The Phoenicia Times - Follow Up on the News

Crossroads Ventures is proposing what they call the Belleayre Resort at Catskill Park, a 928-room resort hotel complex, slated to be integrated with the state-owned Belleayre Mountain Ski Center at Highmount on the Ulster/Delaware County border. This latest incarnation of the project represents a major change in the plans first proposed eight years ago when Crossroads announced intentions to build the resort, along with three Championship golf courses, not only at the site currently in mind but also on hundreds of acres east of Belleayre in the Big Indian/Pine Hill portion of the town of Shandaken.
After several years of environmental review under the State Department of Environmental Conservation, Crossroads began meeting with stakeholders under the watch of the New York State Governor’s office with hopes of reaching a compromise plan for the project. Last September, Spitzer signed an Agreement in Principle with Crossroads and a number of environmental groups signed, outlining the plan for the project now proposed, and preparing for environmental review.
Last September 6, Crossroads officials expressed hope that with many previous foes now in agreement on the project, the review process would move quickly and be completed by fall of this year.
But remaining opposition, along with new anti resort forces from the Hardenburgh area as well as opposition from private ski areas throughout the state to the use of public monies in the resort plans, have voiced their concerns loudly…. both when the State Department of Environmental Conservation sought public input to determine the scope of the review earlier this year, as well as in the formation of a special Blue Ribbon Commission exploring competition issues in outdoor recreation across the state.
To complicate matters more, Spitzer left office in disgrace last Spring and the new Governor, David Paterson, has not made any public comments regarding his predecessor’s AIP, leaving some to wonder whether it remained a state priority.
Paterson recently complicated matters further by holding a special session of the state legislature to cut $1.2 billion from the state budget in anticipation of a $6 billion budget shortgap next year, warning that things could get even worse than expected in the coming years, economically.
When asked for an update on the progress of the Belleayre Resort project’s review, Crossroads spokesperson Joan Lawrence Bauer said this week that there was nothing new to report, but she did explain that the review requirements for the latest proposal are substantially greater than the requirements for the original, bigger project.
“The scoping document for the (original project) was 48 pages,” she said. “The scoping document for the (current proposal) was 157 pages.”
Lawrence Bauer would not estimate when Crossroads would complete what is called a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, its response to the scoping document, but it appears it will not be anytime soon.
“We are not close to completion,” she said. “Want to be sure we dot every I and cross every T.”
Because of the public/private nature of the new project outlined in Spitzer’s AIP of last year, the Crossroads SEIS will have to be supplemented by a state DEIS on its own expansion plans, and resort tie-ins, including new requirements that Climate Change effects, and alternatives, be explored fully.
Asked this week how that review was coming, state Department of Environmental Conservation spokesperson Maureen Wren said that the agency, which runs the Belleayre Mountain Ski Center, said she had no idea. At present the DEC is wrestling with an across-the-board 6 percent budget cut of $13 million, with threats of further decreases in the coming years, among other issues.
Were the funds intact for the state’s $14 million purchase of Crossroad’s Big Indian Plateau properties that had been part of the Spitzer AIP, or the Belleayre expansion plans tied into the resort project?
“The specifics of what will be going forward or not will be determined in the coming weeks,” Wren replied.
The only thing she noted for certain was that $1 million allocated for design work at the Catskill Interpretive Center, being part of the capital budget not hit by recent cuts, had “not been impacted by any of this.”
State Assemblyman Kevin Cahill, meanwhile, said that as far as he knew, most of the state’s Belleayre improvement plans were also in capital budget lines, which means they should be safe. For now. Similarly, he thought that the land purchase funds for Crossroads’ Big Indian Plateau and other lands were likely coming from other safe budget areas.
But he added that final go-aheads on the state’s side of the Spitzer deal would still need final DEC approval.
“New Problems arise,” he said, “If and when the people running these programs get cut.”
Crossroads first announced the plans for the resort back 1999. They have long noted they have undergone the longest review in State history.
For Labor Day, Lawrence-Bauer sent out a press release with a full list of upwardly-revised pay scale figures for their proposed development, conjuring what Crossroads believed employees would be making were its plans approved, and actually built, in time to match the current economy.

City Caliber, Rural Setting

Matthew Pokoik and Aynsley Vandenbrouke have just opened the Mount Tremper Arts Center this summer, although it’s been five years in the making. The festival will be a yearly event in July and August, consisting of weekly performances by residential art companies.
“Signs,” a show of contemporary photography curated by Pokoik has also run throughout the summer. Pokoik is a photographer and Vandenbrouke is a choreographer, with her own dance company. One of their inspirations was Black Mountain College, founded in 1933 near Asheville, North Carolina, which nurtured generations of adventurous American artists, including Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly and Robert DeNiro’s father.
For Shandaken Day, Mount Tremper Arts had their first open rehearsal, with Hilary Easton + Company, who were working on “Noise + Speed,” a dance piece based on the manifestoes of the Italian futurists.
“We decided that an open rehearsal would be a perfect opportunity to invite the community into this space to see her work-in-progress, and to let people who might otherwise not come to a performance of contemporary art see that in action,” Pokoik said.
The open rehearsal was free of charge. Matthew and Aynsley hope to present more public rehearsals in the future.
Mount Tremper Arts has focused on movement-based art and photography, but in the future will broaden its palette. Next year they hope to present contemporary opera.
Vandenbrouke premieres her dance compositions in Mount Tremper before performing them in New York City. She finds the local audiences more open and relaxed.
“New York City audiences, they’ve seen it all; they’re more jaded,” Pokoik observed.
The performances I’ve seen at the Mount Tremper studio have had an educative air. Many of the spectators are learning what contemporary dance is, and many dancers are discovering that there are serious minds outside Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Pokoik and Vandenbrouke believe that art is a human pleasure, like dining. Pokoik has been teaching at the Lincoln Center Institute, an aesthetic education center, for nine years.
“We’re interested in teaching perception, using a work of art as a text of study,” he explains of his profession. Pokoik’s educational work has taught him that art is a democratic right. “The art establishment has unfortunately trained us that you have to be an expert to look at art.”
I attended the performance by the Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre on August 16. “Fleur-de-lis” began in darkness — as if the dancers were walking through the morning mist on Tremper Mountain. Most of the judgments we make of strangers are impossible in half-darkness. We can’t know if they are young, old, rich, homeless — even for certain if they are men or women.
The lights gradually grew brighter, but were never completely “up.” Gradually, I realized there were three men and three women, all in short gray uniforms. Then the music began: Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber’s Sonata No. 6. Elegant, confident strings played.
Three “couples,” each a man and a woman, performed. At the end of the first section, the women removed their gray shorts and the men removed their shirts. The audience began to suspect that this was a dance version of strip poker. Each section would involve less clothing. But how far would the stripping go? This question hung over “Fleur-de-lis.”
(But don’t worry, by the end, no one was naked. The dancers just wore a type of spiritual underwear.)
The choreography was very quick, and almost funny. One persistent theme was people supporting other people: literally bearing their weight. I began to distinguish the six dancers — which one was the absolute prettiest, which one was the most emotionally remote. The tallest woman resembled a man sometimes, to the corner of my eye. By the end of the first dance, I knew them almost like neighbors.
The Mount Tremper Arts season ends with a Labor Day party on Saturday, August 30 at 8 p.m. featuring six performances, including video, dance, theater and puppetry. After the performances, the studio will become a dance party, where everyone is welcome to gyrate.
For more information, call 845-688-9893 or head off and visit their website, www.mttremperarts.com.

Pre-Kindergarten classes are full with 32 children. Kindergarten will see 111 students entering three elementary schools. The total number of kids attending the district schools are 1769. Superintendent Leslie Ford said this falls somewhat inline with the demographic projections of 1774.
The district would like to welcome two new folks. Middle School principal Andrew Davenport, who officially started July 1, and the new director of Pupil Perssonell, Joyce Long.
Long who was just approved by the school board, will be taking over for Barbara Boyce after 21 years with the district. Long officially begins the first week of school, but will overlap with Boyce until October so the transition runs smoothly. At a recent school board meeting Ford said, “She was the unaminous choice of the shared decision making team, almost without discussion, we were drawn to her experience, warmth, intelligence during the interview process.”
Long has a record of experience in special education beginning as a special education teacher. Upon becoming an administrator, from 2001 to 2003 she worked as a Committee Chairperson for the Hyde Park school district, from 2003 to 2007 she was director of Kaplan school, a special education private not-for profit school in New Windsor and in 2007 was principal of Sullivan County BOCES grades 7-12.
In a special meeting August 25, the school board approved a bid to Callanan Industries for $165,967 to repair and pave the Middle/high school parking lots near the tennis courts and Woodstock elementary parking lot. Ford would like to see the work completed by the beginning of school year but is not hopeful. A few days before school begins she said the lots slated for repair at the Middle/High school will be closed off for a short time. She said details on the jobs are a little sketchy since the board just approved the bid, but she believes the work on the lot will be done in stages.
At the OCS Board’s last meeting, on August 19, Dr. Michael O’Rourke of Risk Management Department at Phoenicia elementary, confirming that the high level of Manganese in the water at the high school needed to be dealt with. Superintendent Leslie Ford also said that based on a complaint given to the New York Department of Health, the school board must act to rectify the problem. But since this is a “secondary problem,” as defined by New York State standards, no timetable was given as to when the board must fix the problem.
O’Rourke listed five ways to filter or mask the Manganese: by adding Polyphosphate, Ion Exchange (water softening), Greensand, Chlorination with a sand bed filter or aeration. He noted that the Polyphosphate sequestrate system would prove ineffective to hot water.
Trustee Laurie Osmond asked what happened in the kitchen when food is cooked using boiling water and Manganese dispersed through steam as employees washed dishes. O’Rourke answered that, “The minerals would oxidize fairly quickly, it would not become airborne, it would become sediment, so becoming airborne is not an issue.”
O’Rourke weighed all five systems with positive and negative effects. The Greensand filtration system that the school board requested more information on also had its drawbacks, needing “excessive back washing…with the highest excessive wastewater.”
The estimated cost of Greensand filtration was $85,000, compared to $10,000 to $30,000 for other systems. Point of use filters also came to a dead end because they do not remove Manganese and would not fit on the old pipes.
Subsequent discussion touched on whether or not an immediate treatment of the water was needed or whether things could wait. Superintendent Leslie Ford said she will gather more information on the Boiceville sewer treatment plant being built in the coming year and any limitations on OCS water treatment plans that that may come into play from the New York City Department of Environmental Protection.
Director of Transportation David Moraca gave a lengthy presentation based on complaints over the increased costs of bus contracts and an update on variance students who arrived late to school during the last school year. He defended the OCS Transportation budget of $3,623,700, noting that if changes were not made the budget would have increased at a higher rate.
Fuel use, he said, was reduced to 88,828 gallons due to mile adjustments, “Which saved the district 16,000 plus gallons” between the last two school years. He said with the cost of diesel a little over $4 a gallon, “that cost savings multiplies out to a savings of another $66,300.”
For safety reasons, Moraca would like to see monitors on the buses, but practical and financial implications make it very difficult. The district would need to hire around 50 to 60 employees at an estimated cost of $449,552.70. He does not find this option feasible.
Moraca added that he is currently researching alvarious types of alternative fuels including biodiesel, diesel electric hybrid, liquid propane and fuel catalyst.
Russell Richardson, director of the INDIE program, also gave a presentation in which he noted that the popular program still did not have a signed contract for the coming school district. He reminded the school board that the INDIE program is not a film school, but a program specifically designed for at-risk underachieving students that use media as a tool. He said if the INDIE program is phased out, “the two main losses will be support for our at-risk students and especially the ninth grade class.”
Woodstock Elementary principal Bobbi Schnell gave an update on the district’s recently released school report card with newly released statistics for 2007/2008 grade Kindergarten-through-eight, English Language Arts (ELA), Math and Science State Test Scores. The district is meeting all of it’s progress goals, making improvements and is in good standing. Middle School math and ELA that did not meet its criteria in special education in 2007, but made progress and was noted as being in good standing, as well. Grade nine-through-twelve Regents results and graduation rates were not available for 2008 because the State calculates Cohort rates through August of 2008. The statistics should be available some time next year.
The 2006-2007 New York State school report card, also recently released, showed the district in good academic standing, with some areas of concern in the Middle School. But it is making progress while the three elementary schools remain in good standing and the graduation rate is well above the State average.
In the areas of State English Language Arts (ELA) and Math, test scores in grade eight math just squeaked by in meeting the state standard among regular education students. But it fell below its performance index in special education and students at an economic disadvantage. This is the third year it was flagged as not making yearly academic progress. Middle School ELA scores met the State standards in mainstream education, but fell short in special education where it has not met it’s yearly progress benchmark.
In 2006 the district had an 86 percent graduation rate, but students in the same cohort who continued a fifth year put the graduation rate to 91 percent. The drop out rate is 3 percent with 1 percent of students who drop out returning for a GED.
In other news, the school board asked for information about starting a blog on the district website. Ford said there were many legal obstacles of liability and risk. After Ford received legal council on the matter she said there could be issues on anonymous or fake letters written on the site. Reading from a lawyers statement she said, “They (blogs) encourage a free flow of information and by their nature, they’re designed for anonymous commentary, often times they cross the line from sarcastic, to defamatory and abusive.”
Also, the school board is making plans to hold one of its meetings during high school hours, allowing students to participate. Student representative William Melvin said it would be ideal to make it optional for students and arrange it to benefit civic classes.
Remember to drive extra safely during hours when school busses are on the road from now on, and to wish all the kids you see a good year ahead.

Getting An Early Start

Right off the bat there was disagreement over how brutal the cutting should be. Supervisor Peter DiSclafani, who recently favored no raises in 2009, said that all non-union salaries should increase four percent next year. He changed his mind, he said, because energy costs have risen so high that it’s going to be tough for workers to make ends meet.
Councilman Vin Bernstein disagreed with the raises because he feels it’s the board’s job to try and keep taxes low for the same reasons.
“It’s gonna be tougher on the taxpayers too,” he said.
The Board is also considering the cost savings of closing the town’s building department. For years Ulster County provided a building inspector to the town at no cost except to collect the fees that came from building permits. Two years ago the town dropped that service and created it’s own building department, which this year operates with a $27,000 budget. It was noted that building permit revenues are down this year, causing concern that the department has become more of an expense than expected. The Board will review the department and also check with the county to see if Shandaken can once again use a County Building Inspector.
The Ambulance Department is another place that will be put under a microscope in the coming weeks. The Department saw a dramatic budget increase this year and board members noticed the costs have gone up considerably, although the fees taken in by the department have gone up too.
There was talk of waiting to see how much revenue the town can expect from the state level in light of the recent state budget cuts, and DiSclafani said that at least one revenue stream that was expected to be flowing already has not yet begun.
The cell tower built on town owned property is still not producing an income, so the anticipated revenue can’t be counted on.
The good news is that there are no large capital expenses planned for next year by the ambulance and police departments, but there might be some costs to fix up the town hall as DiSclafani is looking for estimates to make energy saving improvements to the building.
There was discussion about creating a Phoenicia Improvement District by pubic referendum this November. At present the Town helps the SHARP Committee operate a $7000 beautification project along the hamlets main street. If approved that cost would be paid by the taxpayers in the Phoenicia Hamlet.
This raised a timely issue, according to Frank Nazzaro, a town resident that ran unsuccessfully for Supervisor last year.
Nazzaro, who volunteers for the local food pantry at the Phoenicia Methodist Church, suggested the town shift gears and prioritize more current concerns. Nazzaro said the number of families that need help from food pantry is growing rapidly, but the town only contributes $1500 to it. Nazzaro thinks more funds should go to the pantry and the beautification program should be done with volunteer help.
“We’re spending fives times more on flowers then on food right now,” he said.