Summing Up
Another interesting year in Shandaken is winding down and on balance, I think, it’s been a fairly good year. Of the big issues we’ve been dealing with locally, little has been really resolved but that’s not to say we’re not making progress. Progress isn’t a direction in the same way that we see the forward motion of time: We all seem to think “forward” points in a slightly different direction. But it is the process by which communities grow toward the future they craft for themselves. It’s usually complicated, sometimes louder than we’d like, and it often happens in steps so small they aren’t always readily perceptible. But it is happening just the same. And if I had to try and define how or why that is, I’d say we’re collectively growing up and we’re doing a modestly better job of it than we have in recent years. So to everybody who’s volunteered their time and spoken up and been a part of what’s gotten better, thank you. It’s made a difference and as time goes by it’ll make more of a difference.
The clearest measure of this growing maturity is in our collective dialogue which is, to be sure, improving. For want of a better term I’d call that our political life even though the phrase pushes buttons hardly anybody’s comfortable with. But our newly elected town government for example, is a good indicator of the common ground that’s emerging at the center, the true center, of how we see ourselves and what kind of future we want to build. Surely honest differences of opinion will continue to exist about how we solve our problems and which solutions make sense and which may not. But we need to build and keep the faith, a faith that consists of our respect for one another, for the laws that govern us, and for the roles each of us serve as members and protectors of our community. And I humbly remind people because it’s easy to forget, that we live in a Home Rule state and that we in Shandaken, not others, ultimately decide what happens here.
Summarizing a year’s worth of local history isn’t easy. Our big issues are still and will continue to center on “development :” infrastructure problems like septic treatment, communications, and emergency services, taxes and how they’re assessed, and the prospect of irreversible change that comes with large scale growth in our community. On all of these fronts we need to positively but carefully move forward because there’s no other choices and because it’s everyone’s job to figure out how, and wisely. We can do it better than the past would indicate, whether we succeed is a measure of the good will of everyone involved. In my view, the prospects are better than they’ve ever been. Happy holidays, everyone.
BP

2007 was a year of transitions. As with all that is inevitably to become history, it won’t be easy to see what’s what for some time yet… although a number of indicators can help us learn a few lessons already.
The key town issues included the defeat of the proposed sewer system, which I personally feel was wrong-headed given that it’s basic reasoning was a gambling precept… that holding out MIGHT bring a better deal; the reconfiguration of the Belleayre Resort proposal in conjunction with our governor’s apparent deep-seated need to somehow please his developer father by eschewing all worries about changing climate patterns in exchange for a no-holds-barred expansion of winter sports facilities in the Catskills; a decision to start shifting our school district to a new format more keyed to middle school than elementary education, with concurrent shifts in community school set-ups; and further diminishment of our region’s identity as, well, a region that can actually work for its own communal good.
There was political change, with what feels like a shift from deep partisanship to something more characteristically independent-minded… very Shandaken, that. And with it, the possibility of more shared planning concerns with our neighboring towns (reflecting a similar need for widening horizons on our national horizons in the coming year). But there was also political retrenchment in the predominance of staunch battlelines on many issues, be it from the right or the left, and an apparent wish for revenge against particular people within our community beyond that goes beyond simple shifts of power. We’re hoping we can start to move beyond that in the coming year, just as we wish to also do so on a national basis.
The biggest behind-the-scenes news from the last year, in my mind, was the release of a reports from top scientists charting probable climate change effects on our region, as well as the continuing rise in fuel prices. These are solid signs of big changes we all need to take very seriously in our planning processes for the years to come. To ignore them is worse than Quixotic… it would be foolhardy and dangerous.
Since we are transitioning, in other words, we need to band together in new ways and face reality as we haven’t before. How? By taking funding offers where we can (for sewer systems, road repairs and other infrastructure expansion projects), and ensuring the options we are passing on to our next generation are not hampered by our current middle-aged fears.
Shandaken, and the Catskills, will always face challenges based on our geography, our history, and the sorts of people and businesses we attract. Yet we’ll also be granted benefits, because of all the same, other places won’t get. The clearer we are about who we are, and what we really want to be, the better our chances for continued greatness.
Happy New Year!
PS