(letters from April 13, 2006)

Dear Editor,
Enough has been said about The Large Parcel Law to fill a very large Garbage dumpster. Much of what has been printed is just that, GARBAGE.
Recently it has been reported that Senator William Larkin, one of the primary sponsors of the Large Parcel Bill, said that reservoirs were not in the original bill when he sponsored it. That is not true! You may ask, how do I know that? When the language for the Large Parcel Law was drafted in a bill form, Assessor Todd Wiley and I met with Senator Larkin in his office to discuss the merits of the bill and ask for his support. The language of the bill then and always has included reservoirs. After all, why shouldn't they? New York City reservoirs were single large properties that skewed the equalization process so that fair tax apportionment was not possible. As a matter of record, prior to the Large Parcel Law enactment, city reservoir towns had enjoyed as much as a 50% erroneous advantage in taxes over their neighbors.
I have recently read where certain members of the Watershed Coalition are trying to have the word, "RESERVOIR," removed from the Large Parcel Bill. Those attempting to do so state that the primary sponsor of the bill knew nothing of the word reservoir in the original language. Someone is telling a very large lie. Why not, it's a very large issue about very large parcels. I believe the law will NOT change because there are enough folks who believe in fair tax apportionment and don't want to go back to business as usual.
One more thing: Since the Ulster County Legislature failed to enact the Large Parcel Law for 2006 County Taxes, the non-reservoir towns in the County picked up an estimated $1,200,000 in county taxes. Do you still wonder why your county taxes were so high?
Curt Schoeberl, Assessor
Town of Shawangunk

Dear Editor,
On behalf of the 30+ bus drivers who just received word that starting this summer the OCS board of education has granted us the wonderful opportunity to begin collecting unemployment insurance. I wish to say, thank you ever so much... You took our jobs and raised our taxes, but I have been assured that all this was done for good reason, of course no one has been gracious enough to explain just what the reason is...
The generosity of the OCS Board of Ed. is truly boundless. They have given the taxpayer a bonus this year. Not only will the public lose the bus contractors and drivers who have been a part of ' their lives for 2 and 3 generations, they will be given the gift of paying 1/2 million dollars more for the opportunity.
I am now in my 37th year driving school bus for the OCS district. The children I drive today are in some cases the grandchildren of the 60's generation who started with me in 1967. I have served under 12 Superintendents of schools and 14 Business Managers. Many of the people who prepare my taxes, draw my blood, pack my groceries, repair my vehicles, work alongside me -- rode my bus. My town supervisor and his wife -- and after
15+ years of driving daily and late runs in the town of Olive many of you -- were all at one time or another "my kids".
To think that I am the exception to the rule would be a mistake. The Onteora roster of drivers is in itself a priceless history of the district, a history that will, after June 30, 2006, disappear. The OCS Board of Ed., by a vote of 6 to 1 in just a matter of minutes wiped the slate clean and sent us all to the "recycle bin".
This was done without public input. The cost factor could suggest that the board might have preferred a lack of input. In all fairness I must mention that there was one voice of reason on the board. Rita Vanacore did request that the board hold off voting until further study and public input could take place. She was ignored by every member of the board; to her credit, she stuck to her convictions and cast the only NO vote. I know I speak for every bus driver and the uninvited public when I express to Mrs. Vanacore our sincere appreciation for her efforts.
The cost of transporting to and from school is slightly in excess of one and one half million dollars annually. The winning bid for next year's transportation to and from school is in excess of 2 million dollars. In other word we are going to pay 30% more for next year then we do now AND we will get no more then we get now. Do you really feel that flushing $2 million dollars down the drain is "taxpayer friendly"? I am curious, since the total cost for next year has not as yet been presented to us, what other taxpayer friendly surprises are we in store for? I have the distinct feeling we are not going to be "blessed" all at once....
I suggest that everyone do their best to attend the next round of board meetings and decide for themselves just how well we can all sleep at night. . . .
Steve Stettine
Phoenicia, NY

Dear Editor,
A Transportation Bid History/ Process
In the 1997/1998 and 2001/2002 school years, the Onteora Central School District hired the Transportation Advisory Service (TAS) to perform efficiency studies on the Onteora Transportation Department and recommended the following: provide balance of a district operated program with a contracted program, establish a plan for fleet replacement, reduce the number of contractors to one or two, and follow the bid specifications provided by TAS.
In January of 2005, the Onteora Transportation Department committed to the bid process during the 2005/2006 budget presentation. Due to time constraints and the workload involved in preparation for the bid specifications TAS recommended the bid process be rescheduled for the fall of 2005/spring of 2006.
At a September 2005 Board of Education meeting, the Onteora Board of Education adopted a resolution appointing TAS as the consultant to assist in guiding the District through the bid process.
In October of 2005, TAS met with the District and Board of Education representatives to review the bid process. During the period of October 2005 through January 2006 the Transportation Advisory Service developed the detailed bid specifications and structure of the bid process. The bid specifications and process were then forwarded to the Districts legal council and insurance agent for review.
On January 19, 2006, a legal notice was published in the local newspaper announcing Onteora’s intention to go through a bid process for a three-year contract for our contracted bus routes. At the same time our business office sent a letter to eligible contractors, notifying them of the bid and letting them know they could pickup the bid specs at the administrative offices in Boiceville just in case they did not see the notice. The pre-bid meeting on February 2, 2006 allowed the contractors to ask any questions concerning the bid specs. The bids were opened on February 13, 2006. Hoyt Transportation is the contractor that won the bid.
Our present contracts are more than twenty years old and by law we cannot just change the wording of the old contracts to the same contractors adding what we would like without going through a formal bid process. In addition, one of our contractors was in the process of selling his business leaving that contractor unknown. The new bid structure gives Onteora the flexibility to combine routes with the present population declining in the future as noted by the monthly enrollment updates and the annual demographers reports we are given. This is something we could not do with the old contracts. The added safety control and compliance checks we will enforce in the new contracts will ensure that the contractors comply with all the NYS DMV Article 19A Laws, Regulations, and DOT regulations. The bid specs require that the contractor submit monthly paperwork to demonstrate their compliance. When the contractor is not in compliance, a daily fine will be enforced until compliance is met and a report written. None of these details, controls, accountability, and flexibility is in any of our current contracts nor could we legally just add them. We cannot impose any additional specifications or alter the current contracts without a formal bid.
A bid process is designed to provide a competitive bidding atmosphere. The present bid was awarded with set prices for three years. The contractors were requested to bid routes at hourly rates versus a dollar amount for an each route.
Included in the bid specs was a current contract summary listing all runs by their number. This allowed the local contractors to look up the run description. It did however; require additional work to prepare a more detailed bid. It was the responsibility of the contractor to submit his bid by February 13, 2006. At the end of the three years, the District has the option of extending the contract to the contractor for a certain amount based on what is called the CPI or the cost of living increase, which is provided by the NYS Association of Pupil Transportation. This is exactly what has been done in our twenty-year-old contracts. If the district is not happy with this process, they can proceed to bid the contracts again.
The increase presented in the Transportation Budget Presentation on March 14, 2006 is $106,799.00. We are requesting additional services from our contractor. Services like a Terminal Manager, Safety Supervisor, Dispatcher, and monthly reporting of contractor performance, student discipline matters, driver training programs, driver discipline matters, driver hours, and all other items related to the performance of the contractor.
The changes that are being made are also in line with the Board of Education’s Resolution that was passed at the February 14, 2006 Board of Education meeting to review the efficiencies, internal controls, and compliance of State Laws and Regulations in the Transportation Department.
Cindy O’Connor, Trustee
Onteora School District

Dear Editor,
I’d like to ask for your readers’ support in the Onteora School Board election May 16, where I am seeking one of two open seats. As a parent of two Phoenicia Elementary students, I have been active in the school’s PTA, organizing this year’s Halloween Parade, working on our Holiday Craft Fair and Kool School (our afterschool program) and currently serving as Phoenicia’s parent liaison to the School Board’s Future of the District Commission.
Our School District is facing challenging issues, including the impacts of declining enrollment, selection of a new superintendent, and insuring educational excellence within our taxpayers’ ability to pay for it. I want to bring my energy and thoughtfulness to these important issues and work to bring our school community together in the face of them.
Recently, I sold my wholesale jewelry company and currently I am the business manager for this publication, The Phoenicia Times and The Olive Press, which my husband, Brian Powers publishes. I have called Chichester home for the past 10 years and before that worked in real estate, government, and fundraising in New York City. I have a Masters in Real Estate Development from Columbia University, and a Bachelor’s degree in History from Brown University.
I look forward to meeting and talking with as many people as I can in the next six weeks. Please come say hello as I campaign around the District.
Sincerely,
Maxanne Resnick
Chichester, NY

Dear Editor,
This is an open letter to the Onteora School Board. From a tax payer’s viewpoint Onteora’s cost per student for the 2005/2006 school year is one of the highest in Ulster County. The New York State’s Board of Education uses a complicated formula, but their 655 report submitted July 2005 reflects the same information regarding cost per student. With the 1,887,438 million dollar increase in the budget and the student population possibly declining the cost per student will only increase. At this point in time there’s nothing on the school’s Web Page that indicates that there will be any money left over that could be used to reduce the 2006/2007 budget.
As of December 2005 there were 2,023 students in the entire school district. As of that date the school had 71 Teaching Assistants, 174 Teachers plus, School Nurses, Librarians, Psychologists, Therapists, Counselors and Social Workers. The 71 Teaching Assistants plus the 174 teachers averages out to a little over eight students per class. This doesn’t mean that every class might have eight students. Some classes may have more then the eight students and some may have less. It’s important to note that this is an average.
The school currently employs 391 people. That averages out to about one employee for every five or six students. 337 students get free lunch and 168 students receive partial free lunch at the school. It’s a good thing that these children are able to have a good lunch. But, there’s another side to this story. Those 505 kids that get either a free or partial lunch should be an indicator to the board that there are 505 families in the district that are having financial problems. Not to mention all the seniors living on a fixed income.
Anyone having any business sense knows what the largest expenses are when you run a business. Of coarse it’s salaries and benefits. What do corporations do when they start to get into financial trouble? They reduce the work force. In this case it’s the taxes that are the financial problem. The Custodial and Maintenance departments should be checked to see if those operations could be at least partially sub-contracted. It’s important that the budget be reduced before the budget vote because the contingency budget reduction doesn’t do much at all to reduce the tax burden.
There is something I don’t understand about this budget. In the Superintends budget recommendation on page four it reads, this does not include Buildings and Grounds which were presented previously. Why don’t those two department budgets show somewhere in the Schools budget recommendations?
William Warnecke
Glenford, NY

Dear Editor,
Attention needs to be brought to the crisis that budgeting is having on Special Education programs in the Onteora school district. At particular risk is the position of the teacher for the deaf. Currently there is one teacher who services children with hearing problems of all grades throughout the school system. There is a proposal to eliminate this position and have these children absorbed by speech therapists who are not properly trained to handle the severity of the struggles that hearing-impaired children face in learning. My son, Richard Williams, who is now a freshman at a competitive university, would not have become such a successful student without this support. In eighth grade when he began at Onteora, he was severely behind in writing and reading. Up until this time nothing seemed to work and no cause was discovered. Fortunately, the teacher of the deaf, Cass Reep, sent him for a special hearing test and it was discovered that he had auditory processing problems. She was able to work with him a few times a week, and he was finally able to excel and achieve his potential. There are students with more severe hearing problems than my son's and, if this position is eliminated, they will suffer greatly. It is a terrible thing that we would slow the advancement of these children in order to save a few dollars. Please show your support and let the school board know this is unacceptable. The next board meeting on this topic is Tuesday, April 4, and the final vote on budget considerations is Tuesday, April 18.
Ruth Williams
Kingston, NY

Dear Editor,
I have just heard that Ulster County Republican legislators will not be supporting resolution draft 0401 calling on the state Board of Elections to pick Paper Ballot/ Optical Scan technology for elections.
For several years, I participated in our electoral process [beyond the act of voting] by being present at my district's vote tallying along with people from other political parties and then passing the results onto our local Democratic Party headquarters tally board. After that, I worked in my polling place, the Cedar Grove firehouse, checking people in and pressing that button which activates the old lever voting machines. That's as close to the core of our voting system as you can get. Any errors or malfunctions in the process were known immediately and either repaired, corrected or officially noted. It was sometimes tedious and frustrating as well as a source of humor. We trusted it because everything was verifiable and citizens left the voting booth knowing that their vote would be counted.
The DRE machines do not offer this assurance. They cost more, not only initially, but in the maintenance, repair, upgrading and apparently even storage. Ask your legislators: do they stand on this?
Allen Bryan
Saugerties, NY

Dear Editor,
Have you noticed the frenzied political activity in the nation's "Halls of Nonsense" these past few weeks? It seems that while we were sleeping our country was invaded by so many "illegal" immigrants which is nothing new. Our representatives in Washington at the prodding of a few "citizens" now want to ship them home or confer citizenship on them.
When one looks at the prospect of rounding up all of the uninvited guests with the attendant cost in resources to the American taxpayer it is easy to experience vertigo. On the other hand manipulating the path to citizenship in a way that some of our more "brilliant" and resourceful Senators have suggested causes excitement in the recesses of our brain. "After 5 years go home and apply". Yeh, right.
The gathering of the 100 Senators on Thursday, April 7th with one lone "pool" camera was a circus. The bobbing and weaving of each one for a good angle or profile would have made a contortionist proud. As each one spoke and congratulated themselves I kept seeing Professor Irwin Corey on the Microphone. You all remember the slovenly attired master of double talk professor of Johnny Carson days who left your brain in a well of confusion; "huh"? However, I digress. The Thursday gathering of 100 wisepersons seemed to be in accord as to how we would treat or deal with these neighbors who don't wish to be just neighbors any longer. Just look at all the trouble they have caused. "Minutemen" are on the job. "Mules" and "Coyotes" have had to alter their routes and methods of facilitating what they do. The Border Patrol catches and releases 3-400 "violators each day that dissapear into the American fabric with their "desk appearance" summons.
Where do they go? They seek and find a landscaper, a lettuce or grape grower, a restaurant "grease pit" a body shop or some other "plantation" entrepeneur who are now the latest slave owners in America. $3.20 an hour? No benefits? No complaints.
If we leave these uninvited guests alone the indentured rolls will continue and increase. If we manage to corral some 12-14 million renegades and deliver them to their homes who will clean our restrooms, cut our grass or make the fajitas? One concern might be that as these folks are being pushed over the wall like a volley ball others are coming over at some other point of the 2200 mile border.
Did you see the parades and demonstrations a week ago? School kids turned truants and worse; criminals. One kid had the nerve to show up for class with a "T" shirt that stated "Latinos forever" and was promptly expelled. What nerve! Only Americans should live into eternity, anywhere.
Then we saw the unpardonable. People wrapped in the Mexican flag which "unsprung" many "patriotic" observers. Who cares? When lettuce climbs to $2.89 [as in gasoline] I'll wake up.
On Friday, April 7th just after sunrise in Washington a failed "trial" vote was conducted in the Senate as to what they all had agreed to on Thursday; a "comprehensive" [large and understandable] immigration bill. Gee, I thought for so many years we had immigration laws and that all our grandparents followed them to the letter. But they came by ship, learned English, worked and paid taxes and integrated themselves into the American system. [I also thought that Onteora School was the only "democratic" institution that had a trial (budget) vote each May].
Am I for or against? Go figger. After all, some advocates on TV have likened us all to lawbreakers with the charge that we have parked illegally, ran a red light or "jay walked". I remember spitting on the sidewalk once in earlier days [ugh].
A proper solution might be since both political parties are disingenuous [liars where I come from] is to vote for each challanger in Nov. and "dump the incumbant'. I like that; "dump the incumbant". Has a nice ring to it, eh?
Glenn T. Anderson
Olivebridge, NY

Dear Editor,
Want to help keep the Catskills beautiful? Join the Catskill Heritage Alliance for our annual reservoir cleanup dates. It's good work and a good time in a lovely setting. Who says cleanups can't be fun.
On Saturday, May 6, and Saturday, June 3, we will meet at 9 a.m. at the Frying Pan area of the Ashokan Reservoir. On August 26 we will meet at the Pepacton Reservoir. We work about two and a half hours and then spend a bit of time marveling at the incredible piles of trash we collect. Oh, and an occasional treasure such as a beautiful piece of driftwood. After marveling, we typically find a nearby restaurant for a post-cleanup lunch where we can continue the camaraderie and sense of a job well done.
To reach the Frying Pan parking area, take Route 28 to the town of Olive. Turn south onto Reservoir Road at Winchell's Pizza. Drive 1.8 miles to the stop sign and turn left onto Monument Road and go east 0.3 miles. Turn left onto Rte 28 A and go east 0.9 miles. Turn left onto an unsigned road which may be marked "dead end" and go 0.3 miles to the public parking circle. This is the Frying Pan.
Please bring work gloves and your sense of humor. Everything else is provided. For questions or more information call Jo-Anne at 688-2038. Hope to see you there.
Jo-Anne Rowley
Phoenicia, NY