Follow Up on the News
The 33 page report, issued on August 21, is a major milestone in EPA’s yearlong process of deciding whether to renew the filtration waiver for another five years. Should the City need to build the filtration system it would cost an estimated $8 billion plus hundreds of millions each year to operate.
EPA’s Philip Sweeny, the leader of the team that compiled the report, said it’s basically the first of two decisions necessary for approval of another 5 year waiver.
“The report is a look back at how the city did over the last five years,” he said Friday.
EPA says the City did well. With that determined, the City can go to the next step and prepare a plan that states what it will do to protect water over the next five years. The EPA's second decision, set for early next year, will be whether they feel the plan will work or not.
A report card of sorts that gauges how well the City did at implementing plans to handle water quality protection in the watershed region, the report gives good marks in general. Where it does not it states that poor performance was beyond the City’s control.
“Overall, the City has successfully satisfied the obligations specified in the 2002 Filtration Avoidance Determination,” the report states. “For most programs, the City has met deadlines and expectations. Examples include land acquisition, in which the City has exceeded solicitation targets and has successfully protected 71,000 acres, and the small farm program, through which 42 whole farm plans have been developed. In programs where there have been delays or shortfalls, the City’s explanations and justifications have generally been accepted as adequate by EPA.”
For example, wastewater projects, funded by the City to the tune of millions, have taken longer to complete than expected. But the reports claims the delays are due in large part to the extensive coordination needed between the City and the communities. In Stream Management Programs, designed to reduce water-fouling turbidity, some stream restoration projects were delayed due to wet weather conditions which precluded stream access.
The report, now under review by involved agencies, gave favorable reviews for the City’s efforts in surface water treatment, septic and sewer programs, waste treatment plant upgrades, stormwater control, land acquisition, agriculture, forestry, wetlands protection, watershed monitoring, enforcement of watershed regulations and for education and outreach.
An updated Watershed Protection Plan to define the next round of watershed protection activities will be prepared by the City by end of the year. The 2007 renewal is expected to be put in place next April, although EPA warns that it could at any time during the process reverse its decision.
The City of New York first received a five year waiver in 1997, which was renewed in 2002 for another five years.
Meanwhile, Regional EPA Spokesperson Mary Mears said that Regional Administrator Alan Steinberg, who agreed to look at a new proposal by Belleayre Resort developer Dean Gitter to downsize a portion of his resort alongside a site visit to the area last month, said that no decision regarding the proposal has been made at present, and won;t be expected for several weeks yet.
Inching Towards Reval
Despite having been promised as a public forum when first brought up by councilman Rob Stanley at the town’s August meeting, the meeting was unpublicized, with no press releases or advertising. According to Town Clerk Laurilyn Frasier, a press release had been posted for several weeks on her bulletin board by the town hall water cooler, constituting lawful public notice.
The meeting began with an informational video from the State Office of Real Property Services (ORPS), explaining that towns such as Shandaken — with a elected Assessor — are “few and far between anymore.”
“Your town Assessor is your advocate for fairness,” the tape stated. “No one wants to pay more than their fair share of taxes. That’s what happens when assessments are not kept up to date.”
ORPS’ long-standing position is that towns should revalue at a minimum every three years. Shandaken’s last townwide revaluation was in 1978.
Many of the video’s key points were reiterated in a Powerpoint presentation by ORPS regional representative Jim LaPlante, assisted by Sue Tillson from Ulster County Real Property office.
“Reassessment creates equity and distributes the tax burden fairly,” said LePlante. It “does not raise taxes for the municipality…Assessed value doesn’t determine the size of one’s tax bill. The levy does,” reflecting only what municipalities, including school districts spend.
The point of reassessment, he explained, is to fairly distribute each taxpayer’s portion of that levy amongst all. While LePlante added that, “there’s nothing in the law that mandates reassessment,” he reiterated several times a point from ORPS’ video that frequent reassessments are the best way to insure that each property is taxed fairly.
The other key issue with revaluation, LaPlante explained, is to insure that the tax roll is in compliance with the state’s Assessment Standard, which mandates that all properties be assessed at a uniform percentage of market value. This is currently a question central to ongoing litigation between the town and a group of 20+ acre landowners who claim they are being assessed at a level reflecting full market value, whereas the rest of the town’s taxpayers are not, in violation of the Assessment Standard and their constitutional rights to equal protection.
LePlante explained that any reevaluation for Shandaken would take several years to implement, with the earliest practical date for new property values to be established being July 2008, for the 2009 tax roll.
Stanley, at whose public request the meeting was held, sought clarification on the process’ probable cost, amongst other issues.
Estimates for the process would likely come in at $40 to $60 per tax parcel, said LePlante, less $5 per parcel that the State would reimburse. Other factors such as whether some of the work might be done by town personnel, or the fact that many of the town’s approximately 3,500 tax parcels are vacant land, could also help mitigate final costs, which would appear to likely fall somewhere between $122,000 and $193,000.
Gary Gailes asked whether the town could consider bonding such costs, so the payout could take place over an extended period of time.
Shandaken is the last town in Ulster County to have avoided any form of revaluation in recent years. Neighboring Olive just completed the process last Spring, after facing school- and county-enacted legislation (Large Parcel) forcing them to undergo separate tax assessment due, in part, to the tardiness of their municipal assessments. Woodstock tries to keep its tax rolls updated every three years to keep up with changing real estate markets and defray lawsuits by new residents fearing “Welcome Stranger” taxing histories.
LePlante also stressed, at the September 6 meeting, the importance of the community being well informed about the revaluation process.
Frasier said she was under no obligation to publicize meetings beyond notices on her bulletin board and mailings to the town’s “official newspaper.”
In between, the sparse audience heard grumblings from Supervisor Bob Cross about the legal fees piling up over a lawsuit filed by the Shandaken Landowners Association. Then all had a little breather while the board went into executive session to discuss bids on the Phoenicia Sewer project.
There was no discussion about next year’s spending plan per se, just money talk in general, perhaps because the board, and in particular Supervisor/chief budget officer Cross, have dollars and cents on their minds more now than they have for a while.
Or, at least one would hope so.
During talk of raising water rates for Phoenicia’s special water district, Cross and company were blindsided by figures provided by businessman Mike Ricciardella, who claims the Phoenicia water district might have a surplus of anywhere between $40 and $60 thousand dollars at the end of the year.
“With that much left over what are you raising the rates for?” he asked.
Town officials were surprised at Ricciardella’s information, claiming to have not seen the figures, which Ricciardella said were up to date amounts in the district’s two bank accounts.
Last fall the town board adopted a greatly increased budget for the district that dramatically raised taxes for the landowners. It went from $123,000 in 2005 to $169,000 this year. At the time, debt was used as the reason for the hike.
But Ricciardella, who argued that the board was making major financial decisions without doing its homework first, produced documents showing that the district still has $114,000 in its budget this late in the year.
“Why is it (the budget) so high if we don’t need it?” asked Councilwoman Jane Todd.
Last January Phoenicians were shocked when they opened their tax bills to discover a whopping increase to cover the budget. In reaction to the negative backlash he received from taxpayers, Cross announced plans to shift the cost burden away from property owners by increasing the water rates. This plan, he said at the time, would put more responsibility on those who use most of the water.
But now, according to Ricciardella, the 2006 spending plan appears to have been grossly overestimated, and he thinks that the town should back off from any changes to the way Phoenicians pay for water.
Ricciardella, who may seek permission to drill his own well rather than pay high usage fees, appears to be the only one to have taken the time to check the bottom line. No one on the town board or the special committee formed in January to prepare the new rate schedule had seen the figures until Monday night.
Cross, staring at the printout for several minutes, appeared perplexed and refused to believe it.
“Something is totally wrong here,” he said, adding that he expects most of the money will get used up by the end of the year.
After tabling the resolution to increase the rates, Cross said the town board would meet with water district bookkeeper Florence Stanley and double check Ricciardella’s figures.
It remains unclear whether the board will restructure the proposed rates. A list of examples was distributed to show what effect the increased rates would have if passed in current form. The eight examples showed the changes would be all over the map. Five showed a savings between $61 and $338. The other three showed increases ranging from $61 to $2611.
Before going into executive session with attorney Kevin Young to look at bids for Phoenicia’s sewer project, Cross made an announcement that so far the town has spent $20,035 fighting the lawsuit brought by the Shandaken landowners Association, which claims the town unfairly reassessed several properties last year. Peter Vinci, a leader of the SLA, scoffed at the claim and said he was sure it was much more than that.
In other money matters, Stanley complained that almost $8000 was taken out of taxpayers’ pockets without their consent when the board authorized spending to install flowers in the Phoenicia Business District. This became a murky money matter as well when Cross and Stanley offered different accounts of where the money came from.
Cross said $10,000 was added to the town’s recreation budget for the Main Street beautification project, but Stanley recalls that the money, actually $12,000, was added to pay for mowing the town’s parks. Stanley also said the town allocated $10,000 specifically to pay for Eagle Day costs. He wonders why that money was not used for the flower plantings and maintenance.
“I don’t think the town should be in the decorating business,” said Pine Hill resident Mary Herrmann.
Complaining that Phoenicia is reaping more tax benefit than the rest of the town, Stanley tried to get support for a resolution to give Pine Hill $2500 for winter lighting accents and décor to be installed this ski season.
The board voted it down. It was suggested the matter be discussed during the preparation of next year’s budget. Although it remains unclear exactly when that will be, it appears his opportunity will be at the October 2nd town board meeting.
According to the Ulster County Office of Real Property, the town of Shandaken’s 2007 budget, the tentative version anyway, must be filed with the town clerk’s office no later than September 30th. Then the Town Clerk must submit the tentative budget to the town board (at a regular or special meeting) no later than October 5th.
“At this meeting the town board reviews the tentative budget and makes any necessary changes revisions or alterations,” the law reads. “Upon completion of this review the tentative budget becomes the preliminary budget.”
The prelim must then be filed in the town clerks office who shall reproduce for public distribution as many copies as the town board directs.
The public hearing on the budget must be on the Thursday following election, it can be adjourned day after day but not run past Nov. 15th. Final budget must be adopted by Nov. 20th.
The reprieve was reported by Father Phillip Tran, a Vietnamese priest and former Navy chaplain, who arrived to conduct a Friday mass with a letter from the archdiocese announcing that he was to take over as “administrator” of the parish, distinct from a “pastor”, which entails a six-year appointment. He replaces Father Christopher Berean, who was offered a posting at the prestigious St. Mary’s of the Snow Parish in Saugerties when it looked like the Phoenicia parish was going to be dissolved.
“I can’t blame him at all for taking it,” said Jane Wolfrom, local elementary school teacher and a member of the committee formed to try to convince the archdiocese to let the parish continue. “It looked like we were going to be closed down. He had been there previously, and it’s a much bigger parish. He’ll have a lot of responsibilities there. We’ll miss him. He really made you think, and he’s a wonderful speaker.”
Gene Gormley, head of the committee to save the parish, said the decision is “better than we’d hoped for. At this point everything we know is positive.”
The committee, according to Wolfrom, had proposed the compromise of closing the parish’s two mission churches, Our Lady of Lourdes in Allaben and Our Lady of La Sallette in Boiceville, while retaining a full complement of daily services at the Phoenicia church. Under the bishop’s plan, part of a general “realignment” in progress throughout New York State, the Phoenicia church would have been a mission church under Woodstock’s jurisdiction and would have held a single weekly mass, conducted by Woodstock’s Father George. So far, it appears that the Phoenicia parish will keep its status and its own priest, and nothing has been said about closing its mission churches.
Wolfrom credits Gormley for providing “the spark that got everyone really motivated” to fight for the parish. The committee gathered statistics on church attendance and met with representatives of the archdiocese in Hopewell Junction in Dutchess County to pitch the importance of the parish within the community.
“We fought so hard and threw ourselves at the mercy of the bishop,” said Wolfrom. “It wasn’t well received, but we must have reached someone. We’re thrilled we got it, but the lack of fanfare is confusing. Father Tran was told about a month ago that he’d be with Father George in Woodstock, and then a few days before arriving here, he was told he would be in the Phoenicia parish.”
She sees the decision and its lukewarm announcement as “a wake-up call not to take for granted something you think is special. We’d better make the best of what we’ve got.” Suggestions under consideration include fundraising to install an oil burner at the Allaben church so it can stay open in winter, and possible changes to the religious education program, which is currently oriented toward entire families, not just children.
St. Francis de Sales Parish, the northern & westernmost outpost of the New York metropolitan area’s 10-county, 2.5 million member Catholic community, currently serves more than 260 local families with between 500 and 600 registered parishioners. It is, geographically, one of the Archdiocese’s largest parishes, encompassing roughly 500 square miles.
St. Francis de Sales has only been operated directly by the Archdiocese of New York for three years. First established in 1902 by the LaSalette Fathers, a modern missionary order now based in Hartford, CT, ownership of the parish was transferred to the Archdiocese of New York in 2003. That transfer took place against the backdrop of a private settlement of a federally filed lawsuit against the order and one of its previous resident priests for alleged improprieties.
Father Hector LaChapelle is currently serving in North Carolina.
St. Augustine’s Chapel in West Shokan will continue to stay affiliated with St. John’s in Woodstock, as it has been for the past three years.
Calls to the archdiocese for comment were not returned by press time.