Newsbriefs

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September 14, 2006)

Cell Deadline!
If Masterpage Communications doesn’t have a tower up and operational by May of next year the company’s contract with the town is null and void. That’s the word from Supervisor Robert Cross Jr., who this week was miffed that neither hide nor hair of the company has been seen for months.
Masterpage, which got planning board approval last spring to build, has not taken any steps to build despite a promise that the tower would be up last month.
“They’ve got an 18 month deadline from that contract for the cell tower to go up,” Cross said matter of factly.
The contract, negoiated by Cross in one-on-one sessions and signed in November 2005, gives Masterpage the right to build the tower on town property.

Route 28 Detour...
State Department of Transporation engineer Lee Zimmer announced this week that he would be leading a public information session on his department's plans to close down a portion of Route 28 in the Boiceville area at 7 pm on Thursday, September 14 at the Olive Town Meeting Hall on Bostock Road in Shokan. Zimmer added, however, that the DOT's present plans call for at leats one lane of the busy highway to be kept open at all times during the necessary repairs toa 50 foot deep culvert damaged during flooding this past Spring and summer. He further noted that road work will not be scheduled until ongoing repairs to Route 23A in the Greene County "Mountaintop" town of Hunter gets completed, and that road re-opened, on or around November 1.

An Ashokan Deal?
Campus Auxiliary Services, the owner of the Ashokan Field Campus near the Ashokan Reservoir, is negotiating with The New York City-based Open Space Institute, a land preservation organization has been protecting portions of the Hudson Valley and eastern New York for 35 years, about buying the 372-acre site.
Steven Deutsch, the chief executive officer of Campus Auxiliary Services, said he hopes to have the sale completed and the contract signed in the next month or so.
Under a contract with SUNY New Paltz, Campus Auxiliary Services provides the college with dining, bookstore, laundry and other services, and the college has used the field campus for instruction. But now, Deutsch said, Campus Auxiliary Services wants to shift its resources from the field campus to projects that impact larger numbers of New Paltz students more directly.
Negotiations between Campus Auxiliary Services and the Open Space Institute were facilitated by Jay Ungar’s Friends of Fiddle and Dance Company, which has held dance camps at the reservoir since 1980. Ungar, a noted local musician, wanted to maintain the reservoir’s heritage and helped form the Ashokan Foundation, a not-for-profit organization seeking to forge a larger vision for the campus by combining its educational, environmental, cultural and artistic elements.
The talks with the Open Space Institute began after the Circle of Life Camp - a non-profit organization that runs an upstate summer camp for children and young adults with diabetes - abandoned its plan to buy the Ashokan Field Campus.
Besides being used by SUNY, the field campus has offered outdoor and environmental education programs for local elementary schoolers for nearly 40 years, and all parties involved hope to continue the overall mission of the campus.
“We’d like to foster a connection between all of these that hasn’t really happened before, because we think music and arts and environment and history have a lot of common ground, and we’d like to see the school programs reflect that,” Ungar said.
The Ashokan Foundation’s board of advisers includes representatives from the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development and the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for American Music, Ungar said.
Martens said the Open Space Institute would “absolutely try to keep the staff and mission going,” and added that, if the purchase goes through, the transfer will include a transition period to allow for a hopefully seamless change.
“We’re trying to help find a way to basically keep the outdoor education program going and protect the land in the process,” Martens said. “It is a beautiful natural site, and at the end of the process, we hope it stays in much the same condition it is today.”

Snuffy On A Roll!
Friends of Snuffy, Inc, the new Shandaken-based not-for-profit providing help for the town's animals and their owners, reports that their first project - fencing for a new dog exercise area at town hall - is now complete, as are other improvements to the shelter itself.
The group, which operates totally independently of town government, was funded by proceeds from the May 28 James Blunt benefit concert at Belleayre and other donations. They've also been helping out by taking care of veterinary bills for dogs in Shandaken's town shelter, and in future will be looking to assist with cat rescue in town. Donations may be sent to Friends of Snuffy, Inc., PO Box 237, Shandaken, NY 12480

Jail Update?
County legislators are worrying that the already overdue jail might have to wait for a 2007 opening, what with some new setbacks.
The state commissioner of correction has told Sheriff Richard Bockelmann that the jail’s requirement of 148 full-time corrections officers could not be met because seven officers are out on disability. Some county members are meeting with the commissioner Sept. 14 for a clarification, but legislators aren’t sure that will give time for a jail opening,m what with training requirements of at least two months.
There is also a problem with the bidding process for a phone system at the facility, and individual cell windows need to be tinted or blocked somehow, both to prevent male and female inmates from looking into each others’ cells and to keep inmates from seeing confidential informants entering the building.
The jail project is already tens of millions of dollars over budget, but some legislators said that the county should worry less about cost and more about simply getting it open.

Rural Transport
A bus driver for Ulster County Area Transit (UCAT) was arrested twice last month on charges he solicited prostitution. Chance Ireland, a UCAT employee for less than a year, was arrested by Ulster County sheriff’s deputies and charged with fourth-degree patronizing a prostitute, a misdemeanor. Ireland allegedly solicited an undercover deputy for oral sex in exchange for money. The alleged incident took place on Tuesday, August 22, on Ireland’s bus route at Bob Moser Road and Pavilion Street in the town of Saugerties. Ireland was immediately transported to the Ulster County Law Enforcement Center for processing following his arrest and was later released with an appearance ticket for an unspecified future date in town of Saugerties Court. As a result of Tuesday’s arrest, Ireland was arrested the following day by town of Woodstock police on the same charges for allegedly offering a male passenger $100 to masturbate in front of the driver in the Andy Lee Field in Woodstock on Monday, July 10.
The Ulster County sheriff’s office began investigating the allegations against Ireland after a male passenger filed the complaint in July. Ireland and the accuser were the only people on the bus at the time.

Regional Grants
Quality Communities Program grants totaling several tens of thousands of dollars have been announced for the Hudson Valley and Catskills regions by Lt. Governor Mary Donohue. The largest single grant, of $160,000, was to Putnam County for its Main Street Partnership Program, a partnership with the city’s six towns and three villages. In other grants, the Village of Ellenville will receive $32,000, Sullivan County will receive $49,450, Ulster County will get $60,000, the Western Catskills Community Revitalization Council with the Village of Stamford will receive $52,000, the Town of Athens will get $58,600, Greene County and several local governments will receive $50,000, the Town of Hyde Park will receive $38,000, the City of Peekskill will get $89,000, the Village of Pelham will get $75,000, the Village of Rhinebeck will receive $57,500, and the Village of Walden will receive $30,000.

Poverty Rises
The number of people living in poverty has finally stopped climbing. Household incomes edged up slightly in 2005, but 37 million people were still living below the poverty line, about the same as the year before, the Census Bureau reported recently.
Republicans blamed the stubborn poverty numbers on immigrants holding down wages. Democrats blamed the Bush administration, noting that incomes are lower and the poverty rate is higher than when Bush took office. Democrats also noted that the number of people without health insurance climbed for the sixth straight year, reaching 46.6 million people in 2005.
“I know what they say about putting lipstick on a pig, but I don’t see how the Bush administration can spin these numbers in their favor,” said Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.
Bush’s budget chief said the new numbers show the economy’s resilience following terrorist attacks in 2001 and Hurricane Katrina a year ago.
“Unemployment is low, wages are rising and there are more jobs in America today than at any other time in history,” said Rob Portman, Bush’s budget director. “While we still have challenges ahead, our ability to bounce back is a testament to the strong work ethic of the American people, the resiliency of our economy, and pro-growth economic policies, including tax relief.”
New Jersey had the highest median household income, at $61,672. Mississippi had the lowest, at $32,938. Mississippi also had the highest poverty rate, at 21.3 percent. New Hampshire had the lowest, at 7.5 percent.
The official poverty level is used to decide eligibility for federal health, housing, nutrition and child care benefits. The poverty level differs by family size and makeup. For example, the poverty level for a family of four was $19,971 last year. For a family of two, it was $12,755. About 12.6 percent of the population lived below the poverty line in 2005. That’s down from 12.7 percent in 2004, but the change was not statistically significant, census officials said.
The median household income - the point at which half make more and half make less - was $46,326, a slight increase from 2004, but still below the peak of $47,671 in 1999.
Meanwhile, it has been found that more teenagers are now living in poverty than in recent years. States in the Northeast and upper Midwest scored the best in terms of children’s levels of income, with New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Minnesota and Iowa at the top, while Southern states did the worst, with Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico, South Carolina and Tennessee at the bottom of the pile.
More than 13 million children, about 18 percent, lived in poverty in 2004, a slight increase from 17 percent in 2000. One third of America’s children lived in homes where none of the parents had full-time, year-round jobs in 2004. That is a slight increase from 32 percent in 2000.

Fat Dangers
An obesity pandemic threatens to overwhelm health systems around the globe with illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease, experts at an international conference have warned.
“This insidious, creeping pandemic of obesity is now engulfing the entire world,” Paul Zimmet, chairman of the meeting of more than 2,500 experts and health officials, said in a speech opening the weeklong International Congress on Obesity. “It’s as big a threat as global warming and bird flu .”
The World Health Organization says more than 1 billion adults are overweight and 300 million of them are obese, putting them at much higher risk of diabetes, heart problems, high blood pressure, stroke and some forms of cancer.
Zimmet, a diabetes expert at Australia’s Monash University, said there are now more overweight people in the world than the undernourished, who number about 600 million.
“We are not dealing with a scientific or medical problem. We’re dealing with an enormous economic problem that, it is already accepted, is going to overwhelm every medical system in the world,” said Dr. Philip James, the British chairman of the International Obesity Task Force.
Among the most worrying problems are skyrocketing rates of obesity among children, which make them much more prone to chronic diseases as they grow older and could shave years off their lives, experts said. The children in this generation may be the first in history to die before their parents because of health problems related to weight, Kate Steinbeck, an expert in children’s health at Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, said in a statement.
Meanwhile, reports in this country have found that millions of overweight baby boomers are on the fast track to becoming disabled senior citizens, a possibility that could have dire repercussions for them and for the nation’s already overburdened nursing home system. Obesity will have a big impact on increasing disability in this country in the coming years unless the epidemic can be halted and turned back,” says Richard Suzman of the National Institute on Aging.
Public health officials have said for years that obesity increases the risk of diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, osteoarthritis and cancer. Now a growing body of research suggests that being obese - 30 or more pounds over a healthy weight - increases the chances of becoming disabled at a younger age and unable to perform tasks such as bathing or dressing.
The longer a person has been obese, the greater the wear on joints and the probability of developing type 2 diabetes. People who need joint replacements may have pain and disability for years before the surgery and for months afterward during recovery.
Experts are scrambling to head off the problem. The Obesity Society and the American Society for Nutrition recently called for obese older adults to lose weight to avoid becoming disabled.

Main Streets…
A daylong forum in Catskill has been set to help business owners, local leaders and municipal planners around the region learn how to revitalize Main Streets in their communities. The Sept. 18 Main Street Forum, sponsored by the Greene County Planning and Economic Development, will offer a half-dozen workshops with experts; a walking tour of downtown Catskill, where a revitalization effort is under way; and a networking reception at the BRIK Gallery. Admission is free.
The forum will begin with registration at 8:30 a.m. at the Washington Irving Senior Center, followed by a 9 a.m. tour of Catskill’s Main Street, where dozens of historic buildings have been restored. Norman Mintz, a downtown revitalization expert known as “Dr. Downtown,” will give a slide presentation on the community’s role in the Main Street revitalization process. Additionally, Robert Dadras of Dadras Architects will lead a session on how a downtown plan is critical for success and explain how a community can get started on developing such a plan. There will also be a session, “Show Me the Money,” that focuses on various funding sources available for Main Street projects.
For more information or to register, call Greene County Planning and Economic Development at (518) 719-3290 or visit the Web site www.greeneeconomicdevelopment.com.

Golf Goes Down
Golf course openings fell from a peak of 398.5 in 2000 to 124.5 last year when measured in 18-hole equivalents, the National Golf Foundation reports. During that time, course closings soared from 23 to a record 93.5 last year. When courses temporarily closed for renovation are included, the USA had fewer golf courses open at the end of 2005 than a year earlier - the first year-to-year decline since 1945.
But that still leaves 16,052 courses nationwide.
“Golf courses aren’t generating the returns people like to see,” says Mike Hughes, chief executive of the National Golf Course Owners Association. “The land has appreciated so much in value that it makes abundant economic sense to turn the property over to other uses.”
Local governments often support the redevelopment because it brings in more tax revenue than a golf course.
In The Myrtle Beach area, the nation’s top golf-tourist destination, 17 courses out of 124 have closed. Hit hardest: golf courses built in rural areas that since have been surrounded by population growth. A golf course is a real estate developer’s dream: about 150 acres of undeveloped land.
Shorter golf courses and par-3 courses are being redeveloped especially rapidly, the National Golf Foundation says.

Grass Fed?
If the government has its way, the grass-fed label could be used to sell beef that didn’t roam the range and ate more than just grass. The Agriculture Department has proposed a standard for grass-fed meat that doesn’t say animals need pasture and that broadly defines grass to include things like leftovers from harvested crops.
Critics say the proposal is so loose that it would let more conventional ranchers slap a grass-fed label on their beef, too.
“In the eye of the consumer, grass-fed is tied to open pasture-raised animals, not confinement or feedlot animals,” said Patricia Whisnant, a Missouri rancher who heads the American Grassfed Association. “In the consumer’s eye, you’re going to lose the integrity of what the term ‘grass-fed’ means.”
All beef cattle graze on grass at the beginning of their lives. The difference generally is that grass-fed beef herds graze in pastures, while conventional cattle spend the last three or four months of their lives being fattened with corn or other grains in feedlots.
People buy grass-fed beef for many reasons: They want to avoid antibiotics commonly used in feedlots, they think it’s healthier, or they like the idea of supporting local farms and ranches.
Grass-fed beef is a leaner meat; fat tends to form around the muscle. With conventional corn-fed beef, the fat streaks the muscle in marble-like patterns.
Demand for grass-fed products is intense and producers are responding. By Whisnant’s estimate, the number of farms has grown from about 40 seven years ago to around 1,000 today.
“I’ve been an organic user for years, and I am disenchanted,” Whisnant said. “My personal opinion ... is that it’s lost meaning. To me, the line in the sand is the confinement issue. A grass-fed animal needs to be raised on pasture, and that’s not just token access to pasture from his feedlot, but he should get the majority of his ration from that growing pasture.”

Giant Gnome
A 13.5-foot yard gnome off U.S. Route 209 in nearby Kerhonksen should soon grace the pages of “Guinness World Records.” The gnome, called Chomsky, will hold the record for the world’s largest yard gnome. It stands sentry over Gnome on the Grange, a mini-golf course at Kelder’s Farm.
The gnome was the brainchild of Maria Reidelbach, who also built the mini-golf course on Kelder’s Farm. The record-setting gnome is actually Chomsky II, Reidelbach explains. The original Chomsky was built in 2003, but was made out of the wrong material to be qualified for the world record.
Guinness said that for Chomsky to be record-setting, he would have to be built out of the same materials as other yard gnomes: cement. Reidelbach said she was committed to making the world’s biggest gnome and enlisted artist Ken Hutchinson to craft Chomsky II out of cement, straw and chicken wire.
Guinness did not have a previous record in this category.
As part of the rules of Guinness, Reidelbach assembled a board of “local luminaries” that included Ulster County Legislator Rich Parete, Rochester Town Supervisor Pamela Duke and Mark Brown, leader of a local country-rock band, to witness the event.

2004 Revisited
With paper ballots from the 2004 presidential election in Ohio scheduled to be destroyed this month, the secretary of state in Columbus, under pressure from critics, has moved to delay the destruction at least for several months.
Since the election, questions have been raised about how votes were tallied in Ohio, a battleground state that helped deliver the election to President Bush over Senator John Kerry. The critics, including an independent candidate for governor and a team of statisticians and lawyers, say preliminary results from their ballot inspections show signs of more widespread irregularities than previously known. The critics say the ballots should be saved pending an investigation. They also say the secretary of state’s proposal to delay the destruction does not go far enough, and they intend to sue to preserve the ballots.
In Florida in 2003, historians and lawyers persuaded state officials not to destroy the ballots in the 2000 presidential election, and those ballots are stored at the state archive.
Lawyers for J. Kenneth Blackwell, the Ohio secretary of state, said although he did not have the authority to preserve the ballots, Mr. Blackwell would issue an order in a day or two that delays the destruction and that reminds local elections officials that they have to consult the public records commissions in each county. Federal law permits, but does not require, destroying paper ballots from federal elections 22 months after Election Day.
The critics say their sole interest in the question is to improve the voting system.
“This is not about Mr. Kerry or Mr. Bush or who should be president,’’ said Bill Goodman, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York group that is part of the lawsuit. “This is about figuring out what is not working in our election system and ensuring that every cast vote counts.
“There is a gap between the numbers provided in the local level records, which until recently no one has been allowed to see, and the official final tallies that were publicly released after this election, and we want to figure out why that gap is there.”
After eight months inspecting 35,000 ballots from 75 rural and urban precincts, the critics say that they have found many with signs of tampering and that in some precincts the number of voters differs significantly from the certified results. The investigation has not inspected all 5.6 million ballots in the election because the critics were not given access to them until January. That followed an agreement by the League of Women Voters, a plaintiff in another election suit against the state, that it was not contesting the 2004 results, Mr. Goodman said.
The new suit, to be filed in Federal District Court in Columbus, would be argued on civil rights grounds, saying the state deprived voters of equal treatment.

Weather Origins
U.S. weather experts have descended on a tiny village in Senegal to try to understand how hurricanes that slam into the southeastern United States and the Caribbean are formed in West Africa before they go bowling across the Atlantic. The study, backed by U.S. space agency NASA, could help forecasters better predict devastating hurricanes like Katrina , which formed over Africa and killed around 1,500 people when it rammed into New Orleans a year ago in one of the worst natural disasters in American history.
More than 80 percent of the systems that hit the United States have their origins in tropical disturbances leaving Africa. But 95 percent of the storms that start there fizzle over the Atlantic.
“If we can capture the atmospheric conditions of the storm, the storm structure, how they evolve over the African continent and just off the coast, our objective is to distinguish between those that stay together and those that dissipate,” said a spokesman for the study, which has set up three radars — one in landlocked Niger’s capital Niamey, the one in Kawsara on the Senegalese coast, and one on the Cape Verde Islands — and is also flying planes into the center of the depressions. The data they provide will enable scientists for the first time to map more fully the atmospheric conditions as Atlantic hurricanes are born and through their life cycle.
Previous attempts to understand the phenomenon have relied on satellite data, which can show what is happening on top of clouds but not inside them. Last time a similar project was carried out was in 1974, with hugely inferior technology.
“No one has a good sense of which system is going to form, if it’s going to intensify, if it’s going to weaken and one of the problems is Saharan dust,” said one of the study’s leading scientists who has studied West African weather for more than two decades. “We think that Saharan dust actually inhibits the formation of cyclones but this is the first time we can fly inside them and see how much dust is there.”

Suicide On Rise
More people kill themselves each year than die from wars and murders combined, but most suicides could be prevented, two international experts on suicide said recently.
Some 20 million to 60 million try to kill themselves each year, but only about a million of them succeed, said a mental health official at the World Health Organization in Geneva.
The ones who do end their lives "are tragic situations where help could have been provided," said the International Association for Suicide Prevention in Gondrin, France.
Suicide rates could be reduced if countries would limit access to pesticides, guns and medication and do a better job of treating people with depression, alcoholism and schizophrenia, both organizations agreed.
About a third of all suicides around the world are caused by pesticides. Dentists, veterinarians and doctors are particularly at risk for suicide -- not because of their high-stress professions but because they have access to lethal chemicals and know how to handle them. Those who lose a job abruptly are more likely to kill themselves than people living in poor social conditions for long periods, he said.
Also, people living in countries where suicide is illegal like Singapore, Lebanon and India are less likely to seek help if they have suicidal thoughts, for fear the government may punish them.

Passport Needs
The time to start packing for that winter trip to the Caribbean may be now -- you are going to need a passport.
Congress and the Department of Homeland Security are tightening border procedures for both U.S. citizens and foreign travelers entering the U.S. By Jan. 8, passports will be required for most everyone entering the U.S. from the Caribbean, Canada and Mexico through airports and seaports, instead of just a birth certificate and driver's license. Land borders will adopt the same requirement Jan. 1, 2008.
The travel industry and several border-state governors and senators have been pushing for a delay in the new rules, fearing confusion and long delays for travelers that could hurt the cruise industry in particular. Only 25% of Americans have passports, and many could be left high and dry if they don't get one before they head off to an island cruise. As requirements tighten, more people have been applying. Last year, the State Department issued 10.1 million passports, up 15% from 2004. This year is on pace for about a 16% increase.
One pitfall for travelers to watch out for: All children, including babies, will need passports. Since July 2001, the government has required both parents to apply together for a child's passport, if the child is 14 or under. This is to make sure one parent isn't trying to take a child out of the country without the other's permission. It can be a hassle for single parents who have to prove they have sole authority or need to get notarized consent from the other parent.
Another change: Last month, the State Department began issuing electronic passports with a computer chip in the rear cover that contains all the information found on the data page of the passport, such as name, date of birth, passport number and a photograph. For security protection, the e-passports have a metallic material in the front cover and the data are encrypted to prevent eavesdropping. (People with older-style passports don't need to trade theirs in.)
Even if travelers are ready, travel experts say the government may not be well-prepared, and the result of the heightened security could be long lines at airports and seaports. The Travel Industry Association, a lobbying group for cruise lines, tour companies, resorts and airlines, says it supports the move to require better documentation, but it fears the government won't have the staff, equipment and procedures in place needed to process people quickly.
The government says it is going ahead with the change starting Jan. 8. The deadline was pushed back a week from the first day of the year so it wouldn't kick in during holiday travels. That has been the only delay granted so far.
Despite initial grumbling that the process was intrusive and unwarranted and would curb travel to the U.S., international travel has been increasing and officials say processing at airports has actually sped up because inspectors have assurance of a person's identity when the green light on the finger scanner goes on. The success has led other nations in Europe and Asia to begin adopting similar measures.
The latest proposed changes may be harder to implement for screening the 400 million people who cross into the U.S. every year, raising fears of long lines at airports, sea ports and roadway crossings.
The State Department and Homeland Security say passport books take too long to process at high-volume land-border checkpoints, so they are developing a "passport card" that will have your information embedded electronically and will communicate wirelessly with Immigration and Customs Enforcement computers, much like a toll tag on the highway. Homeland Security also has proposed forcing the 11 million permanent legal residents of the U.S. -- green-card holders -- to cross border checkpoints with foreign nationals, not U.S. citizens. The change could take effect next year.

Medicare Cuts...
The Bush administration and Republican-led Congress are headed for a political confrontation with an influential constituency: the 700,000 doctors who treat seniors in the Medicare program and are frantically trying to stave off a planned cut in their fees.
The American Medical Assn. said recentlyy that doctors may stop taking seniors as new patients — or even drop out of the program — if the cuts go through. It has launched a nationwide blitz to persuade Congress to rescind a 5.1% cut planned for next year, insisting that lawmakers act before they adjourn in October to campaign for reelection.
The reduction for 2007 is part of a planned series of cuts that would reduce fees paid to physicians by 40% over the next nine years. In recent years, Congress has been willing to postpone the cuts. Now, frustration is mounting at the AMA because that no longer seems to be the case.