Newsbriefs

11/6/2008

New EMS Gear
Shadaken Ambulance Squad gave thanks this week to New Paltz Rescue Squad and Chief Jim Coddington for their gracious donation of 10 sets of turnout gear to the Town of Shandaken Ambulance saving a total of approximately $20,000.00.

Everyone Votes!
Voting rights for second homeowners in New York State received a major boost last week from the courts. In an important written decision, Justice Kevin M. Dowd of the New York State Supreme Court, 6th Judicial District in Norwich, granted a petition filed on behalf of eight voters from Bovina, restoring them to the Delaware County election rolls. According to the court, the Delaware County Board of Elections did not apply the correct legal standard when it removed the voters from the rolls with the rationale that their residence in Delaware County was not their primary residence. Furthermore, the court enjoined the Delaware County Board of Elections from now on to allow residents with more than one home to choose for themselves if they wish to vote in Delaware County.
Larry Karam, co-director and counsel of the Alliance for Bovina, said: “Second homeowners care deeply about their communities, and shouldn’t face obstacles to community involvement. We were shocked when the Delaware County Board of Elections disenfranchised our members, and we’re grateful that our neighbors in Bovina and neighboring towns are now free to vote where they think it counts the most. Judge Dowd simply followed long established law in New York.
The original petition stemmed from a challenge in March 2007 by Bovina resident Ed Rossley. He charged that eight petitioners were second homeowners, not fulltime residents, and therefore ineligible to vote in Bovina.

New Funding...
A number of Hudson Valley projects are among those that will receive state Environmental Protection Fund money under the Local Waterfront Revitalization Program.
New York’s waterfronts extend more than 5,000 miles, encompassing all of Long Island, New York City, the Hudson River, the State Canal System, the St. Lawrence River, the Great Lakes, and major inland waterways such as the Finger Lakes, Lake George, Lake Champlain, and the lakes of the Adirondacks. Among local efforts getting funding will be...
The Esopus-Delaware Corridor Revitalization Strategym which involves the Town of Olive in partnership with five other municipalities along the Route 28 corridor. They will conduct a visioning, planning and design for regional revitalization of the Esopus Creek and the East Branch of the Delaware River. The state will provide $91,417.
Ulster County will receive $100,000 for the Ulster County Regional Waterfront Revitalization Plan.
The Town of Middletown will receive $80,000 for the Middletown Revitalization Plan in collaboration with the Village of Margaretville and the hamlet of Arkville.

Tax Shares...
Ulster County lawmakers have been asked to cut municipalities’ election expenses for next year by about one-quarter of the planned amount - a move that would save the county’s 20 towns and city of Kingston a combined quarter-million dollars.
As currently envisioned, the total cost of the 2009 election in the county would be $1.68 million, with the municipalities expected to pay $1.26 million of that amount. The balance, $420,000, would be paid by the county.
Town leaders have expressed outrage at how much they’re being asked to pay, which is nearly five times what the 2007 election cost them. (The cost of the 2008 election, held Tuesday, is not yet known.) Part of the problem is the towns and the city of Kingston didn’t learn about the higher costs for next year’s vote until after many of them had developed their municipal budgets for 2009.
The proposal for lowering the municipalities’ projected expenses is to come before the Ulster County Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee on Nov. 13. If the cut ultimately is approved, the total cost to the municipalities would be $982,669 - still more than last year but about $277,000, or 23 percent, less than the projected $1.26 million.
Under the proposal to cut municipalities’ expenses from the projected $1.26 million to the suggested $982,669, election costs for next year would be as follows. (The numbers in parentheses are the additional amounts the county would pay for each community’s election.)
Among local town figures are...
Denning: $3,399, up $857 from 2007. (County: $945.)
Hardenburgh: $1,659, down $1,662. (County: $461.)
Marbletown: $37,116, up $28,448. (County: $10,320.)
Olive: $28,360, up $20,913. (County: $7,886.)
Rochester: $41,874, up $34,015. (County: $11,644.)
Shandaken: $19,995, up $14,169. (County: $5,559.)
Woodstock: $41,467, up $32,000.

Mother Arrested
Shandaken town police reported arresting a woman who left children ages 1, 8, and 12 home alone for 31 hours from Friday, October 24 until Saturday. October 25. Police said they charged Lissette M. Alamonte-Dueno, 41, of 7212 state Route 28, Shandaken, with three counts of the misdemeanors of endangering the welfare of a child and criminal contempt Sunday for violating an order of protection issued by the Ulster County Family Court for a neglect proceeding.
The children were placed in emergency care by the county Department of Child Protective Services, police said. Alamonte-Dueno was sent to the Ulster County Jail in lieu of $2,500 cash bail or $5,000 bond to return to Shandaken Town Court at a later date.

Staving Off...
A new foreclosure prevention initiative for Dutchess, Ulster, Orange and Sullivan counties, Hudson Valley Foreclosure Prevention Services, was launched recently in Poughkeepsie. With $1 million in funding, Hudson Valley Foreclosure Prevention Services is a joint effort between Hudson River Housing, Rural Ulster Preservation Company, and Legal Services of the Hudson Valley, providing counseling and loss mitigation services to residents of the four counties.
They expect to assist over 1,100 residents through the program.

Death Charge
A Town of Shandaken man has been indicted on two counts of vehicular manslaughter in the second degree and two counts of vehicular assault in the second degree in connection with the death of a friend. On September 6, 2008 at about 10:30 p.m., Jay Canosa, 42, drove a Chevrolet pickup truck into a tree on Broad Street Hollow Road in Shandaken, resulting in the death of a passenger, Timothy Phelan, 48, of Shandaken. Another passenger suffered serious physical injuries including several broken ribs, a renal laceration and bilateral pulmonary contusions. A lab analysis revealed a blood alcohol content of .11.
Canosa had admitted to drinking several rum and cokes at a local bar less than an hour before the crash. If convicted of vehicular manslaughter, he faces from 2 1/3 to seven years in state prison.

CasiNO...
State Senator John Bonacic recently said he would support a constitutional amendment to let the public decide if New York should allow full scale casino gaming.
Full casinos are not allowed now, thanks in part, to a ruling by the current U.S. Interior Secretary, who is opposed to off-reservation casinos. All that’s allowed are video lottery machines - electronic slot machines without arms - at raceways. Both Monticello and Yonkers raceways have racinos.
The former Concord Hotel property is being developed as a large entertainment complex that will include a new Monticello Gaming and Raceway and racino. Bonacic said full scale casino gaming should be left to the voters.
“I would let the people decide; that’s democracy,” he said. “I would like to see a constitutional amendment down the road to let the people see if they want to spend their money in New York or go to Atlantic City or Connecticut or Vegas or Canada.”
Developer Louis Cappelli is investing $1 billion on the Concord project.
Empire Resorts, the company that owns the raceway and racino, had been working on plans with the St. Regis Mohawk Native Americans to build a casino, but that needed federal approval, which was denied.

Bowling Aid
The Central Catskills Collaborative invites the public to attend a meeting on Thursday, November 13 from 3-5 PM. The Collaborative is a group of representatives from seven municipalities from Hurley to Andes, who are working together to protect and promote the resources along the Route 28 Corridor. The meeting begins at 3pm at the Middletown Town Hall on Route 28 in Arkville with a presentation by the Central Catskills Chamber of Commerce and their website designers, Chris Chase and Chris Lynk from DTi, on how the website benefits area businesses and governments, and is a key tool in building the regional community. The Central Catskill Collaborative website, hosted by The Chamber site, will be unveiled followed by an update on the DEC-funded Route 28 Scenic Byway project. At 4pm the meeting will move to the Margaretville Bowl, located opposite the Town Hall. Owner Mike Finberg, a member of the Collaborative, is offering a discount bowling package for meeting participants, and refreshments will be served. For more information please contact Peter Manning, Regional Planner, Catskill Center for Conservation and Development (845) 586-2611 or pmanning@catskillcenter.org

Getting Better?
Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services has raised its standard long-term rating and Standard & Poor’s underlying rating on Ulster County’s general obligation bonds to ‘AA-’from ‘A’, based on the county’s transitioning of its local economic base toward a more service-oriented economy, solid financial performance measured by continuous strong reserve levels, and good management. At the same time, the rating service assigned its ‘AA-’ standard long-term rating with a stable outlook to the county’s $14.6 million series 2008 GO public improvement bonds.
The rating reflects an economic base that historically has been centered around manufacturing and more recently has experienced a shift toward a more service-oriented economy; good wealth and income indicators and healthy tax-base growth; continued solid financial position since fiscal 2006, despite fluctuating operations in previous years; and the county’s low overall debt profile and manageable capital plan.
The stable outlook reflects the county’s continued solid financial performance. “The ongoing transition of the local economy, which has broadened employment opportunities, drawing residents from nearby areas and thus fostering continued commercial activity, is a credit strength,” said Standard & Poor’s credit analyst Marilyn Cruz. The county’s low debt indicators and management’s oversight of the fiscal policies bring additional stability to the rating.
In other good news of late, sales of existing single-family homes in the Hudson Valley and Catskills have made somewhat of a comeback.While most, if not all, counties faces losses for the past several months, a number saw increased sales in September 2008 when compared to the same month last year, according to the New York State Association of Realtors.
Sales rose by almost four percent in Greene County and they eked up by one percent in Ulster County.
Sales of existing homes fell by 44 percent in Delaware County, by 23 percent in Sullivan County, and by 18 percent in Westchester County.
Statewide, home sales year over year in September fell by four percent.
Westchester County continued to have the highest median priced homes sold at $635,000. Delaware County had the lowest at $120,000.
Homes sold for an average of $240,000 in Ulster.

Re-localize!
What can a community do to achieve some sort of state of well being and optimism while we travel the corridors of uncertainty? It can meet and talk about these and other issues surrounding the newly formed re-localization movement on Sunday,. November 9 at 5pm at the Odd Fellows Hall on Rt. 213 in Olivebridge. Park around the corner at the firehouse. Wood fired pizza potluck starts at 5 followed by a screening of “The Power of Community,” which documents the change in Cuba to local organic food production in response to a severe change in the price and availability of petroleum products in Cuba due to the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991.
RSVP about pizza toppings and other potluck needs by calling 657-2030 or e-mailing waverider75@earthlink.net .

Our Maverick
Maverick Concerts of West Hurley has been named “Best Cultural Business” of 2008 by the Ulster County Chamber of Commerce and the Ulster County Development Corporation. The award is in recognition of Maverick’s contribution to the quality of life of Ulster County residents through culture and the arts and for furthering Ulster County’s identity as a cultural destination.
The award was presented to the Maverick’s Board Chairperson Susan Rizwani and Board Member Dr. Edward Leavitt at the Fourth Annual Ulster County Business Recognition Awards Dinner on Tuesday, October 21, 2008, at the Wiltwyck Golf Club.
Maverick Concerts, which concluded its 93rd season this past Labor Day, is America’s oldest continuous summer chamber music festival and a winner of the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming. Presenting concerts by nationally and internationally known performers at affordable prices, Maverick thrives on its audiences’ love of great music and the spirit of its unique site in the unspoiled woods just outside Woodstock.
In 1916, Hervey White, founder of the collaborative Maverick Art Colony, gathered a group of artists and other volunteers to build a hand-hewn “music chapel.” This rustic concert hall is now a multi-starred attraction on the National Register of Historic Places. The hall, with its perfect acoustics, is ideally suited to chamber music and the intimacy of live performance. In 2008, Maverick was honored with a $148,000 matching grant from Save America’s Treasures for preservation of the hall.
Maverick presents concerts every Saturday night and Sunday afternoon from late June through Labor Day. There are four young people’s concerts on selected Saturday mornings at 11:00. Tickets are general admission with no reserved seating, and a special “rock bottom” area provides pay-what-you-can seating. The Maverick Concert Hall is located on Maverick Road near Woodstock, approximately one mile from the road’s junctions with either Route 375 or Route 28. For additional information, visit www.maverickconcerts.org, call 679-8217.

Mmm, Extension...
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County and the Ulster County Farm Bureau will host an evening of celebration with fine food and entertainment for their annual dinner at The Hillside Manor located on Route 32 in Kingston on Friday, November 14, at 6:30pm. Each year Cooperative Extension recognizes individuals for their countless hours of volunteering and dedication to select programs in our community. This year’s Friends of Extension honorees are Ulster County Area Transit (U.C.A.T.), Chuck Garrison, Crist Brothers Orchards, and Sickler, Torcia, Allen & Churchill CPA’s PC.
The evening will include a silent auction. Please RSVP no later than Friday, November 7. For reservations call Dona Crawford at 845-340-3990.

New Gallery!
Cabane Studios Fine Art Gallery and Photography Studio, located at 38 Main Street in Phoenicia, across from Sweet Sue’s, will be hosting an opening reception on Frida, November 14th from 6pm to 9pm. It’s first show of paintings, drawings and photographs will show until January 1, 2009. Gallery hours will be Fridays 3-6, Saturdays 12-6, or by appointment. For further information visit http://cabanestudios.wordpress.com/

Slow Food...
Pure Catskills and the Slow Food Catskills Convivium are hosting a special event dinner at the Slow Down Food Company, Andes. Six delegates from the Catskills Delegation are returning with insight and stories from their recent trip to the Terra Madre Conference in Turin, Italy. The dinner is open to the public and will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. on November 15th.
Beginning at 5:30 p.m., guests will be able to browse displays from the sponsoring groups and photo collages by the Catskills Terra Madre delegation. The delegation will share their impressions of the Piedmont region, understanding garnered from farmers from across the world and knowledge gleaned from the Terra Madre events. At 6 p.m., Northern Italian Piedmontese cuisine will be served, featuring ingredients brought back from Italy and the Terra Madre food market. Over dessert, farmers and chefs who attended the event will speak in a roundtable session.
Pure Catskills’ six local representatives were just a few of the thousands of farmers, chefs, educators and advocates from around the world at the conference.
Visit www.slowfoodcats.com for more information on Slow Food Catskills, the local chapter of Slow Food, founded in 1986.
Pure Catskills is an economic initiative of the Watershed Agricultural Council. For more information, visit www.nycwatershed.org.
Seating is limited and reservations are required. Contact Leslie Deysenroth at the Watershed Agricultural Council by phone at (607) 865-7017 or by email at ldeysenroth@nycwatershed.org.

Hunger!
What would it really cost to end global hunger? The United Nations estimates that it would take at least $30 billion per year to solve the food crisis, mainly by boosting agricultural productivity in the developing world. Over the decade that it would take to make sustainable improvements in the lives of the 862 million undernourished people, that amounts to $300 billion. Three hundred billion dollars is a lot of money, but it’s less than half of 1% of the world’s combined gross domestic products, not an unreasonable sum to invest in ending the misery and degradation of hunger. After all, Congress shelled out $21 billion last year for foreign aid, recently approved $162 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for fiscal 2009, spent $340 billion in 2006 alone on public and private research and development... and then bailed out Wall Street.
Meanwhile, new evidence suggests that organic practices - derided by some as a Western lifestyle fad - are delivering sharp increases in yields, improvements in the soil and a boost in the income of Africa’s small farmers who remain among the poorest people on earth. The head of the UN’s Environment Programme, Achim Steiner, said the report “indicates that the potential contribution of organic farming to feeding the world maybe far higher than many had supposed”.
The “green revolution” in agriculture in the 1960s - when the production of food caught and surpassed the needs of the global population for the first time - largely bypassed Africa. Whereas each person today has 25 percent more food on average than they did in 1960, in Africa they have 10 percent less.
A combination of increasing population, decreasing rainfall and soil fertility and a surge in food prices has left Africa uniquely vulnerable to famine. Climate change is expected to make a bad situation worse by increasing the frequency of droughts and floods.
It had been conventional wisdom among African governments that modern, mechanised agriculture was needed to close the gap but efforts in this direction have had little impact on food poverty and done nothing to create a sustainable approach. Now, the global food crisis has led to renewed calls for a massive modernization of agriculture on the hungriest continent on the planet, with calls to push ahead with genetically modified crops and large industrial farms to avoid potentially disastrous starvation.
But research conducted by the UN Environment Programme suggests that organic, small-scale farming can deliver the increased yields which were thought to be the preserve of industrial farming, without the environmental and social damage which that form of agriculture brings with it.
An analysis of 114 projects in 24 African countries found that yields had more than doubled where organic, or near-organic practices had been used. That increase in yield jumped to 128 percent in east Africa.
The study found that organic practices outperformed traditional methods and chemical-intensive conventional farming. It also found strong environmental benefits such as improved soil fertility, better retention of water and resistance to drought. And the research highlighted the role that learning organic practices could have in improving local education.
Backers of GM foods insist that a technological fix is needed to feed the world. But this form of agriculture requires cash to buy the patented seeds and herbicides - both at record high prices currently - needed to grow GM crops.

Ahh, Birdie!
Bye Bye Birdie will be presented at Onteora High School on Thursday, November 13 through Saturday, November 15, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, November 16 at 2 p.m.
Bye Bye Birdie is a hilarious look back at the 1960’s where easy listening pop music was being overtaken by rock and roll. This classic musical showcases teenie-boppers from all over the country who are crying and fainting because the worst possible thing has happened: Conrad Birdie, the biggest singing sensation of the 1960’s, has been drafted! Before he heads off to the army, his manager has created one final publicity stunt: Conrad will give a goodbye kiss to a randomly chosen member of the Birdie fan club on a live broadcast of The Ed Sullivan Show. The plot revolves around the complications that arise, the craze for Rock ‘n Roll, and the antics of typical American teenagers.
When this Tony Award-winning show opened on Broadway in 1960, it was a send-up of current popular culture. Elvis Presley and the Beatles were on the scene, much to the chagrin of parents all across America. With its timeless themes, imaginative dance routines, and memorable songs such as “Put on a Happy Face” and “Telephone Hour “, this blast from the past is guaranteed to be riotously funny.
Bye Bye Birdie continues Onteora’s musical tradition, including Grease, Oklahoma, and 42nd Street. Tickets for Onteora’s production of Bye Bye Birdie are available by calling 657-2373. All performances will be held at the Onteora High School auditorium

Women’s Meet
All women of the area are invited to attend the Shandaken Womens’ Network open meeting, social hour and dinner on Wednesday November 19th from 6:00-9:00pm at the Boiceville Inn that is open to all women who live or work in the area east of Delaware County, from Kingston to Margaretville. This will be a meeting of hearts and minds to hear about visions for the group moving forward. The discussion will be facilitated by SWN member Elly Wininger. There is no charge to attend the meeting.
Socializing will take place from 6:00-7:30 followed by dinner from the menu and discussion from 7:30-9:00 p.m.
The Boiceville Inn, 845-657-8500, is located on Route 28 (just west of Bread Alone) and east of Boiceville, NY.
For more information contact Melody Newcombe, President at 845-688-5472 and RSVP Diana Mae Munch, Reservations at 845-688-7057.

Folk Auction
There will be a benefit auction of folk music memorabilia on Sunday, November 16th 2008 from 3-6 pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church Hall, Sawkill Road, Kingston (near the Kingston Thruway Entrance) as a fundraiser for the Heritage Music Foundation. Donations of all type of memorabilia including LP’s tapes, CD’s, songbooks, posters, even instruments have been, and are still being accepted. You can see the current list of donated items at http://heritagemusicauction.blogspot.com/

In Ellenville...
On Tuesday, October 28, about 150 people attended the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony at the Ellenville Senior Apartments. The apartments, which are located next to Ellenville Regional Hospital, are a partnership between Warwick Properties, Inc., a for-profit entity, and Ellenville Regional Hospital, a not-for-profit organization, providing both safe, independent, residential living and quality healthcare on one campus.
The newly constructed apartment building consists of a three-story elevator building containing 55 units of rental housing. All units are equipped with Energy Star rated appliances and light fixtures, Energy Star HVAC and Central Air Conditioning. The project qualifies under the Green Building Initiative. The apartments are fully rented.
For information on the Ellenville Senior Apartments, please call 845 647-4772.

Direct To Brain
In this month’s issue of Scientific American, it is reported that recent bio-tech developments could lead to ‘Matrix’-style technologies that would allow the human brain to interact with information and robotics just as a computer would interact with a keyboard and flash drive. Among these developments is Niel Birbaumer’s research at Germany’s University of Tubingen which suggests that, by magnetically stimulating the cortex and then mapping neuron activity, experts could activate particular memories in a subject (a potential boon for those with Alzheimer’s). In addition, researchers at U.S.C. and Wake Forest are developing an artificial hippocampus that could, theoretically, one day enable Alzheimer’s patients to create new memories. And while neuroscientists have already engineered prosthetics that are controlled by brain signals, research indicates that soon those prostheses may be able to send signals back to the brain. Not only would you be able to reach out and pet a kitten with your prosthetic hand, but you would also be able to actually feel the softness of its fur.
While researchers have already introduced bionic eyes and hands, and neural implants capable of learning, these more recent developments are particularly intriguing. It could very well be that, in the coming decades, more and more people — particularly those who have lost brain or limb function — could come to integrate machines into their bodies and into their very psyches.