(letters from April 27, 2006)

Dear Editor,
The Catholic Archdiocese of New York has recently decided to close down St Francis deSales “Parish” located in Northwestern Ulster County and transfer-out the attending St. Francis deSales parish priest, also close the Boiceville, West Shokan and Allaben mission chapels and convert the (140 person capacity) Phoenicia St Francis Chapel to a mission chapel of St John’s Parish, in Woodstock. This recent Archdiocese decision will have a devastating effect on all practicing Catholic populations of northwestern Ulster County, especially the senior citizens. The fastest growing segment of our rural Catskill area population is our senior citizens, many of whom are faithful practicing Roman Catholics. These shifting Catskill Park/Watershed population demographics truly indicate an increased need for senior citizen social services, local medical & religious counseling support. Not a decrease! Public transportation is poor at best; many seniors no longer drive (at least not long distances). Senior Citizens are very dependent upon family, friends and of course, their clergy.
St. John’s parish rectory is located on the eastern side of the town of Woodstock which is about a 60 mile round trip for a parishioner in the far northwestern Shandaken villages of Pine Hill/Big Indian/Olivera & Highmount (a considerable distance) not only for the senior parishioners but also for the priest from St. John’s (in eastern Woodstock). Especially if an unplanned compassion visit must be made on a slippery winter night, in order to spend some quality time with an extremely ill or grieving senior parishioner. The St John’s parish priests’ tasks are now expanded as the single spiritual Catholic shepard to such a large widespread area, only visiting the one Northwestern Ulster County Phoenicia (mission) church for a single Sunday mass, One Sunday mass will/can not serve all the current area practicing Catholics, St Francis deSales is a very small (140 capacity) Chapel. These changes leave the regular and summer resident Phoenicia/Shokan/Allaben/Boiceville practicing Catholics with an extremely limited opportunity to spend any quality time with the “Shepard of Their Flock”. They will not all fit into St Francis chapel during a single Sunday mass/service.
The affected parishioners understand there is a severe shortage of priests and all the many other stated reasons why the recently announced church closures are being considered, they also understand there is no real property or population growth in this rural Catskill State Park/Watershed area, there are no longer too-many jobs or career opportunities either. However, our senior citizen population does live on a limited retirement income and may not be not financially prepared to move away from their owned family homesteads or affordable senior residences, yet. The families with young children are moving away to assure their financial stability, which helps explain the recent reduction in Baptisms, Confirmations and Marriage statistics, as was recently reported to the Archdiocese, by the St. Francis deSales parish. In recent years a single constant for of our practicing Catholic seniors has been the spiritual support and counseling by their parish priest, now that too will soon be much less accessible or literally taken away.
In these times of the “throw-away society” are the Catholic Church Leaders throwing away the loyal (rural) seniors? They are old, frail, in poor health, on limited incomes so do we toss them aside like a broken TV, radio or computer? It just does not seem to be very compassionate to abandon the faithful at this time of their lives (near their end time) when they need the support of their parish priest who should/could be stationed relatively close (certainly not a 30 to 40 mile distance away). In a few more short years these very seniors who helped build this (one time) “sustainable” parish plan to be interred in their “self-sufficient” Catholic parish cemetery plot, perhaps then would be a better time to transfer their priest and reduce their parish to a mission outpost of the St. John’s of Woodstock, but surely not now.
Is it not one of God’s commandments to “Honor thy father and mother”?
What eventually happens to the closed mission chapels, St Francis Parish Hall, the Rectory, the Catholic Cemetery and all the real estate (including the Phoenicia Recreation Fields behind the parish hall) which used to belong to the (former) St. Francis deSales Parish?
Jerry Baltz,
Shandaken, NY

Dear Editor,
Much has been written about the transportation situation at Onteora, but nothing from the contractor’s point of view. As the largest transportation contractor at Onteora, we would like to share our perspective. There is some misinformation about the bidding process that needs to be cleaned up.
Contrary to what some school officials would have the taxpayers believe, the bid specifications did not contain route descriptions, run numbers, or route summaries of any kind. In fact, this very concern was raised by the contractors at the pre-bid meeting on February 2 (in the
presence of trustee O’Connor) and the contractors were told that “run descriptions were not necessary because the runs were all going to be changed substantially and would not be operated as presently configured.” Nor did the bid specifications specify the number of
busses that the contractor would be required to supply - only that the new contractor must provide however many vehiclesthe District requires and perform any extra work that the district requests. The bid specifications also set forth in detail a number ofd substantial penalties related to non-performance. Thus, the bidder was faced with bidding on a contract to provide an unknown number of buses to travel over runs that were not described while facing substantial penalties for non-performance. As a contractor presently performing 28 runs in this district, we know the district as well as anyone, and this was a task with way too much uncertainty. Simply put, the District should consider itself lucky that anyone was even willing to bid at all!
The district would like the taxpayers to believe that their actions were necessary in the name of safety. Implicit in the district’s position is that the contractors have been, and are, operating in an
unsafe manner and are not in compliance with Article 19A. Nothing could be farther from the truth. As school bus contractors we are in compliance with 19A - it is the law. Furthermore, our insurance carriers impose substantial additional safety requirements and our DOT Operator Profile has been well over 96% for the past several years. The district did not need 67 pages of bid specifications that will now cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of extra dollars to make us achieve
this! And if the new requirements to be imposed on contractors were truly necessary for safety reasons, then why haven’t the same requirements been imposed on the district-owned buses? Are the children who ride on District buses not entitled to the same level of safety?
Another justification offered by the District is that the contracts were 20+ years old and could not be changed without a new bid process. This is not true. We have contracts that are, in some cases, over 20 years old and believe it or not, they are not being operated with the
same equipment and in the exact same way as 20 years ago! Over the life of those contracts the routes and safety requirements were changed several times through the renewal process. The District was able to add or delete mileage, add radios, stop signs, yellow warning lights
and other safety devices, and in some cases combine runs, without having to re-bid each time. The renewal process is a mechanism adopted by the State of New York to allow local school districts to keep
competent contractors in place without going through a costly bidding process. Why were the incumbent contractors never even approached to discuss renewal as a possibility? We also had several contracts that are less than a year old. Under the District’s rationale why did these runs need to be re-bid at significant additional cost to the taxpayers?
When the bid results were tabulated by the District, they informed the
contractors that the winning bid was $2.27 million. Yet this amount has been presented to the taxpayers as $1.8 million. Where did that $400,000 go? The District is now seeking voter approval to purchase
two new vehicles when it can easily require the new contractor to supply those vehicles under the terms of the new transportation contract at a fraction of the cost - why?
We have served the Onteora community for 46 years, so it is difficult
to say goodbye. We would like to thank all of you for the opportunity to serve this wonderful community. Over the years, we have had the pleasure of transporting three generations of OCS students. During that time we grew from one bus to a fleet of more than 50 buses. While we
will no longer be taking your children to school, we will remain a committted part of this community. Our roots are here and they remain as strong as ever.
We would like to give special thanks to our drivers and employees. They
are true professionals whose dedication to safety and commitment to their community made our safety record possible. Those who have tried to imply otherwise in order to justify the actions taken should be ashamed. Our drivers join us in wishing the Onteora community all the
best.
Glenn R. Every
Arlos “Bucky” Every
Tonche Transit, Inc.
Evco Transport, Inc.

Dear Editor,
In Curt Schoeberl’s letter of 3-13-06, he claimed that he and co-drafter Todd Wiley explained the merits of the Large Parcel Bill to Senator Larkin when seeking his sponsorship. He emphatically insisted that the language of the bill included “reservoirs” and that Sen. Larkin knew that it included reservoirs. In fact, the bill describes “large utilities companies or research and manufacturing facilities”. Reservoirs are not mentioned.
In his letter to Town of Olive counsel Smith, Sen. Larkin states: “The Law was not intended to apply to reservoirs, particularly where there are no wild swings in value from year to year. Furthermore, it was my intention that the use of the alternate equalization formula in the Law would be optional and used only if all affected municipalities opted to use the large parcel equalization process.”
Given that the actual bill is very technical and somewhat unintelligible it is not surprising that the sponsors apparently took the drafters at their word and informed the Governor and NY Legislature via letters and memos that it was an optional relief measure with Home Rule Veto as a key provision. In fact, the touted Home Rule Veto provision does not exist in the bill. Lawmakers were never told prior to passage that the bill could be used to confiscate 50% of a small towns tax base against its will and cause the very problems that they were told the bill would relieve.
Due to the lack of any measurement standards in the bill those already at the proper assessment (because of a recent purchase or renovation) unfairly suffered many thousands in increased levy. The stated problem in Olive of parcels with outdated assessments was not solved. The Town of Olive solved that problem by doing a recently completed revaluation of all parcels.
Schoeberl’s claim that non-reservoir towns in the county paid an addition 1.2 million in taxes in 2006 is absurd. All towns in the state are assessed in their entirety. The UC Legislature voted against confiscation of Olives tax revenue for re-distribution to far flung towns in the county. One hundred years of development opportunity value has been lost to Olive taxpayers. Severe restrictions encumber the remaining 50% of our landmass. Despite these liabilities borne by Olive, Schoeberl and others would like to confiscate the only asset that Olive derives from the reservoir which is the tax revenue that is lawfully due to any town within which any property is located.
Unfortunately, it appears that the ire of thousands of residents of reservoir towns has been misdirected at the bill sponsors who may be due an apology.(from me, anyway.) Schoeberls letter is simply one more indication that the drafters of the bill are the source of the misrepresentations made to lawmakers and the public.
Essentially, if the Town of Olive feels that the value of the reservoir is greater than the 320 million value assigned by NYORPS, (which is the case), the law allows half of Olives tax base to be confiscated from Olive and distributed to the other towns in either the county or school district. I am very saddened by the fact that instead of figuring out how to properly value the reservoir, our leaders and their technicians have imposed upon us a perpetually divisive law that has caused deep rifts and much enmity between towns within the school district and the county.
Charles Blumstein
Olivebridge, NY

Dear Editor,
This letter is addressed to Curt Schoebert, Assessor, Town of Shawangunk. You should get your facts straight before you speak. Regarding Large Parcel Bill, first of all, the reservoir in the Town of Olive was built over 100 years ago. The reservoir displaced many areas of Olive. Mr. Assessor, drive all around this town, you will see where there used to be communities. Fifty percent plus was taken for the reservoir with compensation to the Town of Olive. The Large Parcel Law is very new, the tax base because of fifty percent reservoir property is the only tax base Olive has. There is nearly nothing else in Olive, Mr. Assessor. Your comment regarding non-reservoir towns picking up an estimated $1,200,000 in county taxes was high.
First of all Mr. Assessor, these towns are non-reservoir. Also, why don't you write about the cost overrun of that jail? It's a lot more than what you say non-reservoir towns picked up. Get all the information on this tax increase, and remember these non-reservoir towns shouldn't take away from Olive. Do you remember what increase Olive paid when the Large Parcel Law was passed by the Onteora School District and the County?
You should also know that Olive has the most update tax assessment in Ulster. Our taxes will increase due to this. Also your friends in Shandaken haven't had one in many years. They need one so they can pay their fair share. We in Olive do.
Simmon Ennis
Shokan, NY

Dear Editor,
Do you buy books online, use Google, or download to an Ipod? These activities will be hurt if Congress passes a radical law that gives giant corporations more control over the Internet.
Internet providers like AT&T and Verizon are lobbying Congress hard to gut Network Neutrality, the Internet's First Amendment. Net Neutrality prevents AT&T from choosing which websites open most easily for you based on which site pays AT&T more. Amazon.com doesn't have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the right to work more properly on your computer.
Politicians don't think we are paying attention to this issue. Many of them take campaign checks from big telecom companies and are on the verge of selling out to people like AT&T's CEO, who openly says, "The internet can't be free."
The free and open Internet is under seige!
Rebecca Rosen
Oberlin, OH

Dear Editor,
When the alarm goes off the first day of school, September, 2006, will it be too late when you wake up and realize that we let the Onteora School Board implement its plan to permit a single bus contractor that is located many miles away from the Onteora School District have the contract of all school buses transporting out precious children to school, reported at a cost of more than a half-million dollars more than the district currently pays for the very first year of a new contract?
We the parents and taxpayers cannot vote on it. On top of that they are asking us to vote yes for proposition #3 to authorize Onteora Central School District Board of Education to contract for all transportation for an additional two years for the same contractor at an estimated annual cost of millions through the year 2009.
Why would they want this to happen? Just to think that this will happen in our school district!
The school board has submitted no evidence that switching from our present transportation system to their present proposal will be beneficial to our children or the taxpayers. Can they do whatever they want? Let's do what is best for our children!
Business administrator Victorial McLaren pointed out that many existing contracts are over 20 years old and allow little or no flexibility. I ask, "why are we vogint for a multi-year contract through 2009, for the very same contractor?"
I think it would be appropriate for the school board to get some additional information for the parents and voters. Figure out what it is really going to cost the taxpayers and then let us decide to either support or not support this drastic change. Who profits from this ridiculous proposal? It certainly will not be the taxpayers.
Parents, this is a big deal. This involves your children and it should be the subject of full accountability. Parents in the school district should have the right to decide who is busing their children and for how much.
When we start the new school year in September, 2006, your child walks out the door to board that bus for the first day of school. Will they be in good hands? Are we willing to give up our hard working reliable drivers? These drivers and aides are our next door neighbors, friends who have been driving our children and grandchildren to school for many years. Are we willing to let the Onteora School Board hand over our children to the care of a bus contractor that is located many miles away and to drivers that may never have heard of the Onteora School District? Wake up. The alarm will be going off sooner than you think. Is it too late? Do you really care?
Si Countryman
Mount Tremper, NY

Dear Editor,
Attention to all parents whose children ride on the little bus #59 (gray elephant} from Phoenicia School to Bennett School. On the morning of March 30, 2006, my son left his red Gameboy SP with a Super Mario Bros. game in his seat on the bus when he got off at Phoenicia School. Other children get on the bus that attend Bennett School. The bus aide never found it after the children got off the bus at Bennett. My son came home that afternoon very upset because someone had taken it. It is disturbing to think that a child found something on the bus that doesn't belong to them, and didn't do the right thing and give it to the bus aide or driver who could then find the proper owner. What kind of world are we living in when our children steal and the parents either don't know they did it and are unaware of it, or they themselves teach their children that "finders keepers, losers weepers?'" My children are brought up better! If they find something that isn't theirs, they give it to someone with authority to find the person who lost it. Parents, please ask your children if they have or have seen my son's red Gameboy SP. If you find it, please bring it to the school or have your child give it to the bus driver or aide.No questions asked. It is an expensive game, and my son is really upset with it being gone.
Jennifer Winne
Mount Tremper, NY

Dear Editor,
Thank You! On behalf of the Town of Shandaken Food Pantry, we would like to thank one and all for your generous contributions this past year and a half. The outpouring of food, monetary contributions, and concerns is very much appreciated. We have helped quite a few families over this hard financial winter, and hope more will come forward to avail themselves of this service. Please don't hesitate, that's what we are here for.
Again, thank you everyone for your thoughtfulness, and we hope you have had a beautiful holiday season. The pantry is open Thursdays from 10 AM 'till noon at the Phoenicia Methodist Church Hall.
Hope Gilsinger
June LaMarca
Town of Shandaken Food Pantry

Dear Editor,
A few years ago, the Shandaken Little League was given a very generous and anonymous donation, an electronic scoreboard. We have truly enjoyed using this scoreboard the last few seasons and the children love seeing their scores in the bright lights. The problem is that our scoreboard is not equipped with a remote control set up, so that the scoreboard cannot be controlled from a distance. It requires that someone sit at the scoreboard to keep score. It has been getting harder and harder to get volunteers that are willing to sit at the board and keep score. We are trying to raise the money to purchase the remote set up for our sign. For the past two seasons, the children worked hard to earn over $2000.00, with which we purchased a brand new batting cage and pitching machine. Our fundraising efforts now, are in hopes of getting newer uniforms and the remote system for our scoreboard. After speaking with the company, we were informed that it will cost our league an additional $1,400.00, to upgrade our sign with the remote control. We are currently seeking donations from anyone interested in helping us make this needed upgrade. Anyone interested in making a donation can contact Theresa Jones at 688-2055, or you can send a donation to Shandaken Little League, C/O Theresa Jones PO Box 63 Shandaken, NY 12480. Any and all donations will be greatly appreciated. Thanks for all your support.
Sincerely,
Shandaken Little League