Follow Up on the News
Board members, in particular Supervisor Robert Cross Jr., were ridiculed for inept handling of the sewer issue and scolded for using heavy handed tactics to force the system on the community.
Hamlet resident Joanne Rowley felt it was so bad that Cross should be impeached, an idea that one week later still had tongues wagging throughout Phoenicia and in Pine Hill where many feel similarly ignored by Cross’s failure to support their opposition of the mammoth golf resort proposed on the hills above the Hamlet. Rowley’s suggestion drew applause at the meeting, just as many other remarks against the project and against the board did. Her suggestion came out of the frustration she felt over watching the Phoenicia sewer project move forward despite community wishes.
“I don’t feel you’re listening,” she said.
At this point, the plan to build an $11 million system appears to have completely unraveled. Claiming they were not against the system, only against paying for it, the crowd made it clear that they would do any and everything possible to prevent it from happening. Looming large is the threat of a forced public referendum on the issue, and judging from the May 1 turnout, the project’s future is very uncertain should the system’s approximately 300 landowners get to the ballot booth.
Susan Bernstein presented the board with an unofficial but “morally binding” petition carrying over 100 signatures of those in the hamlet that feel there is not enough information about the long-term costs of the project yet. To proceed with the project before having that information would be detrimental to the community, they say. Bernstein included a list of 13 questions the petitioners demand answers to.
Jerry Pearlman, who operates a nursery in the hamlet, said the current deal, which caps the annual cost for residents at $100 a year but offers no such protection for the small percentage of commercial users, would force some people off their properties.... including him.
After being brow beaten for over an hour, Cross asked the audience to clarify his sense of the matter.
“If the City doesn’t pay, then no deal?” he asked.
The room erupted with a resounding “yes!!!”
Councilman Robert Stanley said the town board was currently in negotiations with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection and was trying to get a better deal.
Restaurateur Mike Ricciardella, a spearhead of the opposition, told the board to hire another attorney to represent the town in the talks. Ricciardella thinks that it’s the city that really benefits from the system, not Phoenicia, but he thinks the town’s current negotiators are not presenting it that way at the bargaining table.
“We have leverage, but we gotta push it,” he said.
But not all agree. Sources that were involved in the 1996 negotiations that led to the Memorandum of Agreement between the City of New York and the Communities in the Catskill/Delaware watershed say that it was clear during those talks that the watershed towns were the beneficiary of the program to install the sewer plants in places like Phoenicia. Also clear during the talks was that City representatives understood their need to protect the water that flows to the taps of 9 million downstaters and that the city had the regulatory power to do so. Should, for example, a place like Phoenicia choose to opt out of the program, the source said, then the City would beef up its enforcement in the hamlet and clamp down on any violators.
This week Ian Michaels, a spokesperson for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, said the following about Phoenicia’s dilemma, the City’s responsibilities: “The New Infrastructure Program is voluntary, yet every town given the opportunity to participate has chosen to do so. All the towns operate under the same agreement. That agreement has previously been enhanced from the original 1997 MOA to include the payment of $10,000 annually by the City to the towns to subsidize (annual costs) for commercial properties.”
At the same May 1 meeting the Phoenicia Water Committee presented a plan to restructure the hamlet’s usage rates in the hopes that by increasing the usage rates the town of Shandaken can reduce the property tax rate for hamlet landholders.
This should not be confused with the controversy over Phoenicia’s wastewater issues. The water committee was established last January to deal only with drinking water issues for the hamlet.
For water district landowners, water taxes went up a whopping 137 percent this year. Admitting that he should have warned taxpayers of what was coming in their January tax bill, Shandaken Supervisor Robert Cross Jr, announced a promise to take a lead role in doing something about “the bad news in your Phoenicia water district statements.”
Based on information sent to taxpayers, Cross hoped to reduce that water tax burden, but do so by charging higher usage fees, in particular to local businesses. Cross says commercial usage has grown from 50 to 58 percent and it’s time that fees reflect that change.
“It’s only fair that people pay for the water they use,” Cross wrote in a February 24 letter.
The plan presented by Water Committee Chairman Declan Feehan may accomplish that goal, but not without causing a stir among the already furious business community that’s currently fighting a plan to burden them with high sewage costs.
Usage fees are currently low. An average household pays less than $50 a year for the water that flows into their domiciles after running through a new filtration system installed two years ago. Water Commissioner Rick Ricciardella said Wednesday that the rates are simple.
“It’s $30 for the first 30,000 gallons, then I believe its 50 cents for every 1000 gallons above that,” he said.
Under the plan presented May 1, everyone would be charged $100 for the first 20,000 gallons of water they use. After that amount, users would be charged $5 per every 1000 gallons used. In other words, the same 30,000 gallons that cost $30 this year would cost $150 under the proposed plan.
The result, Feehan said, is that the tax rate will drop. If the new plan were already in place for 2006, Feehan said, the tax rate would only be $4.20 per thousand of assessed value. The actual tax rate for 2006 is $13.32 per thousand.
“We believe these changes will significantly reduce current total expenditures for residential customers and will ease the tax burden for everyone,” Feehan said in a prepared statement. “In the interest of preserving and supporting improvements to our water system, we have undertaken to study and discuss the best ways to manage our precious water resource and fairly distribute the cost with a view to current and future needs.”
The town board will review the proposal and consider its adoption after holding a public hearing on the plan.
The events of the evening brought to mind some words of advice offered several years ago by then Supervisor Neil Grant, who was in office during a time when these issues appeared on the horizon. At a meeting in the Phoenicia School, where residents packed the cafeteria to complain about the first attempt to get the sewer system project going, Grant summed up his prediction for the hamlet’s inevitable future:
“Get ready to pay, Phoenicia,” he said. “Get ready to pay.”
Our Time For A Reval?
Unlike previous years, Woodstock’s Grievance Day looks to be calmer than most in Ulster County, while Olive and Shandaken assessors are preparing for much work this year.
Olive, because of the just completed revaluation of all tax assessments… which assessor Bob Breglio says has landed much more smoothly than expected.
Shandaken, because of the combination of two factors: firstly, an extremely low equalization rate that makes mountains of any molehills of difference between expectations and realities; and secondly, the looming shadow of a pending lawsuit brought about by a partial reassessment ordered by Town Supervisor Bob Cross Jr. last year that could force the town into a full reval in the coming term.
According to county Real Property Services director Dorothy Martin, who oversees most local tax matters on a consultational basis, Olive’s reval was well done.
“It was a difficult project and they did a marvelous job in a short period of time,” she noted. “It looks to have been really well done.”
Nevertheless, Martin added, the publishing of rolls and coming Grievance Day will now force a reckoning: will New York City be contesting Olive’s new $650 million assessment of its Ashokan Reservoir, the region’s “large parcel” that can effect county and school tax rates for other towns around the area — including Woodstock and Shandaken?
“If so,” she said, “the state would have to go over the figures and determine again what the reservoir is worth and strike a ratio. It could force an equalization rate for Olive that’s over 100 percent.”
Breglio, who had to shift the usual final Tuesday Grievance Day back to Wednesday because he also serves as assessor of the town of Broome in Schoharie County, said he “hasn’t heard a peep” out of New York City regarding whether it will challenge his new assessment of their reservoir.
“Either they’ll show up or send a certified letter a few days beforehand and set things rolling towards a lawsuit,” he said, adding that the only chance he saw for there being no challenge at all would be if someone noticed that under the new $650 million value, New York’s taxes were going down.
In terms of other action Grievance Day, Breglio didn’t expect as much as some had been predicting. He said that after having done approximately 50 informal hearings with local property owners regarding their new assessments, with another week of such meetings left to go, he’s been surprised at how well everyone accepted what’s come down, reval-wise.
“I’m sure we’ll see some people,” he said, even though none had said they’d be coming yet. “You can’t expect 3,000 people to all be happy.”
He feels the relative calm has been the result of the town’s publicizing of its long spate of lawsuits with New York City over reservoir values, and the fact that the new reval came as a result of a court order.
“It’s not like anything I’ve ever seen,” the veteran assessor said.
In Shandaken, a lawsuit filed by disgruntled landowners may end up forcing a reval, according to other town’s assessors and Martin.
The suit, filed late last year, claims that the town discriminated against a number of local landowners who owned properties of 20 acres or more of undeveloped land when it raised their taxes and not everyone in their category as a means of trying to settle a longstanding valuation battle with New York State. The action occurred after longstanding assessor Rosalie Boland said she noticed that private lands were not being valued as high as what Shandaken wanted the state’s land valued at. She and Supervisor Bob Cross Jr. have claimed that they raised the assessments where they did because those paying on the lower end of the scale had been enjoying the benefits of valuations that haven’t changed in 30 years.
Which is also roughly the time it’s been since Shandaken last re-assessed itself, as every other town in the county now has.
Although both Boland and those bringing the lawsuit against Shandaken said they couldn’t talk about such matters because of the pending litigation, assessors in other Ulster County towns said this week that as far as they knew, one never reassessed state lands except as part of a comprehensive reval. They added that with both Woodstock and Olive fully revaled at this point, it is likely the pending suit will be settled with an order for Shandaken to redo its assessments, which are currently at 24 percent of value, as compared to 28 percent in 2005.
“With the situation they’ve got, they’ll end up having to pay more and more of a share of county and school taxes,” said Breglio, explaining how small discrepancies with such small equalization rates tended to make for huge shifts in payments.
Martin, too, said that she “wouldn’t at all be surprised” if the state forced Shandaken into reval in the coming year or two. But she added that she wouldn’t comment further on litigation, out of respect for Boland.
Boland would only say that she was “expecting no surprises” come Grievance Day.
In Woodstock, assessor Mark Plate said that Shandaken’s valuation lawsuit was likely to force it into a situation similar to Olive’s during the recent Large Parcel debacle.
“My official status,” Plate said. “Is that Shandaken, like Olive, should be doing a reval.”
He added that as far as he’s concerned, the time would be right to do one in the next two years, what with the real estate market finally plateauing.
Plate added that his Grievance Day last year was a doozie… a Grievance Week, as it were. That’s because the complaints after a reval are always worse.
“People are suffering from sticker shock,” said Plate.
He said he was glad Olive had gotten through its reval as well as it did, but noted how everyone was now awaiting word on what the City, and eventually state ORPS, would be doing in regards to the new $650 million value for the reservoir.
Off the record, some of the assessors noted how careful towns must be to be completely fair with their revals… as evidenced in Olive.
Many, privately, have said in Shandaken that they worry about valuations in a town that’s smelled of “old boy favoritism” for years now.
Grievance Day in Shandaken, Boland said, will be on a first-come, first-serve basis from 4 until 8 pm at Town Hall.
It's Onteora Ballot Time!Proposition #1
Voters will be asked to approve the 2006-2007 Onteora school budget of $44,644,222 or a 3.8 percent increase from the 2005-2006 budget. Special education was cut by $335,258 with seven full time employees in the department laid off. The budget being presented is below figures for a contingent budget. Contingent budget implications are, if you work through the calculations from the State, that the maximum increase we could have on a contingent budget would be 3.84 percent so we are already below the maximum. If voters defeat the budget twice, it would automatically be reduced to a 3.2 percent hike over this year’s spending figures and all equipment purchases by law would be removed from the budget.
Real property tax was estimated at a 3.08 percent increase or $33,890,894. State Aid will have an increase of 8.79 percent or $8,848,329. Federal aid remains the same from 2005-2006 budget of $135,000. Themes of the proposed Budget were outlined in an information sheet given to the public: enhance safety and accountability in transportation, reduce special education spending, and focus on intervention and instructional programs.
Proposition #2
Voters will be asked to approve money for the purchase of two in-house busses. Requested is a 30-passenger wheelchair school bus not to exceed a cost of $75,000 and a 66-passenger school bus, not to exceed $81,000. This is to replace two aging, high mileage and high maintenance busses.
Proposition #3
Voters will be asked to approve an additional two years on a three year transportation contract at an estimated cost of $1,916,928 for 2007-2008 and $2,012,815.80 for the 2008-2009 school year, extending its approval of a new 2006-2007 contract at $2,053,520 in recent weeks. By law, voters must approve the additional years. This is a six percent increase or a $106,779.35 difference if the existing transportation budget were rolled over. The cost and contract differences result from a shift from four locally-contracted bus companies to one or two contract companies. Safety, control and flexibility were given as the reasons for the change.
OCS Business Administrator Victoria McLaren explained the proposition: “If the people vote in favor of the contract transportation proposition that means we will be awarding the contract for a three year term to (J.C.) Hoyt, which is the low bidder on the contract that we had put out in the beginning of the year.” If the voters defeat the proposition, Hoyt will still be the contractor for the 2006-2007 school year, but McLaren said, “at the end of that year we will either re-bid the whole contract and see if there is anyone else who wants to come in or extend the contract on an annual basis at CPI (consumer price index) which is generated by the State and we cannot negotiate their prices.”
In-house busses will remain the same. As part of the contract agreement with Hoyt, priority will be given to re-hire local drivers. Transportation will be defined on the basis of hours, instead of routes, so the district can have more flexibility as the student population changes. If safety standards are not met, the district can fine the contractor on a daily basis.
Proposition #4
This asks voters to approve a capital reserve fund, similar to a savings account, not to exceed three million dollars over the course of five years. This will not be a tax increase, but an accumulation of leftover monies from the district at the end of every year. McLaren said, “it is to accommodate renovations for repairs that would not be accommodated in our day to day budget, much like in your home you have a monthly budget, you could not likely be able to replace say your furnace on a monthly budget, you may likely have to take out a home equity loan.” If voters establish the capital reserve fund, any money used from the account would still need to be approved by the taxpayers in the district. This proposition only sets up the account.
Candidates
Incumbent trustee Herb Rosenfeld lives in Hurley with his wife and is a retired educator of 40 years. He worked 18 years as a math educator at Bronx Science High School and 20 years as a private consultant on school reform in New York City. His number one priority is quality education for all kids. He believes that education should address the individual style that students learn. “We need to understand how we spend our money... our aim should be at developing inspiring work for every group of kids in the district, even for kids in the middle.” He defines “middle” as the average student who can sometimes slip through the cracks of education. “I know we can do better, but I am only one person on the school board,” he says, adding that he wants the new superintendent to continue on the path of staff development using new programs that have proven to work and will be able to reach out to more students. “I don’t always want to see what we do good, but to look outside ourselves and ask how we can do better.” Rosenfeld was against the recent special education cuts, including the teacher of the deaf position, and voted against the superintendent budget recommendation of a 3.8 percent increase stating that the cuts were too much of a burden on special education. He felt that enough of the community and professionals came to board meetings convincing him that the teacher of the deaf position should not be cut. But he nevertheless urges all voters to support the budget in the ballot booth. He also will not support closing any school. He supports the new transportation policies, limiting contracted companies from four to one, and supports a policy giving military recruiters the same access as other institutions of higher learning during career days only. Lastly, Rosenfeld does not see the Large Parcel legislation as an issue this year. Responding to a write in candidate from Olive and an Olive Matters rally on May 10, he said, “I don’t know, maybe there is lingering anger, but I believe with Olive doing it’s reval this is a moot point.” He explained that he has worked and will continue to work toward a different way of school funding.
Maxanne Resnick is a Chichester resident of ten years with two children attending Phoenicia elementary school and currently works as a business manager alongside her husband Brian Powers, the publisher of this paper. She has a master’s degree in real estate development from Columbia University and a Bachelor’s degree in History from Brown University. She has been active in the PTA and is a member of the future of the district committee, where she acted as parent liaison to Phoenicia school. Resnick believes that each community has it’s own individual identity… “With all the important issues we are facing, I want us to try to work together and all communities should be heard.” She believes that the different options of the KSQ capital improvement project need full discussion and would like to see a community forum with experts weighing the pros and cons of each plan so the right decision can be made. Resnick voiced concerns on the special education budget, noting the amount of people who protested the cuts as well as her belief that there was not enough dialogue from the school board perspective to validate the cuts. “I feel we are not given enough information unless the board packet had something we are not aware of.” She does not fully agree with the new transportation contract, noting that although the school board justified the change because of safety, those issues were never spelled out and a number of local drivers who had invested time with the district have as a result lost their jobs. She does not feel comfortable with committing to an additional two years on the contract, noting, “I am not sure going to one contractor is a good idea.” She supports a policy on equal access to all institutions of higher learning, including military recruiters, targeted to only career days. Finally, commenting on the large parcel bill, Resnick said, “We should be looking at more important issues like a new superintendent and the KSQ studies.”
Write-in candidate George Haug prides himself on being an Olive native, from and living in Shokan and graduating from Onteora in 1970. He received a Bachelor degree of science at Tufts University and works for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection as a supervisor of microbiology at the Ben Nesin laboratory in Shokan. He is married with a daughter attending Onteora High and says he decided to run as a “civics lesson” to educate voters on how to write in candidates on a ballot. Haug is not a member of Olive Matters, but said they suggested he attend their meetings so they could help his candidacy. As far as current, non-Large Parcel issues go, he says he would like to “wait and see” what happens with special education and believes there will be room to add specialists if needed. Commenting on the KSQ facilities studies, he said there is much interest in the Plan A option, but “the central campus could have real merit too.” He is not sure of the expanded five-through-eight Middle School factor and questions class size vs. financial savings. He questioned the amount of information that was given on the new transportation contracts and is officially “leery” of two additional years on the new contracts. He feels that a policy on military access equal to other institutions of higher learning should be adopted.
The main concerns focused on the diverse lifestyles and cultures of each community and a wish to find a super who can unite the district, while respecting its “local cultures.” Recent special education cuts were of concern, with attendant parents stating that they felt their views had not been heard or considered by the school board or administration in its recent decision to cut seven positions.According to the superintendent search pamphlet, “The board of education will offer a three year contract starting at a salary no less than $155,000 depending on qualifications and experience, plus a competitive fringe benefit package”.
Lerer said, “The salary is elevated, not the highest, but not the lowest.”
In the meantime, The Onteora Board of Education has hired Peter J. Ferrara, a former superintendent of the Ellenville Central School District, as the district’s interim superintendent of schools.
Ferrara resigned as Ellenville superintendent in August 2004, with two years remaining on a five-year contract, for the purpose of retirement. The Board of Education accepted the resignation with regret and praised his tenure. In addition to his stint as Ellenville superintendent, Ferrara has been an assistant superintendent, assistant principal and teacher of English and Spanish in the Hudson school district; and a high school principal, middle school principal and director of school technology in Houston, Texas.
Battling The Bugaboos
Woods describes homeopathy as “allnatural energy medicine, using remedies derived mostly from plants but in some cases from animals or minerals. The individual’s symptoms are matched to the remedy, which stimulates the vital force on all levels—physical, emotional, and mental–and helps heal all kinds of illness from anxiety, bacterial infections, and chronic migraines to severe depression, viruses, and Lyme disease.”
Woods’ interest in herbs and nature began early, inspired by her mother and grandmother, who took her foraging for wild berries, nuts, and greens. “Now I prefer wild food over anything else—it’s so nourishing, and its life energy is so much stronger. Then I came across herb books. I had a natural inclination to study and use herbs, and I saw the amazing things they could do. Once I was hemorrhaging and took a drop of shepherd’s purse tincture under my tongue, and the hemorrhaging stopped immediately. When I had PMS, motherwort could change my mood completely. I was really affected by seeing the huge difference herbs can make without having to take drugs. I haven’t seen a doctor since grade school, except for diagnosis.”
She paused, reflecting, then added, “I was bitten by a tick today, so now I get to walk my talk. But even if I had Lyme, I wouldn’t take antibiotics.” Her latest project is the assembling of kits of homeopathic medicines for specific problems such as Lyme and the flu, including the virulent avian flu that is much in the headlines these days. She is selling the kits for home use, with instructions that enable the consumer to select among a group of remedies based on their individual symptoms.
She gave an example of the selection process: “In a severe flu case, the person might be experiencing headache, nausea, and body aches and pains, all becoming worse from any movement. The person is excessively thirsty and irritable and doesn’t want to speak, feels better from rest and staying very still. These symptoms fit the picture of Bryonia, a plantbased remedy. The remedy will enable the person to heal much faster and suffer less. Usually people feel better within hours, although they would still need to rest to fully recover.”
While many acute problems—issues with sudden onset, such as flu or sinus congestion—can be easily treated at home, more complicated and chronic problems are best addressed with the help of a well-trained and experienced homeopath, whose familiarity with a wide range of remedies enables her to ask the right questions and find the proper remedy. “It’s like putting together a puzzle,” said Woods. “The different pieces form a symptom picture, and we match it to a remedy.”
She told an anecdote about Samuel Hahnemann, the brilliant German physician who first gave homeopathy a scientific basis in the late eighteenth century. He was trying to find out why cinchona root, the source of quinine, was effective at treating malaria. No one could give him a satisfactory answer, so one day, out of curiosity, he tried the remedy on himself. He temporarily developed malaria symptoms. This experience was the first of many “provings”, in which healthy people are given a large dose of a specific substance. The symptoms that develop are the ones that will be cured in a sick person by small amounts of the same substance.
A recent news report proclaims that research done in England has proved that homeopathy does not work. When asked about this study, Woods erupted into a belly laugh. “That’s absurd. I’ve seen it work over and over and over. Drug companies fund those studies all the time.”
In her 25 years of practice as an alternative healer, she has never advertised. “Many of my clients have been with me for ten or fifteen years. I treat whole families. They come to me by word of mouth.” Since moving from High Falls to Shandaken a year and a half ago, she has been somewhat reclusive, happy with her work but disinclined to put herself out in the limelight. Lately, however, she has decided she wants to educate people about homeopathy by offering classes and lectures. “I want to make homeopathy a household word. Most people don’t know about it. I find it so effective and miraculous. I’ve seen clients who were depressed for years completely change their lives with homeopathic remedies.”
She is currently offering a series of classes at Mother Earth’s Storehouse, a health food store at Kings Mall, Route 9W, Kingston. In previous sessions, she discussed hay fever, bee stings, injuries, and prevention and treatment of avian and other flus. The May 17 class will cover prevention and treatment of Lyme disease, and on May 24 she will address childhood illnesses—earaches, sore throats, fevers, chicken pox, etc.
In addition, she hopes to lecture at support groups and explain how homeopathy can contribute to the healing process for recovering alcoholics, children with Attention Deficit Disorder, and other long-term conditions.
For information on classes, lectures, or private consultations, call 6882976.