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WEEKLY
VIGIL... Forty-six local people met
in front of the eagle statue at Routes 214 and 28 to hold a
candlelight vigil on August 17, one of 1600 vigils held nationwide
to express support for Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier
killed in Iraq. Sheehan has been camped outside President Bush’s
ranch, asking to meet with him to ask questions about the war.
The local demonstrators spent an hour in silence, shielding
their candles from the evening breeze. A small group continues
to hold a weekly vigil each Wednesday at 7:30 pm.
An
Onteora Tax Hit
Olive Votes Itself A Reprieve, Forcing 10% Hike In Shandaken Levy,
With No Protest ’
By
Paul Smart
Shandaken’s school taxes will go up over ten percent in
the coming year as the result of a decision at last week’s
school board meeting, at which no representatives from the town
spoke, despite the issue’s great importance to local taxpayers.
Continue>>>
Classic
Endorsement
Town Conservatives Settle For A Straight Status Quo Via Sparsely
Attended Caucus
There
were only 11 voters there.
On a misty, humid night at the Glenbrook Tuesday, the close-knit
batch of conservative party voters listened to candidates in the
local election explain why the town’s conservative party
should endorse them. Candidates for Supervisor, town board, highway
superintendent, town justice, and town assessor all gave compelling
speeches about why they should be chosen over their challengers,
but in the end the caucus felt most comfortable with candidates
that vowed to represent the status quo in town.
Continue>>>
A
Growing Social Problem
SHARP Committee’s Inability To Maintain Affordable Housing
Part Of A New Trend
By
Paul Smart
One week the local SHARP Committee, which oversees local housing
issues, among other responsibilities, announces that it will be
selling off its only Shandaken-based affordable housing units
in Pine Hill, partly as a means of cutting growing losses on the
property, but also as a way of making $150,000 it needs to add
five affordable senior citizen apartments in neighboring Olive.
The next week, a letter in the local paper by a SHARP employee,
counters local fears that such a move hurts the town by noting
the not-for-profit’s need to maintain a certain amount of
profitability, as well as the many state funding cuts its had
to bear, forcing it to curb programs.
Continue>>>
Stewarding
Our Catskills
Meet
The DEC’s Local Face Here...
By Violet Snow
For those of us who love the Catskills, stewardship of the land
is an important issue. However much we may fret about government
intervention in our lives, the New York State Department of
Conservation (DEC) plays a significant role in overseeing the
interaction between humans and the land, ideally for the benefit
of both. The local face of the DEC is Oliverea resident Bill
Rudge, who grew up in Clinton, a small town near Utica, and
began working for the DEC in the Adirondacks before coming to
the Catskills. He illuminated many functions of “the Department”
as he described the jobs he’s had while moving up through
the ranks to his present post of natural resources supervisor.
Continue>>>
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Judge
Calls for Adjudication of 12 Resort-Related Issues
“It
is the preservation of this unique experience of
the primeval, untrammeled earth and its community
of life, and the opportunity for solitude which
it affords, that must be the touchstone for the
present environmental impact analysis.”
-Administrative
Law Judge Richard R. Wissler
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