Newsbriefs

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1/4/2007

Police Contract?
With only four days to go before the current contract expires, the Shandaken town board sat down to go over the details of a new deal between the town and its police department.
Those details were not made clear to the small audience that was in attendance December 27 at a town board meeting, instead they were informed that the board discussion would be held privately in executive session.
Supervisor Robert Cross Jr. said he expected the session to be a long one. It was planned for that night, he said, because the public portion of the meeting was expected to be a short one.
“We didn’t want to be here all night,” he added.
With no previous sessions held, it remains unclear why the board waited until the contract was almost up to discuss it. The current contract expired on December 31st.
Cross did tell the audienceDecember 28 that one thing already settled was the salary increase. Police officers would get a 4% hike. The funds for the increase are already in the 2007 town budget, Cross added.
According to the adopted 2007 town budget, the police department will cost $266,387 next year.
During budget hearings in November, Board members Robert Stanley and Peter DiSclafani both questioned the big jump in salary costs for part time police coverage. Set at $30,000 to cover this year, officer in charge James McGrath put in a request that it rise to $45,000 for 2007. Furthermore the salaries for the town’s full time officers should go up another $6,300 next year from $157,599 to $163,900. Cross said he suspected it might be due to the extra part time police needed during the floods in the town this year.
It should be noted that in 2005 McGrath requested and received permission to hire another full time officer. At the time one of the big selling points for the hiring was an expected drop in part time police costs.
Before going in to the executive session at the year end meeting, the board shifted $16,000 to pay for hours worked by part time police staff. The money came from other parts of the Police department’s budget, such as the full time police budget line, the funds for uniforms, and a catch-all budget line called police contractual.
By the time of the town’s official reorganization meeting on January 2 there was still no signed contract for 2007, but Supervisor Robert Cross Jr. said that the town board and the police had reached an agreement that was now under review by town Attorney Paul Kellar.
As long as Kellar decides the deal is properly drafted it will be signed by both parites.

Back Up/Year End
The Alamo Ambulance Service has informed the town of Shandaken that it will no longer provide back up service to the town’s ambulance squad. However, the town board has now entered into an agreement with Mobile Life Support Service Inc. so there will be no gap in coverage.
At a town board meeting on Wednesday, December 27th, Supervisor Robert Cross Jr. read aloud the notice from Alamo that explained that the company was re-deploying its staff and equipment to the Poughkeepsie area. Therefore, no equipment would be available to serve as back up to Shandaken after February 9, 2007.
Then-Ambulance Squad Chief Jerry Pearlman told the board that he recommended entering into a contract with Mobile Life Support as soon as possible because Alamo is already in the process of sending it’s assets to Poughkeepsie, so the company is already spread thin.
Pearlman also said the deal with Mobile Life Services would be the same as what the town had with Alamo.
There is still no word on the town’s other ambulance issues. In a matter unrelated to Alamo’s departure, the Ambulance squad still has no firm plans as to how to handle the problem of not having enough staff and equipment on winter weekends to cover both Belleayre Mountain Ski Center and the rest of Shandaken.
In other news, Cross got no support from the rest of the board when he tried to outlaw public input on the board’s end of the year reshuffling of budget funds.
Such transfers are not unusual. At the end of the year money is shifted from some categories into others to pay bills. This year the board dipped into the town’s contingency fund for an extra $14,455 to pay for legal fees. Cross said it was needed due to the number legal problems the town has had.
“They just kept coming one after another,” he said.
The board also shifted $16,000 to pay for hours worked by part time police staff. The money came from other parts of the Police department’s budget, such as the full time police budget line, the funds for uniforms, and a catch-all budget line called police contractual.
Another budget transfer was made to pay the town’s zoning officer for turning on the sound system at town hall for board meetings.
Glenn Miller was given an extra $2302 for the service. The money was transferred from other zoning accounts.
Explaining his job as the sound technician, Miller said “I don’t work for nothing.” Miller was never officially hired for the job, nor was it advertised as being available.
There were also a few fund transfers in the towns highway department.
“This is all money that’s already in the budget,” said Highway Superintendent Keith Johnson.

Shuttle Commute
Shuttle bus service between Ulster County and the Metro-North train station in Poughkeepsie is currently in the proposal stage, with plans being worked on to establish service from free park-and-ride lots on state Route 32 in Rosendale; in the village of New Paltz; and at the junction of state Route 299 and U.S. Route 9W in Highland. A total of six shuttle buses would start in the morning in Rosendale, make five stops in New Paltz and one stop of Highland, as well as other “flag-down” stops along the way, then head to the train station in Poughkeepsie. In the evening, the buses would run in the opposite direction. There also would be some service on weekends.
The shuttle service is being planned by Ulster and Dutchess counties in cooperation with the Mulligan bus company, and would be subsidized by Metro-North and a federal grant that Ulster County is seeking. Also being sought is a state grant of $195,000 to pay for three buses.
Metro-North currently offers shuttle bus service in Dutchess and Rockland counties.

Younger Beatles
Onteora student Kelsie Johnan, 15, is currently part of a new hit CD — “All Together Now: Beatles Stuff for Kids of All Ages,” that reached No. 2 on the list of best-selling children’s recordings at Barnes & Noble, which is marketing it exclusivelyand was performed on the “Today Show” in recent weeks. Also appearing on the collection of 11 Beatles hits reworked for younger audiences are home-schooler Ripley Danner, 14, and Lake Katrine Middle School students Bianca Covello, 13, and Kasey Stelter, 14. First- and second-graders from Phoenicia and Woodstock elementary schools provided drawings that accompany the disc.
“All Together Now” is a release by Little Monster Records, a company started by Woodstock residents Kevin Salem and Kate Hyman. In addition to the4 Ulster County teens, it also features local residents Marshall Crenshaw, The Bangles, Steve Conte of the New York Dolls and Rachael Yamagata.
Cathy Johnan, Kelsie’s mom and director of the Olive-based Discovery Preschool, helped recruit the kids involved. The teen singers are all members of the Zena Sun Devils swim team. They are currently preparing for a second compilation CD of soul music to be recorded next summer.

Bridge Suicides
Three people jumped to their deaths from Hudson River bridges during the recent holiday week.
A 43-year-old Staatsburg woman, whom police have not publicly identified pending notification of relatives, jumped off the Dutchess County side of the Kingston Rhinecliff bridge around 7 p.m. on the evening of December 28, Rhinebeck State Police said. On December 27, Fr. John Kiwus, 70, a priest, jumped to his death from the same bridge. And, earlier on the same day, a Scarsdale man, Stephen Piekarski, 56, stopped his pickup truck in the middle of the Tappan Zee Bridge, got out and jumped over the rail to his death.

Enviro-Pressure?
Rick Fritschler, chairman of Ulster County’s Environmental Management and Water Quality Management Agency since 1995, is saying publicly that he may resign because of political pressure tied to oversight problems involving the quasi-governmental Lower Esopus River Watch, which some have charged with being a slush fund for its board members. He says his “feeling” comes from indications that the county’s Democratic legislative majority is not showing him enough support in the midst of growing troubles. Leading Democrats on the legislature’s Environmental Committee, as well as in the Democratic Caucus, denied Fritscler’s charges of pressure.
It’s an unfortunate thing that he feels that way,” Legislature Chairman David Donaldson told the Daily Freeman in recent weeks. “I don’t think anybody has pushed this on him. I believe he got upset with the forensic audit, along with the auditor requiring certain information before bills are paid.”
County Auditor Lisa Cutten has requested financial records from Fritschler to better understand the relationship between the agency and Lower Esopus River Watch, its nonprofit contract vendor for stormwater management. The agency also is one of ten departments being scrutinized by BST, an outside consultant conducting a forensic review of county operations.
To date, Fritschler is the only department head who has not cooperated in meeting with the consultants.

Katrina Waste
The tally for Hurricane Katrina waste could top $2 billion next year because half of the lucrative government contracts valued at $500,000 or greater for cleanup work are being awarded without little competition. Federal investigators have already determined the Bush administration squandered $1 billion on fraudulent disaster aid to individuals after the 2005 storm. Now they are shifting their attention to the multimillion dollar contracts to politically connected firms that critics have long said are a prime area for abuse.
In January, investigators will release the first of several audits examining more than $12 billion in Katrina contracts. The charges range from political favoritism to limited opportunities for small and minority-owned firms, which initially got only 1.5 percent of the total work.
“Based on their track record, it wouldn’t surprise me if we saw another billion more in waste,” said Clark Kent Ervin, the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general from 2003-2004. “I don’t think sufficient progress has been made.”
He called it inexcusable that the Bush administration would still have so many no-bid contracts. Under pressure last year, Federal Emergency Management Agency director David Paulison pledged to rebid many of the agreements, only to backtrack months later and reopen only a portion.
Investigators are now examining whether some of the agreements — which in some cases were extended without warning rather than rebid — are still unfairly benefiting large firms.
“It’s a combination of laziness, ineptitude and it may well be nefarious,” Ervin said.
FEMA spokesman James McIntyre said the agency was working to fix its mistakes by awarding contracts for future disasters through competitive bidding. Paulison has said he welcomes additional oversight but cautioned against investigations that aren’t based on “new evidence and allegations.”
.Late last month, the Government Accountability Office said its initial estimate of $1 billion in disaster aid waste was “likely understated.’
When Democrats take over Congress this month, at least seven committees plan hearings or other oversight — from housing to disaster loans — on how the $88 billion approved for Katrina relief is being spent.

Housing Falls...
Foreclosures on mortgages are expected to rise sharply in the U.S. in coming months, with nearly one in five subprime borrowers at risk, the Center for Responsible Lending, a consumer advocacy group has said in a new report which noted that some 2.2 million subprime home loans made in recent years already have failed or will end in foreclosure. It also said that more than 19 percent - or nearly one in five - subprime mortgages originated in the past two years will end in foreclosure.
The center developed the projections after studying the default rates on 6 million subprime mortgages written between 1998 and 2004.
Subprime mortgages generally are written for families that have weak or blemished credit histories, and they typically carry higher interest rates than prime mortgages. Foreclosure occurs when a family fails to maintain payments on its mortgage and the lender moves to repossess the property that was used to secure the mortgage.
Meanwhile, the Mortgage Bankers Association most recent foreclosure data indicated that 1.05 percent of mortgage loans were in foreclosure, with the rate jumping to 3.86 percent for subprime mortgages. But it also said that the situation was worth watching more closely because an increasing number of the mortgages written in America are in the subprime market.
The study added that “our data show that cities and exurban areas in California, Nevada, New Jersey, New York and Michigan as well as the greater Washington, D.C., area can expect a high rate of subprime foreclosures.”

Greenway Grants
The Hudson River Valley Greenway has awarded a $15,000 matching grant to Ulster County for the first phase of a county-wide Greenway Compact planning process.
Greenway Compacts are locally directed voluntary regional planning documents that serve as guidance for municipalities to incorporate the balanced “Greenway Criteria” and a regional perspective in local planning and land use decisions. The five Greenway Criteria are regional planning; economic development; public access; natural and cultural resources protection; and heritage and environmental education.
“The Greenway Compact process will help our diverse communities here in Ulster County establish a vision framed by the balanced Greenway approach,” said County Legislature Chairman David Donaldson.
County planning officials, in partnership with the Greenway, will begin conducting public forums that will engage municipal leaders and citizens in the compact process to guide the development of Ulster County’s Compact.
Olive recently joined the Greenway to better its chances for municipal funding for a number of projects it wants to undertake, including possible renovations of its aging town hall, a former garage.


Kitty Killer
A Newburgh man has been indicted by an Ulster County grand jury on a charge of aggravated cruelty to animals as a felony. Raymond O’Riley, 48, formerly of Kerhonkson, allegedly killed his former girlfriend’s four-month-old kitten by snapping its neck and leaving its body in a garbage bag in her home on September 27, 2006. District Attorney Donald Williams said because O’Riley killed the kitten “in an especially depraved and sadistic manner,” it warranted a felony indictment, for which he could receive up to two years in state prison if convicted. Williams added that the evidence in the case demonstrates that O’Riley’s actions were designed to “threaten, control and abuse” his former girlfriend.

Fattening Kids!
Far too many kids are fat by preschool, and Hispanic youngsters are most at risk, says new research that’s among the first to focus on children growing up in poverty. The study couldn’t explain the disparity: White, black and Hispanic youngsters alike watched a lot of TV, and researchers spotted no other huge differences between the families. But one important predictor of a pudgy preschooler was whether the child was still using a bottle at the stunning age of 3, concluded the study being published online by the American Journal of Public Health.
“These children are already disadvantaged because their families are poor, and by age 3 they are on track for a lifetime of health problems related to obesity,” said lead researcher Rachel Kimbro of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Some 17 percent of U.S. youngsters are obese, and millions more are overweight. Obesity can lead to diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol, sleep problems and other disorders - and the problem starts early. Overweight preschoolers have a five times higher risk of being fat at age 12 than do lean preschoolers, scientists reported last fall.
Kimbro focused on the poor, culling data on more than 2,000 3-year-olds from a study that tracks from birth children born to low-income families in 20 large U.S. cities.
Thirty-two percent of the white and black tots were either overweight or obese, vs. 44 percent of the Hispanics.
Why were the Hispanics at higher risk? Kimbro checked a long list of factors, from children’s TV habits to whether mothers had easy access to grocery stores. Nothing could fully explain the difference. “We were surprised,” she said.
Children were particularly at risk if their mothers were obese. So were those who still took a bottle to bed at age 3, as did 14 percent of the Hispanic youngsters, 6 percent of the whites and 4 percent of the blacks.
That finding supports other research that “one of the most common causes of overweight in children is overfeeding,” said Dr. Philip Nader, a pediatrician and professor emeritus at the University of California at San Diego. Pediatricians say even babies should never take a bottle to bed, and that children should start drinking from a cup around age 1.

What Is Fat?
Two new studies show that there are different colonies of bacteria in the intestines of the obese than there are in the innards of the slim. The research, published in an edition of the journal Nature, finds that the microbes in an overweight body are more efficient at extracting calories from food.
“Not everyone sitting down to a bowl of cereal will necessarily absorb the same number of calories from it,” says Jeffrey Gordon, lead author of the papers and a professor of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis.
About two-thirds of adults, about 136 million Americans, are overweight or obese, the government says. These findings open up a new area of research, says Sam Klein, a study co-author and professor of gastroenterology at the university.
“It’s not just your brain and your body fat and your body organs involved in your energy balance equation,” he says. “It may also be the bugs that are in your body as well.”
One study focused on mice, the other on humans. They found that in both man and rodent, a family of bacteria known as firmicutes were more plentiful in the obese than in the lean. Conversely, bacteria called bacteroidetes were less abundant than in normal-weight subjects.
The research showed that obese mice were more efficient than lean mice at harvesting calories from complex sugars found in fruits, vegetables and grains, and depositing those calories in fat - most likely because of the bacterial colonies.
And when they transplanted the microbes from obese and thin mice into mice raised in a sterile environment, those that got microbes from the obese mice gained twice as much fat.
When obese people lost weight, virtually all the bacteroidetes increased, while the firmicute group shrank, Gordon says.
The bacteria inside us are a huge and mysterious part of life. “There are trillions of them, they outnumber the human cells in our bodies,” Klein says. Meaning, Gordon quips, “you never eat alone.”

Over In Denning...
The Town of Denning, through its Planning Board, has mailed an opinion survey to property owners that will help form a new Town comprehensive plan. Through the survey, the Board hopes to better understand people’s concerns about the future, challenges facing the Town, and obtain feedback on land use, growth management, public services, community character and economic growth.
The Planning Board is charged with updating the 2001 comprehensive plan. It will identify guidelines and standards for the protection and enhancement of Denning. An initial plan update was provided to the Planning Board and public in July, 2006. Subsequently, there were a series of community meetings to review and discuss Town goals and potential planning strategies.
Denning is working with planning consultant David Gilmour, AICP, of Gilmour Planning LLC, to collect and assess survey information. The survey, he noted, offers a chance for Denning to describe itself and identify how to achieve complementary change in the future.
Survey respondents may list any comments or questions they would like considered in the planning process. There is also an option to provide contact information in case the Town attempts to provide outreach in the future. If more than one adult in a home desires a survey, it may be picked up at Town Hall during business hours Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9:30 am to 1:30p.m.
For more information on the survey or Denning, contact the Town at 985-2411, or check the Town web site at: www.denning.us

Local Grants
New York State Secretary of State Christopher Jacobs announced on Friday, the last date of his tenure, 51 new Quality Communities grants totaling $3 million for economic development and environmental protection projects statewide, including a handful to local municipalities and county programs.
The Quality Communities program awards grants to municipalities for projects related to smart growth, development planning and open space preservation. A total of 133 applications were received in this funding cycle.
In Ulster County, the Town of Saugerties in partnership with the Village of Saugerties will receive $23,388 to prepare a strategic plan for sustainable growth which will provide for proper management in an environment of rapid development activity; and the County will be awarded $60,000 to support countywide, coordinated community-oriented strategies for supporting the planning and design of main street revitalization programs in existing hamlets and centers in Ulster County.

FCC To Right
Just before Christmas, right after Congress took its Holiday Recess, President George W. Bush installed self-described conservative writer and producer Warren Bell on the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports U.S. public television and radio. Bell, who was nominated in June, writes for the conservative magazine The National Review and was previously a writer and producer for “Coach” and “Ellen,” two popular TV series in the 1990s. The Senate Commerce Committee had been scheduled to hold a confirmation hearing for him in September but he was dropped from the agenda because of concerns by both Republicans and Democrats.
The Los Angeles Times reported that some of Bell’s fellow writers said he had made negative comments about funding public broadcasting, a charge he denied. No action on his nomination was taken by the Senate before it adjourned early in December.
Bush’s recess appointment allows Bell to hold the board position until Congress adjourns next year, the White House said. Such appointments may be made by the president when Congress is not in session.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a federally funded nonprofit corporation and the largest single source of money for U.S. public television and radio programming, including PBS and National Public Radio. It is governed by a presidentially appointed board.
The board was the source of political controversy in 2005 when its chairman at the time, Kenneth Tomlinson, was criticized for injecting politics into the organization when he recruited a former senior Republican party official — Patricia Harrison — as its new president and chief executive.
Tomlinson had sought to add more conservative-minded shows to the line-up to counter what many conservatives considered a liberal bias in public broadcasting. He resigned in November 2005 amid the controversy.
The Bush administration has come under fire before for trying to influence news coverage, including paying a conservative commentator to praise its new education law and the production by government agencies of video news releases that some television stations aired without identifying their origin.

Ah, The Economy
The slowdown that hit the U.S. economy will persist into 2007 as the once red-hot housing market continues to suffer through a serious correction, analysts say, forecasting that the economy will perform at the slowest pace in five years, a full percentage-point lower than growth in 2006.
But while the slowdown will cause the unemployment rate to rise, economists remain hopeful that the economy will remain on track to achieve the Federal Reserve’s hoped-for “soft landing.” That is described as a scenario in which growth slows enough to dampen inflation but not trigger a recession.
But there are plenty of risks that could make the landing more bumpy - everything from another surge in oil prices to a more severe collapse in housing, which could rattle consumer confidence. At the moment, though, economists feel there is only a one-in-four chance that the current slowdown will turn into an actual recession. The reason for the optimism is that American consumers, while buffeted in 2006 by record-high gasoline prices and a slumping housing market, have kept spending, helped by a solid jobs market.
Consumers were also helped by a retreat in gasoline prices from record highs above $3 per gallon last summer.
The overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, expanded in 2006 by 3.3 percent, many economists believe, just slightly above the 3.2 percent GDP growth of 2005. For 2007, Global Insight is forecasting a GDP growth rate of just 2.3 percent, a full percentage point lower than in 2006. That would be the slowest pace since the economy grew by just 1.6 percent in 2002, a year when the country was struggling to recover from the 2001 recession.
The slower growth means that unemployment will be rising, with many analysts expecting the jobless rate to hit 5 percent in 2007, up from a five-year low of 4.4 percent in October. That would still be a relatively low overall civilian jobless rate in historical terms.
Economists at Goldman Sachs estimate that housing-related industries - construction, furniture manufacturing and sales, real estate agents, mortgage brokers - will see more than 1 million jobs evaporate over the next two years because of the housing slowdown after five boom years for sales.
Meanwhile. the financial press reported last week that the euro, the new currency created only five years ago and used by most European nations, has supplanted the U.S. dollar as the most widely used form of cash internationally. There are now more Euros in circulation worldwide than dollars.
This alone is not necessarily troubling, as the dollar remains the world’s most important reserve currency. About 65% of foreign central bank exchange reserves are still held in dollars, versus only about 25% in euros. And the European Central Bank faces the same inflationary pressures that our own Federal Reserve Bank Governors face, including a growing entitlement burden that threatens economic ruin as both societies age.
Still, the rise of the Euro internationally is another sign that the U.S. dollar is not what it used to be. There is increasing pressure on nations to buy and sell oil in euros, and anecdotal evidence suggests that drug dealers and money launderers now prefer euros to dollars. Historically, the underground cash economy has always sought the most stable and valuable paper currency to conduct business.
More importantly, our nation’s greatest benefactors for the last twenty years— Asian central banks— have lost their appetite for holding U.S. dollars. China, Japan, and Asia in general have been happy to hold U.S. debt instruments in recent decades, but they will not prop up our spending habits forever. Foreign central banks understand that American leaders do not have the discipline to maintain a stable currency. When the rest of the world finally abandons the dollar as the global reserve currency, both Congress and American consumers will find borrowing money a more expensive proposition.