Follow Up on the News

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 Hot Time, Old Town

            Martin did an absolute about-face on the subject, at first telling local papers two weeks ago that her office was not pushing the town into doing a reval, to telling all in attendance Monday that she now recommends doing one.
            Martin was flanked by James LaPlante, a consultant from the State Office of Real Property Services, who along with Martin tried to explain the process.
            "It can typically take about two years from start to finish," LaPlante said of reval.
            He noted it could cost the town about $200,000 for the job, but that there is an aide package that would give the town $5 per parcel for the work. A rule of thumb, he said, is that a fresh reval, starting from scratch the way Shandaken would need to, generally costs about $45 a parcel.
            Martin showed figures indicating that properties sold in 2003 were grossly under and over assessed, with the spread ranging from as little as 5% all the way to 93% in either direction. If assessed properly, Martin said, a property should be at 30% of its sales value.
            Cross plans to contact Woodstock, which recently concluded a reval that has been extensively covered in the local press, to get figures on how many properties saw tax hikes and how many saw reductions. He is still considering going through with a reval, although he admits that he still does not have enough information to make the decision.                                 Wayne Gutmann, a former town Supervisor, said that the town was always considering whether to do a reval for the past couple decades, but that the decision always ended up being no.
            "It"s gonna be the little guy that gets clobbered," he said.
            Ulster County legislative majority Leader Michael Stock was on hand Monday, urging taxpayers to tell school board trustees to pass the large parcel legislation that they refused to pass last year. Cross chimed in, saying that if it had been passed it would have saved each taxpayer in town an average of $140 in school tax. The school has until mid-August to decide.
            Cross added that he will meet next week to discuss the latest on the tax dispute between the town and the State, which claims it paid too much in tax on its extensive property holdings in town during the period 1992-1996. The state owns 72% of the town.
            In other news, Code Enforcement officer Mike Malloy said that former Supervisor Peter Di Modica was not the only property owner to recently receive a written threat to clean up their property or else.
            DiModica complained Monday that he received a written notice of violation from Malloy, postmarked on Friday March 26th, which warned DiModica to clean up his yard by March 28th.
            "My yard looks like everybody else's," the former town Supervisor said, adding that there a few branches on the ground from this winter's wrath, and there are leaves strewn about on the not yet green lawn.
            He wondered how many others got the notice, and thought that some type of public announcement might have been the way to go instead of the letter, which suggested that legal action would begin unless he complied with Malloy's demands. DiModica thought maybe an ad should have been placed in local papers announcing a town-wide cleanup effort. He wondered, for example, if some senior citizens got a similar letter under a similar timeframe, a letter that may have sent them outdoors to scurry around with a busy and quick cleanup for fear of legal repercussion, and thus putting their health at risk in the process.
            Cross agreed that a public notice would have made more sense, but that he had nothing to do with it.
            Afterwards Malloy said he sent out "14 or 15" of the letters, and more were going out soon. It"s all a part of his clean up campaign, Malloy said, in which he travels town, beginning with the Rt. 28 corridor, identifying properties in need of clean ups. He plans to hit all roadways eventually.
            Another clean up measure enacted by Malloy is a two-month junk car amnesty beginning on April 15th. Residents can have junk cars removed from their property free of charge until June 15th if they fill out the proper forms in the code office. He also warns that after June 15th all zoning laws, and associated fines, will be strictly carried out.
            "I'm starting a cleanup of the entire town" Malloy pledged.
            The meeting, which ran until after 10 PM, ended on a sour note, with a conflict between DiModica and Cross over the latter's claim that DiModica wrongfully erased valuable town information from the Supervisor"s computer.
            DiModica said he had heard that Cross is going around town saying that, according to the Ulster County District Attorney's office, the former supervisor should be in jail. Cross tried to stop DiModica from discussing the matter, saying the two should take it to Cross's office after the meeting. But DiModica insisted on pressing Cross on his actions. Cross banged his gavel on the desk to try and stop DiModica from continuing.
            "If you're telling people I should be behind bars or if you think I should be behind bars, go for it. Because I did nothing illegal," DiModica said.
            Pine Hill resident Mary Herrmann called the Supervisor "a liar" and insisted that he personally told her that DiModica should be jailed. Cross again claimed such claims were inaccurate. When Herrmann refused to stop talking about the subject Cross said she was out of order and threatened to have her removed from the room if she continued.
            Cross claims that he had spoken with an assistant district attorney about the computer matter and was told that if he pressed charges it was possible that DiModica could be prosecuted. Cross, however, has not pressed charges, and said that he would not.
            But DiModica, who said at least one other individual came to him with word that Cross was spreading the rumor, still believes he is being wrongfully portrayed as a criminal.
            "I spoke with the District Attorney (Donald Williams) about it and he said he had never even heard of me," DiModica said. DiModica claims Williams told him that if this matter was seriously considered by anyone in his office that he would have known about it, and that was not the case.
            In a calmer moment, Reverend Ralph Darmstadt was present to offer a prayer for the town in honor of Shandaken"s bicentennial, which Cross said was officially on April 9th, as the town was incorporated on that date in 1804. Cross later said he forgot to mention that it was also in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Catskill Park, which, he said, was Monday, April 5th.
            Cross said he forgot to mention it because he was too upset over the proceedings of the evening.
            Later the supervisor said that if further disruptions occured, including queries like DiModfica's, which he characterized as being "not town business," and "beneath him" to deal with, he would be forced to have people physically ejected from future meetings.
            "Maybe you should come next time and see what happens," Cross fairly promised. "I'll show everyone I mean business. And I mean that."

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News Briefs
Tragic Accident
            A New Jersey father and his stepson died when the family's SUV hit a flatbed truck on Saturday, March 27th in Shandaken near the intersection of Route 28 and Fox Hollow Road.
        Authorities said Frank Garcia, 43, of Tenafly, N.J., was trying to pass a vehicle on Route 28 just before 1 p.m. when he pulled into the path of a flatbed truck coming in the opposite direction.
        Although the truck driver, Gregory Makroulakis, 34, tried to avoid the crash, Garcia rammed into the truck, according to the Ulster County Sheriff's Office. Garcia and his 14-year-old stepson, Adrian Cabrera, were pronounced dead at the scene.
        Garcia's wife and Cabrera's mother, Martha Velez, 43, was taken by ambulance to Benedictine Hospital in Kingston before being flown to Albany Medical Center for injuries to her neck and wrist. Garcia's 7-year-old son, Zachary, also was flown to Albany Medical Center, where he was treated for bone fractures.
        Makroulakis, of Palisades Park, N.J., was flown by helicopter to St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie, where he was treated for internal injuries and several broken bones. His passenger, 35-year-old Shawn Fishman, also of Palisades Park, N.J., was taken to Benedictine Hospital, where he was treated and released.
No further information on the condition of the survivors was available at press time.
The accident closed rt. 28 for closed for over six hours, forcing motorists to take a 40-minute detour through Phoenicia, up rt. 214 into the Greene County Town of Hunter and onto rt. 42, which came out onto rt. 28 about a mile west of the accident.
Shandaken Ambulance Chief Gerald Pearlman called the incident horrendous, saying that Saturday's crash, which occurred nearly 10 years after the deadliest car accident in Ulster County history, was just as unnerving even though there were fewer fatalities.
            On April 16, 1994, two cars collided head-on on Route 28 in Allaben, just a couple miles east of Saturdays crash, killing seven people. Two men, two women and a child died at the scene of that crash, and a child and teenager died in the days that followed.
The Ulster County Sheriff's office is still investigating the accident.


Water Grants?
            The Shandaken town board has decided to apply for two separate grants that would help the two largest hamlets. At a special meeting on March 29th it was agreed that Grant writer Glenn Gidaly would request $230,000 for water line hookups to low income homes in Pine Hill, and $153,400 would be sought to pay for enlarged reservoir capacity in the Phoenicia water district.
            Approximately $52 million will be available statewide in block grants to cities, towns and villages with a population under 50,000, and to counties with a population under 200,000. Grants, referred to as "small cities grants" are available for housing, public facilities, microenterprises and economic development.
            "This is a competition," Gidaly told the board and a handful of onlookers at town hall.
            He added that Shandaken has a good track record with getting these funds in the past.
            The town wants the money for Pine Hill because the Hamlet is beginning major repairs to the water system with other grants, but those grants don't cover the cost of doing work on private property. Running waterlines, called laterals, from water mains in the street over to homes can cost up to $3000 per household.
This grant would pay for 65 homes to get laterals installed.
            A family of four would be eligible if they make less than $44,700. A family of three less than $40,250, a family of two less than $35,800 and a single person would need to make less than $31,300. Gidaly said that 55% of the families in Pine Hill qualify. Gidaly said he got the same grant last year for Fleischmann's and it worked like a charm.
            In Phoenicia the $153,400 would be used to purchase  equipment such as new water pumps and filters and pay for the construction of a new Infiltration gallery. This winter the district's water supply almost went dry due to a combination of low flows from current sources and several broken water mains.
            It is hoped that the town will hear if it got the grants by July, Supervisor Robert Cross Jr. said, because if the Phoenicia money comes through the town will not need to take a $40,000  bond at one and a half percent interest to make emergency repairs to Phoenicia's system. The town board authorized Cross to get the bond last month when it appeared that there was no available funding source to pay for the work needed.
            Cross did not know what the bond would cost the users of the Phoenicia water district annually. He said he had not figured it out yet, instead hoping that he will not need to borrow.
            Richard Schaedle of the Pine Hill water committee complained that the committee recommended the town apply for small cities funding to purchase a secondary source of water for Pine Hill. That idea was rejected by the town board.
            "It looks like there are many needs in the Pine Hill water district," Gidaly said, adding  that it was difficult to find one funding source that would solve them all.

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Lingering Questions

            Although he said he'd forgotten to bring the report, Cross had a wealth of information readily available on what he said the legal requirements were for him in the matter. He said that according to town attorney Paul Kellar he does not need to make the report public, and continually called it "a personnel matter," suggesting that because it was such, that Todd's right to privacy should be protected. He said he would read a portion of the report, but it remains unclear what that portion is.
            Mary Herrmann wanted to know if Cross paid Kellar for his advice in the matter.
            "I don't know," was his reply.
            Cross later said that he talks with Kellar about several subjects and doesn't check his watch to see how long discussions take, or ask the attorney if he is on the clock for the discussion.
            Kellar submitted a report to Cross dated March 26 in which he denied a Friends of Catskill Park Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request for the minutes from Board of Ethics meetings regarding Todd, which were held without publicity last month. He stated legal precedents that basically pointed out that such requests could only be released if someone was found guilty before such a board and did not answer any questions regarding the legality of the meeting itself, which is outside his legal consulting jurisdiction.
            Robert Freeman of the state Department of State's Committee on Open Government has noted that all public meetings should be properly advertised and said that even ethics boards discussing personnel matters must say when they're meeting, and open publicly before going into executive session.
            In regards to questions about whether Todd's actions constitute a conflict of interest, Kellar said on April 6 that all cases of conflict in small towns suffer from "consanguinity, or a lack of clear lines." He talked about cases that have come up in the southern Ulster county town of Gardiner, where he also serves as municipal attorney, where his decisions have been overturned by the state Appelate Court, who feel that the very appearance of conflict needs addressing, no matter the size of the town or apparent minimal nature of conflict. 
            Yet Kellar also added that, any real decisions are not usually made by either him or the court system, until an Article 78 proceeding has been brought against a town and official seeking to have a specific decision reversed.
            "You need a case to see it more clearly," Kellar said. Otherwise one was left dealing with conjecture, a much swampier area to draw lines within.
            Asked to comment about the recent Supreme Court instance where Justice Antonin Scalia excused charges of conflict of interest against himself for having taken a hunting trip with Vice President Dick Cheney, who he's judging in an upcoming case, Kellar just laughed.
            "All I can say about that one," he said, "Is that it was an amazing call."
            Speaking about Kellar's letter and comments Tuesday evening, Cross said he's going to let the lawyers handle the Todd issue. But he did express concern over a second series of concerns voiced by Adam Nagy of the Catskill Heritage Association, which has implied later action should the Todd affair not be more thoroughly examined.
            "I think this is something that's just not going to go away," Cross said. "There haven't been any actions that can be reversed yet and won't be for some time yet. In that regards, this is all premature. But it does give us a sense of how hard this battle's going to be. A lot of people are against this project. Really against it."