Newsbriefs

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Levy Up!
The preliminary budget released by the town of Shandaken shows the amount to be raised by taxes going up a modest 5.8 per cent. The subject of a public hearing on November 10 at 7pm in town hall, the budget calls for the amount to be raised by taxes to increase $225,094 to $2,899,183.
Total spending is up from 2005, which hds $3,735,429 budgeted. In 2006 it will cost $3,991,486 to operate Shandaken for the year.
The preliminary plan, which shows no salary increase for town board members, also shows a healthy unexpended fund balance, although not as healthy as it was this year. The balance, which began 2005 at $482,250, will drop to $471,500.
The budget shows a new line item in the highway department that should solve this year’s problem of mowing the town’s parks, although it will be costly. $34,000 has been allocated so highway crews can maintain the several parks in town. The funds appear following a summertime debacle where the parks, especially the little league field at Glenbrook Park, were not mowed because Highway Superintendent Richard Merwin said he couldn’t spare the manpower to do the job. As a result the town supervisor hired a private contractor to do the work for $12,000. It remains unclear why the highway department needs more than that.
In other highway department changes, Merwin, who retires at the end of this year, cut the salary for his job from $40,159 to an even $36,000.
The biggest jump in the budget appears to be for the town’s ambulance service. Slated to cost $215,125 in 2006, the service cost only $154, 259 for this year. Long touted as a service that pays for itself with the fees it brings in, the ambulance revenues are only predicted to be $145,000 next year.
The town’s police department will now cost $250,859. That’s up from this years $236,856. The jump is largely due increased salary costs.
The cost to run the Phoenicia water district will jump substantially from $123,851 to $169,165. The increase is due to higher labor costs, the doubling of fuel costs and a $13,132 payment on a bond the town board floated earlier this year.
Another jump comes in the cost for street lighting. It will run $32,000 next year, representing a $10,000 increase over this year.

Mass Appeal
Town planners are expected to ask the Coalition of Watershed Towns to appeal the recent ruling calling for more review of the controversial Belleayre Resort at Catskill Park. The planning board, which was scheduled to hold an official meeting on Wednesday, November 9th, was asked by Supervisor Robert Cross Jr. to decide whether they want the Coalition to mount an appeal over the ruling rendered by a DEC Judge that said the developers have not provided enough information on the issue of Community Character for him to make an informed decision as to whether the community would be harmed if the project was built.
The DEC Judge presiding over the environmental review issued a ruling calling for full adjudication of the issues in a trial like setting. The Coalition, which represents all the communities in the watershed, is a participant in the review but did not want to make the appeal decision alone. Instead its executive committee decided to let Shandaken and Middletown, the towns most effected by the resort proposal, to make the decision. Middletown’s town board immediately weighed in last month and called for an appeal, but Cross, concerned about ramifications at the ballot booth, handed the decision to the planners, who for some reason chose to wait to render a decision until after election day, despite already holding at least one official session and two workshops since asked for the decision. John Horn, who was running for town assessor, is chair of the planning board.
Meanwhile other communities have weighed in, with at least one town of Woodstock official complaining that the Coalition no longer represents the best interests of that community. The complaint came from Councilwoman Liz Simonson after the Coalition announced it was raising the dues of all communities to help pay for legal changes on the horizon.

Reval?
The term re-val is once again popping up in private discussions around town of late, this time in connection with the recent skirmish between the town and a citizens group suing over an alleged illegal re-valuation of select parcels.
Apparently town officials are considering the launch of a full-blown re-val of the town next year.
A re-val is basically the reassessment of all properties. While some communities do them regularly, others, like Shandaken rarely do. The last one was in the 1970’s. The result of not doing them, in theory, is that properties of similar values end up with wildly diverse values.
Driving the decision to do one appears to be the irregularities surrounding large parcels. The town just signed a deal with the state, which owns 74% of local land, to hike the minimum assessment on those lands to $600 an acre. Just prior to that deal being signed the town raised the assessments on nearby private lands to that minimum as well. As a result those landowners filed a lawsuit,
Meanwhile, critics of the action claim that published reports from the town supervisor stating everyone with less than 20 acres is paying taxes on an assessed value of at least $600 per acre are untrue. Tax records reveal the town itself owns 120 acres in Pine Hill that is still assessed at $370 an acre. Those same records show The City of New York’s lands were not reassessed for 2005 and neither were the state’s at the time select assessments were raised. Critics of the deal say the state and city had been left unassessed and a deal was not done because the state would not move up unless everyone else did. The large landowners, they say, were used as a lever to force the State to pay $600 per acre.
With this heading for court, a re-val appears to be one solution because it would take care of all the properties mentioned above and, in theory, put all on an even keel.
It comes at a price though. Full-blown re-vals can run upwards of $200,000.

Fix it!
Angry Pine Hill residents hammered the Shandaken Supervisor recently after being told of another delay in the decision to borrow money to fix the Hamlet’s water system.
Last month residents asked the town to take advantage of an opportunity to borrow $1.2 million at zero percent interest to pay for much needed repairs. Even though the opportunity will soon dissappear, the decision was tabled after Supervisor Robert Cross Jr. said that a recent change in the tax structure of the water district’s biggest ratepayer would cause the taxes of everyone else “to go through the roof.” Those present said borrow anyway.
Pine Hill residents delivered the exact same message but the town board still refused. The explanation was that the Board was concerned about raising the average rate beyond the $75 per year increase they felt homeowners could afford.
It is now stated that the big ratepayer, the City of New York, is not getting as much of a rate reduction as previously announced. The City owns waste treatment plant worth millions, and pays 70% of the water rates. Last Month Cross said the City’s share was dropping to 50%. Now he says its only dropping to 60 or 65%.
Hamlet residents took that as good news, and said the board should go ahead with the borrowing plans. Cross and Councilwoman Jane Todd explained that cost estimates presented last month were inaccurate as well, so it was no longer clear how much money was needed to really fix the system.
The board is expected to have better figures soon.
The delay has pushed the borrowing decision to after Election Day. Kathy Nolan, a critic of the Cross administration, said it would have been better for the board to act before the election so Pine Hill residents would know how well they are represented before entering the ballot booth.
In related news, the Village of Fleischmanns just agreed to borrow $3 million to upgrade the Village water supply. They hope to begin work this month to increase water yeilds, run better mains and rebuild other infrastructure, all to avoid being forced to install a filtration system.

No Changes?
A committee formed by the Ulster County Legislature to determine if a new department dedicated solely to economic development should be formed has ended up suggesting, along partisan lines, against severing current ties with the semi-autonomous Ulster County Development Corp. There will, however, be an effort to strengthen the county’s position with that agency and its control over county taxpayer contributions.
“We’re not trying to say UCDC is doing a bad job,” said Republican legislator Joseph Roberti, who chairs the Special Committee to Study the Creation of an Economic Development Department in Ulster County. “We’re saying the relationship needs to change…”
The county’s 2005 budget included a $260,000 contribution to the Ulster County Development Corp. In the three previous years, the county contributed $285,000 per year. Currently, economic development activities fall under the purview of the Legislature’s Economic Development/Education, Tourism and Cultural Affairs Committee, which also oversees the county Planning Department, Ulster County Area Transit, Ulster County Tourism, the county’s Cornell Cooperative Extension and the Ulster County Community College.
UCDC President Chester Straub, who came under fire earlier this year for showing a growing closeness to local developer Dean Gitter, said his agency has no objection to the county taking a more supervisory role in its contributions to and relations with the agency. Both he and Roberti said they’re working with the county Planning Department to draft a comprehensive economic development plan and are seeking the funding, partially through state grant sources, to finance it.

Jail Problems
Mold and leaks… the problems at the yet-to-open jail continue to proliferate.
Contractors have started testing the installation of windows at the new Ulster County Law Enforcement Center, hoping to pinpoint the source of leaks that caused more than $50,000 in water damage at the facility this autumn.
Meanwhile, an environmental testing firm has confirmed the presence of mold inside the new facility, and recommends immediate removal of wallboard and other porous building materials that were soaked through during recent heavy rains. The findings confirm test results presented earlier by Legislator Robert Parete, D-Boiceville, which showed rare to heavy concentrations of several types of mold in selected areas of the Law Enforcement Center. The county Buildings and Grounds Department will hire an independent contractor to begin pulling out wallboard, ceiling tiles, and other water-damaged building materials that are harboring or could harbor mold growth.
Contractors have said that fixing the water damage will not further delay the project - which already is a year-and-a-half behind schedule and $12.6 million over budget - because it can be done concurrently with other work. But at the same time, sub-contractors have said that even though they’ve been directed to begin repairs, they’re not going to start until there is a plan to correct the problems that led to the water damage.
No estimates were given of what delay, if any, the process could add to the building’s projected completion date.
Bovis Lend Lease, the construction manager, has attributed water damage to work done by Christa Construction and R.S. Roofing and Sheet Metal, two of the prime contractors on the job. Both have denied culpability.
Sheriff J. Richard Bockelmann questioned why the potential for mold damage was not made public sooner, along with whether the building was safe for his staff and contractors. While county Buildings and Grounds Commissioner Harvey Sleight said he doesn’t believe anyone in the building is in danger, Quality Environmental could not say for certain that the building is safe.

Casino News…
The St. Regis Mohawk Tribe’s elected chiefs officially ended their five-year pursuit of a casino at Kutsher’s Resort in Sullivan County and are concentrating on gaining approvals for a gambling hall at Monticello Raceway. Two of the three chiefs wrote to the Bureau of Indian Affairs withdrawing their application for the agency to take land into trust for the Kutsher’s project. They informed the BIA they would appreciate all final reviews and clearances necessary to allow a casino at the raceway, which is owned by Empire Resorts. A copy of the letter was sent to Gov. George Pataki, from whom the tribe wants a concurrence letter stating that he supports the BIA taking land into trust for the raceway project. The tribe’s leaders then wrote to Harrah’s, their casino partners for the Kutsher’s site since 2000, informing the Las Vegas gambling company that they have no plans anymore for the site Harrah’s controls. Harrah’s has spent $40 million in pre-development costs and the tribe could be held liable for much of the costs.
The 29-acre raceway site was approved by the federal government in 2000 for a Mohawk casino, but the tribe abruptly switched developers and sites, restarting the long application process.
Representatives of two Iroquois tribes in New York are upset that publicly traded gambling companies may be misrepresenting their tribal relationships. The inaccurate portrayals, they say, could deceive investors on the odds for Catskills casino deals.
Empire has said in SEC filings that it has a casino contract with the “provisional” Cayuga government — a pro-casino group that won a disputed election. But the Bureau of Indian Affairs has refused to certify the election or recognize the provisional government. So far, the BIA recognizes only the current tribal government, which opposes the casino
plan.
Empire, in its July 27 SEC filing, suggested the leadership issue is unresolved. The company denies any deception, saying it has fairly and accurately presented facts amid a complex leadership dispute. The charges of misrepresentation arose as Mohawk leaders, exploring bringing Empire and Harrah’s together, asked Gov. George Pataki to back the Monticello Raceway project. This has caused Harrah’s to suggest the chiefs rethink the raceway plan.

Police Blotter
The Shandaken Police report the arrest of Ernest H. Fudge 42 of Station Road, Phoenicia as a result of a Harassment complaint and a separate investigation of an underage party in early September where alcohol was consumed at his residence and allegations that Fudge had exposed himself to the minor that were present. Police state that they responded to a .911 Domestic Friday afternoon where Fudge was arrested and charged with Harassment, a Violation from a complaint at his residence. Fudge was additionally charged with Endangering the Welfare of a Child and Unlawful Dealing With A Child, both Misdemeanors after an investigation that was jointly conducted with the Ulster County Family Violence Unit and the Shandaken Police Department Fudge was issued an appearance ticket returnable on November 17th, 2005.
Also, police report the arrest of Kenneth J. Manzoli 20 years of age of Boiceville on an outstanding Arrest Warrant stemming from an Assault that occurred on Friday August 12th, 2005. Police state that a fight between 3 young men outside the Phoenicia Supermarket resulted in a 19 year old male receiving a broken jaw. An Arrest Warrant was issued on August I5th for the arrest of Manzoli who just turned himself in to police. Manzoli was arraigned in Shandaken Justice Court on Felony Assault charges and remanded to the Ulster County Jail. Manzoli is also to be extradited to the state of New Jersey where he has an outstanding warrant from the Ocean County Sheriffs Office for violation of probation from an unrelated incident.

Oral History!
“Behind the Scenes: The Inside Story of the Watershed Negotiations” is a
collection of 12 first-person accounts of the seven-year struggle that culminated in the groundbreaking New York City Watershed Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) which was signed in 1997, allowing the City to avoid building a costly, federally-mandated
water filtration plant for its mammoth Catskill-Delaware water supply, to impose stricter environmental regulations on the region that supplies the water, and to purchase vacant lands from willing sellers while in exchange, providing funds to Upstate communities for environmental protection, education and other programs. The MOA and its partnership programs were considered a turning point in historically bitter upstate-downstate relations and the agreement continues to influence the lives of both stewards and consumers of New York City water.
Compiled by Unadilla radio producer Nancy Burnett, the “Behind the Scenes”
project was made possible with grants from the Catskill Watershed Corporation (CWC) in partnership with the NYC Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), and from the Coalition of Watershed Towns. The collection includes audio CDs and transcripts of interviews with negotiators from the Watershed, the City, the Governor’s office and the environmental community. This oral history collection, with associated background information on the New York City water system and its impact on upstate communities, has been distributed to libraries and archives throughout the West-of-Hudson Watershed and in New York City. Transcripts and photos of the interviewees have also been placed on the CWC’s website, www.cwconline.org/about/scenes.html. “Behind the Scenes” is also archived at the Catskill Center for Conservation & Development in Arkville. For more information, contact CWC Education Coordinator Diane Galusha, galusha@cwconline.org; 845-586-1400, ext. 29.

The DMV Case
A former clerk at the Ulster County Department of Motor Vehicles was sentenced to one year of probation recently for not being forthcoming to investigators during an investigation into the distribution of phony drivers’ licenses. Donna Keefe of Boiceville was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge David Hurd in Albany after pleading guilty to the charge, “making a false statement,” on March 24. Keefe pleaded guilty in November 2000 to making phony licenses at the DMV and selling them to people who she knew had lost their driving privileges. For that charge - a felony of “knowing and unlawful production and transfer of an identification document” - she was sentenced on March 23, 2001, to five years’ probation, a $2,500 fine and 240 hours of community service. The original probation sentence and the new one will run concurrently. Keefe received lighter sentences after she agreed to cooperate with the government.
Keefe is one of two Ulster County DMV clerks who pleaded guilty to participating in the scam. The other, Kingston resident Jeanine Riggins, was sentenced in September to three years of probation and 200 hours of community service. A deputy clerk, Brian Donnelly, was encouraged to leave his position by Ulster County Clerk Nina Postupack, who oversees the DMV office, after he got a license for a person he never met, officials have said.

Eminence…
Charging that the Supreme Court has undermined one of the pillars of American society - the sanctity of the home - the House of Representatives has passed a bill to block court-sanctioned seizings of private property for use by developers. The bill, which now moves on to the Senate, would withhold federal funds from state and local governments that use powers of eminent domain to force homeowners to give up their property for commercial uses.
The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling in June, recognized the power of local governments to seize property needed for private development projects that generate tax revenue. The decision drew criticism from a broad spectrum of private property, civil rights, farm and religious groups which said it was an abuse of the Fifth Amendment’s “takings clause” which provides for the taking of private property, with fair compensation, for public use.
The legislation is the latest, and most far-reaching, of several congressional responses to the court ruling. The House previously passed a measure to bar federal transportation funds from being used to make improvements on land seized for private development, and the Senate approved an amendment to a transportation spending bill applying similar restrictions.
Several lawmakers who opposed the House bill said eminent domain has long been used by local governments for economic development projects such as the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, the cleaning up of Times Square and the building of a baseball stadium in Houston.

HEAP Help
The Home Energy Assistance Program is accepting applications for about $236 million in statewide allocations to be distributed through county offices for the aging and departments of social services. Maximum monthly income guidelines have increased, from $1,702 per month to $1,803 for a one-person household; $2,358 for two; $2,913 for three; $3,468 for four; $4,022 for five; and $4,577 for six. But with fuel prices up an estimated 30 percent or more, according to the state Energy Research and Development Authority, even a maximum program payout of $400 won’t go as far. Applications and more information are available through county offices for the aging and departments of social services. Questions can also be directed to the state program help line, which is toll-free at (800) 342-3009.

Flu Watch…
The federal government’s long-awaited plan on how to fight the next super-flu includes beefed-up attempts to spot human infections early, both here and abroad, recommendations on how to isolate the sick, and a plan on who will actually inject stockpiled vaccines into the arms of panicked people.
While it is impossible to say when the next super-flu will strike, there have been three pandemics in the last century and influenza experts say the world is overdue. Concern is growing that the bird flu could trigger one if it mutates to start spreading easily among people - something that hasn’t yet happened.
Already the government is buying $162.5 million worth of vaccine against that bird flu strain, called H5N1, from two companies - Sanofi-Aventis and Chiron Corp. - in case that happens. It also is ordering millions of doses of Tamiflu and Relenza, two antiflu drugs believed to offer some protection against the bird flu, stockpiles that the pandemic plan is expected to order be augmented.
The flu vaccine-making system that serves as the best available protection against a pandemic relies on millions of chicken eggs, takes nine months to produce each year’s flu shots and has changed little since the 18th century. This creaky system poses a big problem if a new, deadly strain emerges once the annual and inflexible production process begins.
Several biotechnology companies are at work on a new and quicker way of making a flu vaccine they hope can replace one that requires people to be inoculated with the entire influenza virus. Their technique: extract just a few genes from the virus and inject it into people. The nascent technology, called DNA vaccines, is a form of gene therapy that proponents argue is the best way to overhaul a 50-year-old vaccine manufacturing system.
The prospect of a bird flu outbreak may be panicking people around the globe, but it’s proving to be very good news for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other politically connected investors in Gilead Sciences, the California biotech company that owns the rights to Tamiflu, the influenza remedy that’s now the most-sought after drug in the world. Rumsfeld served as Gilead (Research)’s chairman from 1997 until he joined the Bush administration in 2001, and he still holds a Gilead stake valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to federal financial disclosures filed by Rumsfeld.
The forms don’t reveal the exact number of shares Rumsfeld owns, but in the past six months fears of a pandemic and the ensuing scramble for Tamiflu have sent Gilead’s stock from $35 to $47. That’s made the Pentagon chief, already one of the wealthiest members of the Bush cabinet, at least $1 million richer.
In July, the Pentagon ordered $58 million worth of the treatment for U.S. troops around the world, and Congress is considering a multi-billion dollar purchase. Roche expects 2005 sales for Tamiflu to be about $1 billion, compared with $258 million in 2004.
The Ulster County Health Department has scheduled its annual flu and pneumonia vaccination clinics. No appointments are needed, and county residents may attend any site convenient to them.
Residents deemed high-risk are encouraged to receive a flu shot. This includes anyone over 50, and adults over 18 who have heart disease, chronic broncho-pulmonary disease, renal disease, diabetes mellitus, other chronic metabolic disorders, severe anemia and/or compromised immune function, and others at risk of flu-related conditions.
The flu vaccine also is recommended for home care providers and others who may be in close contact with high-risk individuals.
SENIOR citizens who have Medicare Part B benefits can have their vaccinations paid for by Medicare. Recipients must be entitled to Part B coverage on the date of service, Medicare Part B must be the primary insurance coverage, and a Medicare card must be presented on the date of service.
For those not eligible for Medicare Part B coverage, there will be a $20 charge for the flu vaccine and $25 for the pneumonia vaccine, payable at the clinic. County residents enrolled in Medicare Managed Care programs should consult with their primary-care physician prior to visiting one of the clinics.
FLU SHOT clinics scheduled for the area are as follows.
* Nov. 10, 9:30 a.m. to noon, Midtown Neighborhood Center, 467 Broadway, Kingston.
* Nov. 16, 10:30-11:30 a.m. Ashokan Legion Hall, Mountain Road, Shokan.
* Nov. 18, 10 a.m. to noon. Trudy Farber Resnick Building, 50 Center St., Ellenville.
* Nov. 21, 10-11 a.m., Dutch Village Apartments, Washington Avenue, Kingston.
* Dec. 2, 9:30-10:30 a.m., Hurley Firehouse, 137 Old Route 209, Hurley.
· Dec. 9, 10 a.m. to noon, Woodstock Rescue Squad Building, state Route 212, Woodstock.

School Testing
Elementary and middle school students in New York state are just months away from the start of expanded standardized testing required under federal accountability standards. Next year, state math and English language arts assessments, previously given only to fourth- and eighth-graders, will be administered to all students in grades 3-8.
Educators say the new tests will help them better track the progress of students as they grow, but they are concerned about the resources schools must devote to scoring the exams and about becoming overly dependent on the data.
The expanded testing, required under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, begins in January and February with the state’s English language arts assessment. Expanded math testing will be rolled out in March, and other subjects will follow in subsequent years.
Test formats will be similar to the fourth- and eighth-grade exams, according to the state Education Department. Each test will last 30 to 65 minutes, depending on grade level.
Concerns about overtesting are likely when the new assessments begin, with some critics saying the testing already in place is too much for some students.
“The move to state assessments should not be a dramatic change for our students,” said Onteora’s assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction Deborah Fox.
For the last 10 years, Onteora’s second-, third-, fifth-, sixth- and seventh-graders have been taking standardized tests developed by the same company that makes the state’s exams - CTB/McGraw-Hill - as part of a district effort to measure performance and target instruction. Onteora paid to have the previous tests, known as Terra Nova, scored by the publishing company. But thanks to the cost of substitute teachers and staff development - this school year, every teacher has to be trained to grade the tests - the district doesn’t expect to see any savings with the state tests, Fox said.
More information on grades 3-8 testing is available at http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/3-8.

Ban Upheld
A New York appeals court has upheld a decision that bars a village mayor from performing same-sex marriages. The court says New Paltz mayor Jason West acted beyond his authority when he presided over two dozen same-sex marriages last year. The five judges unanimously agreed to uphold the lower-court ruling. The mayor’s lawyer is promising an appeal. West has maintained he was upholding the gay couples’ constitutional rights to equal protection, and thus his oath of office, by allowing them to wed. West was among the first public officials in the nation to marry same-sex couples.
West’s gesture came amid a flurry of efforts in various states to enact gay weddings after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom allowed gay couples there to wed in February 2004. Those efforts have largely been put on hold by the courts. Officials, including Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Governor George Pataki, have said same-sex ceremonies violate state law.

CIA Jails!
The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al-Qaida captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement, the Washington Post recently reported. The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents. The hidden global internment network is a central element in the CIA’s unconventional war on terrorism. It depends on the cooperation of foreign intelligence services, and on keeping even basic information about the system secret from the public, foreign officials and nearly all members of Congress charged with overseeing the CIA’s covert actions. The existence and locations of the facilities — referred to as “black sites” in classified White House, CIA, Justice Department and congressional documents — are known to only a handful of officials in the United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top intelligence officers in each host country. The CIA and the White House, citing national security concerns and the value of the program, have dissuaded Congress from demanding that the agency answer questions about the conditions under which captives are held.
The European Commission has subsequently said it will investigate reports that the CIA set up secret jails in eastern Europe. The governments of the European Union’s 25 members nations will be informally questioned about the allegations and have noted that such prisons could violate EU human rights laws and other European human rights conventions.
“As far as the treatment of prisoners is concerned ... it is clear that all 25 member states having signed up to European Convention on Human Rights, and to the International Convention Against Torture, are due to respect and fully implement the obligations deriving from those treaties,” a statement from the Commission said.
Led by Vice President Dick Cheney, the Bush administration is floating a proposal that would allow the president to exempt covert agents outside the Defense Department from a Senate-approved ban on torturing detainees in U.S. custody or weakening the prohibition.

Katrina…
Two months after Hurricane Katrina displaced more than 1 million people, problems with federal housing aid threaten to spawn a new wave of homelessness.
In Texas, thousands of evacuees who found shelter in apartments face eviction threats because rents are going unpaid. In Louisiana, some evacuees are beginning to show up in homeless shelters because they haven’t received federal aid or don’t know how to get it.
Advocates for the poor say the situation will worsen this winter. First off, the housing crunch could get tighter in November, because the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) wants to move an estimated 200,000 Katrina evacuees out of hotels as soon as possible. That increases the need for apartments, trailers and mobile homes.
In New Orleans, constables have been busy tacking eviction notices to often-empty apartments. With as much as a fifth of the rental stock destroyed, demand is high and surviving apartment complexes have waiting lists. And after a moratorium on evictions imposed by Gov. Kathleen Blanco expired, the landlords in the city filed nearly 2000 eviction notices. In some cases, they logged as many notices in a single day as court clerks usually see in a whole month.
Tenants have complained that the broken-down post office - which is just getting around to delivering mail from late August - had failed to deliver their paychecks, or they accused landlords of being money-hungry. Property owners, for their part, said they needed rental income to make their mortgage payments; some claimed their buildings were so damaged that all leases were void. At most of the hearings, the tenants did not show up, a testimony to the city’s emptiness.
Meanwhile, Louisiana is expecting a $3.7 billion bill from the federal government for the state’s share of the hurricane recovery, far exceeding anything the governor had anticipated. The state is already dealing with its own crippling budget problems, including dramatic jumps in unemployment, business shutdowns and a state budget deficit of nearly $1 billion in tax revenue alone, and the estimate from the Federal Emergency Management Agency was a shock. In the FEMA report given to Blanco’s office, the cost of the federal response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in Louisiana was estimated at about $41.4 billion, or about $9,200 for each state resident. The state budget approved earlier this year for the entire 2005-06 fiscal year was $18.7 billion. New Orleans, meanwhile, was given a $120 million federal loan Friday to keep the city’s vital services running only until about March.

Divorce Ripples
Even in a “good divorce,” in which parents amicably minimize their conflicts, children of divorce inhabit a more difficult emotional landscape than those in intact families, according to a new survey of 1,500 people ages 18 to 35.
“All the happy talk about divorce is designed to reassure parents,” Elizabeth Marquardt, author of the study, described in her new book, “Between Two Worlds.” “But it’s not the truth for children. Even a good divorce restructures children’s childhoods and leaves them traveling between two distinct worlds. It becomes their job, not their parents’, to make sense of those two worlds.”
The nation’s divorce rate reached record levels in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, with about a quarter of all Americans age 18 to 35 were not yet 16 when they experienced their parents’ divorce. There are no reliable national statistics on divorce, but most experts say that even with divorce rates edging down, about three-quarters of a million American children see their parents divorce each year. The new survey, based on the first nationally representative sample of young adults, highlights the many ways that divorce shapes the emotional tenor of childhood.
For example, those who grew up in divorced families were far more likely than those with married parents to say that they felt like a different person with each parent, that they sometimes felt like outsiders in their own home and that they had been alone a lot as a child. Those with married parents, however, were far more likely to say that children were at the center of their family and that they generally felt emotionally safe.
The debate over how divorce affects children has long been polarized, with many researchers focusing on statistical data emphasizing that most children with divorced parents do fine in life and many clinicians emphasizing the emotional distress that many of the children feel. And given the political overtones, many scholars who study family diversity have been concerned that focusing on how divorce hurts children could lead to efforts to restrict the availability of divorce.
About half of those from divorced families agreed that they had a “harder childhood that most people,” compared with 14 percent from married families.
Locally, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County is offering a two-part national satellite series for professionals and volunteers working with families. The series will examine the relationship between marriage and parenting and the manner in which that relationship affects children. The Impact of Couple and Marital Relationships on Parenting and Child Outcomes will be broadcast on Friday, December 2 and Dec. 9, 2005 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. from Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County’s office located at 10 Westbrook Lane in Kingston. The cost is $30 for both sessions. Pre-registration before November 28th is required.
The series will cover the relationship between marriage and parenting, examining how healthy couples lead to healthy kids. Participants will learn how to support unmarried, new-parent couples in forming healthy marriages and stable families as well as ways to strengthen couple relationships so children of those relationships have a better life.
To receive a registration form, please call Barbara Grumberg, Family & Consumer Science Program Secretary, 845/340-3990 or go to www.cce.cornell.edu/ulster/satellite.htm. For questions about the downlink or to inquire about CEUs, contact Susan Matson, Extension Educator Human Development, 845/340-3990.

Head North!
Canada’s government unveiled changes to its immigration policy recently, including plans to take in up to 300,000 new immigrants annually within the next five years. The report backing the move said Canada accepted nearly 236,000 immigrants last year, facilitated 2,000 international adoptions and reunited 6,000 refugee spouses and children with their families but intends to accept as many as 255,000 new immigrants next year and would be prepared to accept as many as 300,000 immigrants a year within five years.
Canada - a vast country slightly larger than the United States, though much of it in the frigid north - has only 33 million people, compared with the U.S. Census estimate of 297 million people in the United States today. According to the most recent national census in 2001, 18.4 percent of Canada’s population was foreign-born.
Meanwhile, it was announced by the Canadian government that three of every four Canadians believe Canada should restrict oil and gas exports to the United States if the U.S. does not repay the $5-billion in softwood lumber tariffs that were ruled a violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The survey discovered that a solid majority of Canadians — 78% — agreed Canada should look for alternative markets for energy and lumber exports, even though it could further damage trade relations with the U.S.

Ah, Wal Mart!
An internal memo sent to Wal-Mart’s board of directors proposes numerous ways to hold down spending on health care and other benefits while seeking to minimize damage to the retailer’s reputation. Among the recommendations are hiring more part-time workers and discouraging unhealthy people from working at Wal-Mart. In the memorandum, M. Susan Chambers, Wal-Mart’s executive vice president for benefits, also recommends reducing 401(k) contributions and wooing younger, and presumably healthier, workers by offering education benefits. The memo voices concern that workers with seven years’ seniority earn more than workers with one year’s seniority, but are no more productive.
physical activity (e.g., all cashiers do some cart-gathering).”
The memo acknowledged that Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, had to walk a fine line in restraining benefit costs because critics had attacked it for being stingy on wages and health coverage. Ms. Chambers acknowledged that 46 percent of the children of Wal-Mart’s 1.33 million United States employees were uninsured or on Medicaid.
Under fire because less than 45 percent of its workers receive company health insurance, Wal-Mart announced a new plan that seeks to increase participation by allowing some employees to pay just $11 a month in premiums. Some health experts praised the plan for making coverage more affordable, but others criticized it, noting that full-time Wal-Mart employees, who earn on average around $17,500 a year, could face out-of-pocket expenses of $2,500 a year or more.

Pre-Diabetic
Roughly 2 million U.S. children ages 12 to 19 have a pre-diabetic condition linked to obesity and inactivity that puts them at risk for full-blown diabetes and cardiovascular problems, government data suggest. Researchers from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health examined the prevalence of abnormally high blood sugar levels after several hours without eating, a condition called impaired fasting glucose, or IFG, that is measured in a blood test.
One in 14 boys and girls in a nationally representative sample had the condition. Among the overweight adolescents, it was one in six. Affected adolescents were more likely than those with normal fasting glucose measurements to have other symptoms suggesting they might be on the road to heart problems: Average levels of bad cholesterol and blood fats called triglycerides were higher in youngsters who had the pre-diabetic condition.
About 20 million Americans have diabetes, most of them adults with type 2 diabetes, which impairs the body’s ability to properly use the blood sugar-regulating hormone insulin. This form of the disease is strongly linked to being overweight and inactive.
“Intensive lifestyle interventions” including physical activity and improving diet can help prevent pre-diabetes from progressing in adults and it’s likely the same can happen in children, the researchers said. Doctors have said systematic societal changes are needed, too, including more healthful school lunches.