Election

“The turnout showed that the people have a lot of concerns and have spoken and been heard,” Cross said. “My opponent made a valiant effort which I commend him for.”
Winning seats on the town board alongside Cross were incumbent Jane Todd and former county tourism director Joe Munster.
Cross, Todd and Munster will make up a new Republican majority when the new board convenes in early January. Edna Hoyt and Paul van Blarcum, who won four-year seats two years ago, do not come up for reelection again until 2005.
In the supervisor’s race Cross won a total of 722 votes while incumbent Pete DiModica received a total of 649.
District by District breakdowns, based on unofficial counts that don’t jibe with the county figures above, were as follows:
In District 1 (Phoenicia), Cross received 280, Di Modica.266.
In District 2 (Shandaken), Cross won 153, Di Modica 107.
In District 3 (Pine Hill/Big Indian), Cross received 179 votes, Di Modica 170.
In District 4 (Mt. Tremper), Cross won 135 votes, Di Modica received 130.
In the town council races, incumbent Republican Jane Todd proved the big winner, with a total of 757 votes, Winning a seat alongside her was Republican Joe Munster, with 669 votes. Also running respectably were Democrat Randy Ostrander with 607 and Planning Board member Howie McGowan, a Democrat, with 595 votes .
The breakdown for those races were as follows.
In District 1 (Phoenicia), Todd received 339, Munster won 244, Ostrander received 248, and McGowan got 243.
In District 2 (Shandaken), Todd received 165, Munster won 114, Ostrander received 109, and McGowan got 97.
In District 3 (Pine Hill/Big Indian), Todd received 193, Munster won 178, Ostrander received 157, and McGowan got 151.
In District 4 (Mt. Tremper), Todd received 136, Munster won 134, Ostrander received 124, and McGowan got 131.
The biggest vote getter for the day was popular (and longstanding) tax assessor Rosalie Boland, who brought in 1,176 votes in a three-way race for two seats. Joining her and Doris Bartlett as an assessor will be Independent Brian Grant, who ran as a Democrat and received 685 votes. Incumbent Erich Griesser, who was planning to retire, won a total of 503 votes.
Incumbent Highway Superintendent Dick Merwin defeated Conservative/Independent candidate Ken Berryann by a vote of 1,115 to 195.
Town clerk Laurilyn Frasier won reelection by gathering 753 votes, unopposed.
In the race for the County Legislature’s sprawling District Two seats, votes from Shandaken, Woodstock, Hardenburgh, Denning and a portion of West Saugerties saw Republican incumbent Mike Stock and Democratic Brian Shapiro won seats with vote tallies of 1,859 and 2,510, respectively. Also running were Democrat Toby Heilbrunn of Woodstock, who received 1,616 votes, and former Shandaken supervisor Wayne Gutmann, with 696 votes.
As of press time, it also looked like the long-held Republican majority had been whittled down to one or two members, with even those in jeopardy as of press time.
A referendum to move towards a smaller legislature in the year 2012 passed, with an unofficial count, from 159 of 164 districts, of 20,029 in favor and 10,644 against. A referendum to push for single-member districts by that time passed, by the same unofficial talley, with 18,028 in favor and 10,563 against.
“In politics, negative campaigning works. We have a different value system and chose not to do that,” said Di Modica. “Now that he has the job I hope Bob can bring the community together as he says, listen to all the people, and do what’s right by the town.”
“The final result showed that the majority of the town would like to see change,” Cross said.

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Valerie

Creativity is scattered about like confetti, and as Valerie weaves deftly in and out of the piles of work, drips of newsprint, strings stencil cut outs, ìI can draw what I see I just donít want toî paint, telling tales, veering off into a tangent, leaping decades into the past and back to now in one breath, her mind is revealed to have a sort of collage aspect to itóstories are begun, dropped, finished by other stories, like Borroughís cut-up technique of the fifties.
There is the armature of a woman in the center of the room, just feet and torso, too small head. Which explains the mass of industrial wire coiled and dangling around Valerie, like a found art necklace. Sheís making a woman, as are many other artists, for a Spencertown Academy show, much like the cows painted by multiple artists in NYC.
She sews into paint, leaving trails of buttons and labels, matches, until one wonders, that everything she steps on and sticks to her shoe ends up in her hart. I mention multiple styles, and she fires back "I know, schizophrenic."
There is also a furry little beast named Moose that skitters about and eyes me warily. "Careful, it bites." Says Valerie. Then adds. ìItís not mine. I hate this dog and she loves me all day long.î But, like most of Valerieís stories, youíll never hear the end of it because this master of the nonsequitorial segue is off telling another.
Sheís got Einstein over her bed. ìI like him he used his fame for good.î She explains. Somehow I pick up a resume of sorts, in bits: Sheís a published artist (Fiberarts, American Artist), a teacher of at-risk kids and adult workshops, boardmember of the Womenís Studio Workshop, founded Studio 28, a Boiceville arts school, does set design for CDROMs. Sheís an Armenian from New Jersey, her grandmother walked for 3 months and ended up in Beirut. Sheís 101 and still alive. She has an art education degree, worked as a ìprofessional organizerî, a degree in accounting and worked for a while ìin silk stockings, high heels, and suitsî in NYC for William E. Simon, Secretary of Treasury under Ford, and shows me the two-dollar-bill with his name on it and matching autograph to prove it.
ìI went from Park avenue to the boardwalk at Seaside.î I built sets in the winter, would count money, painted teeth on Cabbage Patch dolls. Those ones that got their first teeth were valuable, so we painted them on. "Once, I saw scrounging around in some sawmill looking for machine parts, and I just laughed, remembering five years ago I was in high heels a suit and stockings with a walkman on my head"
She also assists Philippe Petit, outlaw highwire artist who did renegade walks over the Sydney Harbor Bridge, Notre Dam, and the Twin Towers, may they rest in peace. By now sheís showing me her company ìLoose Cannonsî and her website, www.catskillartist.com, and gets an email from Philippeís wife, partner and producer, K. asking what Valerie wants her title to be for some project upcoming. Valerie fires back Ö.. ìWe leave this colorful domain to head back out to the mill. "As far as I knew you go to the store and things get there somehow. Ten years later Iím being asked to be on the Foresting Development Council."
Her stepfather bought the mill in 1986 but died two years later, leaving Valerie to run it, which she did, for four years. "I gotta find a spade by the end of the day" she says. (Eventually I find out thatís spade as in a deck of cards and the comment relates to an art project.) There are logs as fat as Iím tall, piles of sappy pine ìdon't touch or youíll regret it all day!î
Valerie runs her hands over the ends of wood, pulling at splinters, sniffing, labeling white oak, birch beech, ìI uses to know so fast, now I have to lookî rips and peers at oak.
a spinning mass like the jaws of some Geiger beast, teeth ripping bark. ìLike eating corn on the cob.

Bark mulch
The roll onto a carriage, run on a diesel generator. The massive chipper "send that to International Paper, nothing gets wasted here." Barn full of sawdust, blown down a long tube into barn.
Joe DeBellis, "that means of beauty," he's got his own sense of things. Heís not a white neck. He owns it now fifty-fifty with my mother. Heís a genius. We walk by some huge supports heís welded, past the smashed log truck that he rolled one day. El camino, a Hudson Valley Apple produce truck covered in vines, a 1959 ford, pass a second of each car "Joe buys doubles for parts," all, of course, on their way to rust-colored. Moose starts ìreverse sneezing" as V puts it, and she stoops, concerned for the dog she ìhates.î ìTheir tracheas are small, she explains.
We head into a log art studio, she shows me delicate collage pastels, a series sheís doing for the walls of the Terrapin Restaurant in Rhinebeck. He work has an almost invisible subversive quality: a collage with typewriter print, written backwards, but held to a mirror, reads clearly as a dis of a local famous artist. There is a gold-framed ìdo not removeî pillow tag. "A child's first outlaw instinct is to rip that off." A delicate plant drawing, on closer inspection, is made from the text of a poisonous bug-spray label, and a painting with "Hail Mary" written in Arabic and Hebrew.
Back in the house, she hands me a delicious triple-chocolate cookie "It's true love that Iíve shared it," she says.
She shows me how she de-faces local artist opening cards, a correspondence with her friend, artist Nanette Gillligan, the first one she shows me is the work of a friend of mine. "Artists are as common in Woodstock as lawyers in Washington." She opens up a box of frames she ordered, and true to style, sheís drawn more to the imperfect backside of the frame. "Should I use them backwards?" she wonders out loud.
If I mention I like anything- a book, a red oxilil plant- she hands it to me, insisting I take it. On the way out I notice something that seems to sum her up, if such a thing were possible. On her studio door is a quote from Marya Arnim "Life is certainly such a queer business and so brief and such a lot of it."

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Garden Bar

Fish purchased the building over a year ago with her husband Neil, who, when not helping his wife with the business (they do the early morning baking and brewing together), works as an engineer for Northeast Cinemas in Kingston.

" We did tons of work on the place," said Neil. The brightly painted new exterior and redecorated interior make this evident, however, the couple spent a lot of time improving the building‚s infrastructure as well.

" Every major system, such as the electric and the plumbing, has been redone," Neil explained. "We tried nursing the heater through to Spring, but that died, so we replaced that too." The next project, the couple said, is to hook up the heater for the large greenhouse that is located behind the building so that they can begin retailing plants from its interior as early as December.

Fish, who was born and raised in Glenford, said she comes from a family of "avid gardeners" who were also in the restaurant business. For 20 years, her family ran Kurta‚s in Glenford where Fish spent many hours working and gaining the experience she applies to her business today.

Neil is a transplant from out West, having grown up in Oklahoma, moving to the area in 1982. The couple, with their two children, Jenna Leigh, 17, and Sydney, 12, have lived in Olivebridge for over 15 years.

Beyond the Gate is currently opened 7 days a week from 7am to 7pm, but the couple may change the hours as the traffic pattern for the coffee house becomes more evident. During the weekdays, Fish said, "We seem to get a late morning crowd, and a lot of people between 10:30am and 2:00, stopping in for lunch." The coffee house draws a fair crowd on the weekends as well, the couple said. And as the business becomes more established, they hope to get traffic from weekend skiers and hikers.

Because the 7 day work week is demanding on the family, the Fishs‚ plan to build a family room along with an office on the building‚s second floor so that they "can spend good quality family time together."

And what about Elizabeth‚s own gardens? "It's been difficult. I haven‚t even cut back everything for the winter, but, it's supposed to be nice this weekend. Maybe I can sneak away then."

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