Follow Up on the News

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Suddenly It’s Settled
“The 800 pound gorilla finally learned to line dance with its country cousins,” said Olive supervisor Berndt Leifeld of the agreement reached late last week in a stamenet he proudly said he’d worked on his drive to work Wednesday norning, April 2. “Who knows why? I’m glad it turned out this way.” The Olive Town board unanimously passed a resolution authorizing Leifeld, town assessor William Cook and the Latham-based attorney who helped reach the agreed-upon settlement to sign the negotiated deal as soon as possible.Leifeld later noted that “somebody has to start the thing running so we went first,” adding that a similar resolution would now have to be passed by the Onteora School Board, involved in the case as an Intervenor because of its status as a key taxing entity affected by Olive’s assessment figures, as well as the City itself.
“They will sign,” Leifeld said of the school board, noting that a majority of its members had already voiced approval of the new deal.
As for New York City, he said, just as confidently, that “The city’s going to sign. It’s a done deal unless someone dies in the meantime.”
The new deal follows a March ruling by tate Supreme Court Justice Gerald W. Connelly that dismissed a City lawsuit over Olive’s tax assessment of the Ashokan Reservoir for the years 2001-2002, 2002-2003, 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 that could have cost town and Onteora School District taxpayers over $14 million in back taxes, if lost.
As outlined in the resolution passed by Olive Tuesday evening, it notes that all litigation between the years of 2001 and 2007 previously filed by New York would be discontinued with no costs to the town or school district, and no property tax refunds required to be paid; and that the City has “covenanted and agreed not to sue the Town” on Ashokan Reservoir assessments for the coming ten years, and settle all past pending litigation.
A schedule of future assessment values for the Reservoir was also adopted as part of the new deal, with figures of $550 million in value for the next three years, through 2010, $560 million for 2011,, $570 million for 2012, $580 million for 2013, $590 million for 2014 and 2015, and $600 million for 2016 and 2017.
Another major win for Olive, the Onteora school district and Ulster County, which were also joined in the case, is that none will be required to pay back over $20 million the city argued it was due in back tax payments it’s lawyers claimed were unfair.
Olive had valued the reservoir at over $600 million in a 2006 revaluation, while the City claimed its value at $150 million. The New York State Office of Real Property Services most recently came down in the middle with a valuation of $340 million for the giant Reservoir.
The recent reval came after nearly 30 years wait when Onteora, under a previous school board, okayed implementation of recent state legislation known as the Large Parcel Law designed to address perceived tax inequities in large tax districts combining multiple municipalities that shared a property or properties that made up over 5 percent of local tax valuation, was valued at over $5 million, and involved a five percent discrepancy between valuations.
The idea behind the reval was to shrink any difference between apportionment and equalization rate to remove one of the law’s requirements so as to remove the huge tax hikes entailed by Olive residents after its enactment. But remaining discrepancies between the City and Olive resulted only in further worries of potential tax settlements and the law’s re-enactment.
Three years ago, Olive candidates won a majority of the Onteora School Board based on a protest vote against Large Parcel’s implementation, cemented last year with the election of two further members to the entity, giving the town a 5-2 majority of its membership. That board was instrumental, late last year, in getting the school district involved in the ongoing litigation, which many have said was key to the recent dismissal of previous lawsuits… and possibly the new deal.
But Leifeld said this week that the new compromise deal over the Ashokan’s value may have made any and all questions about further Large Parcel implementation moot. First, though, the state ORPS folks have to accept the valuation that the city and town have agreed upon (as does Judge Connelly).
Was there any chance the state could mess what now looks like a golden deal up?
“What we’re being told is that they’re working on all this and will make their decision known in a timely fashion,” Leifeld said. “I would kind of think that they’d be glad to get this thing off their table and feel they’ll be happy with what we’ve all come up with. But who the hell knows.”
As a result, in his roundabout way, Leifeld added that Large Parcel, the key local issue that’s been key to all Olive, and Onteora, politics over the last four years, was most likely “eliminated.”
Early letters of support for three of Olive’s incumbent Onteora board members running for re-election in May have mentioned Large Parcel as a key motivating force for bringing out the town’s vote… and staying paramount over other issues in taxpayers’ minds.
Did the deal, soon to be signed by all parties, also represent any sort of shift for all reservoirs?
Leifeld said he couldn’t say yes or no, except to note that as a board member for the regional Catskill Watershed Corporation, he certainly hoped so.
“Grahamsville, from what I’ve heard, did a deal like this some time ago,” he said. “And I know Gary Bellows over in Hurley is trying to negotiate something similar just now.”
Over at CWC Headquarters in the Delaware County community of Margaretville, Executive Director Alan Rosa echoed Leifeld’s sense that the recent “coming to terms” between the City and one of its key reservoir towns would be precedent-setting, given that there are still ten different challenges pending in other communities.
“At least everyone’s now sitting around the table and talking,” he said.
As for Leifeld’s own political future, the supervisor was less talkative than usual. He spoke about putting up a new transfer station building where one fell down in December and then trailed off.
“Maybe I’ll buy a news company,” he quipped. “All I can say is it’s nice not to worry about this… It took a long time.”
Olive tax assessor Bill Cook has not yet checked the complicated formula to determine what percentage of the Olive tax levy the City will bear now that a deal has been reached.

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Rosenfeld, the sole remaining board member from Woodstock and one of two making up a minority against the board’s current 5-2 Olive majority, which has tended to vote as a block in the last year, was the board’s senior trustee, well into his second term and having served for over four years.
As a result of the surprise action, an additional seat will now open up for school board elections on May 20. This leaves four seats vacant and up for grabs, with only three of those held by incumbents Cindy O’Connor, Rita Vanacore and board president MaryJane Bernholz.
To date a number of meetings have been held to gauge and potentially shepherd growing dissatisfaction with the incumbent school board majority, which seems to have alienated many outside their hometown by pushing forward an unpopular redistricting plan that will force the closure of another elementary school, and doing so in what has been termed an unresponsive fashion. One candidate, Woodstock parentDonna Flayhan, has already announced while another three have been speaking about candidacies from Woodstock, Phoenicia and Olive off the record.
Come next month’s elections, three seats will be for three-year terms while Rosenfeld’s will go to whoever ends up being the fourth highest vote getter, He or she will be sworn in and take their place on the board election night., but their term will then come up for re-election next year.
Petitions are still available at the district office, with a deadline of April 21 for submission. Petitions will need at least 47 signatures from qualified voters who live in the district to be qualified.
In other matters raised at the recent meeting, the school board voted unanimously to approve the settlement of the tax certiorari proceeding filed by New York City against the town of Olive on the assessed value of the Ashokan Reservoir between 2001 and 2007 (see accompanying story). Superintendent Leslie Ford called it a “Wonderful moment” and said the actual time of the settlement is over a ten-year period. Bernholz added that it would all last, “Until 2017 at a tax savings of over $14 million.”
Vanacore said, “That is the tax certiorari savings, but the fact still remains that the reservoir is assessed for about $100 million less than it was assessed by the town, so I am not so sure that is going to be a tax savings.” She asked for the actual “fact and figures on the tax levy before we herald that as a tax savings.”
Assistant Superintendent for Business Victoria McLaren said, “In terms of the levy it’s going to be the same as what we projected; what will change is the total assessed value of the district. We don’t get our assessment rolls until late June and the reservoir is down by $100 million… we don’t know what the rest of the town assessment looks like…”
Bernholz said the Office of Real Property Services (ORPS) still needs to agree on the value of the reservoir.
In separate discussions, both Olive superintendent Bert Leifeld and tax assessor Bill Cook have said that they believe the new deal, once accepted by ORPS< will render moot any further discussion of the Large Parcel issue that brought the Olive majority to the board in recent years.
Meanwhile, regarding this year’s hot topic issue… The Onteora board held the first of its two parents meetings on the proposed 5-8 middle school configuration at the Middle/High school on March 27. The school board has said that it will decide where to put a five-through-eight middle school on May 6, just before the upcoming elections, but not discuss which elementary schools might get closed until after the election.
There are two proposals; to convert Bennett elementary into a middle school or extend the high school by two grades and close an additional elementary school.
Around a dozen or so administrators and teachers attended the meeting to speak in favor of creating a five-through-eight middle school, with an equal amount of parents in attendance speaking against the proposal.
According to the latest demographic reports by the year 2014 the district will have roughly 1,420 students. But actual enrollment numbers do not match the projections, and also the latest reports appear to be changing. This leaves parents doubtful of the school board’s intentions. Are they really trying to update education standards, while fixing the old buildings? Or are they cutting costs that will leave students in crowded classrooms?
The late superintendent Justine Winters, prior to her employment with Onteora, successfully implemented a six-through-eight configuration in her old school district (Webutuck), that seemed to be the direction that the district would go… before Ford’s arrival and board shifts. Demographic reports have been highlighted since 2003 and resulted in the closure of West Hurley elementary school in 2004. KSQ architects Armand Quadrini and Scott Hillje spent four months meeting with the school community in 2005. This included evening meetings at each elementary school where the public was invited. Quadrini and Winters then recommended a plan in February 2006, which would create a six-through-eight middle school and three elementary schools. In his findings Quadrini said he learned it was important for each community to have their own elementary school.
At the March 27 meeting, transportation proved a point of contention. Transportation director Dave Moraca said, “There are a couple of different options of how we want our kids bussed.” He noted that the district could stay with the two-tiered system, where the middle/high school kids are transported together followed by the transporting of elementary kids on a second run. There was also discussion’s of grades five and six taking the bus with the elementary kids and starting at a later time.
Many parents voiced concern about ten year old kids riding the same bus with high school kids for what may take longer travel time. Moraca said out of safety it would be ideal to put the younger kids up front and older kids in the back. Other administrators chimed in to add that based on their experience, they have never seen problems between older and younger kids. Parents still disagreed, noting that this is the second largest geographical area in the state, with longer bus time than most school districts and complained about current discipline problems.
“One of the things we are looking at is a new type of camera system that we’re going to have a demonstration on in the next couple of months,” Moraca answered.
Ford said, “We all here need to look at the community that we are focusing on as the children; it’s not a Phoenicia community, it’s not a West Hurley community, it’s an Onteora school district community, which is something we share and create because there is no Onteora town so we make this up as a construct and bring the children to it and that is what we need to maintain.”
On Thursday, April 3, the new Community Based School Group (CBSG), an ad hoc parents organization, got together with Russell Richardson, the executive director of Onteora’s popular INDIE program, at the INDIE building on Route 28. After four hours of heated debate, the group of a dozen or so folks from all corners of the district agreed on a list of common grounds including that they would start working together to replace the existent school board, seek a moratorium to stop progress with the Middle School proposal and its bonding, and seek funding for alternative studies on redistricting.
The most heated topic of the meeting was a CBSG proposal for splitting of the Onteora district, which is also being brought up at local town board meetings.. One side wanted it stopped until after the election, while supporters of the proposal said no.
“I’m very concerned about the agenda of partitioning the school district and that it does not become the main agenda for re-voting the members of the school board,” said Richardson. “A lot of voters will run a mile from that.”
Richardson said INDIE will not support two separate districts and believes the issue will drive a wedge between communities.
The Onteora school board would not be responsible for the study of a separate school district. This is in the hands of the State commissioner and BOCES superintendent. CBSG approached the Woodstock town board and requested that they work with BOCES on a feasibility study in order to keep community schools intact. The group is asking for a moratorium, to stop further progress on a potential $70 million to $86 million bond that would close an additional school and create a five-through-eight middle school. They are petitioning to ask for the study and the moratorium.
People from the Onteora parents group said they were baffled by the amount of people who attended the Woodstock town board meeting, where they made a resolution to petition BOCES. “I agree that there was a tremendous amount of energy Tuesday night…” said parent Tim Rands a member of the Onteora parents group, “but we need that many people at board meetings, opposing the five-through-eight plan.”
A similar turnout was on hand when a similar presentation was made at Phoenicia Town Hall on April 7, although most there were brought out by other town matters, including a presentation by Ford flanked by Bernholz, Vanacore and O’Connor, and including a budget-cutting presentation by members of the Budget Study Group that has been extolling the Reaganesque virtues of running school districts more like businesses, with similar ruthlessness in regards to “the bottom line.”
The Onteora Parents group have been protesting over the School board’s decision to create the middle school, believe that community based schools within a centralized district are what is best. They are against the closure of any elementary school. They have been petitioning businesses and locals to gain support against the school board’s proposal.
Richardson countered a defense of the current board by O’Connor’s sister by noting how the new administration, “Has been shutting down everything, which doesn’t fit the grid of the lowest mandate possible.” He listed cuts that included teachers, art and music programs. “The board members have failed the school and its population, the children.”
Included in budget reductions are INDIE programs for at-risk kids and the entire INDIE future.
Large Parcel legislation, now considered a moot point, was discussed as having a damaging effect on education where the candidates were elected for “that one issue,” all coming from the town of Olive. Ideas were explored on reasons why people do not attend school board meetings that ranged from a feeling of being disenfranchised to it being a waste of time since the school board “will not listen.” Complaints were heard around the room about too many committees, long waits during equally long board meetings and lack of information given out during the meetings and on the district’s website.
The Onteora Parents Group has promised to announce a slate of its own candidates soon.

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Two weeks ago, Cruickshank and her troupe of 50 or so kids, teens, tweens, and grown ups put on a musical, Narnia, at The Colony Café in Woodstock. Audiences were SRO, packed to the gills, and enthusiastic. Sure, some moms and dads cringed at the sledgehammer spiritual propaganda we’ve all heard about in C.S. Lewis’ childhood classics. But no mind… kudos to Cruickshank for not shying from all her text included. And thus allowing those timeless elements within it, including its suggestions of the Christ story, to emerge with full emotional impact.
Production values were low rent, but charming nevertheless, what with the auteur’s penchant for always involving as many people onstage (or back) as possible at one time. Dancers intimated snow or fairy-like moods. Musical accompaniment was unobtrusive but resilient and consistently strong, adding a professional air to the proceedings. Everyone performed with an infectious mix of utmost seriousness and simultaneous fun. Like kid’s play… as it was and should be.
Of course, there were standouts in the large, changing cast. Kaya Lathrop, as Lucy, sang her little heart out, Kiara Cruickshank hammed it up with constant delight as an itchy dwarf. Jack Warren was shy but perfect character as the troubled Edmund, whose subtle rebirth drives the narrative’s plot about personal redemption.
Among the older talents, Elijah Wapner utilized his stand-up experience to give Father Christmas a mixture of levity and fearfulness my two year old son found utterly convincing. Anna Hereth, as the White Witch, played the seething side of adolescent rage to Viva Fraser’s mannerist sweetness as the Fawn, Mr. Tumnus, who spends much of the time in s stylized frozen state.
Adults Phillip Levine, Faye Storms and David Lewis as the lion king/martyred savior Aslan added warm but nicely complicated characterizations to the proceedings.
As I noted, my two year old loved it… all of it. He sat, totally enraptured, for a full two and a half hours and has played each of the characters, caught in simple, dance-like movements, throughout the weeks after.
Which shows the true magic of what Cruickshank creates with her community cast. She finds those pieces of gesture and interaction that we carry with us to and from dreams and makes her productions ring with them. Which makes up for all the lost lines and off-key notes, the handmade aspects and the overall length of the production.
Watching Cruickshank ride her production as if it were all emenating from somewhere within her, or she was everyone out there, reminded me constantly of first meeting her when she was but a girl having won a first role on Broadway. It was an understudy position but it hardly mattered. What was fascinating about Cara was how fully she followed the magic of the theater, and not just the sense of staginess.
That sensibility is not only still there now, but strengthened by Cruikshank’s compassionate womanhood. She defines the joys of all things childlike versus those that are merely childish, a key distinction for our times, and a treasure for our communities.
I look forward to whatever she does next and plan to be there.

*****

You can order a wonderful DVD of the Sunday 1PM or 6PM performance of NARNIA - Contact: Dave@EsopusCreek.com

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When A Best Friend Passes

Her new friends Patti and myself nursed her back to good health where she started a journey through life that would touch many. Chance became popular early on as the “Copilot” for me in my garbage truck as we worked the roads throughout the Town of Middletown, Shandaken and Olive. At Christmastime, Chance got so many gifts & cards that a trip back to the shop had to be made to make room for the rest of the route. We have many, if not all, of the cards, most hand-made by the kids.
Chance loved to travel and the joke back then when I went on vacation was that the back-up driver had to pick up Chance to help with the route. That she knew it by heart… and she really did. She never missed a day on the job for three years and never forgot from week to week where we saw deer, turkeys, rabbits or where her buddies lived.
She never caught any rabbits but she did pin a turkey; it had a broken leg, then Chance looked at me as if to say “what now.” That look was worth a million.
Later on she learned how to run off bears without getting hurt. She was always back in a minute or two, always.
She had a spot on the hill by the house where she would just sit and watch. She knew who belonged and who didn’t. Chance always went with me camping and fishing, form the wilds of NW Quebec to the Adirondacks and the Salmon river. She was great in the canoe and a joy to have in larger boats. She was the point guard in the bow or on hikes in the woods looking to flush a few grouse. She was thrilled, I think, just to be with me doing whatever.
In our travels she took a liking to the Marshall’s Creek boat launch on 209 in Pennsylvania. She would let us know when we were close so that we could stop and get in the water. She had so many little irks and quirks for different things…and Patti and I knew what each was for. She also knew when 5:30 was; whether we planned to go to Russ’s Country Kitchen or not she was ready anyway. She loved to go and greet people and hang out on the porch; she would even show off while chasing the bears away.
Like her pals Shiloh, Lucky and Brutus, who recently passed away, we mourn the passing of “Poppy’s Girl”. Chance was given another go at life when things looked bleakest for her. She was no pure bred — she was more the kind that only happens once in a lifetime, if you’re lucky.
Although our hearts are heavy with her loss, we know she is looking down from above with a smile saying “Thank You.” We are going to miss those tail and rear wagging hellos and the rides around town, but most of all, those quiet times at home snuggled on the couch (sprawled, I mean}with a contentedness that only love and happiness can bring.
Thank you Chance for entering our lives and hearts, being the best “Pal” we could ever hope for. We love you very much and you will always be in our hearts.
We would like to thank with all our hea.rts the people who were there with us on Saturday April 5, 2008 in our time of great loss and sorrow when our girl “Chance” passed away. They were wonderful with us and we could not ask for better friends: Joanne and Bob Kalb, John Crawford and Rich Mulliermile. You guys were great and helped soften the sorrow. Rich, especially… all that you did trying to bring Chance back to us.
If you would like to make donations in Chance’s name please send them to the Shandaken Town Hall Town Clerks office to help with the kennels. Thanks again guys, we love you
Patti and Dennis