at the issues conference included New York City, as well as the consortium calling itself the Catskill Preservation Coalition, which included the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, Trout Unlimited, Theodore Gordon Flyfishers Inc., Hudson Riverkeeper, Friends of Catskill Park, Zen Environmental Studies Institute, Inc., the New York Public Interest Group (NYPIRG), Catskill Heritage Alliance, the Pine Hill Water District Coalition, and the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development.
Those supporting the Gitter proposal, by and large, included the Coalition of Watershed Towns, the towns of Middletown and Shandaken, and Delaware County.
Last year, in trying to rally support to sway Wissler’s decision, Gitter lobbied the Ulster County Chamber of Commerce and Development Council (UCDC) to pass resolutions against adjudication as a detriment to development, and got a county legislative resolution for adjudication reversed.
Among the many reports cited by Wissler in his decision to adjudicate was a late 1990s “Route 28 Corridor Committee” study Gitter was once proud of being involved in, which the law judge noted in terms of its call for maintaining local community character.
At one point, he asks, in discussing issues of cumulative impacts from such development, “Will the project as planned overwhelm local economies?”
Gitter is ready to fight.
“We intend to appeal to the Commissioner of the DEC for reversal of several of the Judge’s rulings,” Gitter wrote. “And we will continue to fight our way through this outrageous and endless SEQR process until we have totally satisfied those in positions of responsibility that our project is both environmentally sound and economically imperative.”
The deadline for appeals to the DEC, following a Sept 9 conference call between the judge and all parties, is October 12, with reply briefs due November 7. Since Acting DEC Commissioner Denise Sheehan has had prior involvement with the project, she has recused herself from review of any appeals and designated Deputy Commissioner Carl Johnson to serve that role.
According to DEC spokesperson Maureen Wren, her agency is still reviewing the Wissler’s decision to determine whether they would file an appeal. Jeff Baker, one of two attornies who represented the Coalition of Watershed Towns, Delaware County, and the town boards of Shandaken and Middletown in last summer’s Issues Conference on the project proposal, said this week that he will discuss further action with his clients in the coming week.
Gitter, meanwhile, has started striking out at those who prevailed within Wissler’s ruling, including the consortium of local, regional and national environmental organizations known as the Catskills Preservation Coalition, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the New York State Attorney General’s Watershed Inspector, all those who spoke out against his project in public hearings over the years, and the entire state SEQRA (State Environmental Quality Review Act) process that’s been a stalwart of New York State politics for over 30 years now.
““We have been disappointed in the manifest ill-will and self-importance of these opponents who seem to have no regard for the economic circumstances of the town and its shrinking tax base,” he noted in his e-mail to Phoenicia Times’ publisher Brian Powers. “They have struck a blow not just at Crossroads, but at all the tax-payers of Shandaken and Middletown. Those foolish enough to be publicly rejoicing at the current turn of events are, in fact, once again thumbing their noses at the people of this region who still struggle to get by.”
“The Belleayre Resort holds the best promise of a viable economic future for the people of Shandaken,” Gitter continued. “Those taxpayers will soon be opening their September school tax bills. They will find an increase of 10%. They’ll probably find a similar increase next year. Were the Belleayre Resort in existence – which it could well have been at this point but for the intervention of local not-for-profit groups – that school tax bill would have annually been going down, not up.”
"It is a good sound bite, but I'm hard pressed to think of a place where there was increased development and taxes actually went down,” responded CPC’s Tom Alworth, who also serves as the director of the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development. “The judge who conducted an independent evaluation of the environmental impacts of the project has recommended 12 issues move forward for further examination, and therefore, in his opinion, the project has not met the required standards."
Earlier this year, plans for the region’s only similarly scaled project, the $350 million St. Lawrence Cement plant proposed for the Hudson, NY area, was cancelled after an administrative law judge ruled that six issues in its application were adjudicable and the NYS Department of State denied the project a major permit it needed to move ahead.

County Windfall
Ulster County has learned that it will be getting a one-time cash infusion of $11.5 million to $15 million through its long-promised tobacco settlement funds’ final distribution, allowed by a recent change in law that makes it possible for the county to tap the remainder of the payments still due in one lump. That, the county’s bond counsel said last week, is largely due to the market having become more comfortable with purchasing tobacco bonds, based on their record of earnings in recent years.
The County is currently reviewing two bond proposals to access the revenue source: one from the New York State Association of Counties, the other from Merrill Lynch. Once a comparison is complete, a recommendation will be made to the county legislature as to which is a better deal.
Because the funds will be secured through bonds, there are strict limits in how the county will be able to use the money. Only capital projects and debt service - payments for past capital projects - can be paid with the funds. The revenue cannot be tapped to help close the county’s massive budget gap. In May, lawmakers were told that the county is looking at a cash shortfall of as much as $1.5 million by the end of 2005, and $23.5 million through the end of 2006.

The Jail Mess
At the September 8 Legislative meeting, Legislators Robert Parete, Peter Kraft, Richard Parete and Susan Zimet, all Democrats, sponsored a resolution urging the Administration to withhold funding to prime contractors, until subcontractors are paid in a fair and timely fashion.
A majority of the work on the project has been performed by contractors located outside the area. Resolution #265 of 2005, essentially, would force the prime contractors to pay local sub-contractors for the work that they have completed. The Republican Caucus unanimously voted against the legislation. This past week, a local contractor filed a suit for breach of contract against Ulster County.
J. & D. Associates of Saugerties is seeking payment for back pay for concrete work and $5 million in damages. The suit also names architect Crandell Associates, prime contractor Christa Construction and construction manager Bovis Lend Lease for causing unanticipated and compensable delays which were beyond the control of J&D Associates and resulted from grossly negligent or willful conduct.
“This legal action could have been avoided if the Ulster County Legislature adopted Resolution #265 of 2005,: said Robert Parete. “Now, taxpayers will reimburse expensive attorneys to defend this costly lawsuit. This entire project is full of failures and incompetence at the highest levels.

Teacher Need
A number of the region’s school superintendents and hiring specialists have started noticing growing shortages of teachers with special education credentials, according to recent reports, although the problem hasn’t been acute at Onteora yet. According to New York State United Teachers, a federation representing more than 900 local unions, the supply of specialty teachers is growing statewide, though less so in rural and inner-city areas.
NYSUT has said the best way to attract teachers is to make salaries more competitive with those offered in other fields. They further noted that new accountability standards, such as those in the federal No Child Left Behind Act, coupled with the usual demands of being the head of an entire school, may scare off applicants.
Compounding the problem, education experts agree, is the coming shift in employment when baby boomer teachers begin to retire in the coming years.

Flu Shots…
Disease Control and Prevention say there probably will be at least enough vaccine to cover those most at risk, especially with the recent approval of a new flu shot. But a year removed from an unexpected shortage that forced rationing of doses, local health officials are being cautious, with some delaying the announcement of local flu clinic schedules until they can be certain of their supply.
Officials in Ulster and Greene counties said they will release clinic information this month.
Last year’s shortage was created by a British government shutdown of Chiron Corp.’s manufacturing facility in the United Kingdom. The California-based company was to supply half of the United States’ influenza vaccine.
Production from three companies this year, Sanofi Pasteur of France, Medlmmune of Maryland, and GlaxoSmithKline PLC of Britain, is expected to reach 69 million doses of flu vaccine, enough to meet the historical demand among high-risk groups and healthcare workers, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
The CDC predicts companies could produce up to 100 million doses for the United States this year, compared to 61 million in 2004.
Persons age 65 or older, with chronic hearth or lung conditions, diabetes or a weakened immune systems, are urged to get a flu shot because it is generally more difficult for their bodies to fight off the flu and because the virus may complicate their existing conditions.
For younger and healthier persons, 3 million doses of a nasal-spray vaccine will be available nationwide, the CDC said. The spray, which health officials say is just as effective as a shot, is intended for healthy persons ages 5-49 who are not pregnant.
The flu season can run as late as May, but flu activity in the United States generally peaks between late December and early March, according to the CDC. The best time to get vaccinated is from October through November.

OCS-TV?
Onteora school officials are in the process of scheduling a meeting to determine education provisions of cable franchise agreements being negotiated in Woodstock and Shandaken, who are hammering out final contracts with Time Warner cable contracts, and start talking about setting up a new public access channel for sole broadcasting of Onteora business, including sports, plays and concerts, and board meetings over the coming years. Olive and Hurley already have contracts in place that preclude inclusion.
Among expected advantages from such a channel would be an additional source for notification when schools are closed due to weather.
The main purpose of the meeting is to discuss policy matters for such a channel.

BiPolar…
Patients suffering from bipolar disorder who underwent therapy to help them maintain a regular daily routine and cope with stress were able to avoid relapses over a two-year period, a study has found. Using what researchers dubbed interpersonal and social rhythm therapy, patients were taught how to keep to normal sleeping, eating and other daily routines. They also were shown how to anticipate and cope with stress just as a diabetic who would be taught, for example, how to cook and eat differently.
“This is really a disorder characterized by massive disturbances in the body’s clock and in all the things the body’s clock controls,” said Dr. Ellen Frank, lead author of the study. “Their clocks need to be very carefully protected and we need to do everything we can to shore up and protect that fragile clock.”
Bipolar disorder, also commonly referred to as manic depression, is a brain disorder in which sufferers experience cycles of mania, depression or mixed states. Treatment for the disorder varies by patient, but often involves some type of medication combined with therapy.
Dr. Gail Edelsohn, an associate professor of psychiatry at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, said sleep, especially, has a huge effect on those with mood disorders.
Dr. Suzanne Vogel-Scibilia, president of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said it’s most important that bipolar sufferers have access to care, something that doesn’t always happen because of the high costs of health care.

Health Costs…
As Americans face growing health care expenses, Congress and state lawmakers say they’re working to close the gap between prices and pocketbooks. Despite the activity, skeptics say government’s impact will be limited.
Unlike the efforts of the 1970s and 1990s that included broad government mandates, most of today’s prescriptions are intended to influence the private health marketplace by encouraging quality and giving consumers more choices.
“The health system in the country is fundamentally broken,” says former U.S. senator John Breaux, a moderate Democrat who has organized “Ceasefire on Health Care” forums that bring Republicans and Democrats together to work on solutions. For now, he says, only incremental steps are possible: “I don’t think the Congress or the country is ready for wholesale change.”
Recent polling shows that 28% of Americans had trouble paying a medical bill in the past year. Of those, 62% had insurance. More than one in three of those polled said the top reason for rising health care costs is the profits of insurers and drug companies. Nearly one in five cited medical malpractice awards, and 15% blamed greed and waste in the health care system.
The Bush administration favors a series of incremental changes that include tax credits as well as “pay-for- performance” and disease-management incentives.
Historically, lawmakers have been reluctant to embrace large-scale changes. Presidents from Nixon to Clinton have tried to create some kind of national health care program, but all efforts have fallen victim to lobbying by labor groups, doctors or insurers.
“National health insurance is no longer the best solution, it’s the only solution: All other alternatives have been proven disastrous failures,” says Quentin Young, national coordinator at Physicians for a National Health Program, a Chicago-based non-profit.
Health insurers answer that educating Americans to be better consumers of health care will help control costs. Such efforts focus largely on allowing tax-free health savings accounts to be coupled with high-deductible policies. By paying more, the theory goes, workers will use health care more judiciously. Such plans come with at least a $1,000 annual deductible for individuals and $2,000 for families, meaning patients must themselves pay for care until reaching those limits.

Unions Fight!
At a meeting in Chicago late in August, representatives from 900 unions worldwide coalesced around a common idea: Turn up the pressure on Wal-Mart globally to boost pay and benefits. The move, by the federation known as Union Network International, encapsulates an anxiety shared by millions of workers, especially in advanced and middle-income nations. As corporations mine an expanding global labor market for the maximum efficiencies, will many workers be left behind?
Questions were raised about a growing inequality between the nation’s developed and undeveloped nations, exacerbated by growing globalization.
“Unquestionably the average Chinese is incomparably better off,” says economist James Galbraith at the University of Texas. “India is also vastly different. But in other major parts of the world, particularly Africa, the situation is extremely bleak and has been getting worse.”
A recent UN study finds much of the world trapped in deepening inequality and will convene next week to focus on ways to radically reduce poverty. Also in September, in its world development report for 2006, the World Bank will focus on “equity and development.”
On average, per capita incomes have been rising globally over the past couple of decades, according to UN statistics. Yet about half the world’s population is still living on less than $2 a day, defined by many as a key poverty line, according to the Population Reference Bureau.
Making the situation worse is that new markets tend to increase the gaps between per capita incomes of rich and poor nations, which are today on the order of 15 or 20 to 1.
Among recommendations, for rich nations and poor alike, is a sharp focus on training and education, which would allow people to climb the skill ladder and avoid the race to the bottom.

ADHD Growth
Just under 8 percent of U.S. children aged 4 to 17 had ever been diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in 2003, and more than half of them are being treated with drugs, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported.
Boys are more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than girls, especially boys from poorer families, the CDC added.
In 2003, approximately 7.8 percent (4.4 million) of U.S. children aged 4 to 17 years had ADHD diagnosed. Estimates had ranged from anywhere between 2 percent and 18 percent.
ADHD diagnosis was reported approximately 2.5 times more frequently among males than females. Prevalence of reported ADHD increased with age and was significantly lower among children aged 4 to 8 years compared with children aged more than 9 years.
The highest rates of medication treatment for ADHD by sex and age were reported among males aged 12 years (9.3 percent) and among females aged 11 years (3.7 percent).
To be diagnosed with ADHD a child must have six or more symptoms for six months including frequent failure to pay attention in schoolwork or play, frequent mistakes due to inattention to schoolwork, frequent failure to listen when spoken to directly, failure to follow up on chores and forgetfulness.

Kids & Guns…
About 1.7 million U.S. children live in homes with loaded, unlocked firearms, according to the largest survey ever done on home weapons storage. One-third of adults have handguns, rifles or shotguns at home, says the CDC report. But states vary greatly in the percentage of adults who keep weapons, and in how many with children at home store their guns loaded and unlocked. The states with the highest percentage of adults who have children at home and leave guns unlocked and loaded are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Eighteen states have laws dealing with proper storage of guns to limit access by children, but the laws vary in strictness - 7 states make it a felony under some circumstances to give minors access to weapons - and they vary in the ages of kids covered. Two studies show accidental gun deaths and teen suicides decline in states with these laws.
The report says that of 1,400 children and teens shot to death in 2002, about 90% were home when it happened.
The gun storage survey may underestimate kids with access to firearms, says the CDC, because women tend to underreport the presence of weapons at home, past studies show. About 60% of survey participants were women.
Andrew Arulanandam, spokesman for the National Rifle Association of America, declined to comment on specific laws but says, “The sad reality is, you cannot legislate responsibility.”

Warming Trends
The rate of ice melting in the Arctic is increasing and a panel of researchers says it sees no natural process that is likely to change that trend. Within a century the melting could lead to summertime ice-free ocean conditions not seen in the area in a million years, the group said recently. Melting of land-based glaciers could take much longer but could raise the sea levels, potentially affecting coastal regions worldwide. And changes to the permafrost could undermine buildings, drain water into bogs and release additional carbon into the atmosphere.
The report comes just days after environmental ministers and officials from 23 countries met in Greenland to call on governments to stop arguing over global warming and start acting. That session was held in the town of Ilulissat, near the edge of the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier that has retreated nearly seven miles since 1960 and has become a symbol of fears that the planet is approaching a dangerous warming.
After studying how various parts of the climate system interact, the researchers said there are two major feedback systems influencing the region - ocean circulation in the North Atlantic and the amount of precipitation and evaporation that takes place. Feedback can accelerate changes in the system, they said. For example, the white sea ice reflects solar radiation back into space, but as the ice melts the dark water will absorb some of the light, warming and melting more ice.
Anyone doubting the effects of human activity on global climate change should talk to the people it affects in Alaska and the Yukon, U.S. Sen. John McCain said the week after the report was released, fresh from a trip to Barrow, America’s northernmost city.
“We are convinced that the overwhelming scientific evidence indicated that climate change is taking place and human activities play a very large role,” McCain said.
McCain, accompanied by Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., spoke to villagers in Canada whose spruce trees are being attacked by the northward spread of spruce beetles. On Alaska’s northern coast, they met Native Alaskans dealing with melting permafrost and coastal erosion.
Opponents who ignore evidence of humans contributing to climate change, Clinton said, are participating in a trend of turning Washington, D.C. into what she calls an “evidence-free zone.”
“You just keep saying something no matter how untrue and unfactual it might be, over and over and over again, and try to drive the politics to meet your ideological or commercial agenda,” she said. “That is a grave disservice to our country.”
The United States will come under pressure to use energy more efficiently at international financial meetings in Washington this month, what with Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker having told reporters at a meeting of finance ministers i that the United States had to improve its energy efficiency.
Asked whether European ministers had agreed on a document on oil efficiency for the G7 meetings in Washington, he said: “We will use our G7 meetings in Washington in two weeks to have a frank word with our American colleagues on the issue.”
Juncker had chaired a meeting of eurozone finance ministers which had focused on the impact of high oil prices on the global economy. A broader meeting of all 25 European Union finance ministers is expected to issue a paper on oil, which will include a call on the U.S. reduce oil consumption.
Finance ministers from the Group of Seven, the U.S., Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Britain and Canada, meet in Washington in late September.

Suing The Feds
California, New Mexico and Oregon sued the Bush administration recently over the government’s decision to allow road building, logging and other commercial ventures on more than 90,000 square miles of untouched forests. In the lawsuit, attorneys general for the three states challenged the U.S. Forest Service’s repeal of the Clinton administration’s “roadless rule” that banned development on 58.5 million acres of national forest, mostly in western states.
The administration’s move puts at risk “some of the last, most pristine portions of America’s national forests,” California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said. “Road building simply paves the way for logging, mining and other kinds of resource extraction.”
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, alleges that the Bush administration’s repeal of the roadless rule violated federal law because the government did not conduct a complete analysis of the new regulation’s environmental impact.
Mark Rey, the Agriculture Department’s undersecretary for natural resources and environment, called the lawsuit “unfortunate and unnecessary.”

Alone, Alone
Manhattan has the highest percentage of single-person households of any county in the nation, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Solos accounted for 48 percent of all households on the island, putting Manhattan ahead of other singles magnets like Washington D.C., St. Louis, Denver and San Francisco. Overall, the report said, the number of Americans living alone has exceeded the number of households comprised of the classic nuclear family: a married couple and their natural children.
By the Numbers, 9.3 percent of U.S. households consisted of one person in 1950 versus 26 percent in 2000, for a total of 27.2 million people. 22 percent U.S. households made up of married couples and natural children in 2000. About 21 percent were married couples living alone. Eight percent were single parents living with at least one child. Other combinations - including multigenerational households, unmarried partners, people living with their extended families, grandparents raising grandchildren, and 24,722 other recorded types of arrangement - were less common
The analysis found that the number of single-person households in the U.S. grew 21 percent in the 1990s, eclipsing the growth rates for all other types of living arrangement.

Fetal Pain?
A review of medical evidence has found that fetuses likely don’t feel pain until the final months of pregnancy, a powerful challenge to abortion opponents who hope that discussions about fetal pain will make women think twice about ending pregnancies.
Critics angrily disputed the findings and claimed the report is biased.
The review by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco comes as advocates are pushing for fetal pain laws aimed at curtailing abortion. Proposed federal legislation would require doctors to provide fetal pain information to women seeking abortions when fetuses are at least 20 weeks old, and to offer women fetal anesthesia at that stage of the pregnancy. A handful of states have enacted similar measures.

Tri County Trade
E-Marketing, networking, financing and grant writing will be just some of the topics covered in workshops offered free to all attendees at the Tri-County Trade show when it gets underway on Friday, September 23 at Belleayre Mt. Ski Center. Hosted by the M-ARK Project as a new economic development initiative in the area, the trade show will feature 40 vendors and 6 workshop sessions between 11 am and 6 pm.
“Taking Catskill Business To New Peaks” is the theme of the trade show, which is expected to attract exhibitors and attendees from Ulster, Greene and Delaware counties. More than 40 exhibitors are expected to participate in the event, which will also feature door prizes for both exhibitors and attendees. A 24-page trade show journal listing all exhibitors and sponsors and filled with ads from local businesses will be available at the show and
8,000 copies will also be distributed prior to the event.
The show has been designed to enable business people who aren’t on a Main Street, or aren’t even in town at all, to meet other business owners and managers from the tri-county area.
Detailed information on all aspects of the Tri-County Trade Show is available with a call to the M-ARK Project office at 845-586-3500 or email mproject@catskill.net.