Follow Up on the News
For the better part of a decade the Association has fought a proposal by Andrew Poncic of Woodland Valley and New York City to suck water out of an underground spring near the head of the 6 mile long dead end road.
The plan to draw two truckloads of water a day from the spring was given the go ahead last fall by the Shandaken Planning board after a six year review.
Hisses and boo’s from the audience were heard following the 5-1 vote, with one woman shouting “shame on you” to the majority of the board that supported the project. The session included an unusual Police presence, but no one got out of hand.
Poncic first announced his plan back in 2000. At the time he planned to draw water for bottling purposes, claiming to have a high yield spring on his property that offered superior drinking water. He later scrapped that plan and announced he wanted instead to draw non-potable water from the site. Regardless, opponents maintained that two tractor trailers a day on the thin windy road would be too much for the otherwise residential community.
According to McGowan, the session will also be an opportunity to for members to discuss ways to combat what he called “misguided development” in the entire town.
“At this time, I would like for the Woodland Community Association Members to look beyond the Poncic proposal, and make an effort to plan for the future of Woodland Valley and Shandaken,” McGowan said. “ The dangers of misguided development still persist in our Town. Now, more than ever before, is a time that we need to remain strongly united as a voice for the future.”
City’s Rec Rules Tossed
Hunter also argued that the new rules were illegal because state law required state Health Department approval before the city agency could enact them. The Department of Environmental Protection did not seek such approval.
Last year, Hunter Supervisor Dennis Lucas complained that the rules were thrust upon the community, which he said was not asked to participate in their development. Lucas viewed that as a violation of the “partnership” between the city agency and the watershed communities.
“The petitioner alleges it is entitled to a declaratory judgment finding the Recreational Use Rules are illegal, null, void and of no legal effect as the DEP failed to comply with public health law,” wrote state Supreme Court Justice Joseph C. Teresi in his June 19 decision.
“(The ruling) means that all of the city’s recreational use regs have been annulled and the city has to submit them to the state Department of Health for approval - which will entail its own procedures,” said Jeff Baker, the attorney who, represented Hunter in the case.
“Consistent with state Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner (Alexander “Pete”) Grannis’ statements at his confirmation, the state does not believe that the city regulations properly allow access for hikers, hunters and fishermen,” Baker added. “Therefore, we do not expect that the state will approve them as written.”
The rules were formally announced last summer at the Delaware County Fair in Walton.
“Preserving New York City’s watershed land is a crucial aspect for maintaining a clean, healthy water supply for more than nine million residents of New York state, but these lands are also beautiful, inviting natural spaces,” Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Emily Lloyd said at the time. “For the past several years, the department has been working with local and county governments and sporting groups to expand recreational activities and access to DEP land.”
Speaking with a number of Phoenicia families who oppose the possible closing of their school recently, it was found that most of those who moved up in recent years did not know each other in New York City, but have since found enough in common to create deep bonds. Many work freelance, a large number from home, and all travel fairly frequently, both for work and pleasure. Nearly everyone looks for ways to volunteer for the community or school in various ways. Many are former second-homers who have moved to the area full time and now want their voices to be heard.
Phoenicia PTA president Christina Himberger spoke via cell phone while on a runway at Los Angeles airport waiting to return home. She says her husband Peter is from the Saugerties area, but they lived on the Upper West side in Manhattan for many years. They moved to the Olive area two years ago with Onteora in mind. She worked in marketing, but said they moved mostly because her husband — who works in music management— travels a great deal and needed a place to “decompress.” Although they are zoned for Bennett, they chose Phoenicia as a school because of the smaller classrooms and local flavor. She found nothing wrong with Bennett, they just wanted something smaller.
“There is a vibrancy that a community school brings,” Himberger said, noting how much she likes the idea that the town library is near the school, along with places for the kids to safely hang out in.
“I get more PTA business done walking between the school and Sweet Sues, instead of on the phone,” she added, making her point.
Musician Robert Warren and his wife, Holly, is an author and music journalist, have lived in the area part time since the 1980’s. They decided to settle in the Phoenicia area once they became parents in 1998 with Phoenicia School in mind. Warren, known to most as Uncle Rock, was formerly a member of the band The Fleshtones. In an email exchange while on a work/family vacation in Los Angeles, he explained that they bought their permanent house from the former editor of Woodstock Times, Parry Teasdale, who also offered them high praise of the school.
“It has been invaluable that our family has been in such close contact with a varied student body and by extension - a pluralist and tolerant community,” Warren wrote. “Yes, there are skirmishes and flare-ups, but that keeps everyone engaged. It’s America at its best.”
Mimi Whitehead, performance artist and musician, moved to Woodstock from New York in 1999. Her husband David works in music management. Eventually they bought the Ostrander homestead in Willow. Although zoned for Woodstock elementary they decided when the merge between Woodstock and West Hurley happened that they preferred smaller classrooms and heard good things about Phoenicia. She said her son is happy there and hopes her two-year old daughter can attend the same school when her time comes.
“It is a beautiful situation we have,” she said.
Abbe Aronson, publicity director for the Woodstock Film Festival, moved from the Village to the Mt. Tremper area with her son in January. She was a weekender for many years and said she made the big shift for the beauty and the house. When it came time to enroll her son in a local school, “People referred to Phoenicia as ‘the hidden gem’ of Onteora.”
Aronson added how her son had attended a K-12 model school for gifted children in Manhattan that the city tried to merge with two other schools until parents blocked the proposed changes. She did not believe she would be facing anything similar at Onteora.
“Everyone I know in New York City are deeply jealous for what we have,” she said.
Long-time resident and native to the area Cathy Neal said she attended Phoenicia School, as did her kids. She said the school has always extended itself to the town and parents.
Neal bakes large platters of food when school board meetings are held at Phoenicia, attracting larger audiences than most meetings at other locations in the district. Has she noticed the recent influx of people?
“I have noticed more community arts with the gallery (Phoenicia Arts Upstairs), more stores, things are definitely changing,” she replied, adding her belief that the area served by her school is too much for consolidation.
Finally, Tony Fletcher — an author and music journalist who owned a second home in Hunter with his wife Posie, a designer and their two kids – said he decided to buy a full time residence in the Onteora district after considerable research.
“I spent my birthday one morning touring different schools,” said Fletcher, noting how he and his family rented a house so their son could attend the school. They are currently building a house in the Mt Tremper area in order to stay in the district, so their second son-not quite of school age yet, can attend. He says it’s a decision he’s proud of… but also willing to fight, now, to protect.
I n 2004, when West Hurley Elementary School shut its doors, the district’s cost savings ended up being around $981,272. The closure of West Hurley came in segments prior to 2004, first beginning with the Ryan building due to mold problems, followed by a merger in 2003 which created a kindergarten-through-2 model at West Hurley and 3-through-6 configuration at Woodstock.
Mike Shultis, town supervisor of Hurley said he does not believe in the long run that it was cost effective and would like to see a solid analysis conducted. When asked if he has noticed a change in the area, he said, “Absolutely…the (West Hurley) kids no longer have a community school, they feel alienated.” He added that there is no longer a place for kids to go for after school activities and Woodstock School is too crowded to hold multi-community functions safely.
“Culturally it really changes things,” Shultis noted, recalling how he’s been discussing options with KSQ architects in hopes that one day West Hurley will open, and proposed that his town purchase the smaller Ryan building for renovation into a community center.
Shultis said he believes community schools should have priority over grade configurations that are dictated by state standards, and said that kids in grade five are too young for the Boiceville middle school/high school campus.
More after the district’s reorganization meeting July 10.
On Wednesday, June 20, the
Greene County Legislature adopted a resolution calling on the state
to show that Belleayre is operating on a break-even basis without using
surplus funds from state accounts, and to adopt a moratorium on expansion
of all three of its ski areas pending an independently-handled analysis
of any potential harm they may be doing to the private ski industry
and neighboring communities from proposed expansion.
Greene’s Legislature Chairman Wayne Speenburgh said, after posting
and passing the resolution, that it was adopted on the suggestion of
his county’s two major resorts, who had started holding talks
about what they saw as Belleayre’s unfair advantage with their
state Assemblyman, Pete Lopez, and other state officials this past winter.
The ski resorts, and now the county, via its Administrator Doug Brewer,
have said that by separately funding the marketing and insurance needs
of Belleayre and Adirondacks-based Gore and Whiteface Mountains, as
well as offering deeply discounted lift ticket prices for its slopes
unaffordable to private areas, the state has made the “playing
field” of the ski industry unfair to non-governmental ski areas.
The county’s resolution included language taking the state Department
of Environmental Conservation to task for making “inconsistent
and unfavorable” determinations in regards to permit requests
from Hunter and Windham – an allusion to past battles fought by
Hunter owner Orville Slutsky over plans to divert local stream waters
for snowmaking purposes and similar difficulties faced by Windham owner
Dan Frank over the years building condominiums. The resolution also
questioned the state’s general commitment of $25 million in capital
improvement funds to its three resorts.
In talks about the effects of the poor winter on their business this
past winter, both Slutsky and Frank bristled at what they termed an
endless spree of radio advertisements from Belleayre Superntendent Tony
Lanza trumpeting his state-owned ski area’s successes, basically
terming the state’s move as a turf invasion. Slutsky further questioned
the fairness of plans for a new unofficial but “unavoidable”
public-private partnership between the DEC-run ski center and Dean Gitter’s
proposed Belleayre Resort project, which was seeking to place a series
of high-end hotels and condominum parks adjacent to the state-owned
slopes, which are forbidden by the same constitutional amendment allowing
its existence from building a real estate component as keeps most private
ski areas afloat.
This past Spring, closed-door negotiations regarding a downsizing of
the Resort plans came to a halt after the Coalition for Belleayre, an
organization of private citizens that came together 20 years ago to
fight state threats of a possible Belleayre closing, came out on what
many took to be the side of the resort and alluded to the negotiations
involving some tie-ins between the state-owned slopes and Gitter’s
resort.
Slutsky said at the time that such deals were blatantly unfair, while
simultaneously announcing the meetings he and Frank and other private
ski areas around the state and entire Northeast region were having about
what they felt were New York State’s loading of the decks against
private business.
In addition to the talk of possible tie-ins between Gitter’s Resort
and Belleayre Mountain, a recent review of the private resort plans
ended up facing a brick wall when resort opponents sought to examine
ski center expansion plans at the same time. No, the state said, those
are private, at the moment, and not ready for discussion.
Answering the Greene County resolution, and by inference the private
ski area’s complaints, Coalition for Belleare founder and chairman
Joe Kelly said this week that he was going for a similar resolution
supporting the state-owned ski center from the Ulster County Legislature,
which has set discussion of the matter for its July meeting, and added
that he was more than ready to fight fire with fire.
“The gauntlet’s been thrown,” Kelly said from his
Long Island primary home on Wednesday, June 27. “I find the Greene
legislators actions bizarre, at best. Where does one county get off
going after another for its economic problems? We’ll do as they
do and get our own resolutions now.”
Kelly noted that while everyone had a bad year, that didn’t give
private areas any reason to “go after Belleayre.”
“If things are as bad as they say, look at your own business,”
Kelly said, noting that he had been talking with Ulster Legislative
Chairman David Donaldson about his concerns. “We can muster more
political power than they can. Our coalition isn’t just Ulster
County County, but much of the downstate region. Why should we be put
on the defensive for having created a real buzz about Belleayre.”
Donaldson, in a public statement made after the Greene resolution was
announced, called the move “shortsighted” and said he’d
do what he can to protect his county’s leadfing ski resort, state-owned
or not.
Kelly, meanwhile, said that he would be taking his political battle
to neighboring Delaware County as well as Ulster, and seeking to gain
support of the various state and federal politicians he’s roped
in to his Coalition events over the years.
On the other side, meanwhile, Slutsky has boasted former state Democratic
Party chairmen and equally heavy hitters on the state and national scene
among his supporters over the years, just as Frank and his mountain
have previously heralded their community’s Irish political roots,
including close ties to the Kennedy family.
As of press time, though, no state officials beyond Lopez have ventured
a word on the brewing battle.
“It’s like Suffolk County telling Nassau County to close
down Jones Beach because they’re taking too many swimmers. It’s
ridiculous,” said Kelly. “Belleayre is designed as a state
ski center and not just a play place for multimillionaires.”
As for intimations that the whole fight now brewing is happening under
the shadow of Gitter’s Resort project, he noted, “I can’t
speak to that. Like anything else, it’s part of it, I’m
sure. But there are other things at play here and this friction predates
anything involving the resort.”
Kelly said that there was a time, in the 1990s, when he, Slutsky and
Frank were talking about creating a regional ski pass good for any resort
in the Catskills. He added that he’d had similar talks this past
winter, without knowing that the present complaints were brewing.
“Everyone should be worrying about the five million skiers passing
us all by each winter for Vermont, and working towards bettering the
industry for the entire region,” he said. “All I can say,
in the end, is ‘Don’t attack us, because that will cause
a reaction like 20 years ago. People have an affection for Belleayre
that’d deeper than they realize.”
Did any of the current antagonism have to do, Kelly was asked, with
the fact that Belleayre’s superintendent had recently come under
fire from the state attorney general’s office for ethical lapses?
Were the private areas on the attack because they perceived a vulnerability,
and maybe even a major change at the ski center whose recent success
has been chalked up to Lanza’s marketing prowess?
Furthermore, was it true that Lanza might be on his way out, given the
new state administration’s penchant for clean politics, at least
on the surface.
Kelly begged off answering the questions.
“Everything’s fine, I haven’t heard anything,”
he said. “That’s a different fight.”
Ultimately, it is the work that we put forth to correct these problems
that will determine the immediate course of our nation and essentially,
the entire world.
So how do we do it? How can we accomplish our personal goals while making
a concerted effort to correct societies ills? The answer that I have come
to is rather simple, it is “our belief in our limitless capacity
to achieve anything.” Call me an outrageous optimist, but I truly
believe that we all have the capability to accomplish anything and everything
after the end of our High School years. Whether we are headed to college,
abroad, the armed forces, or straight into the workforce, we have been
given the tools from our friends, family, and teachers to achieve virtually
anything we wish.
In truth, no matter what capacity we choose to live our lives, we have
the ability to learn and accomplish virtually anything we set our minds
to.
During my address to Onteora’s graduating class I spoke about, “living
without limits” because I have found that the greatest limitations
that we run into are those that we impose upon ourselves. By
narrowing our thinking, we set ourselves up for failure and do not allow
the potential of personal growth and learning to take place. In short,
we can only realize potential if we allow ourselves to seize it.
No one knows exactly what challenges the future holds; but with the personal
liberty of a free mind without and limitations, there is no challenge
that cannot be conquered.
Once again, good luck to the class of 2007. Live your lives without limits.
Martin, who moved to Shandaken when he was 2 and attended Onteora schools
from kindergarten on, was Senior Class President at Onteora HS, Class
of 2007.
At present, he is working as a camp counselor at the YMCA Day Camp, Seewackamano
and is planning on entering Hobart & William Smith Colleges as a freshman
in August, 2007. Martin’s Major will be Political Science, with
intentions of going on to Law School.
Martin participated in Student Council in his earlier education, was a
Cubscout and Webelo Scout. He began playing the saxophone while a student
at Phoenicia, and progressed with the instrument right through Middle
School and High School. He was elected to the Honor Society at Onteora
several years ago.
The above piece was written based on the student’s speech given
at the recent Onteora 2007 graduation ceremony on June 22.