Dear Editor,
For many months I have sat back quietly and read all the pros and cons of Crossroads and Mr. Gitter. I finally decided it was time to send an opinion of someone who has firsthand knowledge of this kind of development and the short term and long term effects of it.
First I'd like to tell your readers that I was born in Margaretville and raised there. My dad was a farmer for more than fifty years as was my grandfather. I consider Margaretville my home and always will.
This is kind of a long letter so I hope your readers will take the time to read it. These developers can cause great damage to the mountains with their greedy ways and many promises to get what they want.
So here is my story. I moved to Rockland County when I was eighteen with my husband. We lived in a small town which very much resembled the area where this resort is proposed. Behind our house there were a lot of mountains, it was a beautiful rural setting.
Then one day it happened, the developers and the engineers showed up with their great plans. Of course all they saw was dollar signs. So for months we listened to the chain saws and the truck traffic going up and down the roads. Then it was the blasting and the pounding of the machines breaking up the boulders. This went on we thought forever. My son used to walk back in the mountains. Then one day he said Mom the trees are all gone, they cut them all down.
Of course the developers and the engineers said they had everything all under control, they had done everything the right way. Well someone forgot to tell Mother Nature because here comes the rain.
So they built their half-million dollar houses, and then it rained. It rained for days. Well the people in their million dollar homes woke up to find their houses in the middle of moats and their cars with water up to the doors. So much for no erosion and great engineering. They were not happy people.
Enter the engineers; we can fix this. We will pipe the water down the hill into the little lake by my house. Well that worked until it rained and rained. The little lake decided it wasn't going to take all the extra water. Well needless to say the guy who lived next to the lake had an in-ground pool, he didn't have to worry about filling it. The extra water filled it not only with water but a bunch of garbage from the top of the hill. The lake flooded its bank, went down the hill and took out the new church parking lot. It then continued down over the bank, took out the backyards of the housing development and flooded the deli at the bottom of the hill. It also did major damage to 9W. What do they say about best-laid plans?
Well it's been almost ten years now and they are still having major problems all over the mountains, at least the few that are left. Also the developer who promised the town he would pay for the road repairs skipped, and the town got stuck for the repairs.
Most of our mountains are gone around here, they have been replaced by more and more developments. The local people who were born and raised around here have left. They can't afford to live here anymore. All the houses they have built are in the half-million range or more. The local people didn't leave for lack of jobs, they couldn't afford the houses they were building. They couldn't afford the rent or to pay the taxes.
Now we have overcrowded schools, traffic that is a nightmare. A trip to the store that used to take me several minutes now can take me thirty. Now the animals that used to live on those mountains they tore apart are in my yard because they have no place to go. I'd like to have the water in the little lake where my husband and I used to swim tested. I'd like to know where all the fertilizer from all those houses is going.
I know how badly we need jobs in this area, but at what price? Are we really ready to sell our souls for them? I don't think Mr.Gitter will stop at the Crossroads. He already has a foothold here, and I think those dollar signs are flashing. Just remember once it starts there's no going back. Just remember the song that said "pave paradise, put up a parking lot."
I'm happy to say my husband and I will be moving back to Margaretville in June. We are by no means wealthy and will be on a limited income. We will be moving back to my family's farm, and the beauty of the mountains out my window. That view you can't put a price tag on, and any developer who comes a visiting can kiss my grass.
Bernadette Beyea
Margaretville, NY

Dear Editor,
I cannot help noticing a consistent inconsistency from many folks opposed to Crossroad’s proposed golf course, supposedly due to environmenta1 concerns. More than just a few or the golf course opponents are regulars at Belleayre, Windham, or Hunter Mountain on the ski slopes. Hundreds of acres of trees have been stripped making way for T-bars, chair lifts, paved parking lots, service roads, lodges, bars, restaurants, with all manner of affiliated ski paraphernalia. Visually, this construction and cable stands out and is located at far greater altitudes than any hole on any golf course I am familiar with around these parts. The slopes are somewhat more vulnerable to erosion because much of the natural vegetation in the form of tree cover has been removed. As a person who loves to hike in nature but doesn’t ski, frankly, T-bars look ridiculous to me, and I’m out there plenty enough to notice them. To a skier though, they represent an opportunity to make recreation more enjoyable. Great! Having done many hundreds of hikes in the Catskills, I respect a skier’s love of challenging ski trails, and must accept the inconvenience of having to see the landscape and environment impacted by a sport I don ‘t participate in.
There is no doubt that it is impacted either! There remain ugly reminders or now defunct, former ski areas high on some Catskill peaks that have never been cleaned up. Where is the environmental outrage over this? I wonder if ski happy but golf hating “environmentalists” have any idea where these dilapidated eyesores even are in the Catskills?
Twenty-five years ago, on the east side of Route 28 near Belleayre, there was a golf course carved into the hills. There was no big problem reclaiming the land from the game of golf when the course closed up there to build homes. Where is the damage this “terrible” golf course did to the environment? There isn’t any. There are no ugly reminders whatsoever. What I don’t like is the inconsistency of some people when it comes to golf, or some other form of recreation in the mountains. Lots of people love to play golf in the mountains, as changing elevation and angled lies of the golf ball in scenic locations gives them special challenge and delight. What’s wrong with that? I happen to be one of them. I do not happen to personally like golf carts or cart paths, because it impacts the environment more than I would prefer and reduces the recreation greatly compared to what a walking golfer gets, in the exact same way a chairlift reduces the exercise a skier gets compared to what they would get if they hiked up instead of paid for unnecessary rides to the top.
The Catskill region is a decent sized mountain area that can support many recreational activities, including even a large golf resort. People have different recreational preferences, such as biking, kayaking, biking, skiing and golfing. Many, if not most businesses in the Catskills are very tourism dependent. I say, let the skiers ski AND let golfers golf, or completely outlaw both activities in the park to keep the parks forever wild and pristine. At least the positions would be consistent.
The mountains are neither Republican nor Democrat and I’m not either. I wish some folks would stop using the environment as an alibi for their politics.
Mike Higley
Mt. Tremper, NY

Dear Editor, In an effort to illuminate rather than ridicule (Martie Gailes, December 23rd, Phoenicia Times), I feel compelled to write an assessment of my brief experience working for Dean Gitter, at Emerson Place. It was the worst employment experience I have ever had. Kudos for winning the award for “Most Outstanding Inn in North America”. It is a shame they will never win the award for most generous employer. The wages are low ($8.00-$10.00 per hour) for most staff. Little or no healthcare. No salary increases or raises, no benefits. The turnover of staff is frequent. This is shocking yet believable considering the conditions. The complex is poorly run and managed. Tourism is essential to a town’s economic development, but is this the kind of industry we want? Are local people benefiting from this employment? Mr. Gitter’s proposed Belleayre Resort is going to raise the cost of living up here, squeezing out local people who will no longer be able to afford housing, among many other things. What Mr. Gitter is offering are transitional jobs with transitional wages. These wages are not sustainable for someone trying to support a family. Mr. Gitter and Mr. Wright may want to read Henry David Thoreau’s early writings about Urban sprawl. I think Ralph Waldo Emerson would be appalled to know his name is being used to represent such a place. Christina Fendley Mt. Tremper, NY

Dear Editor,
I have been a patient observer of the development process that Dean Gitter has been subjected to in his attempt to bring much needed economic development to our county. I am very concerned, like Dean Gitter, about the future of Ulster County for our children and for all future generations. Unfortunately, it seems that Mr. Gitter’s contention that there will be little or no economic growth in our future is becoming a reality.
Ulster County desperately needs economic growth, development and the resultant jobs for our region. However, I, like Dean, believe other developers are watching the progress (or, more correctly, the lack of progress) of his Belleayre Resort project and are right now making plans to build somewhere other than Ulster County. I believe five years and $20 million of private money is too long and far too much to spend on a project and still not know if New York State and New York City and the environmental extremists are going to let you proceed.
Seventy percent, that’s right, 70% of all the land in New York State is forestland. Can we not allow this man to build a hotel and golf course on 500 acres (out of a total of 1900 acres he owns)? This is not a nuclear power plant, a smoke-spewing manufacturing facility, not strip mining. It’s a hotel in an area where, for over 150 years there had been dozens and dozens of hotels and resorts on the sides of mountains and on mountaintops.
Look at the beauty of Mohonk Mt. House and the positive impact it has on our local economy. Has Mohonk ruined New Paltz? I think not. Nor will the Belleayre Resort ruin Shandaken. It will provide a much-needed boost to the economy of the region. Mr. Gitter has taken pains to design a project that will complement the beauty of its setting and in turn it will breathe life into a moribund community.
How much money needs to be wasted? How many opportunities have been lost? It is a shame that our children need to move from this area to find decent jobs. We owe it to our sons and daughters to bring sanity back to the development process. We need to see this project approved and approved quickly. five years of studying is enough.
Francis Flynn
Kingston, NY

Dear Editor,
The year that has just ended was filled with the horrors of war and natural disasters such as the hurricanes that struck the U.S. That was before the South Asia earthquake and tsunamis. Days later, the reports of devastation still grow worse every hour as new reports, images and statistics come in. The sheer magnitude of this disaster cannot be comprehended by the human mind.
Let's not get caught up in numbers of dead, injured, missing and homeless. We need to become quiet in order to take in what happened, and ask ourselves what is this has to say to the whole world. The tsunamis showed us that we are not in control of our lives. Death snatched away rich and poor, tourist and native, with no respect for who they were.
Having been in India, Thailand and Indonesia, this disaster affects me personally. I have seen the poverty these people live under in the best of times. What hits hardest are the numbers of children who died and the pictures of parents' grief. Many children will never be found.
For the thousands of bereaved families, the question will come, "Why does God allow this to happen?" We will never find a satisfactory answer. But since the moment I first heard the news the day after Christmas, I have felt that in spite of all the death and destruction, God was and is at work here, even if his plan has not yet been revealed to us. One cannot help but think of the "wrath of God" predicted in Revelations. Yet Revelations also foretells a day when suffering will cease and "every tear will be dried." We can still believe that "God is love" and that death will not have the last word, even though quite often it looks as though he does.
One thing is certain: Our lives should never be the same again. Life is too precious and it can be over in an instant, as this event has so clearly shown us.
As the days go by, how much time do we still spend thinking of this disaster? Compare this to how much time we waste on petty things like rushing to stores for post-Christmas bargains. Even on the news this event is starting to fade; it's back to Janet Jackson. We care so little about the rest of the human race. Nothing seems to matter as long as it isn't us. Yet it could be us next time. It is an 11th hour warning, yet so few take it to heart.
We do not need to weep for those who have died. We need to weep and pray and act for those who remain alive, still suffering hunger and thirst and facing waterborne diseases such as cholera and malaria. The United Nations and others have rightly criticized the U.S. government for the stinginess of its pledge of support for these millions of displaced people--while it spends $35 million every seven hours occupying Iraq. We pump billions of dollars into technology and the war against terror. If we would have spent a fraction of that on a wave warning system, millions of lives could have been saved.
It is true that relief organizations and national governments are pouring aid into southern Asia. Yet all of this will only be a drop in the bucket. Those of us who live in relative comfort in the West should be stirred to action. Every deed of love to one's neighbor, near or far, is of utmost importance. In light of this disaster, what does "loving your neighbor as yourself" mean now?
Johann Christoph Arnold
Woodcrest Bruderhof
Rifton, NY

Dear Editor,
Here is a memory I just needed to write about. It will not bring my Angel back but he will always stay in my heart.
It was a beautiful summer morning on August 7, 2002 You could almost feel the fall in the air after a long hot summer. The time was 10:25. I was feeling happy with two fur buddies, my little calico cat Missy and my angel, who came into my life in a very special way. At 10:30 my neighbor was on my porch and told me to sit down. She told me my cat had been run over. I asked her which one. I could hear myself screaming, but it sounded far away as she told me it was the one you loved.
Angel was found under the wheel of a car when he was hours old. He was nursed and weaned at headquarters in the New York Police Department by New York’s finest. We bottle fed him and watched over his every move to make sure he was going to make it .We brought him home in a shopping bag every night after work. When we knew he was a miracle and had made it he became mine. He was born the very day my white cat Holly, who was eight years old, died suddenly of a heart attack. It was almost as if he had a destiny to be with me so I named him Angel. He grew info a magnificent looking Norwegian Forest cat with his long gray fur and a white lightning bolt down his back. When he had grown into his full regalia he took a vet’s breath away when he said, “He is absolutely exquisite.” He was special in every way, right down to flushing the toilet and getting on the planet’s funniest animals. He was destined for stardom; he already had an agent submitting his pictures to ad agencies.
But this is not what put the knife in my heart. The grief was missing those big green eyes and his almost silent meow and gentle ways. I don’r know if you realize the heartbreak you had caused on Route 214, two miles out of Phoenicia that day. Or maybe you don’t even like cats. My cat missy was traumatized too and she slept on my chest every night as if to take the pain out of my heart. Angel was my heart and I only had him for three short wonderful years. A little boy, upon hearing his name, said he felt like a cloud and that mjght well be he was a piece of heaven that fell to this earth for a very short time. He was buried in my neighbor’s back yard with all her children’s pets who died over the years, Sometimes when I go out in the morning I hear the faint sound of a cat bell and I stop and listen. It’s probably an angel feather drifting down from a very special cloud in heaven.
Elizabeth Sullivan
Chichester, NY

Dear Editor,
"Make war, not love" seems to be a slogan of the Bush administration. As it turns out both Cheney and Rumsfeld have been lying and war mongering since the days of Nixon. BBC did a very revealing documentary detailing this, more information on all this can be found at: www.rense.com/general61/ddoc.htm. Also the Bush administration spent an unbelievable 900 million dollars of tax payers money on teaching teenagers sexual abstinence, in another words to just say no to making love before marriage. Anyhow it is just incredible that the Bush administration is spending such huge amounts of taxpayers hard earned money on not making love but making war as the Iraq war is costing us over 150+ million dollars a day along with many lives. This all sounds real crazy to me but I have a feeling four more years of Bush and it is going to get even crazier. For an in depth analysis of the roots of this craziness go
to: www.awakeninthedream.com/gerogews.html. Well anyhow God bless America, we are sure going toneed it for the next four years!
Thomas Husted
Alameda, CA

Dear Editor,
For the past twenty years I have been a customer of Pine Hill Trailways almost weekly. I depend on the service to save me the hassle and cost of driving to New York City from my home in Willow. The mostly courteous and courageous drivers have saved me the burden of many long hours on the road.
However I have often wished I lived nearer the train. The number one reason is that the air on the bus is so terrible. I descend from any bus trip smelling for hours like diesel fuel. For years I have noticed signs both at the Kingston terminal and the Port Authority in NY that warn the drivers that idling for over 5 minutes (three in NYC) is illegal. For years I have seen the drivers blatantly disregard those signs. In the winter they say they have to keep the bus warm. In the summer they mutter some other excuse. At times there are seven buses in Kingston at full idle. Often they do this for half an hour. That means that the air systems of those buses are in-taking all that exhaust so that for the rest of the trip you are breathing that air. Worse yet, the overhang of the Kingston station confines the exhaust so that it goes into the offices of the ticket sellers and those waiting. The workers and waiting passengers alike are prisoners being doused with poison. It is time that Pine Hill Trailways abides the law and turns off their engines when they get to Kingston. It is state law. Please write to Pine Hill Trailways and the NY State Attorney General Elliot Spitzer. Tell them to save our environment and our lungs by enforcing state law.
DeeDee Halleck
Willow, NY

Dear Editor,
I belong to a group called Citizens of Olive Large Parcel Review Committee. A big name for a big job! After attending four meetings, I am convinced that we just are not big enough to do the job. My aim in writing this letter is to get the entire town to unite! Maybe, just maybe, if there are enough of us together, we might be able to fight this unfair Tax Law.
I have read “Summary of RPTL 1316” and am having a hard time trying to understand all the legal verbiage, but one thing is clear to me: This was not intended to include Reservoirs. To quote Bill No. S6221A, sponsored by Sen. Larkin: “Justification: The main purpose of this bill is to reduce the wild swings both up and down that occur for all assessed properties when a municipality has a high value property whose assessed evaluation is in flux from year to year”. NYC’s Ashokan Reservoir’s taxes do NOT flux! So, how the hell did the School Board get this to pass?
In 1904 NYC went North to see where they could find more water for their precious system, since it was evident to them that the Kensico system was not going to be able to supply enough water for their growing population. They set their sights on Dutchess County”s property, but they stood their ground and as a County, sued NYC, and they won! They kept their property.
Like Mr. Smith, NYC went West, across the River, and voila! The Esopus was there, and it was perfect for their needs. They came, they saw, they conquered! Individual families, property owners and business owners sued, but NYC and its powerful legal staff won every suit! And because of this, the Town of Olive grew a large reservoir ( 52% of the entire town) right in the center of it’s beautiful, thriving area. Many of its citizens moved away. Those that remained were subject to the whims of the city. They were told where they could live (or not), where they could put their wells (or not), where they could drive (or not). As compensation, NYC told them, “Thanks folks, and to show our good will, we’ll build roads around the water (far away so you can’t see it), and keep them safe for you with our Police patrols.
Now, I wonder, do you think it’s possible that if the town united, and if the County of Ulster stood behind them and as a whole, they sued the City. ...isn’t it possible that it all never would’ve happened in the first place? Please consider: Unite! Stand together! Maybe in numbers we can get out from under this prejudicial act and regain some of our dignity and strength.
Claire Kassor
West Shokan, NY
Dear Editor,
The Board of Directors of the Pine Hill Community Center wish to thank all those who responded to our annual appeal, and who have supported the Center in this past year. We have many awesome new plans for the new year and your contributions will help us to make them a reality. It's our wish to serve the people of this region with innovative and fun programming, fostering creativity and personal growth. Please call us if you have any questions, comments or suggestions for us: 254-5469.
Sincerely,
The Board of Directors
Pine Hill Community Center

Dear Editor,
‘ Will the union construction groups supporting Pataki's assault on the people of Sullivan and Ulster counties come and build casinos for quick jobs and profit, then leave all the mess, crime and corruption to us? Or will they do the sensible thing and respect the will of the people to stop the immoral, corrupting, gambling activity now planned. Shame on you George Pataki!
Will the Sullivan county legislators acknowledge the will of the respectable people and reject the invitation to virtually destroy the county with related crime and corruption? Why haven't all these political figures fought to bring in productive industry and business that will bring viable jobs and wealth to the county? Casinos will only serve the managers and owners, not the public at large.
Or is it the cut of revenue that's enticing the politicos? The pittance of wages brought forth by the casinos will be far offset by the cost of public security and police activity. Is this what Sullivan County really wants? I don't think so. Citizens of Sullivan, and surrounding counties as well, better let your favorite politicians know and demand they respect your will. No casinos in Sullivan or Ulster.
Paul Henderson
Communications Director,
Constitution Party of New York
Napanoch, NY

Dear Editor,
Your story "The Gov’s Big Gamble" mistakenly stated that Senator Clinton "has already introduced federal legislation to make Pataki's vision a reality." That statement is wholly inaccurate. Senator Clinton has neither drafted nor introduced any such legislation.
Philippe Reines
Press Secretary
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton
Washington, DC