| Budget
Season's Off
DiModica
Readies his Numbers, Board Prepares For Required Public Hearing
By Paul Smart
The official presentation of the 2004 Shandaken preliminary budget,
put together by the town's chief financial officer, Supervisor
Pete DiModica, was postponed this past Monday, October 6, when
the absence of board members Edna Hoyt and Jane Todd due to personal
reasons created the lack of a quorum. An October 20th budget meeting
was set up in replacement.
The town's quorum requirements have been tense throughout the
last two years as GOP board member Rick Pettersson has boycotted
all meetings while continuing to draw his monthly checks and benefits.
Pettersson's seat comes up for re-election next month, with the
incumbent not running for re-election.
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Marketing The Catskills
Proposal Surfaces For Business-Oriented Agency Geared At Regional
Branding
One of the highlights of the third annual Catskills Local Government
Day sponsored by the Catskill Watershed Corporation at Belleayre
Mountain‚s main lodge last Friday, October 3, was the lunchtime
presentation, "Tools for the future"by the Catskill
Business Roundtable, an ad-hoc organization of over 100 of the
region's businesspeople formally launched last year following
the Catskills Economic Summit and funded by a grant from the Appalachian
Regional Commission.
The idea behind the Local Government Day is to provide sessions
for municipal officers, and the general public, on a variety of
current issues including Junkyards and Property Maintenance, Inter-Municipal
Agreements, the holding of effective meetings and hearings, enforcement
of local laws, and SEQRA laws and their relationship with the
current hot topic of "Community Character".
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READY
FOR QUACKERS... Despite heavy rains, the Esopus has been running
well enough for recent canoe races. On October 12 at 1 PM will
be the Rotary's 14th annual Great Shandaken Quacker Race, from
the Woodland Valley to the Phoenicia bridge. Buy ducks at Al's
and be ready for a lottery if the river's too high, as it's been
wont to run.
The Partisan Season
Dems Ask About PACs Amidst Charges
Oct. 19 League Debate Is "Fixed"
By B. Powers & P. Smart
Shandaken's local election season is moving into full rancorous
swing with town board candidates campaigning, letters screeching
into local newspapers, ads a-battling, various charges being leveled
between parties and a League of Women Voters debate set for 3:30
PM, Sunday, October 19 at Shandaken Town Hall along Route 28 in
Allaben.
Several weeks ago, GOP ads started appearing charging the Democrat-majority
Di Modica administration with "angry public debates, radical
assaults on property rights, vicious partisanship, secret deals,
extremist appointees and endless lawsuits," as well as the
harboring of city radicals. "Change the Tune, Hit 'Eject,'"
they urged, making a reference to means of listening to music
from the days before CDs.
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Big Views
Alan Rosa's
Regionalism...
By Paul Smart
Alan Rosa was born in neighboring Margaretville, where he‚s
lived his whole life, and plans to stay until the day he dies.
He‚s been a Republican Party committeeman since the age
of 18, but surprises himself at the many changes that have swamped
his life, and his way of seeing the world, over the last 15
years.
Rosa has been the executive director of the Catskill Watershed
Corporation since 1999, when he took over the paid position
following two years as the vital regional organization‚s
first president, a board position. Rosa came to his roles at
the CWC, as local folk know the $250 million plus entity, following
eight years as first an alternative and then a full time board
member of the Coalition of Watershed Towns, whose meetings he
hosted at Middletown town offices in Margaretville. He served
as the supervisor of that town from 1989 to 1999, coming to
power on a two-run campaign based on difficulties he had found
in a 1987 municipal revaluation project.
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