The Cuts Hit Home

At first it seemed like state-owned Belleayre Mountain was in for a spectacular week. Against expectations, Governor Dave Paterson vetoed the creation of a $150,000 legislative Blue Ribbon Commission on competition in the outdoor recreation industry on September 5, which had been passed unanimously by the state Senate and by almost as much in the Assembly just a couple of months ago.
The commission had first been proposed by ski area representatives in neighboring Greene County, and was seen by many, including supporters of Belleayre, as a means to hold back the popular Ulster County ski area from being so competitive in a shrinking market getting hit by climate change. The legislation called for a blue-ribbon commission to examine whether state-owned golfing, skiing and camping facilities, among others, had the upper hand over the private counterparts. Which paterson, in his veto, was the right idea… to provide state residents with recreation options second to none.
Simultaneous to his veto, though, it turns out that staff meetings being held at the state-owned ski area were focusing on a series of upcoming cuts being called by its managing agency, the state Department of Environmental Conservation, to match Paterson and the legislature’s recent call for across-the-board cuts of at least 6 percent.
It was reportedly announced that the upcoming annual October festival, slated for the weekend of October 11th-12, had been cancelled. Ski instructors had been told there would likely be some major layoffs.
Belleayre’s website, usually chock-full with trail updates, bulging winter calendars, and pre-season rate offers, has been oddly quiet of late.
“Belleayre Mountain is currently working on 2008-2009 pricing and programming,” was its chief message, repeated in several locations. “Please check this website frequently for updates and changes.”
Employees, Skiers, local business owners and the leadership of the Coalition to Save Belleayre have since been scrambling to try and find out how bad it will be for the mountain come winter. While some information suggests that even a total shut down of the mountain for the ski season has been under consideration, some cuts have already been put into motion… such as the upcoming fall festival.
The ski center’s usually loquacious superintendent, Tony Lanza, refused to comment and directed press calls to the State Department of Environmental Conservation’s press office. Maureen Wren, the official spokesperson for DEC in Albany, which oversees Belleayre’s budget, said Monday that nothing was official about the festival’s cancellation. Folks at the DEC’s Region Three headquarters in New Paltz said they’d heard nothing about what might be happening at Belleayre and expressed surprise when told about what ski center employees were being told.
But vendors already signed up to rent space at the October Festival were notified Friday of the cancellation and that refunds were in the works for those that already paid for their rental space.
And no Oktoberfest is just the tip of the iceberg says Joe Kelly, Chairman of the Coalition to Save Belleayre, who added that his sources “should know.” Kelly said there are reports that if DEC does open the ski center, it will have only one chairlift running to the top of the mountain and only 13 or so open trails.
Wren said that, like the Oktoberfest, none of these scenarios have been set in stone.
“There haven’t been any decisions made about Belleayre,” she said.
Asked if there were plans to not open Belleayre this year she said “That’s not the case at this time.”
When operating fully, Belleayre boasts the Catskills’ only Cat-access skiing and a widened and improved halfpipe and Area 51 Terrain Park. With 47 trails, parks and glades and 8 lifts, including a new High Speed Quad, Belleayre Mountain has evolved over the years, especially since the early 1980’s when Kelly formed his coalition to keep the ski center from facing closure. Skier visits have grown from 70,000 in 1995 to more than 175,000 skiers since then.
“I’ve been hearing things from employees, who have been getting the information from meetings at work,” Kelly said this week from his home in Long Island. “I don’t want to get Tony in trouble… let’s just say people are getting ready for a major cut back.”
Kelly said that some people in his organization believe the budget cuts are related to the lobbying Greene County did to curtail Belleayre’s operation, which also resulted in the now-vetoed Blue Ribbon Commission..
“We certainly hope that this is not the case. But it makes no sense to cancel the Octoberfest, one of your biggest money-making events in a single year,” said Kelly. “And once you are open and operating, it makes absolutely no sense to only operate part of your capital investment. I don’t know if people in state government are caving to pressure from Greene County to hold Belleayre Mt. back, but we certainly intend to look at that possibility.”
Kelly said he understands the governor’s call for cuts and the fact that everyone in the state has to share in the pain of the current economy.
“But this is going to be way more than our fair share,” he added. “We’re facing a huge budget cut, the extent of which is only now becoming apparent.”
Kelly has sent out a mass e-mail alert on the potential cuts he says are in the works, which has in turn spawned more activist e-mails being passed around the region, as well as among Belleayre ski enthusiasts. He has also called a meeting at Belleayre’s Lower Lodge to take place at 9:00 AM this coming Saturday, September 13.
“Supporters of Belleayre Mountain Ski Center reacted with outrage this week when they learned the extent of cutbacks to the ski center’s operating budget for the coming season,” Kelly wrote in his widely-disseminated release. “Saying that these cuts “will destroy what’s left of the Central Catskills’ economy,” Joe Kelly, chairman of the Coalition to Save Belleayre, called for a summit meeting of elected and appointed officials who represent the area and business leaders whose constituents will suffer if the budget cuts are allowed to stand as planned.”
“Sources tell us that in addition to the cutting of the festival, that the ski season could be a month or more shorter than it was last year, that the ski center could operate at less than its full capacity even during the height of the season and that staff people will lose their jobs,” Kelly continued in his e-mail missive. “We will never be able to recoup this loss - even if they bring us back to full operation next year… The economic blow to Ulster and Delaware counties cannot be over estimated.”
Separately, Kelly spoke at length about his beloved ski area’s “revenue neutral” budget effect, with income balancing all that’s spent.
In a separate e-mail chain, a ski patroller named Rosina wrote, “Dear Belleayre Ski Patrollers: DEC has dealt Belleayre Ski Center a devastating budget. To this end the following has been decided the Octoberfest has been cancelled; Nursery will be not open; No skiwee, alpine development, or racing programs; Full time Patrol positions cut; Limited snow making; Possible operation of only the Superchief;” to which Ralph Combe Jr. of the Slide Mountain Mountain House in Oliverea added, forwarding the increasingly heavy missive around, “The proposal for the winter is somewhere between operating one or two lifts with NO RACING, NO SKIWEE, NO ALPINE programs TO A COMPLETE SHUT DOWN OF BELLEAYRE FOR THE WINTER.”
“I have asked the DEC about any contemplated reductions in State funding for Belleayre. They tell me no determination has been made,” noted state Senator John Bonacic in a released statement reacting to the clamor. “Given the approximately $20 million I have successfully fought to provide Belleayre for various improvements over the last eight years, it is important that Belleayre have the ability to utilize that funding to follow through, complete those projects, and continue to be the success it is.”
“The real issue here is kind of what we all saw coming a year ago, when I got this sense we’d be back where we were in 82 and 83. It’s happening again,” Kelly said in a voice apparently excited by the prospect of another good fight ahead. “The economy’s bad, it’s going to get worse, but really… why should we bear this much?”
He added that even if it only ends up meaning skier visits dropping a third of what they were last year, from 150,000 to 110,000, it’s still too much… especially with the state simultaneously promising a huge build-out connecting the ski center to Dean Gitter’s long-proposed Belleayre Resort project, which Paterson’s predecessor, former Governor Eliot Spitzer, promised in his Agreement in Principal a year ago.
“This isn’t just a one year hurt,” he said, referring to a previous Bonacic comment that even if budget cuts necessitated a few years wait for promised improvements, they were safe in uncut state capital funds. “People don’t come back.”
Meanwhile, in separate developments regarding the AIP and proposed resort, officials at Gitter’s development company, Crossroads Ventures, announced this week that they were “elated” by a recent court ruling to dismiss a lawsuit that challenged the Spitzer agreement… even though the people that filed that lawsuit said that they are not ready to give up.
Talk about having major stories pushed out of the spotlight by even bigger news…
State Supreme Court Justice Gerald Connolly dismissed the suit September 3, noting that an environmental review of the project still is under way and permits for the project have not been issued. He said the claim is not ready for judicial review and added that the plaintiffs have not shown they have standing to bring the suit.
In a prepared statement released Thursday, Crossroads spokesperson Joan Lawrence-Bauer said she was not surprised.
“We are elated by this ruling,” she said. “While we had little doubt about the outcome, it is always gratifying to have these things behind you.”
According to Crossroads Attorney Daniel Ruzow, Judge Connolly agreed with Crossroads’ defense that the agreement, put together by former Governor Eliot Spitzer, was not a final action by New York State and New York City and that those filing the lawsuit had no standing to bring the suit because they had not demonstrated any injury or harm from the Agreement.
The suit was brought by Catskill Heritage Alliance, the Pine Hill Water District Coalition and Benjamin and Idith Korman, a couple that live near the site of the proposed resort. Their lawyer, Robert Feller, said the plaintiffs still were reviewing the decision. He also said they will be active in the review process and that they could file a challenge in the future.
On Saturday the Chairman of the Heritage Alliance, Richard Schaedle, said the group is undaunted by Judge Connolly’s decision.
“Obviously we are disappointed with the ruling,” he said, “But we are considering an appeal.”
Schaedle said his group was caught between a rock and hard place because, while they only had a small window of opportunity to file a lawsuit against the deal, details of the deal were still unresolved. But, he said, by filing the lawsuit when they did they have kept the opportunity to challenge the deal alive.
He expects that an appeal will be filed, and in the meantime many of those details that are currently lacking will become fully formed, and subject to challenge.
Lawrence-Bauer recently noted that the developers are now working to complete the Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement, but that it would still be some time before its done.
“We have several months to put our appeal together,” Schaedle said.
The judge turned down the petitioners’ standing based largely on the fact that the harm they were claiming had not occurred yet, that the organizations had been privy to the negotiations that resulted in the AIP, and that the two landowners hadn’t adequately proved their property’s adjacency to the proposed resort, which has yet to be built.

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Still Smartening Up

From Herbs To Hands On

After years of practicing out of her home—supplying herbal medicines, giving herbal consultations, and offering Reiki bodywork—she has shifted her work to a more public space, the Phoenicia Healing Arts Center on Main Street. With the shift comes a new dedication to her healing work and an desire to give back to the community.
A widowed mother of three, Hyde learned Reiki when her husband, Joseph Ferris, was diagnosed with a terminal illness. “I was in a woman’s healing circle, and one of the members, Cathy Parisi, was a Reiki master,” she explains. “Cathy offered to give me Reiki attunements as a gift so I could help Joey and treat my family. I received so much help and good will from the whole community when he was sick and when my kids were small.”
Hyde describes Reiki (prounounced RAY-kee) as “universal healing energy. Everybody has it—we’re all made of energy, and everything around us is energy. The attunement process opens the practitioner’s chakras [energy centers] to resonate so she can channel more energy in through her own crown chakra, through the heart, and out through the hands. Cathy would say it’s empowerment in terms of channeling.”
A Reiki treatment is a gentle, non-invasive laying-on of hands that produces deep relaxation and stress reduction. It is complementary to other healing modalities, enhancing the effects of acupuncture, herbs, conventional medicine, or any other kind of treatment. “I’ve seen it work for pain management,” says Hyde. “It has a way of balancing energy so certain parts of the body are not stagnating. Sometimes people relax so much, they fall asleep. Deep sleep, without stress, is when we truly rest and heal. It’s great for people with anxiety. Reiki can also bring things to the surface so people can deal with them.”
One client, for instance, fell asleep during a treatment and had a dream that had frightened him as a child. As his adult self, he was more equipped to process and learn from the dream.
The herbal segment of her practice is rooted in her training with herbalist Pam Montgomery. Hyde planted herb gardens around her home and at her job with the Center for Discovery, a Sullivan County facility for people with disabilities, where she ran a greenhouse for fifteen years. Since then, she has been making herbal tinctures, oils, and salves, which she sells through her website. “I can count on one hand the number of times any of my kids have used antibiotics,” she muses. “I always use herbs first.” As she gained experience, she began to teach others the uses of herbs for healing and developed an herbal consulting practice.
A turning point came last year, when she heard about the free alternative health clinics held quarterly at the Phoenicia Healing Arts Center. “I called to ask about craniosacral bodywork for my son,” she remembers. “I asked if they wanted a Reiki practitioner, and they were excited. I started doing Reiki at the free clinics in Phoenicia and Woodstock, and the feedback I got from people was really positive. I loved doing it. Now I’m trying to expand my practice. In the fall, I’ll be offering Reiki classes, starting with first-level through the master’s training, hopefully here in Phoenicia.”
She is happy to be putting her work out into the community. “I left my job at the Center because my kids needed me close by. I also realized I was taking my knowledge and experience for granted. The time is right in the community and the world, that anyone who has information that will help sustain our health is called to share what we know.”
Adelinda Hyde’s Reiki treatments and herbal consultations are available by appointment and on a sliding fee scale. She can be reached at 688-2032. Visit www.oakhollowherbals.com to purchase handmade herbal medicines.

Clearing The Water?

Michelle Friedel and Rick Wolff voted for the least expensive sequestering system and once it was turned down, left the meeting. Out of the five members left, voting no were Laurie Osmond and Maxanne Resnick, leaving a majority of three to approve the greensand filtration. Osmond voted in favor of a water softener and Resnick did not feel comfortable making the decision with such little information. She declined every resolution.
Superintendent Leslie Ford said that they must have a remedy in place because of the Department of Health pressure to fix the situation and continued complaints from staff and students in the schools.
School board president Ralph Legnini said that an EPA report advised a possible health hazard pertaining to adults drinking a high level of Manganese.
“We’re talking of kids in Bennett drinking this water, potentially for twelve years, and if I were to choose a solution, I am no expert, but I have done a lot of research, I would choose the greensand filtration.”
The brown water problem can be seen at the Middle/High School and Bennett Elementary. State test results have revealed that the water contains a higher than allowable level of Manganese. Legnini compared the cost of fixing the water to an earmark from the previous school board of $350,000 to purchase new lockers at the High School.
“When you are talking hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase lockers in a time when we are in a very tight budget, that was given to this board from the previous budget vote, you know we have to weigh children’s drinking water and lockers,” he said. “As a parent I would rather have my kids drinking safe water. It’s unfortunate it costs $85,000.”
The board will need to go through an approval process from the Department of Health and the DEP. The Greensand filtration allows a certain amount of back washing that Legnini warned could be another problem with wastewater.
Trustee Donna Flayhan said, “If it does produce excessive backwash, then the DEP would probably squash it, but it seems to me out of the three options, the greensand filtration is the one that actually removes the problem from the water.”
The school board also debated whether the source of the problem was the pipes or the water source. The Manganese was found closest to the wellhead; therefore if the pipes have a problem with other elements, it will be a separate issue. The district maintenance department has been flushing out the pipes hoping to eliminate sediments. The school still uses the original pipes dating back to the 1950’s.
The board discussed purchasing bottled water as an interim solution but cost was a factor. The board asked Superintendent Leslie Ford to release a letter to parents with kids attending school on the Boiceville campus suggesting that students bring their own water.
The board began discussions on replacing the old lockers but with an eye to trimming back the cost. They were given catalogues with metal, steel and plastic lockers to choose from. Student representative William Melvin said the High School lockers were in the worst shape, as compared to the middle school. He suggested that they all be replaced in a more favorable color.
The district also noted that it would like to remind parents that military “opt-out,” forms are available on the district website and page nine of the student handbook. Under a provision in the No Child Left Behind Act, schools are required to turn student contact information over to military recruiters beginning in secondary school. Parents have the right upon request not to permit or “opt-out,” the release of their child’s information. According to Ford, Parent’s or students, must sign an opt-out form every year that student is in High School. Ford said the forms should be given to the High School principal as soon as possible.