Follow Up on the News
The parties, identified by acronym, were the Catskill Preservation Coalition, an ad hoc group of 13 local, regional, state and national environmental organizations brought together to fight Dean Gitter?s proposed Belleayre Resort project set to be built around the state-owned ski center of the same name. The New York City Department of Environmental Protection. The state Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer ? now Governor elect soon to be Pataki?s successor. And Crossroads Ventures, Gitter?s company developing the resort.
?Suffice it to say there WAS a meeting,? said Eric Goldstein of the National Resources Defense Council. ?We all agreed on a very strict gag order about the meeting. Suffice it to say there will be no lifting of that, or any further action, within the coming two weeks.?
Spitzer?s election November 7, along with the defeat of Gitter?s chief Congressional ally, Republican Rep. John Sweeney, had been deemed by all surrounding the project to have cast the resort proposal in limbo. Or at least the half of it, on the Big Indian plateau, up against some very serious challenges.
Spitzer?s office, via a letter from the Attorney General?s Watershed Inspector John Tiernry and his staff to federal EPA Regional Administrator Alan Steinberg in late October, had basically said the state under Spitzer ? a formidable legal foe if ever there was one ? would do all in its power to keep Gitter from moving ahead with the eastern half of his project.
Gitter?s lawyers had replied that Spitzer?s people had jumped too soon, not taking into account the recent changes the developer had proposed that would eschew a Big Indian plateau golf course for a high end health spa? and drop the number of hotel rooms to be developed there.
Sweeney had unexpectedly pushed Steinberg, a Bush appointee who had spoken in August of his wish to consider development needs in all environmental equations, into the equation a few months earlier. But his replacement, Kirsten Gillibrand, is seen as a strong environmentalist and Spitzer ally.
Many were saying Gitter?s cards had been played out. That Pataki, with announced presidential ambitions, could no longer afford to help him along any way. As though he?d ever really helped.
On the most basic legal level, Gitter?s project has been stuck in its own limbo for years already, awaiting a ruling on an appeal he made to the state against a state Department of Environmental Conservation Administrative Law Judge?s ruling that twelve key environmental review issues needed to go to trial-like adjudication before any permits could be given his proposal.
So what happened at the meeting? Who exactly was there?
All morning Wednesday, November 15 ? the day after everyone was supposed to have gathered in lower Manhattan ? calls to involved persons came up against the gag order. At 4 p.m., all parties from the CPC entered a conference call.
A little after 5 pm, CPC head and Catskill Center Director Tom Alworth answered his phone.
?You heard right,? he said. ?We all agreed on a very strict gag order on the meeting.?
Was it an anyone?s request?
?It was at everyone?s request.?
Alworth said he?d given a speech to his staff about the seriousness of the matter. No leaks.
Not just a little one for Shandaken?
?There was a meeting,? he replied with a laugh. ?That?s all I can say.?
Goldstein?s comments came the following week.
?It wouldn?t do anybody any good to break the silence,? he said from his lower Manhattan offices. ?That?s all I want to say.?
Introducing Ms. Ford
?You may be asking why would I be looking at New York,? she said in introduction at the evening gathering. ?We have been opening up both coasts to look for a real match for what we love ? the arts, music. I would love to find education in a school district that?s centered on the needs of individual children, which has been my passion through my whole career. Onteora, I really think, is a match.?
By ?we? Ford was referencing her husband, a retired Episcopal priest already living in the Hudson Valley area and active with the local diocese ? they have been married for about a year ? and her 4 children, one natural and three adopted, as well as the more than 20 kids she?s fostered parented through the years, from newborns to teenagers.
Ford, who is currently superintendent at Kings River-Hardwick Charter school district in Hanford, CA, near Fresno, noted how she began her educational career as a music teacher. The Kindergarten-through-eight school has approxmately 600 students with a $4.2 million budget. From 2000 to 2004, she worked as a middle school principal at Livermore Valley Joint Unified school district, also in California. In addition to music, Ford said she has also taught high school social studies and English, and worked as a guidance counselor before becoming an administrator.
She told gathered parents at Friday?s meeting that she was aware of the district?s three plans being proposed to deal with Onteora?s aging facilities and changes in student population.
?Every district needs to have goals based on where they assess themselves now, and where they see themselves ten or fifteen years in the future,? she said. ?That is sometimes a difficult thing??
Ford added that she is accustomed to working on shoestring amounts.
Ford also noted that over the course of her day, she learned about the district?s divisive issues, including the Onteora mascot and large parcel legislation. But she added that she would not give any opinion them except to say she has been in similarly difficult situations.
Ford has a Bachelor of Arts in vocal music, a Masters Degree in educational counseling, a second Masters in Psychology with an emphasis in marriage, family and child counseling, and a Doctorate of education in organizational leadership.
On the lower field, third and fourth graders in soccer-like uniforms of jerseys and sweat pants with ribbon-styled flags streaming a foot or so out of their sides do exercises and take practice running plays. On the upper field, fifth and sixth graders face off in scrimmages before the evening’s pair of games.
Keith McGlyn, who’s been organizing the league with help from past president Pat Murphy, points out that we’re mid-season at games five and six of a dozen total, including championships that were to take place Sunday, November 19.
With two games running simultaneously each time slot, that makes for a lot of football.
Onteora Junior Flag Football has six teams this year, and about 100 kids playing. Asked when everything started up, McGlyn looks over to the upper field, where Onteora 12th grader Andrew Carroll is coaching the older kids.
“How long you been at this,” McGlyn shouts across the pitch.
Andrew replies that he’s been playing since sixth grade. His mom, Jane Carroll, started up the flag football league six years before that as a means of giving her kids and their friends a sport to play.
“Twelve years now,” McGlyn muses.
The two fields, upper and lower, are surrounded with big signs advertising all the top Olive businesses: Webers, Shokan Square, the supermarket in Boiceville, Bread Alone. Funding for the kids uniforms, and the handful of footballs in use, come from business contributions, such as Belleayre lift tickets to be raffled off for cash, and loads of donations from local individuals.
At least two thirds of those participating – and McGlyn predicts attendance for the season’s finale, if not this evening, will average about 500 people – are from Olive. The rest come in from Shandaken, Hurley and Woodstock – even though the latter has its own flag football league several years old.
McGlyn, fielding players’ requests for candy, drinks and warm water to clean their mouth guards with, explains how Murphy, who used to head the league before him, currently does all the complicated team scheduling. Things started up in late October and have tended to run on Sundays. But school’s out the next day.
A man behind McGlyn, helping out, notes that Murphy’s known as “the mayor.” He’s on his way to ref half of the evening’s games… but then Murphy’s kid runs up to inform everyone that his dad’s run out of gas en route. A back-up ref is called on.
Flag football is like tag football. There’s no tackling, and the confusion experienced by kids on backlots claiming no one has tagged them is decided by the flags. They’re out, you’re down. There’s a very minimal amount of blocking.
“ Look at that kid, number three,” McGlyn says in explanation. Scanning the upper field’s roster of running fifth and sixth graders, an oversized boy dominates play.
“Now look for the other number three and you’ll see why there’s no clocking,” McGlyn adds.
A petite blonde girl, half the size of her numeric doppelganger, is running fast, enjoying herself immensely.
“The big kid doesn’t really need to block,” McGlyn notes. “And our goal is to make it safe for the girl.”
Fumbles, he says, are deadballs. Quarters are 12 minutes long for the older kids, ten minutes for the younger.
“Everything else is regular football,” McGlyn summarizes.
He talks a bit, as Murphy has earlier, about how this league has gained new interest from parents – and students – hoping that it will fuel enough interest in the All-American sport to allow Onteora High the ability to bring back varsity football to the district’s athletic and entertainment roster.
Last year, Onteora scuttled its varsity schedule because of lack of interest and competitiveness. There just weren’t enough players to maintain a strong team. Emphasis was shifted to intramural football and junior varsity, which everyone I spoke to is showing a great deal of talent.
Murphy and McGlyn and others are hoping that the many kids being fueled into flag football will hold their passion for the next six years or so, like Andrew.
Or Onteora School Board trustee Cindy O’Connor, whose late older son Kevin was a star varsity player at the time of his death, and whose younger boy Troy is playing this evening in the lower field’s first game.
She says she’s hoping to allow kids to train with equipment and blocking as well as running and the game’s basics, which dominate this league. Which would mean joining, maybe even setting up, a Pop Warner League.
Pop Warner leagues, named for the legendary college football coach of the Depression era who helped put a first-ever teenagers pigskin league into the bigtime, field teams for similarly-aged kids. But they get to wear shoulder pads, helmets and all the other traditional football gladiatorial gear.
Over the years, Pop Warner football, which now involves over 350,000 kids under 16 nationwide, has been instrumental at pushing the sport into its pre-eminence in high school athletics, as well as helped keep it alive during times when enthusiasm waned during the World War II years and just after.
The closest Pop Warner league, called the Kingston Area Junior Football League, is in the county seat, and O’Connor says she’s in the process of finding out what would be needed for Olive, maybe even the entire Onteora district, to put forth a team for competitive play.
“Kevin played Pop Warner league. He was with the Titans in Kingston,” O’Connor says of her late son, killed in a tragic accident along Route 28 eight years ago. “You go to Pop Warner, you get a chance to really learn the game of football”
Pop Warner, she adds, runs in late summer before the start of school. “It’s pretty intense but as they say, ‘No pain, no gain,’” O’Connor added. “That’s my goal…”
“The Onteora Football Team has been struggling to field a Varsity and Junior Varsity teams for the last couple of years. This past season our Athletic Director was forced to make a decision he didn’t want to make, not to have a Varsity Team. Due to lack of numbers and skill ability we had to respect this very difficult decision,” O’Connor wrote in a November 14 letter to the Kingston League’s Board of Directors. “The athletic department is now very committed to building up our modify and JV teams with skill and confidence so we can field a Varsity Team… I would like to ask the Kingston Jr. Area Football League if they would be willing to accept another team into your league from the Onteora area.”
Continuing, O’Connor noted how she had the support of Onteora Athletic Director Michael Kocher and all involved, “truly believe that this is a piece that is missing and is needed to rebuild our varsity team and football program at Onteora. We need to start our kids learning the skills of football earlier than 12 and 13 when they are able to join the modified team.”
“We consider this a building block for the future Onteora High School football teams,” wrote Carroll, OJFF founding mother. “These children work very hard and our coaches are extremely dedicated.”
“You develop football at a young age and they become more involved. It’s not just a thought,” McGlyn says. “We’ve got two more years before we can even think of fielding a varsity team. We’ve got some very talented kids coming up and they deserve to have a way to build those talents.”
He excuses himself and runs off… it’s game time. Whistles sound from the upper and lower fields and the kids fall into classic formations… just like what they see on television, or remember their older cousins and neighbors, maybe even their brothers, once playing up at the high school.
I catch up with a youngster on the sidelines, cheering… waiting his turn for the next round of games when he gets to play.
A roar comes from the field of older kids up above. It seems to bounce off the blackness beyond the bright lights the growing crowd has gathered within.
“One of these days I’ll be up there too,” the kid says, jumping up and down. “I can’t wait to get to the top.”
According to McGlyn, Hickory BBQ turned out to be the winner of the Upper Division on the 19th, with Tyler Frano getting the MVP trophy; and Phoenicia Pharmacy won the lower, younger division.
Pete Friedel coached Hickory, with Lance Dubois assisting; Jameson Morton coached Phoenicia Pharmacy, with Bobby Jones Jr.assisting.
At the first of the three gatherings, a breakfast meeting on Tuesday, November 14 held at Saugerties? New World Home Cooking, a majority of those in attendance were from either Woodstock?s non-profit art institutions or the Kingston First Saturday scene. According to Ulster Arts Director Sherri Brittain, the arts groups on hand included the Center for Photography at Woodstock, the Woodstock-Byrdcliffe Guild, the new munti-group Woodstock Consortium, Saugerties? Opus 40, Rosendale-based Women?s Studio Workshop, and the Arts Society of Kingston.
In addition, Brittain said, there were several individual artists on hand as well as a Kingston landlord, Lee Wind, who ?has been turning properties over to artists in Midtown? as a means of leading to the renovation, and eventual gentrification, of one of the county seat?s main thoroughfares.
On Wednesday evening, November 15, attendees at the Highland Cultural Center included representatives from Kingston repertory Theater, Playback Theater, Union Arts and Learning, and individual artists from Marbletown, Modena and New Paltz.
?We?re looking to create a strengthened arts council by learning about and meeting the local arts community?s needs, while also offering up the professional development skills of HCC Arts,? said Brittain, seated at the bar in Ellenville?s Aroma Thyme restaurant before what would turn into the best-attended and most boisterous of the three gatherings Thursday night, November 17. ?We?re looking to help collaborate for marketing and facilitation purposes.?
By we, Brittain was referencing the point that the three meetings were being run jointly by she and HCC?s Elisa Pritzker, a visual artist who has positioned she and her husband, Rob Luski, as key professional development consultants to local artists.
?We?re doing this to help us write our mission statement and sharpen our vision,? she added, after explaining how an older incarnation of the Arts Council, founded in 1974, lost its ability to channel Decentralization funds from the New York State Council for the Arts in the late 1980s after it became artist-run and too oriented on the politics of its own Kingston-based gallery. ?We want to explain why a new organization might be needed for strengthening advocacy efforts between business and government entities and our local art industry.?
She said the revived Ulster Arts she and Pritzker have envisioned, and were holding the countywide meetings to introduce, would be ?like a Chamber for the arts.?
?We see doing all art openings throughout the county. Offering tourist deals matching arts events with hotel and restaurant deals,? Brittain said, also noting her wish to provide a centralized data base for nonprofit organizations, galleries and individual artists; zoning incentives, and county grants, to help the ?industry;? a new county cultural map with government-recognized ?cultural zones? embedded within it; and maybe even a county museum.
?But to do all this,? Brittain said, before her partner?s, or audience?s, arrival, ?We need more staffing??
At which point a crowd of the many movers and shakers who have been making Ellenville an interesting new place focused on arts as its revival engine started arriving. A crowd that would end up numbering nearly forty artists and government officials, business people and administrators all ready to talk up how the county?s best kept secret (most forgotten municipality) reached a point where it had nothing to lose by shifting its focus to arts development.
Village Manager Elliot Auerbach spoke about the two events they?d run over the past summer and fall ? one filling vacant storefronts with art installations by creative sorts from the length of the entire valley, the other a ?happening? from Mt. Tremper based activist artist Eeo Stubblefield ? that pleased local merchants who noticed their business doubling, even tripling from such things. Unexpectedly. Others talked about nearly-completed efforts to turn donated old business and factory buildings into a ceramics studio, into artist studios and housing.
An older couple who owned a major SoHo arts supply store said they were looking into coming out of retirement to start something new, based on all the excitement. The editor of Ellenville?s new newspaper, and the leading light of their new radio station, W-ELV, took notes and acknowledged their community?s best wishes? and increasing energy.
?What we?re going through right now is really unique. Ellenville got tired of waiting,? said Cragsmoor-based artist and one of the curators of last year?s Kingston Sculpture Biennial. ?We?re going to be really blunt. Why do we need you.?
As Brittain and Pritzker explained how arts funding worked, how mechanisms needed to be put in place, the Ellenville community said it needed to act quicker. They would go to other funding sources in business, if need be. They were getting offers of help from Dutchess County and other arts councils.
The meeting grew spirited and gradually, a real discuss of the county?s arts future seemed to lurch into view.
Brittain and Pritzker noted how, despite great differences between the county?s various communities, there were also shared needs.
Ellenville?s artists asked for a coordinated website listing all that was going on around the county, the better for local publications to list all that was happening in the arts.
Brittain and Pritzker talked of getting property tax abatements for artists.
Auerbach said he was close to doing just that for Ellenville.
?WE have a synergy,? said Sigunick. ?WE?re almost European??
At which point Brittain and Pritzker drew the meeting to a close, promising many more? with libraries and historical societies included.
?It?s a start,? said Pritzker, amid a babble of excited artist voices at meeting?s end.
From Norman Cousins to Patch Adams, people have celebrated the healing power of laughter, and the youth troupe will be bringing their comedic talents to local hospitals and senior centers, as well as parades, schools, and other public venues. Furthermore, said Newcombe, ?They?ll be able to work their way through college doing something that?s fun, not just flipping burgers at McDonald?s.?
Besides the comedy magic shows she performs at birthday parties, fairs, festivals, and other events, Newcombe does party planning and singing telegrams. She trained her daughter, Isadora, as a clown, and they have performed together at many events. ?People love clowns, but kid clowns are really charming,? said Newcombe, whose resume includes the ?Top Ten Clown? award from Clowns of America and the Silver Medal from Clownfest.
A small group of homeschoolers just had their second afternoon class at her home in Mt. Tremper, and she plans to add an evening session for kids who attend school. As last Friday?s class began, Newcombe was in full regalia, including dotted shirt, red vest, and big shoes, aglow with primary colors, as she drew on her makeup in a cluttered little dressing room. Twelve-year-old Jackie Simon was putting on a grass skirt and paper lei when Dylan Niclas, 15, arrived with his mother and 14-year-old Jasper Daniels. ?Hey, everybody, Jackie?s got her clown name! Go ahead, announce it,? said Newcombe.
Jackie stepped into the living room and called out, ?Hu-La-La!? Dylan reported that he was contemplating calling himself Pepper the Clown. Both boys already had balls in their hands and were juggling crisply. Jasper, a part-time student at Woodstock Day School, had taught himself to juggle two years ago when he wanted to be a jester for Halloween. He put down the balls and picked up three bright plastic clubs, then went on to big neon-toned rings, handling them all adeptly. The rings kept hitting the ceiling, so the boys went outside. With intense focus, they began to work on tandem juggling, trying to pass balls between them in a regular rhythm while keeping three balls each in motion. Dylan, too, had been juggling for some time, but this was only their second practice together.
His mother, Francesca, picked up three scarves and juggled them gracefully. She used to teach physical education at the Woodstock Day School, where she led a circus workshop. ?I?m a very physical person. I work as a personal trainer,? she explained. ?I learned circus skills fifteen years ago from Nikki Swarthout, who used to teach in Saugerties. I met Melody last year, and we were talking about doing some kind of circus class for Dylan and other homeschooled kids, but it didn?t come together. Recently she called me and said she had found Jasper and Jackie, and we got this going.? She picked a dowel from a box of juggling items and swiftly set a plastic plate spinning on top of it.
?Hey, we just did five passes in a row!? called Dylan.
?Of course, since I wasn?t watching,? his mother replied.
Jackie came out, her cheeks painted with red hearts, a pert pink ball on the end of her nose. Unlike Dylan and Jasper, she had just started juggling the week before, although she?s had a long-term interest in the circus from her family?s friendship with a professional troupe known as the Bella Family. She began tossing scarves, but the wind had picked up and kept blowing them away from her hands. ?We?re really going to need a big, open indoor space in the winter,? said Newcombe, who is planning to check out other locations.
She stood facing Jackie, both with their hands out, waist-height, elbows at their side. Jackie tossed a pair of balls awkwardly, and Newcombe cut her back to one. ?If a ball is falling, don?t reach for it. You have to get in the habit of keeping your hands right in front of you. It?s the toss that?s important.? Jackie tossed the ball from hand to hand, while the boys persevered at their tandem efforts.
?These are the kind of kids who, when they try something, they just have to master it,? said Francesca.
The group returned to the living room for their first balloon-twisting lesson. Each one made a competent dog or mouse, and Newcombe moved on to giraffes. ?It?s the same technique, only you make the neck longer.?
?My giraffe has really short legs,? said Dylan ruefully, holding up his creation.
?Tell the kids it?s a brontosaurus,? said Newcombe. ?They?ll love it.?
?It?s more of a triangulosaurus.?
?So you say, ?Wow, look at that, it?s a triangulosaurus!??
Jasper, having twisted his creatures up quickly, turns to balancing them on his nose and rubbing them on his hair so the static electricity will make them hang from his hand.
Newcombe shows them the ?fast dog?. ?This is for when you?re on a street corner at a fair or festival, and you?ve got a line of 100 kids, and they all want balloons, and you?re only there for one hour. It?s not as detailed as the other kind, but it looks fine, and you can do a lot of them in a short time.?
The group discusses possible venues for their performances. ?We want to have a list of places that would like us to come and perform. Eventually, the kids will be booking the gigs,? said Newcombe, who emphasized that adults are welcome to attend the free classes, help out with transportation to performances, and pick up some circus skills of their own.
For more information on the Circus Arts Youth Troupe, to enroll a student, or to book a performance, call Melody May Productions at (845) 688-5472. Free of charge; no experience necessary.
