County legislative clerk Randall Roth has the job of reviewing the signatures to ensure they are certified as registered voters in Ulster County. He has thirty days to complete the task and declare the petitions valid, or otherwise. “It will take quite a bit of time,” said Roth. “We’re going to do a fair process, and that’s it.”

Once the petitions are accepted, said Josh KopIowitz, attorney for the Democrats, “there is no plan to govern the election his November, because the last pIan was declared unconstitutional and the new plan can’t go into effect until, at earliest, November 2003. So it is our opinion, the county must ask the court to establish a plan for the 2003 election. I assume they will ask the court to use the plan they just adopted, and we will argue that it shouldn’t be used and will be pressing for adopting a single member plan.”

Koplovitz said time is an issue, because the judge will need time to craft a voting planto ensure the upcoming county legislative election is fair.

Democrats have contended that a single-member district plan would be the fairest way for county elections to proceed. At a news conference January 31, Parete, Kingston Democrat Dave Donaldson and Saugerties legislator Gary Bischoff said that they had a legal single-member plan to present to Bradley for his potential use.

Koplovitz said the results of the certification process must be known by March 3. He said that within a month of that date, if the county leadership is not in court requesting a judicial guideline for the upcoming elections, then county Democrats will have to take court action, to ensure viable electoral choices in November.

At issue are the district lines by which county voters elect and are represented by their legislators on the 33 member county legislature . Every ten years, after the federal census, counties are obligated to review their electoral status to ensure that county government is run under the one-person-one-vote principle. The Ulster County legislature has long been dominated by Republicans, who currently hold a 24-9 majority despite the electorate being one third Democratic, one-third Republican and one-third registered voters who choose neither party.
When the Republican majority approved the newest decade’s version of a multi-member district plan in 2001, county Democrats went to state court to protest the outcome, claiming unconstitutionality in that since some citizens would have,in effect, seven representatives while others only have two.

State Supreme Court Justice Vincent Bradley, in rulings issued in 2001 and 2002,agreed and declared that plan unconstitutional, though the earlier ruling came too late to change it for the 2001 elections. But he ordered it to be fixed prior to the 2003 county legislative election.
It is that new nine-district plan, barely approved 17-15 by county legislators late last year, that will be the subject of the referendum, if the petitions are approved.

Koplovitz said a ruling by the state attorney general issued in 1981 seems to suggest that only 2,900 voter signatures are needed to put the issue to a referendum. But he said he expects Republicans to fight acceptance of the petitions. “They obviously don’t want to go to a referendum, they are going to say it’s ten thousand voter signatures that we need,” said Koplovitz, who added he is confident the petitions carry enough valid signatures to force a referendum. He said unlike petition signature drives to get candidates into a race, the referendum petition has looser rules. “If you have the legitimate signature, they are not going to throw this out based on some little technicalities,” he said, adding he based that opinion on “the tenor of the relevant courtdecisions.”

“Wemade a real effort to check the list of registered voters,” said Koplovitz.“ Not that we’re guaranteeing every person on the petitions is a registered voter, but we did a responsible job. And there is such a cushion there, when they are done with the process they will see there are enough signatures.”

After Roth makes his declaration, whether positive or negative, either side has five days to challenge his decision. If he rules the petitions have the requisite number of signatures, the matter will be slated for the November ballot.

Peter Savago, the chairman of the county Republican party, did not return a call seeking comment on the matter.

Resignation continued

The meeting which about 100 attended, opened with committee member Mike Ricciardella calling for Nolan’s removal from her position as the committee’s secretary because he and othe rmembers accused her of inserting and deleting text from the master draft of the plan without the knowledge of the rest of the committee. Nolan however, staunchly denied that she had covertly altered the plan.

As secretary, her duties are to keep meeting minutes and send out meeting notices to the press. Members Gerry Setchko and Chuck Perez said that unagreed upon additions to the plan came to their attention at the committee’s December 9 meeting, when the committee first saw text from the environmental subcommittee that had been added to the master.

The committee has worked in several subcommittees, with each subcommittee arriving at its text and then putting it before the committee as a whole for its approval or rejection. Nolan, herself did not have direct access to the computer file, but gave her text to either the committee chair John Mathiasson or to the committee’s intern, Michelle Yost, to physically enter into the computer file.

“There was a lot of work being done very quickly and being put together and reformatted. In the process people felt that the document went out before they had a chance to really see it and they wanted to find a reason for it,” explained Nolan the next day. “If you missed one meeting, text could be in that you never saw before. It wasn’t that anybody did anything wrong.” The motion to remove Nolan was tabled until the end of the meeting, at which time Ricciardella reintroduced it. “I believe that I have been unfairly characterized,” said Nolan, “and I regret that people haven’t looked into the facts. I only offered to be secretary to help. It doesn’t have any power, any meaning. If you want someone else to be secretary of this committee that’s fine with me. I don’t have any hidden agenda. I withdraw. You don’t have to vote on it.”

Nolan was interrupted several times by hecklers in the audience. The next day, one committee member said that the process was so rushed that the committee as a whole was not able to review each section so that it might appear that the text had been monkeyed with when in fact it hadn’t been. In addition, the rush meant that a plan that most members were not happy with went before the public, which then publicly embarrassed the committee at last month’s hearing. In order to save face, Nolan — who has frequently been a lightning rod for criticism on local environmental issues—was singled out as the scapegoat.

During the procedural portion of the meeting, much argument went back and forth about how the public’s four hours of oral comments in addition to submitted written comments on the plan should be used to edit the plan. Setchko suggested that everything in brackets, should be thrown out. Portions of the text in brackets have either not been agreed upon by the committee as a whole, or may not have even been reviewed by some members.

He further suggested that everything in the plan covered by existing state, county or local laws beremoved, and that the final version be given to a professional planner to writeso that it doesn’t appear to look like a law. Aftermuch back and forth — and frequent interruptions from the audience—it wasfinally decided that five criteria beapplied to everything in the plan to decide whether it should stay or go:

1) does it replicate something already contained in existing law;

2) does it address a problem that the town might actually encounter;

3) does it have strong community support;

4) is it cost effective; and

5) does it reflect avision for the future.

When the committee began going through the body of the text—skipping the executive summary since it is made up of material contained within the body—everything they encountered was scrapped except for the initial goal. That goal states: “Protect the fragile features that form the mountain environment—steep slopes, shallow soils, wooded hilltops, mountain streams—from physical and visual degradation so that the town’s main natural and economic resources are preserved.” The actions and objectives connected with the goal were scrapped including theformation of the controversial Conservation Advisory Committee. That committee is currently a matter being considered by the town board, so its inclusion in the plan was deemed inappropriate.

The next meeting of the committee will take place Monday, February 24, 7p.m. at townhall.