The Phoenicia Times - Follow Up on the News

He’ll have a Republican majority to help him, too… at least officially, with perennial GOP candidate Jack Jordan finally getting his day by coming in tops out of five candidates for town council, taking a seat alongside Conservative (but independent-minded) Vin Bernstein, who ran and won on the Republican ticket two years ago.
Balancing the town council will be incumbent Democrats Doris Bartlett, who won a definitive second term in office Tuesday night, and Tim Malloy, who isn’t up again for two years, alongside Bernstein.
The rest of the town’s key offices up for election this year, though, went to Democrats, barring a big reelection win for Justice Tom Crucet, a Republican who won easy reelection alongside Democrat incumbent Michael Miranda.
Rounding out the election picture this year were wins for Democratic highway superintendent candidate Eric Hofmeister, the incumbent, over GOP candidate Keith Johnson; as well as for Democratic assessor candidates Peter DiModica and Carol Seitz.
Although Shandaken’s two Democratic legislative candidates, Don Gregorius and Brian Shapiro, easily won reelection this year, the biggest news for Election 2009 in these parts may be the fact that the county legislature will have swung back to the Republican gavel after two terms… and just before the whole legislature gets shrunk to single-member districts for the 2011 elections.
The key to the GOP’s close 17-16 squeaker, in terms of total seats won, came with their strengthening of holds in the towns of Saugerties and Ulster, where longstanding legislator Gary Bischoff and current Majority Leader Brian Cahill lost reelection bids, as well as the county’s entire southern half, where a bittersweet victory was won in the race where popular incumbent Democrat Phl Terpening died during a debate with his opponent in the week leading up to Tuesday’s election.
Also on a county level, former D.A. Don Williams defeated Democratic County Judge Deborah Schneer, appointed to fill out the seat of J. Michael Bruhn early this past summer, and incumbent Republican County Clerk Nina Postupack easily defeated Democratic challenger Gina Riccardi.
On a regional level, it appeared that Kingston city court judge James Gilpatric, a Democrat, was headed towards a win for State Supreme Court Justice against Albany area attorney Karen Dunn, the GOP candidate.
On a national level, all the pundit’s talk was of GOP wins for Governorships in New Jersey and Virginia, although all indications at press time were that a much-watched special race for a Congressional state in Upstate New York was headed for a Democratic win, despite much talk to the contrary.
Stanley, who heard about his win amidst GOP supporters meeting at Russ’ Country Kitchen Tuesday night, where spirits were said to be ebullient, won a total of 588 votes to DiSclafani’s 519. For town council, Jordan had 509 votes to 503 from Bartlett, 389 for GOP candidate Pat Ellison, 384 for Democrat Barbara Redfield, and 300 for independent candidate Randy Ostrander. For highway superintendent, Hofmeister won 676 to 451 for Johnson. For town justice, Crucet won 673 votes to 572 for Miranda, 442 for GOP candidate Charles Frasier, and 408 for Democrat Amy Brown. In the assessor races, DiModica won 545 votes to 407 for Republican John Horn, while Seitz won 521 to 397 for the GOP’s Joanne Kalb.
The town’s four individual districts told a more detailed story of local sentiments, as usual.
In District 1, Phoenicia, DiSClafani won 224 votes to 195 total for Stanley, while Bartlett won 196, Jordan 172, Ellison 149, Redfield 141 and Ostrander 138.
In District 2, Shandaken, Stanley won with 136 total votes to 75 for DiSclafani, while Jordan won 113, Ellison got 86, Bartlett received 81 votes, Redfield won 53 and Ostrander got 52 votes.
In District 3, Pine Hill, Stanley received 159 votes to 116 for DiSClafani. For town council, Jordan won 142 to 11 for Bartlett, 101 for Ellison, 100 for Redfield and 45 for Ostrander.
In District 4, Mt. Tremper, DiSclafani won 104 to 98 votes for Stanley, while for town council, Bartlett won 114 votes to 90 for Redfield, 82 for Jordan, 65 for Ostrander and 53 for Ellison.
In the supervisor vote townwide, 472 Democrat votes were cast for DiSclafani, 429 Republican votes for Stanley, 90 Conservative Party votes for Stanley, and 69 Independence Party votes for Stanley, again proving the importance of such party endorsements in local elections.
The new United Shandaken Party drew a maximum 97 votes for Jack Jordan in the town council race.
According to those stopping by the Sportsman’s/Alamo in Phoenicia, where Democrats gathered Tuesday night, the mood was somber.
In neighboring Olive, Democrat incumbents gathered at the Boiceville Inn were in a raucous mood, having defeated their first all-out election challenge in years by healthy numbers.

At the November 2 board of education meeting at Woodstock Elementary, engineer Tim Moot of Clark Patterson Lee and Onteora’s new facilities director Jared Mance gave a report with options for the board to consider. The new system was purchased to address an Ulster County Board of Health violation that found high levels of Manganese in the water of the Middle/High School and Bennett Elementary. This type of system would remove the Manganese.
“The (new) pump unit has a computer system that shuts down, with an error code saying that there’s voltage problems,” Moot said, explaining that the district is in a dilemma because the pump company and Central Hudson both deny problems. Rental of a generator would provide a separate source of power and begin to give an indication of where the problem is.
He also outlined another proposal as stated in a letter dated October 19 that recommended freeing up $10,000 for an in-depth electrical investigation. This proposal could be the second step to figuring out what is wrong. He said this proposal is based on a theory that “…the root of the problem may not be associated with the pump, but may be associated with the electrical supply in the building, with these old dry core transformers.”
“I see three possible problems here,” Trustee Tom Hickey said. “Either there is something wrong with the pump, something wrong with the power source coming in from the utility, or there is something wrong with our transformer equipment on-site.”
Mance agreed.
Trustee Tony Fletcher asked, “If it is our electricity, then why does everything else function?”
Moot said the new system has a safety feature that shuts the pump down if the voltage reads imbalanced.
Mance added, “There may be other things going on that we are not aware of, which is the reason why I recommend we do this investigation so we know the root cause of this problem.”
In December 2008 the board approved $118,000 to install the filtration system. Board President Laurie Osmond said finding a solution to this problem will cause the costs to overrun.
At its last October 20 meeting, the board plowed through topics at great speed before discussing non-teacher contracts trhat are still pending. Trustee Anne McGillicuddy made plans to meet with Superintendent Leslie Ford and Interim Business Administrator Don Gottlieb to reviewnext year’s 2010/2011-school budget and board members voiced concerns over possible mid-year budget cuts a proposed by Governor David Paterson, including a possible $485,000 slashing of the district’s existing year’s budget.
Gottlieb reminded everyone that the Senate and Assembly must approve all proposed cuts and have meetings coming up soon regarding the budget. If mid-year State budget reductions become a reality, he added, it could create a deficit that would affect next year’s fund balance and impact the tax levy. Although, he added, the board could also consider reducing funds for this year.
Other discussion in Phoenicia on October 20 included talk about a proposal for the opening up of the Onteora junior.senior high school campus to senior students during lunchtime, per a student proposal, the better to visit restaurants and stores across Route 28 in Boiceville.
A child safety zone was established around the school in 2008, therefore restricting students from walking across the street. Also in 2005, there was a similar proposal from seniors that was supported by the administration at that time, but rejected when the insurance company called it a high liability risk.
As an alternative, Holmquist suggested that seniors be allowed to drive across Route 28 during lunch period, which is now 42 minutes instead of one half hour. High School principal Lance Edelman has expressed concerns that such a policy would discriminate against students who don’t drive and also create a liability.
In other business this past week, the board crafted a survey that will go out in November’s school newsletter and be available online.
The school board set a board meeting for students during the afternoon of November 9, provided the new auditorium is ready. This will be their second annual meeting for students. Expected topics to be raised by the student body include redistricting, student rights, open campus and girls wrestling.
On Saturday, Nov. 14, the board will hold its first “Coffee Chat” at Casey’s Café, across Route 28 from the Middle/High School, from 3 to 5pm. Board members will be available for conversation and to address concerns regarding district matters.

A Vet’s Record

ALS is a degradation of the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that control voluntary muscle movement. Only 20% of patients survive more than 5 years after diagnosis, according to the ALS Association.
Bruce, a Viet Nam War veteran and former avid hunter and fisherman, is bedridden and cannot breathe without a respiratory ventilator or eat without a feeding tube. Although he cannot speak, his mind and senses work perfectly well. Linda is his 24/7 caregiver.
“You’re trapped in your body,” explained Linda. “You know everything that’s going around you, but you have no control over your body whatsoever. Bruce can communicate, though. The veterans purchased a special computer for him. He has movement in his cheeks, and he puffs his cheek to make the computer work. Before he had the computer, I used to have to read his lips. We’d get frustrated at times, when I couldn’t understand him, but then we’d do the alphabet, one letter at a time. The ALS Center in Albany sent me a plastic board with letters, and he’d blink when I came to the right letter. Now with the computer, it’s a lot better.”
A complex mechanism, involving a special cap, an infrared switch, and a scan box, allows Bruce to spell on the computer. He has used it to write a cookbook for his friends, using recipes for game he learned during his hunting and fishing years. To speed up communication, said Linda, “I’ve programmed letters for him. NS means ‘I need suctioning.’ CS is ‘Please get me coffee.’ He still loves his coffee.” She puts the coffee down the feeding tube, which bypasses his mouth, but he can taste the coffee when he burps.
Linda and Bruce grew up in Shandaken and attended Onteora High School, where they were childhood sweethearts. Bruce joined the Navy Seabees and served in Viet Nam for two years. Soon after his return, they married, 39 years ago.
“Bruce and I did everything together in the community—scouts, PTA, he was Fire Commissioner in the Phoenicia Fire District, a fireman, Little League manager—whatever we could be involved in when it came to our children, we did together. Bruce worked days, I worked evenings, so the kids were hardly ever left with a babysitter. We were hardly ever separated, except when I went in the hospital to give birth.”
Linda worked in a nursing home as an aide for eleven years and then, at the age of 38, decided to get her nursing degree. She graduated in 1994. A year later, Bruce’s diagnosis came.
“When it started, it was in his right hand. He worked for the highway department as a truck driver and heavy equipment operator. He noticed he couldn’t hang onto stuff, he’d drop things, and he had difficulty shifting the truck with his arm. His fingers started to contract toward the palm of his hand. Bruce progressed fairly quickly.”
He went to a doctor to check out the problem. “The diagnosis was very, very, very devastating. I remember the day the doctor came in with the folder in his hand, and I remember his words: ‘This is fine, this is fine, the EMG is abnormal—you have ALS. Do you know what that is?’ It was as hard for him to give the diagnosis as it was for us to receive it. I had already taken care of two patients with it. I knew what was ahead.”
The Storeys’ daughter, Kristi, was eight at the time, and their oldest son, Marshall, was already married with children. The middle son, Chad, left college at Brockport to come home and help take care of his father. Later he graduated from SUNY-New Paltz and moved to a house nearby. His wife had triplets four years ago. Linda is now the primary—and virtually the only—caregiver.
“Now it’s routine, I’ve done it for so long, it’s just natural,” she says. Ventilators and feeding tubes need frequent maintenance: cleaning, replacement of parts. The ventilator has a monitor that beeps when the connection to the patient is broken or supplemental suctioning is required. Many patients opt out of ventilation when respiration is compromised, hastening death. Most ventilator patients are institutionalized, but Linda made the decision to take care of her husband at home.
“I don’t know if someone else could do what I’m doing. There could be a lot of resentment. There are many days I would just like to sit and scream and yell and cry, and there are others where I sit and say how thankful and blessed I am. I have three wonderful children, five beautiful grandchildren, a family that stands by me—I really have a wonderful world. I don’t know what God’s plan is, but there must be something.”
Bruce spends a lot of time watching TV—especially NASCAR racing and the Food Network. “He gets depressed sometimes,” Linda reports. “But then one of the daughters-in-law will call—Could I get the triplets off bus today from Headstart? They run in and kiss his arm and say ‘Hi, Poppy,’ and world is wonderful again.” Friends like Helen Cordo visit and bring good cheer. “She’s an absolute angel,” says Linda. “There’s a place for her in heaven.”
Linda’s biggest lesson? “The diagnosis changed our lives. All of our plans went up in smoke, our retiring years, what we were going to do. I try to tell everyone, don’t put off to tomorrow what you can do today. You don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Gas Battle Moves West

“We are not going to develop those leases, we are not taking any more leases, and I don’t think anybody else in the industry would dare to acquire leases in the New York City watershed” said Aubrey McClendon, Chesapeake’s CEO. “Why go through the brain damage of that, when we have so many other opportunities?”

Whether McClendon was referring to health effects of chemicals used in gas drilling and their history of turning up in surface water and people wasn’t immediately clear. But his announcement, timed to precede the first scheduled public hearing on the State’s recently released regulatory guidelines for the industry drew a cautiously positive but generally measured response.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation issued a brief statement indicating they’d anticipated such developments, noting that “the web of interrelated regulatory requirements” was “likely to present significant practical challenges” for any company seeking to drill in the watershed.

James Gennaro, chairman of the New York City Council’s Committee on Environmental Protection, was more forthcoming, saying drilling in the watershed “doesn’t make any business sense and it doesn’t make environmental sense. I think Chesapeake understands this and I’m happy they have come to that decision. If only we could get the state government to come to the same realization. It is strangely ironic.”

Genero was referring to the 809 pages of draft drilling guidelines released by DEC September 30. Those guidelines did not prohibit and only superficially restricted drilling within the City’s nearly 2,000 square mile watershed. Since its release, the Department has been widely criticized for what many believe are inadequate review procedures and protections contained in the document. Amongst the agency’s conclusions were that gas drilling in the watershed presented “no realistic threat” to the safety of the City’s drinking water.

The City’s agency in charge of that water is for now keeping a low profile; Mayor Blumberg has declined to comment until a full report on drilling impacts being prepared by their consultants is released in December. That report is widely expected to be highly critical of the state regulators’ analysis and conclusions. But the agency did on Friday provide a terse comment on Chesapeake’s withdrawal:

“One company’s voluntary moratorium at this point, “ said DEP spokesperson Mercedes Padilla, “ is not a substitute for thorough analysis by the New York State DEC and the New York State Department of Health, to determine the potential of gas drilling failures in the NYC watershed and the damage to critical infrastructure in surrounding counties.”

Meanwhile at the first of four public hearings being held statewide on the drilling process, an overflow crowd of more than 300 people showed up at Sullivan County Community College last Wednesday. Even with testimony limited to 5 minutes and most speakers taking less, the meeting ran five and a half hours with about 85% of the audience and 75% of the speakers significantly critical of DEC’s new guidelines.

Sullivan County Planning Director Luis Aragon was the first of many speakers to protest the agency’s lack of any requirement for cumulative impact analysis or socio-economic impact studies. He called for a ban on drilling in all floodplain zones and on all open-pit storage of toxic waste, said that towns must have the right to review drilling applications, and that the county legislature remained deeply concerned that the drilling might have “unprecedented and profound effects” which state regulators had no intention of studying.

Ramsey Adams, Executive Director of Catskill Mountainkeeper, said “The DEC has said they couldn’t put cumulative impact requirements into the draft document because they didn’t know how to do it. If they can’t do a cumulative impact assessment, we question whether they should be in the business of regulating gas drilling in the first place.”

Bruce Swol, however, of the Sullivan-Delaware Property Owners Association, said that “a robust new gas industry is the only hope we have” and that “what we have here,” referring to the packed hearing venue, is a small vocal group of environmental radicals.” He said his association which represents 70,000 acres in Sullivan and Delaware Counties “totally supports” DEC’s draft regulatory framework and called for the immediate approval of 24 pending gas well permits in the town of Hancock.

Scott Rotruck, VP of State Governmental Relations for Chesapeake Energy, told the Phoenicia Times that “we can drill safely anywhere but we will not drill in the NYC watershed” where “we’re the only ones with any leases.” Rotruck said “It’s a business decision” and that its 5,000 acres here were not meaningful in comparison to the 1.4 million acres the company holds leases on regionwide.

Mountainkeeper’s Adams countered that “We respect Chesapeake’s public relations acumen” but that the announcement had “no teeth” and that the watershed remains vulnerable until DEC bans drilling here.

While Chesapeake’s new position does appear, at least for now, to enhance the prospect of continued safe drinking water for NYC, the fate of the adjoining Delaware River Basin to our south appears if anything, even more tenuous. Over the past four years the massive Millenium natural gas pipeline which parallels the Delaware on its New York side has been completed to its southern terminus

in Orange County where it joins the existing distribution infrastructure. Future plans call for connection to an as yet unbuilttransshipment facility in the Long Island Sound to move gas from the Catskills around the world, with ground zero for gas drilling now centered on the Sullivan County towns of Hancock, Walton, Bethel, and Callicoon. Whether future regulatory actions amongst the three impacted states will adequately protect the 10 million people in New Jersey and Pennsylvania who rely on that watershed is entirely unknown.