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Follow
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Doing It The
Olive Way
“But I have an objection that my rights were taken away
as a taxpayer when this is allowed to happen without my chance
to object as a neighbor,” he says, pointing out a number
of property changes on land adjacent to his. “Davey Jones,
who owns all this, applied to the town planning board four years
ago and was never granted an ok. He has since gone and done
what he was asked not to do… and he’s on the planning
board now!”
Eisenson showed letters he had repeatedly sent town officials
over the past two years about the situation, with no replies
for over a year now. He says he has retained an attorney, and
points out the specific parts of the town’s zoning law
that require site plan review for ANY property changes within
the Highway Business zone he’s lived within since 1979.
“All principal uses except single-family homes shall require
site plan approval before the issuance of a zoning permit and
no building development or site work of any sort shall be conducted
prior to or shall be carried out except in conformity with such
approval and its conditions,” the law reads, along with
numerous references to such uses being in keeping with a neighborhood’s
character, and not objectionable. It further notes the need
for public hearings on such applications, so neighbors can have
their right to make comments on a plan.
A public hearing on the Jones’ site plan application,
which sought to park and store equipment for his and another’s
logging and trucking businesses, with an office trailer and
free standing sign, was held in December, 2005. At that time,
Jones’ application was turned down unless certain mitigation
requirements set by the planning board were first met.
In January of 2007, the Olive town board refused to renew the
appointment of that planning board’s vice chairperson,
Paula Minew, because she had run and campaigned for office against
two sitting members of the town board. When the board’s
remaining six members then stood with Minew, town supervisor
Bert Leifeld accepted their resignations and immediately replaced
them with his own hand-chosen planning board, including present
chairman Drew Boggess and Jones. No applications were ever sought
or accepted. According to Leifeld, he had done the same thing
earlier in the 1990s.
Since then, site plan reviews have been rare for the new planning
board. When asked about Jones’ application, Leifeld and
longtime town Zoning Enforcement Officer John Ingram immediately
began to question Eisenson’s legitimacy, and say that
a site plan had been in the works for “a couple of years”
and was being readied to be submitted to town planners in the
coming weeks.
“That’s Jonesie’s private road where he keeps
some of his stuff. He enhanced it some and now we get Alan running
around bitching about needing a site plan,” Leifeld said
of the matter, when asked this week. “The last I heard,
Jonesie’s now going over a site plan for submission.”
As for being turned down for such plans once before, Leifeld
dismissed any prior planning board actions with the statement,
“That was the old planning board. They did some strange
stuff, and that’s why they’re not here now.”
Leifeld scoffed at the previous planners’ “requests
for lighting and signs and other such things,” then talked
about complaints he’s fielded about Eisenson from neighbors.
He referred further questions to Ingram and the town’s
zoning secretary, who noted that the previous 2005 public hearing
was still considered open on the application, “with Jonesie
wanting nothing more than to park some trucks. Who can deny
him that?”
At the Eisenson property, evidence showed major road operations,
a number of large trucks that Eisenson said come and go at all
hours of the day, storage sheds, and a raised roadbed accompanied
by a flooded wetlands that seems to be in the process of being
drained.
“I’m a little concerned,” Ingram said of the
matter. “We’ve had a terrible time with Alan; we’ve
got a site plan review we’re now working on, even though
Jonesie was a little reluctant to do one; and now we’re
in danger of getting him all riled up, which none of us want.
We don’t need that. We can handle Alan…”
Ingram continued by noting that the property changes without
actual permits was “no big news item” and said he
was doing what he could to “straighten things out.”
“If we stir this up all it’s going to do is make
one big mess,” he added. “I’ve been working
on this for two or three years already. This isn’t any
big issue at this stage of the game.”
But what about the town’s zoning laws, which are straight-forward
about the need for formal site plan review and state-required
public hearings before any activities can take place? It was
pointed out to the zoning officer that land use and development
issues WERE the big news of the area, given the region’s
demographic shifts in recent years, as well as the development
pressures along Route 28, firmly situated within both the state’s
Catskill Park and the New York City watershed.
“You can’t compare Olive to Woodstock and Shandaken
at all,” Ingram replied. “Because of their people.
The people in those towns are all in left field…”
He paused, and then continued.
“It’s all about the people,” Ingram said of
his approach to zoning matters. “We’ve taken care
of things pretty well here. We’ve made it work very nicely.
When it hasn’t worked it’s been because of people
like Alan.”
He paused.
“Jonesie’s doing a site plan,” Ingram concluded.
“This would be best left alone, if you know what I mean.”
Calls to planning board member and property owner David Jones
was met with the response that Jones’ attorney had suggested
he not speak to anyone about the matter.
Calls to the State Department of Environmental Conservation
about the wetlands draining were met with a reference to proposed
laws that would strengthen its ability to address such matters
in sensitive areas such as the Catskills.
Walking his property, which in addition to the store and café
Scandinavian Grace holds one of several residences within the
Highway Business zone, Eisenson pointed out logging operations
to his other side, which he said had started up only after the
town’s planning board had changed, and had also never
come up for site plan review.
“I had to redo my own site plans twice when I went through
the process,” he said before stopping in front of where
the wide Jones entrance road enters Route 28, leaving pools
of water on either side. “He’s destroyed my culverts
and endangered my property. This is what this process is supposed
to address.”
“I have heard nothing from any of you,” Eisenson
wrote in his last letter to Leifeld, dated May 28. “It
is long past time to deal with this situation. You leave me
no choice but to seek help from my County and State officials…
there is a story here about why some people are more equal than
others in the Town of Olive and in ‘Bert’s World.’”
“Talk about a big hooplah,” replied Bert.
School
Board Shrinks
In a separate
phone call Wolff provided no other information except “no
comment” before hanging up. Friedel did not return calls.
Friedel and Wolff are an addition to a growing number of trustees
who have resigned recently. In April 2008, Trustee Herb Rosenfeld
resigned a year into his second term. He stated at the time
that he disagreed with the direction the district was going
in and his opinion held no weight. In February 2009, school
board president Ralph Legnini resigned after seven months into
his first term explaining that divisions ran too deep in order
to make any progress.
Wolff and Friedel ran as a team; both live in the town of Olive
and have one year left on their three-year term.
The board can choose to do nothing, hold a special election,
or appoint two people to fill the vacancies. Trustee Anne MacGillicuddy
suggested the board wait and decide what to do next when five
trustees are present, including newly-elected board member Tony
Fletcher.
Absent from the recent meeting was Donna Flayhan. Resnick ends
her term July 1.
The board holds its official reorganization meeting, when it
chooses new officers, on Tuesday night, July 7, starting at
6:00 PM at the Junior/Senior High School cafeteria in Boiceville.
In other recent news…
As mandated by policy, the school board has conducted an evaluation
outlining its strengths and weaknesses of the past year. A survey
sheet was distributed for members to fill out before the recent
meeting and Resnick noted that trustees Flayhan and Dan Spencer
did not fill out the sheet.
Resnick read from the survey and the overall comments painted
a negative picture about how the board conducts business. However,
she noted that the board has been successful in attempts to
communicate with the public and offer transparency at meetings.
Some of the complaints given were: lack of trust and respect
between board members and administration; individual conversations
being held between board members while keeping others out of
the loop; and not completing responsibilities such as goals.
Resnick said, “In the interest of trying to be productive
on this, I think we can all agree we have had our share of communication
problems and substantively the board never did come to an agreement
on goals this year and that certainly seems like a big missing
piece on what our work should be.”
Trustee Laurie Osmond said she studied how other school districts
have constructed goals, noting that in comparison, their own
goals seemed too “wordy and weighty.”
Assistant Superintendent Kathy O’Brien explained that
the two curriculum based studies, CDEP and Strategic Plan must
be linked together with board goals.
“CDEP has it’s own goals and we were trying to figure
out how to integrate that, and how to monitor that throughout
the year,” she said.
McGillicuddy said her suggestion would be to, “work together
to create a timeline for board members to stay on track and
accomplish goals.”
Spencer voiced his concerns: “As someone coming new into
these meetings, I didn’t know what to expect and what
I would first like to say is that I feel like once I joined
this group, I felt kind of isolated immediately. I am really
not happy with the meetings lasting so long and I think we are
putting too many things on the plate, so we are doing a lot
of things not very well instead of a few things very well.”
O’Brien added, “Building trust and collaboration
among each other and with us would really move us forward, because
it makes me sad to hear that Dan feels that way…”
Resnick, whose last meeting was the recent session, agreed.
“I would stress that the board needs to find better ways
to work with themselves; we just witnessed two more board resignations
and that’s not a great thing.”
Regarding resolutions at the recent meeting, the school board
awarded a bid to Arold Construction for $145,000 to cover the
cost of installing a new water system at the Boiceville site.
Tim Moot of Clark Patterson Lee engineering firm said no one
bid on the lower projected cost of $118,000, therefore the next
bid that came in was from Arold Construction. Moot added that
the board could put out a re-bid, but could not guarantee a
lower bid and the project would not be completed by the autumn.
The board voted unanimously to move forward. The new water system
will remove the high amounts of iron and Manganese found in
the school’s water.
The board also voted unanimously to award a bid to S & L
Roofing Sheetmetal Inc for $545,500. This is to repair and replace
parts of the Middle School roof. The money came from a voter
approved capital reserve fund created two years ago that targeted
money to repair the roof, pave the parking lot at the High School
and electric upgrades.
Neda was shot by pro government forces in Iran. The video of
her dying was caught on film. Although it is disturbing, I believe
that everyone should watch it.
“Don’t be afraid Neda, don’t be afraid,”
someone pleads. For a second I hold my breath. She might be
okay I think. But as soon as her eyes roll back in her head
and the blood starts coming out of her mouth and then her nose,
the pleas turn into “Don’t leave, don’t leave
Neda.”, And then you know you just watched this poor helpless
girl die.
Neda is the voice behind the Persian people. Neda stands for
freedom. Neda stands for liberty. Neda stands for equality.
I’m a Persian American. I’m proud of my heritage.
I’m proud of the freedoms afforded to me in this country
and that’s what all Persians want. Freedom, Equality and
Liberty.
The news from Iran hasn’t gotten any better. In fear of
reprisals and the oppression that is being perpetrated in Iran
I wont mention my sources but here is some news coming out of
Iran.
The government has hired Hezbollah members and outsiders. They
are not Iranian. They are being brought into the country to
kill and beat the protestors.
The Basij are known as Iran’s moral police. They beat
you if you don’t follow the rules set forth by the religious
government. From some of the information I have been getting
they are waiting for the injured to come to the hospitals and
then quickly herd them into vans and poof they are gone. Sounds
like the killing fields to me.
The government has killed more people than has been reported.
Journalists have been kicked out or detained. They are constantly
trying to block feeds from Facebook, Twitter and Youtube and
to the web. Email and correspondences are being watched and
filtered.
The bulldogs are out. The threats coming out of the leadership
in Iran is distressing. They call for executions, and the suppression
of any form of public discourse.
Neda means voice or call in Farsi. Her death should not be in
vain. Her name should be the voice of the Persian people. Her
call should be a call to freedom, a call for international support
for the Persian people.
The symbolism and irony behind her name is uncanny. She is a
hero, an innocent killed by the bullets of tyranny. She will
always be my hero, now. She also represents the many other nameless
heroes that have met the same destiny, for people are getting
killed daily for trying to stand up to the oppression and intimidation
taking place in Iran.
Neda exemplifies to the world that the people in Iran stand
for peace and want nothing more than to coexist peacefully with
the world. They don’t want to live under the oppressed
laws of a few men. They don’t want to annihilate whole
countries. They don’t support terrorism.
Help them.
It is Persian custom to mourn the death of someone on the 3rd,
7th, 40th and 1 year anniversary of someone’s death. I
ask you to think about Neda on those days. Light a candle, wear
black. Anything. Don’t let Neda’s death be in vain.
The 3rd already passed. The 7th day fell on June 27th, the 40th
is on July 30th. Neda is on my mind.
No
More Appeals...
"For
the court to say that posting something on a private website
constitutes ‘proper notice’ and the statute of limitations
had elapsed from that starting point is absurd," Seligman
declared, referring to a portion of the statement from Appellate
judges Anthony Cardona, Thomas Mercure, Michael Kavanagh, Leslie
Stein and William McCarthy which declared that "(t)here
is no question that respondents’ determination to close
Monument Road became final and binding on March 20, 2003, when
it publicly announced on DEP’s Web site (sic) that Monument
Road would be closed."
The decision notes that "A CPLR (Civil Practice Law &
Rules) article 78 proceeding must be commenced within four months
after the challenged determination has become ‘final and
binding’...or, put another way, when it inflicts an ‘actual,
concrete injury’ upon the petitioner..."
Besides considering a web site posting as less than sufficient
notice to the town, Seligman points out that the post gave no
indication that the road closing would be permanent and, in
fact, a previous closing mentioned by the court was a cautionary
closure in response to the attacks of 9-11-2001, which continued
until the road was reopened to vehicular traffic in January
2002. A more complete view of the closures revolves around reactions
to those events and, according to differing upstate and downstate
perspective, the relationship of New York City with the Ashokan
Reservoir and surrounding towns since it was built.
The DEP came under pressure with the issuance of a July 2001
report from the Riverkeeper environmental group which had participated
in the FAD agreements which avoided an EPA water filtration
system that would have cost the City an estimated $6 to $8 billion.
A part of the report authored by Robert Kennedy Jr., Jeffery
Odelfey, William Wegner and Marc Yaggi, was sharply critical
of inattention to the "antique and dilapidated infrastructure"
of the City’s water supply system, saying "DEP facilities
are literally crumbling into ruin."
"The brilliant engineers of DEP’s halcyon days have
departed and the City is left with an ossified, worm-eaten engineering
staff, which presides over the gradual deterioration of the
system," observed a portion of the report titled "Finger
In the Dike, Head In the Sand." "Their greatest energies
seem to be devoted to protecting perks and positions, pursuing
whistleblowers and keeping the public in the dark about important
issues affecting community health and safety. Instead of taking
the necessary steps to restore DEP’s prestige and safeguard
the City water supply, DEP leadership in the agency’s
LeFrak City headquarters in Queens and the upstate supervising
engineers, who know the condition of the system, seem to be
counting the days to their retirement, hoping they make it before
the dike bursts."
Within three months, the stinging details of this report were
buried by the events of 9-11 and by January 2007, an address
by Watershed Inspector General James Tierney went on about the
chief concerns of the Catskill system; turbidity, run-off and
pollution control and land acquisition with nary a mention of
crumbling infrastructure.
Meanwhile, in March 2003, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, an accused
mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was allegedly captured in Pakistan
and repeatedly waterboarded (183 times in that month alone,
according to the New York Times) and, with the additional knowledge
that his 9 and 11 year-old sons were also being tortured, he
confessed to an assortment of misdeeds, including the organization
of 9/11 "from A to Z." Among the schemes attributed
to him was a plan to poison American reservoirs with anthrax.
Then DEP Chief of Police Ed Welch claimed at a meeting in Olive
to have seen KSM’s classified confessions and sought advice
from the Army Corps of Engineers on the prospect of closing
Monument Road. This was key to his decision, he said.
In the court’s ruling, they wrote: "The U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers determined that access to the Olive Bridge
(sic) Dam and Ashokan Reservoir via Monument Road left the Dam
and Reservoir ‘particularly vulnerable’ to a terrorist
attack."
There was no indication that any of the judges had read the
ACOE "report" or that ACOE had performed any on-site
inspection of the dam’s interior. Olive residents asking
to view the report have been told that it is still classified
even though the KSM confessions were declassified during the
trial of would-be terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui in 2006. Numerous
observers expressed skepticism at KSM’s claims, which
included an attack on the Plaza Bank in Washington State, which
was not even founded until well after his arrest. On June 16,
two days before the Appellate Court Monument Road decision,
files obtained through a Freedom of Information lawsuit revealed
that Mohammed admitted he had lied, made up stories and invented
information while under "enhanced interrogation."
This comes as no small surprise to many experts on torture.
The ACLU, who has represented a number of detainees at Guantanamo
Bay and elsewhere, recently summed up their own findings: "Torture
does not yield reliable information. Well-trained interrogators
within the military, the FBI, and the police, have testified
that torture does not work, is unreliable and distracting from
the hard work of interrogation. Nearly every CVT client, when
subjected to torture, confessed to a crime they did not commit,
gave up extraneous information, or supplied names of innocent
friends or colleagues to their torturers. It is a great source
of shame for our clients, who tell us they would have said anything
their tormentors wanted them to say in order to get the pain
to stop. Such extraneous information distracts, rather than
supports, valid investigations."
Fortunately for the NYC DEP, the designation of the Ashokan
dam as a national security area brought them an expanded flow
of Homeland Security millions just as they were replacing reservoir
headquarters and additional security funds were useful. But
beefed up security did not prompt a reopening of the road over
the dam.
In their decision, the Appellate Court considered the DEP’s
straightening of an alternative road away from the reservoir
an adequate remedy for the "actual, concrete injury"
of the road’s closure.
Unspoken, far beyond an inconvenience and safety hazard, the
permanent closure of Monument Road represents much more to Olive
residents; a daily visual gesture to their stolen natural environment
which has been expressed in numerous ways by many who have lived
here. When first constructed, skirting the edge of the new artificial
lake in all of its ponderous glory, there was a recognition
that this was something given for something taken.
Prior to its flooding, the lower Esopus Valley, with its ideally
situated mountainous backdrop, was a paradisal "plum tree
land" which drew a steady stream of tourists and vacationers.
The engulfed towns and submerged streams of the valley given
to quench the thirst of city-bound downstaters equated to an
organ donated to preserve the life of a relative, changing and
diminishing forever the aesthetics of identity as well as the
destiny and capabilities of the area. It was widely recognized
at the time what the loss would mean to the future of the surviving
towns as long as they coexisted with the reservoir and the famous
Ashokan aerators, shooting hundreds of streams high into the
air, were a gesture to replace natural wonders like Bishop’s
Falls, sunk below the reservoir’s surface, and the view
from Monument Road could easily contend for the finest vista
in Ulster County. None of these factors, whose subtle but vital
and life-enhancing immediacy are difficult to project into judicial
chambers, were mentioned in the lawsuit.
"Here, the Supreme Court, not the legislature, has essentially
created law by accepting that something posted on a web site,
which you may or may not see, constitutes the public being put
on notice," said John Tisch, a West Shokan resident who
has been outspoken about his opposition to the road closure
and suspicious of the reasons given for the action. "The
City was grasping and the only document they could come up with
was that little note on their website. Nothing was sent to Olive,
though the town sent them many letters to which they didn’t
respond. No official documented notice went to any of the townships.
The website notice said nothing about permanence.
"An Article 78 allows four months to respond and, if we
don’t check their website, within four months they could
close down Route 28A if they felt like it," Tisch continued.
"A precedent is set and, later on, a court can say ‘Based
on Olive vs. NYC, the public was served notice because they
put it on their website.’ Do we have to hire people to
monitor websites?"
Seligman, who said she had at least three major objections to
the ruling, also noted that the court had answered her question
that if there was imminent danger to the dam, shouldn’t
it be drained?, by saying the DEP had an emergency evacuation
plan. She wondered why no one has seen it.
A recent study by the American Society of Civil Engineers found
that the neglected American infrastructure, coast-to-coast,
possessed far too many examples of unsafe bridges, failing dams,
threatened water supplies and other serious hazards. They listed
more than 3,500 unsafe dams.
A Jar Of Olives...
E Pluribus Unum
The children of the Bennett Elementary School participated in
the Pennies for Patients program during three weeks in February.
This is a program to raise funds for The Leukemia & Lymphoma
Society. This is the second year Bennett has participated. Ms.
Heppner’s fourth grade class did the advertising, announcements
and general publicity. All classes were involved in the collection
of pennies and coins totaling $3,000. On June 9th, the school
was notified that they received the title of Second Place Fundraiser
in the Upstate NY/Vermont Chapter. The chapter raised over $68,000
this year. There’s a lesson for us all in how pennies
can add up to a powerful donation.
I am reminded that Joseph Pulitzer, editor for the newspaper
The World organized a charity drive that went neighbor to neighbor
to ask for coins and asked school children bring in pennies
for another project. We had been given the Statue of Liberty
as a gift from France, but it was the American responsibility
to pay for the pedestal. When the last stone was set by the
masons in April of 1886, the workers threw the coins from their
pockets into the cement to symbolize that this impressive structure
was possible with the pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters of
many.
I am actually old enough to remember when schools had savings
accounts for students. We would bring in coins and could learn
the value of saving. Among my treasures are stamps that could
be purchased, and when the stamp book was filled, a U.S. Bond
replaced the stamps. My husband and I still save coins. Each
day we empty coins into a Mason Jar and are constantly amazed
at how those insignificant amounts can add up to a sizeable
amount. We took our first trip to the Dominican Republic totally
on coins we had saved.
The Class of 1960 is in the process of planning a fifty-year
reunion of Onteora High School for the summer of 2010. They
are searching for classmates, so if you are in touch with someone
from that year, please contact: jane@onteoraclassof1960.com.
Another request comes from the Olive Day Committee and the Senior
Art Group. They are looking for the old-fashioned snow fencing
to display paintings on Olive Day, which is scheduled for Saturday,
September 12. The old style fencing had wooden slats held together
with wire. If you know someone who has a roll of it hanging
around in some barn or garage, please contact me at clamonda@hvc.rr.com.
The theme of Olive Day is “Olive Under Construction.”
Expect the frog to be sporting a hard hat to remind us of the
bridge project, the reservoir road project, and the Boiceville
sewer project.
The Democratic Caucus has been scheduled for Thursday, July
9 at 7:30 at the Town Meeting Hall on Bostock Road in Shokan.
At this writing, all the incumbents are planning to run for
their current positions of Supervisor, two Town Board Members,
Highway Superintendent, Town Justice, and Town Clerk-Tax Collector.
This means that Bert Leifeld, Bruce La Monda, Helen Chase, Jim
Fugal, Tim Cox, and Sylvia Rozzelle are hoping to be candidates
this coming November.
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