June 3, 2004 - Home - Editorial - POV - Masthead - Contact The Phoenicia Times - Letters to the Editor

Play View From Space for BIG SAVINGS!

 

 

AT THE MEMORIAL DAY PARADE... This is Helen Cordo's great time of year, what with her having spearheaded Flag Day activities at the school for years. On Friday, June 4th, at 4:30 pm, the Shandaken Republican Club will be presenting Ms. Cordo with their first ever Community Spirit Award  in the newly constructed meditation garden adjoining the St. Francis Rectory on Main St. in Phoenicia. The goal is to thank Helen for her years of dedication to the youth of our area.

But No Press

            Last week's two visits to the proposed Belleayre Resort project site by Judge Wissler and the attorneys for the parties involved was made by a group of about thirty people including expert witnesses slated to testify in future proceedings and DEC staff. Conspicuously absent was the press, barred from attending by Crossroads Ventures' Dean Gitter.

Whither The Vote?
Onteora School Board Mulls Upcoming Second Round Of Annual Budget Vote

By Violet Snow
            Reeling from the recent decisive defeat of the school budget by Onteora voters, the school board is expected to adopt a second, lower budget at the Monday, June 7, meeting, for presentation to voters at another election on June 22. Also at Monday's meeting, business administrator Chuck Snyder will make a detailed comparison of the district's per-pupil costs with those of nearby districts, as requested by a group of West Hurley parents. State senators Larkin and Bonacic and Assemblyman Cahill have been invited to address the intent of the large-parcel tax legislation, which has complicated the process of the budget vote.

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The River Runs Red
Why The Esopus' Mudbath Has Less To Do With The Portal Than Clay Banks

It seems the portal in Shandaken is no longer the big bad monster mucking up the Esopus.  After recent rains started turning the Esopus Creek a rich, muddy red, creating so much turbidity that local innkeepers began worrying about keeping holiday bookings and the local chapter of Trout Unlimited made special mention of the phenomenon in their regular newsletter, investigation revealed that the muddying culprit is actually upstream from the passageway by which water is moved from the Schoharie Reservoir into the Esopus, a long-recognized cause of local turbidity. The eroding clay-bed stream bank is located behind the Pine Hill Sewer Plant, near where Birch Creek, a major tributary of the Esopus, dramatically turns from crystal clear to chocolate murk.

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Crossroads Proceedings
Sea Of Lawyers Battles Over Details Of Gitter DEIS With Few Surprises..

By Paul Smart
            With a loose huddle of nearly a dozen attorneys, the adjudication process for Dean Gitter's Belleayre Resort project got underway at the Margaretville Fire House in Delaware County the morning of May 25.
            The proceedings will be restarting next Monday, June 7, in the same location. See inside for a full schedule.

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Heavy Traffic?

            All ears at last Thursday's session of the Belleayre Resort issues conference were on Brian Ketchum from Margaretville, the Catskill Preservation Coalition's traffic expert. The bottom line according to Ketchum, is that the project's actual impact on Route 28 traffic would be approximately double that projected in Crossroads Ventures' DEIS.
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ISSUES CONFERENCE TIMETABLE


A Reel Teen
Making Movies In The Catskills

By Paul Smart
            Chance Fraser's "The Letter Guy," which premiered at the Woodstock Film Festival last year and is set to play as the only local finalist in the Reel Teens Film Festival at the Catskill Mountain Foundation Movie Theater in Hunter this weekend, is a perfect local movie.
            It involves a young man riding in a car with his father. He's looking out the window, watching the scenery pass along Route 28 when he sees a man in a really nice suit retrieving letters from a mail box situated in front of a particularly ramshackle home. The kid and his father wonder what the story is. Cut to inside the house, where the "letter guy" is slovenly dressed watching television when he decides to get the mail, dressing up for the occasion- only to return to his couch potato persona after emptying the mail box.
            So what if the film's only 3 minutes long. Fraser's 16, and the "Letter Guy," produced as part of the Onteora High School's Indie Works program, is an assured debut.

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