Follow Up on the News
The City of New York is paying $17 million to build the system and is subsidizing the district to pay for much the costs of running it every year.
Homeowners would be charged a flat $100 a year for the service, but after three years the $100 would be adjusted for inflation. Supporters of the plan say this is a good deal for homeowners because it eliminates the headaches associated with cesspools and septic systems and also allows for the expansion of homes.
Critics however warn that there may be high costs down the road if something goes wrong with the system and the district needs to make repairs, upgrades, or additions.
Businesses do not have the $100 cost cap the homeowners enjoy, and a handful of business owners, most notably the high water users like restaurants and lodging enterprises, have been the most vocal critics of the plan. Each business will pay a flat annual fee of $200 then extra depending on how much water the business uses. While critics have challenged the estimates of those costs, it is said that the average business would pay an extra $112 a year.
If the system is installed, homeowners and businesses must pay to link up to it. Estimates show the average hook up cost to be $3100. Officials say low income residents will be given grants to pay for the work. Officials also say that there will be enough money left over from the construction of the project to pay for the rest of the hook ups, but critics note there is no guarantee of that.
There are 22 communities in the New York City watershed slated to receive systems. Phoenicia was on a high priority list of 7 communities viewed as needing the system. The other communities on that short list are the village of Hunter, the village of Fleischmanns, the hamlet of Windham, the hamlet of Andes, and the hamlets of Roxbury and Prattsville.
All of the other communities on the high priority list agreed to projects with little dissention.
Closing Up The Mission
“Finance did not seem to be it. We’re really not sure why they closed them,” said Gormley, who was also chairman of the church’s appeals committee which did, in the end, manage to salvage the parish itself. “We based our appeal on need, geography, the demographics of the area; on the fact that we serve a community from High Mount to Shokan and that’s a long way to travel.”
It was announced on January 19th that, as a result of a major realignment process initiated by Cardinal Edward Egan last March, 10 of 19 parishes listed for possible closure under their jurisdiction will be closed, as will 3 of 9 missions targeted. Two of the three closed missions are satellites of St. Francis de Sales in Phoenicia, which serves some 300 families. Eleven other parishes in the system were merged in the new alignment and 14 of 235 elementary schools were designated for closure.
The St. Francis de Sales parish itself, which was once slated to become a mission church of St. John’s Church in West Hurley, was saved in the appeal process. St. Augustine Church in West Shokan, a mission church of St. John’s also escaped the closure list unscathed.
“We fought to keep everything,” said Gormley’s wife, Maureen, denying one report which seemed to suggest otherwise. “We never made a compromise to give up those two (mission) churches to keep our parish.”
“It was a huge appeal,” said Gene Gormley of the documents he submitted to Bishop Dennis J. Sullivan’s ARAP in the last week of May 2006. “I don’t have it in front of me but it was also based on the local traditions, the history of the area and its people; the history of the parish and the fact that we were financially solvent...”
This last point might be raised because the Allaben Church had been closed due to a heating problem early last January and the Boiceville Church’s furnace had been condemned during the realignment process.
“Since that time, when we were assigned Father (Philip) Tran on September 1st, we were able to secure the funds to replace the Boiceville furnace completely,” Gormley said. “In fact, we had a donation from one person to do that plus enough money for the heating oil for the season. We also had a pledge for the funds from a few people banding together in Allaben to repair that heating system, which is propane, and cover enough fuel for the whole year. So, financially, we were ready to jump right in but, under the threat of closure, we couldn’t do it right away.”
Cardinal Egan, while describing the moves as the culmination of a 3-year process “to identify the religious, spiritual and educational needs of the Catholic faithful throughout the entire archdiocese,” also denied that economics was a decisive factor. He referred to a complex method of assessment, done “not just by the numbers,” an approach he said would have simplified the process.
In a press release, the Cardinal said that “shifting numbers” in the districts were “evaluated through the use of demographic information, Catholic population analysis, sacramental and fiscal data” as well as site visits, phrasing seemingly employed to avoid an impression that the choices were based strictly upon cold computer read-outs.
Cardinal Egan also denied that a shortage of priests was at issue but other voices within the archdiocese left room for conjecture on that point.
Father Tran, who joined St. Francis de Sales in an administrative position after serving as a U.S. Navy Chaplain, said that the church’s previous pastor, Father Christopher Berean (who could not be reached in time for this report), had been reassigned to St. Mary of the Snow Church in Saugerties to fill a need resulting from the transfer elsewhere of that church’s pastor. Father Tran is himself preparing to visit relatives in Vietnam, where he hopes to observe current conditions in that country’s orphanages, elderly homes and AIDS clinics in a private, entirely nonofficial capacity.
With the closure of Our Lady of LaSalette, which was established in the early 1950s, Olive is left with 9 of the area’s 300 churches (including some 47 denominations and not counting 14 synagogues). Allaben’s Our Lady of Lourdes Church was built in 1879 but the oldest still-standing religious structure would seem to be the Old Baptist School and meeting place on Reservoir Road, built in 1799- the same year as the Shokan Reform Church which no longer stands. The parish of St. Francis de Sales dates to 1902, when it was founded as one of the first stateside missions of the Order of La Salette.
Berean moved to the pastorship of the parish in January, 2003 from being an assistant priest in Saugerties, after the La Salette’s passed control of the local churches over to the ARchiocese, based in New York City.
Prior to Berean’s coming, and the parish’s transfer, Father Hector LaChapelle, a former chaplain for the Green Bay Packers, moved away from the district after a parishioner won a settlement from the church. He is now working as a Parochial Vicar) at St Brendan The Navigator Parish in North Carolina.
Gormley said that the mission churches will be closed and secured but that, as far as he knows, there will be no attempt to sell them.
His voice mixed the relief of learning, after long and anxious months awaiting the ARAP’s decision, that the parish was not lost with the disappointment of hearing that its mission churches were.
“Beyond the distances involved, there’s a sentimental attachment to the church you’ve gone to for so long,” Gormley reflected, speaking undoubtedly for many in the congregation. “It’s not a pleasant thing to lose something you’re so familiar with.”
Walker commended the district for having a wide variety or programs, so a majority of students can stay in district, adhering to federal regulations of having the “least restrictive environment” and proving generally the most cost effective way to deal with special needs students. But he also defined three areas of concern: collaboration, staff development and consistency of teams and noted that the district does not currently have a curriculum development team between regular education and special education teachers, that programs between the schools are inconsistent, and pointed out that consultant teachers need supervision between the elementary and middle school, with more direct supervision, due to the “ever increasing responsibilities of the department.”
At the high school level, Walker’s report went on, a studies program needs to “become more effective and efficient.” Grades nine-through-twelve special education students are lumped into one class with up to five subjects needing help per grade and suggested a less rigorous system. Walker also said that parents need more support and education in the community.
A special education PTA, a new advocacy group led by parent Valerie Hill is taking root in the middle school library and meets once a month.
Walker concluded that no district has the best answer in how to run a special education department, but it is important to look at other methods, utilize workshops and use BOCES services as staff development. His supervisor, Barbara Boyce, pointed out that over the last decade, fewer students are receiving special education classes, but instead mainstreaming into regular education classes with teacher consultants as aides. Following up on Walkers report, she agreed with most of his suggestions but pointed out financial challenges due to decreasing federal government funds and concurrently increasing employee salaries..
Boyce said she looks forward to discussions with Ford about ways of implementing Walker’s recommendations, “most of which I agree with and applaud.”
Also awaiting Ford’s attention will be the new 2007-2008 OCS budget, which got its initial technology, custodial and maintenance departments presentation at the same late-January meeting. Total equipment request for technology totaled at $125,000 or a 26.52 percent increase in it’s budget. This includes ten new computers for the middle/high school library, four servers and smart boards for each library. The proposal will begin to address the district’s aging equipment and also an additional request to hire three teaching assistants per each elementary school, to implement its usage.
Custodial and maintenance departments have requested a combined $95,824, or a 3.34 percent increase. mostly as a result of increased employee salary as defined by contract agreements. Custodial also requested new vacuums, floor machines and two part time custodial staff positions. Maintenance must repair a small portion of the high school roof due to leaking, replace ceiling tiles and lighting due to the water damage. Boilers at Woodstock are worn and are considered a health and safety risk.
The school board passed a resolution five-to-one to use federal and state EXCEL funds to purchase a new boiler system for Woodstock and make needed improvements on the high school auditorium. This will not increase taxes, but will still need voter approval sometime in late March. Trustee Rita Vanacore was the only no vote for the proposal, preferring that the money go to technology infrastructure. The school board has approved Ford’s starting date as February 12, at the rate of $155,000 per year for a three-year period. If Ford begins earlier than the date, she will be considered per diem.
What would have been seen as a highly partisan event a year ago drew an SRO crowd of over 250 to the Kingston Holiday Inn Monday morning, January 22, with the veteran Democrat drawing applause as he raised legal and ethical questions about the Bush Administration’s actions of the past six years and lambasted Dean Gitter’s Belleayre Resort proposal for a mega-development in Shandaken as a “bad project with deep consequences.”
Touching on the county’s need to redevelop the old IBM campus in Ulster, known now as Tech City, giving kudos to the current push to consolidate Benedictine and Kingston Hospitals, and talking about the need to investigate what went wrong in Iraq “so we don’t ever repeat such mistakes again,” Hinchey drew occasional sharp questions and comments from his business community audience, but also a standing ovation at breakfast’s end that included over half those in attendance.
Many spoke, amongst themselves at their tables, about the changed climate since Congressman Maurice Hinchey last addressed the Chamber on January 19, 2005 , ostensibly about his recent return from a fact-finding trip to Ukraine and its Orange Revolution. Then, Hinchey’s call for a withdrawal of troops from Iraq, and accusations that the Bush administration had lied to lead the congress, and nation, into its wars, was met with more cross-armed silence than support. Some in the national press had even accused the Congressman of treason for his statements.
Now, Democrats control both houses of Congress and Bush’s every statement seems to be garnering as much criticism from leading members of his own GOP as the traditional opposition. Moreover, photos released over the recent weekend of Hinchey trying out new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s gavel before the Congress seemed to have cemented his newfound rise to stable power amongst the government’s upper echelons.
“The timing of this visit couldn’t be better,” noted Chamber president Ward Todd, former Ulster County Legislative chairman when that chamber was still in Republican hands, in introducing the Congressman.
“We have a new environment, as you know,” Hinchey started off his spiel, to the quiet laughter of in-the-know acknowledgement from the gathered business and governmental leaders of his home county. He then started listing some of the “difficulties of single party rule” over the previous six years.
He talked about what the new Pelosi-led House has been up to over the last, much-touted 100 days. Highlighted ethics reform and the push to upgrade the minimum wage, the better to combat a rising debt-load that has Americans currently spending 108 percent of their income each month. He talked about the need to base the nation’s principals on “intellect over ideology” and okay stem cell research, something Hinchey has said could become a specialty of the reconfiguring Hudson Valley economy.
Gradually, the gloves came off. Hinchey spoke about initiating legislation to roll back the tax cuts handed out to oil corporations in the years since Republicans took over the House in 1995. Repeated Jon Stewart’s Daily Show joke about President Bush’s new “No ice cap left behind” policy. While claiming not being “strictly partisan,” he noted how the new Congress is, “Picking up the slack that’s been out there for the last 12 years. People have realized we were going in the wrong direction.”
And then Hinchey moved on, seamlessly, to Subject A: “The so-called war in Iraq,” calling it “Now an occupation that was a military invasion” of dubious legality. He addressed its costs to the country, both in terms of military personnel and a growing hindrance to other sorts of growth.
“All of us remember what happened in Vietnam,” he said as the Chamber sat rapt, nodding. He noted how Bush’s push towards “acceleration” had come despite his leading military advisors suggesting opposite action before being relieved of duty. Acknowledged the Iraq Study Group’s recommendations.
“We must do everything we can to stop this administration from making the situation worse than it is,” Hinchey said. “We as a nation face a difficult time. We have to have the strength to change our course.”
Using both hands to rhythmically drive home his points, the Congressman and former state Assemblyman noted how monies going into Iraq could cover the costs of universal health care, pre-school for all Americans, development of alternative energy sources, and increased productivity on a national basis. He noted how, in good business, “It’s just a matter if using the resources you have, the better to serve your community.”
Hinchey then moved to the local scene, just as some of his audience began to fidget. He pointed out how the merger talks between Benedictine and Kingston hospitals “were on the right track;” talked about how the “right questions” were being asked about development at Kingston’s The Landing, and other projects around the region; spoke strongly about how the old IBM Plant – Tech City – “really needs to be addressed... It’s been over 12 years.”
And then the Chamber got to ask its questions.
Asked by a commercial real estate agent whether he would ever approve large development in the region – while disparaging Hinchey’s involvement in the ongoing review of Gitter’s controversial project, the congressman was specific about why he wasn’t “opposed to that project just for the hell of it” but because of a long list of possible environmental and ultimately economic effects it could have on the region and state.
His answer drew heavier applause than that which accompanied the original question.
An insurance agent asked about a statement Hinchey had made, earlier, regarding Bush’s use of the war to get re-elected. The congressman replied, sharply, with an exegesis of how an electorate allows themselves to be governed out on consent, for their own benefit, or fear.
“The administration knew it couldn’t succeed on the basis of any benefits so they cultivated a culture of fear,” Hinchey said. “The president deceived the Congress and country… it was all designed to create fear… It’s absolutely despicable what’s been done. It’s the worst administration we’ve ever had in the history of America.”
Half the room clapped almost loud enough to make it sound like a full room.
Why no impeachment, came the last question as Todd motioned that it was time for the monthly meeting to come to a close.
“President Cheney,” Hinchey said, as the punch line to a longer explanation. “We have to investigate what happened so we can prevent the country from facing this ever again.”
Before Hinchey’s talk, county legislator Hector Rodriguez thanked the Chamber for its help passing a new County Charter. Some clapped while others looked stone-faced, as if not cogniscent of what they had done. Todd handed out a number of door prizes, including a bathrobe from Gitter’s Emerson Spa. He pushed skiing at local resorts as a means of helping out that segment of the local economy.
“Next month we’ll be having State Senator John Bonacic to talk about state level legislation,” he said.
On Thursday, January 25, Governor Eliot Spitzer nominated Assemblyman Alexander “Pete” Grannis, a state legislator from Manhattan since 1974 when he used to car-pool to Albany with now-Congressman Maurice Hinchey, to be DEC commissioner, and Judith Enck, his policy adviser for the past eight years while he was attorney general, as deputy environmental secretary.
Grannis, a former DEC employee with a law degree from the University of Virginia, has pushed such environmental issues as the state Environmental Quality Review Act, the original bottle bill, and the clean-up and revitalization of the state’s brownfields, as well as the banning of cigarette smoking from public places in New York State. Prior to joining Spitzer’s office, Enck was an environmental associate with the New York Public Interest Research Group who also served as executive director of the Environmental Advocates of New York, a non-profit government watchdog organization.
Issues facing the DEC under its new administration include many’s belief that the agency had pulled away from active environmental enforcement during Pataki’s years, focused too much on high-profile money-making facilities (such as local Belleayre Mountain Ski Center), and eschewed its stewardship role for state lands.
Off-the-record talk among those currently at the DEC, as well as many who do business with the agency around the region, said they were surprised by Grannis’ nomination, but felt it showed Spitzer’s will to create a more active environmental role for the state in the coming years. Some also noted that the new governor’s choice of two high-powered environmental officers also suggested a possible power struggle down the line, although others pointed out that whereas Enck is a theorist, Grannis has proved his worth as a listener who responds to needs in the field. A man of action, in other words.
No one was yet ready to address rumors that some major local changes might soon be in the offing, from shifts in regional offices and facilities’ management to the possibility of a renewing of an earlier push, by Hinchey and the state’s last Democratic DEC Commissioners under Mario Cuomo, to build a Catskills Park interpretive center on lands already developed for the purpose on Route 28 near the Shandaken/Olive/Woodstock line in Mt. Tremper.
“So far, everyone has been wrong about everything,” said one insider. “As a result, we don’t pay any attention to the rumor mill.”
Similarly, questions regarding any changes regarding the state DEC’s pending review of local developer Dean Gitter’s Belleayre Resort proposal to put a massive golf resort on high peak lands adjacent to the state-owned ski resort went unanswered as of press time… except for those who pointed out Grannis’ long friendship with Hinchey, who has proposed cutting the project in half, and Enck’s role as environmental advisor in the AG’s office, which came out strongly against the project on several occasions in recent years.
“Pete Grannis was part of the Environmental Conservation Committee the whole time I was there. I don’t know of anyone who is more able and more committed to the environment than Pete Grannis,” said Hinchey in a statement. “He is a very highly qualified and highly capable person who will do an extraordinary job. Pete knows environmental issues as well as anyone and I’m sure he will be a very effective Commissioner. I very much look forward to working with him again.”
Noted the environmental group Riverkeeper, which has played a key role in many Catskills watershed issues in recent years, “Pete Grannis and Judith Enck are the Environmental ‘Dream Team,’ Their appointments signal a new and exciting era of environmental protection in New York State… With these appointments, Governor Spitzer is now poised to restore New York as a leader in environmental protection.”
environGrannis, born in Chicago, Illinois and a graduate of Rutgers University, had been known in the legislature for his role fighting large insurance companies on behalf of the public, as an advocate for affordable housing, and as well as a stickler for detail. In 1988, Mr. Grannis spearheaded the set-aside of millions of dollars in surplus tax revenues for an innovative package of affordable housing programs. In addition to his legislative initiatives, he made oversight a priority, conducting investigations into the state’ s rent administration and affordable housing programs. He authored New York’s Clean Indoor Air Act, which stands as the most comprehensive set of restrictions on smoking in public places and workplaces in the nation. As Chairman of the Assembly Majority Adirondack Working Group, Grannis led the fight to preserve the natural resources of the Adirondack Park, earning him the honor of becoming a three-time winner of the “Legislator of the Year” from the Environmental Planning Lobby, as well as similar awards from the Audobon Society.
“I’m very excited and flattered,” Grannis, 65, told the press following his nomination. “DEC is where I began my career in 1970,” he added, noting two years spent as a compliance officer in the department he will now be heading.
He is a skier, hiker and avid flyfisherman whose staff says spends considerable time in the Catskills already, where he treasures the local streams.
Enck has said Spitzer is concerned about issues including global warming, land preservation, recycling and expanding the bottle recycling bill.
“You will see a lot of that when the budget comes out later this week,” Enck noted in a statement. “The governor wants to revive DEC. It is definitely understaffed, having lost 800 staff during the last 10 years.”
Grannis’ nomination for the $136,000-a-year DEC commissioner’s post, which currently oversees approximately 3,400 employees and is responsible for air and water purity as well as protected wilderness regions in the Catskills and Adirondacks for the state of New York, will go before the GOP-controlled state Senate, where he said he expects support. A spokesman for the Senate Republican majority said the review process would be “thorough and open.”
State Senator John J. Bonacic, who pointed out having served with Mr. Grannis in the State Assembly, said this week that, “The DEC significantly impacts those who live in the Catskills. I look forward to working with the Commissioner-designee on issues such as the watershed agreement, Belleayre Mountain Ski Center, and the need for the State to implement more aggressive plans relating to flood control.”
