Follow Up on the News
Within minutes the temperature in the hall rose due to the tempers flaring at the Shandaken town board, in particular Supervisor Bob Cross Jr,, and at the eight committee members who didn’t show up for the session. Comfortable, though it had nothing to do with the temperature, is not a word best used to describe the events that followed.
By the time it was over the committee members who did show up, Frasier, Mike Ricciar-della, William Fitchner, Rick Ricciardella and Paul Pettinato, had been given a clear message from those present: replace any committee members who no longer wish to participate and prepare a list of names of Phoenicians to join the team currently negotiating with the City of New York to reach a better deal for the nearly boondoggled sewer project.
The session was called by Frasier, who disagreed with a previous decision that the committee had accomplished the tasks it was given. Last month the majority of the committee voted to disband.
However, Frasier said, the town board did not officially dissolve the committee. In a prepared statement, Frasier outlined a series of issues that all agreed were within the committee’s bailiwick. The five members present agreed they would continue on.
A main concern is what most present see as incompetent representation at the bargaining table, where Cross leads a small group of representatives including attorney Kevin Young, Engineer John Brust, Phoenicia residents Anne Maroney and Steve Stettine, and town Councilman Robert Stanley.
Stanley was lauded for at least showing up to the session, while Cross was verbally crucified.
Bart Guglielmetti said he felt insulted by Cross’s announcement in the Daily Freeman that same day that he would not attend.
“This guys been playing games with us during the whole process… I for one am sick of it,” he said.
The group worked to prepare a list of questions they feel need to be answered before any decision can be made about the sewer project.
“As everyone I’m sure realizes, the best decisions may not always be politically correct. That’s why the politicians need to leave the people to decide their future. The odds are that our (the committee’s) decisions will not be politically motivated and decided by how many votes we may gain or lose. Our future must be based upon what we as a people feel it should be,” Frasier said.
The committee will begin to gather information about the specifics of creating a septic maintenance district instead of a waste treatment plant.
It was also noted that the Catskill Watershed Corporation has funding to replace bad residential septic systems in the hamlet if no system is installed. This does not help businesses, whereas a septic maintenance district would. Still there are more questions, with Frasier noting concern that expensive commercial systems may use most of the money under that program, leaving residents in the lurch.
The Committee also awaits data from engineers showing annual costs for similar communities that have waste treatment plants.
One solid figure did appear Tuesday night. Stanley, who participated in an estimating process held last Saturday, said that the day’s work revealed that the average fee to hook up to the system will be $2,408.
For the past several weeks the issue of whether to build a multi- million sewer system for the hamlet has pitted neighbor against neighbor in the Shandaken hamlet, with many fearing annual costs so high that businesses may be forced to close.
The friction came to a climax earlier this month at a town board meeting where residents and business owners alike demanded the town board negotiate a better deal with the City of New York. Under a deal signed in 1997 the city is funding the construction of the $11 million project but not the operation and maintenance costs that will come every day once the system is turned on.
Cross has come under fire lately from sewer project opponents who believe he’s not up to the task of securing a better deal for Phoenicia. Last week Cross was criticized for not asking the Coalition of Watershed Towns for help in the matter. Just two weeks prior Ricciardella and others asked the town board to have someone other than Cross, perhaps an attorney, represent the town in the negotiations.
But the search for an attorney to handle negotiations with New York City may now prove sticky. Young works within the same office as savvy negotiating attorney Jeff Baker, one of the architects of the MOA who now handles the Coalition. And Baker’s former partner, Dan Ruzow, is now in the employ of local developer Dean Gitter, among other clients.
Some have suggested that should Phoenicia succeed in getting a special deal with New York, those deals worked out by Young and other attorneys for other towns throughout the Catskills might come into question.
On top of that, Ricciardella and others have started speaking about how they’ve heard that despite hefty promises and much completed work on sewer and wastewater treatment systems around the Catskills, actual billing has not occured yet, leaving many to question final amounts to be charged both residences and businesses.
Stay tuned over the coming issues as we chart what’s up... and the current controversies continue.
Despite Olive’s Protest
On a district-wide basis, though, the $44,644,222 budget, a 3.08 percent tax increase, passed 1455-1263 with Olive as the only town to defeat the proposal.
The two board seats up for election went to Maxanne Resnick, with a majority of 1544 votes, and incumbent Herb Rosenfeld with 1204 votes. Write-in candidate Haug was defeated with 919 votes, 729 directly from Olive.
Rosenfeld, who is considered a controversial board member, often debates the board majority and voted recently against deep budget cuts such as the closure of West Hurley School and recent cuts in special education. He was thrilled and surprised of being re-elected. “You almost got rid of me,” he yelled out jokingly.
As everyone was analyzing the numbers school board trustee Marino D’Orazio voiced surprise at Rosenfeld gaining votes in Olive. Laughing he said, “177 votes, this must have been me and my extended family in Marbletown!”
Resnick breathing a sigh of relief that campaigning was over said she was thrilled of her majority lead. “I want to thank everyone for coming out to vote,” she said.
School board members offered hand shakes of congratulations to the winners.
Haug said, “A lot of people discovered that they had a way to vote that they did not know they had.” He was glad he offered people a choice by running as a write-in candidate. The town of West Hurley also cast one vote each for Robert Campbell, Danielle Smith and Donna Sharp.
The school board members will serve a three-year term beginning July 1, 2006 and ending June 30, 2009.
The transportation proposals saw defeat on both counts. Proposition two asking voters to purchase two vehicles were defeated 1248-1362. Woodstock and West Hurley were the two towns supporting the proposals, but it was not enough to tip an approval. Proposition three that asked for an additional two years on a three year contract for Hoyt bus company was also defeated, 970-1613. This proposal stirred the most anger through the school community because the re-bidding of contracts eliminated the use of four contract bus companies, down to one. Woodstock was the only town that supported the proposition. With the proposal defeated, the school board will need to either re-bid the contract or renew the contract next year.
The Coalition Gets HeavyYet at the same time, the CWT, as evidenced at its May 15 annual meeting, is willingly turning its back on new issues involving New York City sewer building projects… in particular, one facing growing community opposition – and consequently raising eyebrows – in Phoenicia.
The CWT, founded in the early 1990s to fight New York City’s proposed watershed regulation changes – a series of battles eventually won with the signing of the 1997 Memorandum of Agreement and founding of the Catskill Watershed Corporation — came under fire in recent years for having weighed in on the ongoing battle over Dean Gitter’s plans to create a mega-resort in the central Catskills, as well as the Large Parcel issue that roiled the town of Olive and Onteora School District.
In the past year, the Coalition has countered complaints that its executive board does not communicate with its constituent towns by promising regular release of minutes and other information, as well as the eventual creation of an online presence, while simultaneously browbeating those towns that have questioned their authority and manner of governance – such as Woodstock – with stories about their importance a decade ago.
At the May 15 meeting in Margaretville, CWT officials put out a warning to any community thinking of not paying or submitting only a portion of the $500 annual dues that their interests will not be represented by the Coalition if they do so. The CWT repeatedly stressed how it goes to bat for locales that are under attack by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection.
When the Town of Halcott said it could not afford all of the proposed fee hike, the Coalition’s Executive Committee responded that Halcott would be notified that the town would not receive any services from the Coalition unless the dues are paid in full. Should Halcott decline, the Committee’s members continued, it would forego Coalition representation during a time when the Coalition is negotiating changes in the watershed deal, made in 1997, between New York City and the 51 watershed communities that make up the watershed region.
It was also mentioned that information circulated by the Coalition to membership towns would no longer be sent… even though promises had been made in recent weeks to the contrary.
Halcott Supervisor Innes Kasanof said the day after the CWT meeting that her town board decided to only pay $200 in dues because, with an annual budget of $152,000, they felt they could not afford the hike. She added that right now there are no concerns in town about the watershed deal so the benefit of being a Coalition member was not apparent. According to sources, many in Halcott don’t think membership is even worth $200 and are expected this week to urge the town board to follow the lead of nearby Hardenburgh and drop out of the coalition altogether.
Of all the Coalition members, 42 have paid in full. Another 9, including the County of Ulster, have either not paid anything or only a portion. The same letter sent to Halcott will go out to those communities not in good standing.
And although it exists to help watershed communities resolve conflicts with the City of New York, the Coalition of Watershed Towns appears to have no interest in helping out Phoenicia, where the city is partially financing a long-awaited sewer project.
For reasons not explained the Executive Committee, the CWT has not come to the aid of Phoenicia, where many fear crippling costs if the City builds the sewer plant. Concern has reached fever pitch, even to the point that the community may opt out of the program.
Even more perplexing than the Coalition’s stance, Shandaken Supervisor Bob Cross Jr., a member of the CWT Executive Committee, has not yet asked the Coalition to come to his hamlet’s aid, choosing instead to complain on Monday about a separate and benign issue. The city, Cross claimed, was trying to get a conservation easement on a 25 acre property in his town. It was agreed that the City was well within its rights to pursue the easement.
Also confusing is that while the Supervisor sees no need for CWT assitance in the sewer debacle, he instead attempted to get the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development involved. CCCD Executive Director Tom Alworth could not be reached for comment.
At the annual meeting May 15, committee members were asked if they would help Phoenicia, which is reluctantly pinning it’s hopes for an affordable system on current negotiations between Cross and the City’s Department of Environmental Protection.
The committee’s silence in response to the query was deafening. Cross said nothing. Other committee members glanced at Cross looking for some lead on the matter, but got none and remained quiet as well. The committee’s attorney, Jeff Baker, attempted a response, saying that the Catskill Watershed Corporation, a separate agency, was reviewing several programs and that Coalition officials would be involved in that process.
Next year the Federal Environmental Protection Agency is expected to renew the city’s permit to avoid building a massive multi-billion dollar filter system for its drinking water, but only after a review of how the partnership between the city’s Department of Environmental Protection and the watershed communities is working. By the end of this year plans should be in place to fix bad programs, enhance good ones and in general refine the details of the complex filtration waiver.
Part of the process includes the Coalition giving its blessing to the renewal. Such a blessing will presumably be offered after the Coalition negotiates arrangements to better the programs designed to help the watershed communities. Topping their list of grievances, which has not included anything about local wastewater plants, the Coalition has complained that the City does not allow for enough recreational use of city owned land.
This all marks further decay for the Coalition, which came under fire last winter from the Ulster County town of Hardenburgh over the issue of dues. Hardenburgh’s town board refused to pay and declined membership in the Coalition this year. Similar complaints from other Ulster County communities, as well as municipalities elsewhere throughout the sprawling watershed, including the Delaware County towns of Masonville and Stamford, have also surfaced… only to be quieted when the CWT promised better communications over the coming year.
With those on hold, everything seems to be I a “Wait and see” situation for the coming year.
Stay tuned…
“The school board knew when they hired me that I was just ending my chemo-therapy and I had a clean bill of health, I felt great,” she said. As for her reasons for resigning: “Emotionally, I am there, but physically-not always… I love my job -- I cannot say that enough and it never occurred to me that I would have to leave, but the district deserves someone with 100 percent good health.”
Winters, 59, died last Thursday, May 18, at her West Hurley home, three months after she gave the above quotes.
Before coming to Onteora, Winters spent seven years as superintendent of the Webutuck school district in Dutchess County, incorporating the Route 22 corridor towns of Armenia and Millerton, among several. Prior to that, she was an assistant superintendent in Webutuck for three years and a principal in that district for nine years.
Winters signed a three-year contract to be Onteora’s superintendent in July 2004. Her retirement was to formally take effect June 2.
Winters succeeded Hal Rowe, who retired after a long tenure in Onteora. Peter J. Ferrara, a former Ellenville schools superintendent, was hired earlier this month to succeed Winters on an interim basis.
Winters is survived by her husband, Charles; her mother, Madalene Cobb of Wappingers Falls; two daughters, Amy Winters of Greenfield, Mass., and Rebecca Winters-Keegan of Los Angeles; and one sister, Judith Potter of Fayetteville, N.Y. Funeral arrangements are pending at the Lasher Funeral Home in Woodstock.
I recall how open she was the first time I interviewed her, just after being hired the summer before last. And how she always got back on every call for information or a quote I gave her. She sent a heartfelt letter of best wishes when I told her about how my wife and I adopted a newborn this past January. She felt like a friend… and yet she was always utterly professional, a word that means little without the heart she applied to her work.
Everyone I’ve spoken with about Justine’s passing feels the same, from the many fine administrators she brought to OCS with her in the past two years, to the two different boards she worked with, various teachers and students in the district, and our current reporter in the district, Lisa Childers.
“Justine loved and cared about her family, and job, sharing her pride with everyone. Before she was hired as superintendent, she attended a parent’s meeting where we got to know about her job experience and her husband attended the meeting with her. I was impressed that she found it important that we meet him,” Childers noted this week about meeting Winters before she started working for this paper. “I once went to her office for a story interview and we first we had to look at photos and talk about her daughter’s wedding in Ireland. I learned a great deal about her family and how proud she was of them.”
“She did tremendous things in a very short time for this school district,” Current Board President Dave Patterson said of Winters. “She was very communicative and developed a collegial style. I felt comfortable talking with her whether I agreed or disagreed with her on a topic… She certainly helped me grow to understand the finer points of what it meant to manage an educational system and what the intricacies were.”
Patterson’s predecessor as Board President, current board member Marino D’Orazio, praised Winters’ fiscal responsibility and ability to do a board’s bidding.
“She brought really good people on board, and she brought in one of the lowest budget increases in our area,” D’Orazio said. “Some of the cuts weren’t popular, but with really with good management, she was able to start paring down some costs. She was one of the most gracious and professional people that I ever met and worked until the day that her doctor said to her, ‘You just can’t work anymore.’ Even after the doctor told her that she couldn’t work anymore, at home she continued to contribute. She received phone calls from the assistant superintendent, the business administrator, from her secretary, and she just worked until she physically was not capable of doing it.”
“Justine was a fine woman. I am saddened at her passing much too early,” said OCS teacher and Olive Press columnist Carol LaMonda. “I felt she had a good vision for Onteora, and she was the consummate diplomat. I hoped she would be the one to bring us all back together in the purpose of education. I feel like her life, her career and our District Vision was untimely interrupted.”
Winters began her job as superintendent in July of 2004 after district voters refused the budget forcing a contingent budget. The district was divided because of the closure of West Hurley Elementary School and the so-called “Large Parcel Legislation.”
“Before she became ill, I would see her at community events,” Childers said. “She always remembered my son’s name and would give him a friendly hello. She visited my son’s classroom on occasion and he found her to be very kind. Talking to her was easy. I will miss her and my heart goes out to her family.”
The Filming Of ‘Killer Cat’
“I made it with a digital camera,” he explained. “I had just gotten the camera, and I had a friend over. We were bored, so we decided to make a movie. It was just something random I did. It’s about my cat. In the movie, the cat’s evil. It attacks people and drags them away.”
He used the Windows Movie Maker software that came with his computer to edit the movie and add music, starting with the theme from “Jaws” and switching to heavy rock music when the cat attacks. “It’s one minute and eight seconds long,” he said. “It’s short but really good.”
When he showed “Killer Cat” to people at school, they were impressed and suggested he submit it to Reel Teens, the annual event that has accepted a number of films coming out of Onteora’s Indie Program. Roman, however, is not involved in the program, which offers alternative classes for kids whose needs are not met by traditional classroom teaching, with filmmaking playing a large role in the curriculum.
Asked to describe himself, fourteen-year-old Roman used the words “creative” and “energetic”. His favorite movie is “The Matrix”. He is not fond of school, except for gym class, nor is he into sports, although he does like “getting to run around and play” in gym. His passion is computers. “I like to play video games and mess around with them. I change the settings so weird things happen. Like I have a car racing game that’s pretty realistic. I change the settings so the cars start bouncing around for no reason, and you have to dodge them, and they bounce on top of you.”
His new hobby is “messing around with the camera,” a digital Casio. “I do random things, like making people disappear on the camera. I film a person and then interrupt the recording and move the person away before I start it up again, so it looks like they vanished when you play it back.”
He also likes to make Claymation-style animations by shooting stills of “cars or my stick-figure dudes. I move them just a little between shots, so when you scroll through the pictures, it looks like the cars are driving and the people are running.”
When asked how he felt about having his film accepted by Reel Teens, he said, “I was pretty thrilled. I don’t really show it, but on the inside I am.”
This is the sixth year of the Reel Teens Festival. Open to any teen who has made a film or video, the website, www.reelteensusa.com, describes the festival as “a celebration of the creative intelligence of young people.” Films and videos created by teenagers are screened over 3 days, and the young filmmakers who attend have the opportunity to talk with the audience, participating in a lively question and answer session after their video is screened.
A panel of entertainment industry judges awards prizes to the best in each of 8 categories, Fiction, Short Fiction (under 10 minutes), Documentary, Short Documentary (under 10 minutes), Animation, Visual Arts, Music Video and Public Service Announcements (PSAs). The winners in each category, selected by audience vote, receive a ‘Felix’ (an engraved gold statuette), a cash prize of $100, and a certificate of achievement.
This year’s Reel Teens Festival will take place at the Catskill Mountain Foundation Movie Theater in Hunter, June 2, 3, and 4, at 7:00 p.m. Admission is $5. For information, call 845-246-1598.