Newsbriefs

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8/26/2010

Large Parcel...
The Onteora District School Board of Education met in the district's Central Offices on August 12 to tie up a few loose ends, including a vote on the Large Parcel legislation. In a unanimous decision, the board agreed not to vote on the bill that effects how taxes are distributed throughout the Onteora district based on a law triggered by large parcels shared between towns, and three key factors... namely the Ashokan Reservoir, in Onteora's case. If invoked, the Large Parcel law would not allow any taxes paid by New York City for it's Ashokan Reservoir property to accrue to the credit of the towns of Olive and West Hurley, but share any savings between all the district's municipalities. By not taking any action, the bill is rendered moot, as it has been throughout recent years since being briefly enacted half a decade ago.
Unlike past years, when dozens of people from the town of Olive would attend board meetings in protest of the law, a very small handful attended the recent Thursday' meeting.
In other levy matters, the school district tax warrant was authorized at $38,847,007 for the setting of the local tax levy. According to School Board President Laurie Osmond, no new federal or state funds have come in that would change the levy compared to what voters approved in May.
"We didn't get any information that made it seem the tax levy would go one way or another," she said.
DEP Land Buys?
According to the Attorney for the Coalition of Watershed Towns, agreement is near in the ongoing fight over conditions within the City of New York's water supply permit, a permit that once granted will give New York City the right to buy up to another 96,000 acres of land in the watershed region over the next 15 years to prevent development.
At a meeting on Monday, August 16th in Margaretville of the Coalition of Watershed Towns Executive Committee, Attorney Jeff Baker was asked by Chairman Dennis Lucas to brief the pubic on the longstanding dispute that arose when the City of New York was granted a 10-year Filtration Avoidance Determination (FAD) in 2007.
Within that determination is the requirement that the State Department of Environmental Conservation grant a water supply permit to the City. The details of the permit are still being hammered out, with the Coalition participating with an eye toward protecting the interests of the watershed region.
Two years ago the Coalition filed a lawsuit challenging the process being used to prepare the permit. While the lawsuit is still active, it was agreed that the Coalition would participate in preparing the permit in hopes that a draft will be created that satisfies Coalition officials. If the Coalition likes the way the permit reads it is expected that the lawsuit will be dropped.
A draft of the permit is expected to be released by DEC for public review this month. Baker said he hopes the draft reflects the concerns that have been under discussion.
Baker would not identify specific issues, stating that because the Coalition, the City and DEC were in negotiations, most matters needed to remain confidential. In fact, the recent public meeting only lasted for about 15 minutes before Baker, the Coalition's Executive Committee, the Executive Director of Catskill Watershed Corporation and several Government Officials from throughout the vast watershed region went behind closed doors for an executive session to discuss the particulars of the negotiations in private.
Baker did say that currently there was one "sticking point" in the talks.
"The value of land underwater," he said.
Baker also mentioned that a recent legal dispute between the City and Town of Shandaken over the assessed value of wastewater system infrastructure owned by the City has prompted the Coalition to put that issue on the table during the water supply permit talks. It is hoped that an agreement will be reached, making the lawsuit in Shandaken no longer necessary.
"I don't see any game stoppers," Baker said.
The success of New York City's Watershed Protection Program is one of the main reasons why New York City remains one of only five large cities in the United States that is not required to filter its drinking water. The other cities are Boston, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle.
Since the beginning of the FAD, New York City has committed $541 million to purchase land to protect our unfiltered drinking water which supplies roughly half the population of New York State.
DEP officials say they have made unprecedented efforts to balance water quality preservation with the interests and economic vitality of watershed communities, but the Coalition of Watershed Towns fears the City has too much land buying power under the new permit, and have problems with a host of other issues like land value assessments, use of city owned property by the pubic, and others.
Audit Rules
A recent Ulster County Legislature resolution to shift funds from the county comptroller's budget for accounting and auditing over to the legislature's own budget to cover the annual county audit was ruled "out of order" following complaints from the county's elected comptroller that what was being proposed ran against the county's new charter, voted in two years ago.
Comptroller Elliott Auerbach told legislators he understood the need for a period of adjustment in getting used to working under a charter but pointed out how that charter "leaves no discretion ... the legislature must fund the audit."
Republican Richard Gerentine recalled that there was confusion, last year, over whether the intent of the resolution was to reset policy, for an audit already done and paid for, or to set policy for 2011.
Budget Director Art Smith said the bulk of the audit work, by an independent firm was done earlier, under terms of a three-year contract.
"It is difficult to understand the logic of this attempt," said Auerbach. "The Charter is absolutely clear that the annual financial audit is #1 mandatory and #2 a duty of the Comptroller... As the people's watchdog, I must wonder why legislators fear an independent financial audit, and I certainly will not back down from this attempt to undermine my duty to the people."
"The Legislature sets policy and appropriates funds, the Executive manages and administers funds," explained Auerbach, "the Comptroller's role is independent oversight which is why no management, administrative or appropriating functions were delegated to the office."
Meanwhile, the chairman of the legislature's Governmental Services, Environmental and Administrative Committee has said that he is concerned that departments under the committee's oversight did not comply with its request for budget projections, noting that despite their submitting numbers to the county executive's offices, lawmakers still want input in the budget process.
County Executive Michael Hein, as CEO of the county, is charged with drafting the budget and presenting it to the legislature.
Until next month...
Dismissed...
An Ulster County grand jury has dismissed charges of unlawful imprisonment in the second degree and sexual abuse in the third degree against a Phoenicia man but indicted another man charged in the same incident.
The charges against John Oakley, 45 of Phoenicia, were dismissed, according to a grand jury report from District Attorney Holley Carnright's office.
Oakley had been charged along with another man, Desmond McCobb, 27, who was reported homeless. McCobb, who currently resides in Ulster County Jail, allegedly kidnapped a woman during a domestic dispute at Silver Hollow Cabins on Route 214 in Phoenicia in July. He has been charged with second-degree assault, first-degree aggravated sexual abuse and first-degree criminal contempt.
McCobb was indicted on August 19th.
The grand jury dismissed charges of second-degree unlawful imprisonment and third-degree sexual abuse against Oakley, who was arrested last month in connection with the kidnapping and assault of the 20-year-old woman. According to the report, Oakley was not present when the woman was discovered in a wooded area of Phoenicia July 12 after a two-hour search, but was charged after further investigation by police.
Following a two hour manhunt, which involved dogs and a police helicopter, the two men were held in connection with a domestic dispute involving the woman, who police say was sexually assaulted and dragged into the woods.
Oakley was charged with unlawful imprisonment and sexual abuse, both felonies. McCobb was charged with kidnapping, assault, aggravated sexual abuse and criminal contempt, all felonies.
The incident unfolded at about 9:00 AM at the Silver Hollow Cabins on Route 214 in Chichester, police said, where the victim, who knew McCobb, was reportedly assaulted and forcefully dragged off into the woods after being thrown through a window. They found the victim and McCobb in a wooded area about a half mile from the scene.
Police said the victim had an order of protection against McCobb.
Turnaround?
The director of the Marist College Bureau of Economic Development believes the economy of the Hudson Valley will prosper in the long run, despite the lingering national recession. But Christy Huebner Caridi said officials in the region need to take the bull by the horns to make things happen.
"If the community leaders here start to recognize retail is not the answer and that the true answer is attracting firms that will pay certainly average, if not above average wages, then you are going to start seeing a very strong and important turnaround in this region," she said. "But, if anyone continues to view this region as an area for cheap labor, it's going to be very hard for us to break out of this pattern that we are in."
One area with much growth potential is Ulster County, Caridi said, with the advent of the solar R&D component.
She further inferred that putting too many eggs into the tourism basket would not be in a turnaround's best interest.

New Radio!!!
In the coming week many of us will be getting access to a new radio station. WIOX, which will be heard on 91.3 FM, will begin broadcasting from a class A transmitter housed in a garage in the town of Roxbury, NY on Friday, August 27. The station was granted a rare full-power FM permit by the Federal Communications Commission in 2008 to fill an FM void in the region.
WIOX's signal is expected to reach a radius of 20 to 40 miles from Roxbury, which will cover the towns of Margaretville, Andes, Fleischmanns, Stamford, Grand Gorge, Prattsville, and Gilboa, and possibly parts of Shandaken and Olive on higher ground. Nobody knows for sure who will hear it, however, because the actual coverage will be determined by how the signal bounces around the hills, according to Joe Piasek, a media educator and producer living in Roxbury who is the managing consultant for the new station on behalf of the town of Roxbury.
"This is definitely an under-served area as far as media go," he said. "Occasionally you can pick up some radio stations, but they're all from elsewhere."
WIOX's mission is to create common ground, Piasek said.
"With so many different interests in the area that sometimes seem to clash, a radio station has the potential to fill some of the communications and information gaps and provide a platform for those interests to meet - not to clash, but to foster understanding."
The station, which is being structured as a nonprofit with assistance from the Greater Roxbury Learning Initiative Corp (GRLIC), Roxbury Arts Group (RAG), and the MARK Project, plans to fund itself with grants, donations, and something called "enhanced underwriting."
"Enhanced underwriting is the way non-commercial stations advertise for local businesses," said Glen Pedersen, the station's development director. "We will talk about our local businesses and sponsors in factual terms, we will interview them, so consumers can get to know who the businesses are and why they should be patronized."
WIOX's volunteer programming schedule is still being finalized, but a long list of shows in a variety of genres includes Peg Ellsworth of the MARK Project speaking about local development issues, a Health and Wellness program supported by Margaretville Hospital, a Roxbury Arts Group show featuring interviews, music, and radio plays that promote the arts is a variety of ways; a weekly science show and morning show with kids, a real estate program, local music and local gossip, a Justin Kolb '70's rock show , and plenty of other eclectic offerings.
The entire WIOX schedule will be ready for publication in a couple of weeks. There are still a few openings for anyone with the time and a good idea. Training will be provided. Call (607) 326-9313 if you are interested, or email wiox@roxburyny.com..
On Friday, August 27, WIOX will host a launch party live and on the air at 91.3 FM starting at noon, with everyone invited to tour the studios, say "hi" on-the-air, and attend a ribbon-cutting at 5:00 p.m.
Rape Conviction
An Ulster County jury has convicted a Mt. Tremper man of rape in the second degree for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in February 2009. Patrick Wood, now 22, was 20 years old at the time of the incident, which occurred in Rosendale.
The victim had accompanied her 19-year-old half-sister and three males, including Wood, to an apartment where the group was drinking, according to trial testimony. They had sex after the others had gone to sleep. At the time of the offense, Wood was on probation for felony second-degree assault, for which he had been convicted and placed on probation in March 2008.
He will be sentenced on the rape conviction in October.
Creek Week!
Ulster County Creek Week, running from September 6 through 19, will be offering a variety of fun events to get engaged in local streams. As part of the event, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County's (CCEUC) Ashokan Watershed Stream Management Program will host a series of educational and recreational events in the Ashokan Reservoir Watershed, partnered with New York City Department of Environmental Protection and Ulster County Soil and Water Conservation District.
Two contests will be offered as part of Creek Week. Enter the Crummy Creekside Culvert Contest by sending in a picture of the crummiest culverts one can find, along with an submission form found at www.ashokanstreams.org. The grand prize is a Kodak ZX3 Pocket Video Camera. Or, to show off photography skills, enter the Ashokan Watershed Photo Contest with up to two framed photos, no larger than 8" X 10" taken anywhere in the Ashokan Watershed by September 30. First prize will win a $100 gift certificate to Artcraft Camera & Digital. Entry forms can also be found at www.ashokanstreams.org.
The events are FREE, but please call ahead to RSVP for all events except the showing of The Lorax on September 13. Please call 688-3047 to RSVP.
Among special events will be a Native Plant Walk presented by Violet Snow at the AWSMP Program Office, 6375 Route 28, Phoenicia, at 11:00 AM on Sunday, September 12; a 6:45 PM screening of the Dr. Suess' film The Lorax at the Olive Free Library in West Shokan on September 13; a Crummy Culverts Presentation at the AWSMP Program Office at 6:30 PM on Tuesday, September 14; and a Kids Learn to Fish event from 1:00 to 3:00 PM on Saturday, September 18 at Kenneth Wilson State Park, the same day there will be a morning Streamside Restoration Planting Project starting in Phoenicia in the morning.
More detailed information about these events in the Ashokan Watershed can be found at www.ashokanstreams.org, or by calling 688-3047.
Dog Hoarder...
Marie Castalso, recently arrested on charges related to her hoarding of dogs at the old Phoenicia Feeds building on Route 28 in Phoenicia, has also been arraigned on charges that she bilked four vendors out of nearly $14,000 in goods and services during the 2007 and 2008 runs of the Queens International Film Festival she is founder and executive director of.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said Castaldo, 52, is accused of duping advertising and film industry vendors into providing their services for free to her film festival by "in most cases" making a small upfront payment and then refusing to make any further payments.
Castaldo, who founded the festival in 2002, was charged with first-degree scheme to defraud, third- and fourth-degree grand larceny, petit larceny, third- and fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property and second-degree harassment.
Brian Shapiro, executive director of the Ulster County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said Castaldo is the same woman charged with failure to provide proper sustenance to animals after enforcement officers seized over 40 dogs confined to cages in filthy conditions.
When Castaldo was arrested last month, Shapiro said she was selling dogs in the parking lot of a West Hurley supermarket. At least one of the dogs was euthanized after biting two people.
Burning Wood?
The state Department of Environmental Conservation is predicting that 2,000 comments on its proposed rules governing outdoor wood-burning boilers could mean the issue remains unsettled through April of next year.
Under the proposal, boiler stacks would have to be a minimum of 2 feet above the peak of any roof of a structure located within 150 feet of the boiler. Regulations would also prohibit use of boilers between April 15 and Sept. 30 in the Hudson Valley and Catskills, and between May 15 to Aug. 31 for the Adirondacks and north-central New York.
Local laws regulating outdoor wood-burning boilers have been adopted in Hurley and Rosendale, where officials responded to complaints that the units had been creating health concerns for neighbors. However, officials in other towns have been waiting for state action to avoid developing regulations that would have to be enforced while budgets are tight. In Catskill, discussions between neighbors was encouraged during a recent public hearing.
New York Farm Bureau officials were among several groups waging a campaign against the proposed regulations on stack heights, setback limits, and months of use for outdoor wood-burning boilers. They estimate it will cost about $200 per four-foot section to meet proposed state regulations that would have a minimum 18-foot stack height.
The DEC has said that another round of public hearings could be set if significant changes are made in the proposed rules, referencing the recent process they undertook to change regulations to open burning laws statewide.
Stream Work...
The Shandaken Highway Department is moving ahead with a plan to do a substantial stream bed rebuild in the Woodland Valley Stream to preserve Woodland Valley Road near the Woodland Valley/Fawn Hill Road intersection. On Tuesday ,Highway Department Spokesperson Florence Stanley said the project, to be done via a private contractor, would commence soon, but that no firm date has been set. The plan is to have the job completed by the end of September, per state laws. A similar project, slated for near the entrance to Roxmor in Woodland Valley, has been postponed because FEMA money has not come through yet.
Woodland Valley Road will be down to one lane during the day while the repairs take place.
Library Update
Olive Free Library board President Mary Ann Shepard recently noted that a needed 406-signature petition for shifting funding for the popular library to a direct ballot basis, instead of town board decision, is now expected to be turned in to town clerk Sylvia Rozzelle before the end of the month. Approval of the ballot proposition on November 2 would allow the library to raise $129,000 in property taxes annually, with a similar budget proposal needed each election day the library wants to shift that amount.
Shepard has said that the library board is hoping to raise its current $135,000, which includes $43,000 from the town, $54,000 from the private Bishop Trust and the balance coming from donations, to between $180,000 and $200,000 for next year.
The library has 4,579 patrons and during 2009 had 21,246 visits. There are holdings of 22,517 adult titles; 11,750 children's titles; 3,006 videos; and 2,495 audio titles.
In addition to building repairs, the library is hoping for new funds to allow the library to upgrade its collection, add new computers, and add to current programming.
Gas Drilling...
A recent public hearing set for August 12 and moved from Binghamton to Syracuse at the last minute ended up being postponed until some unspecified future date a day before it was to happen, despite the fact that thousands of protestors against the contentious and environmentally hazardous procedure had planned to attend, or already arrived for the federal Environmental Protection Agency-sponsored session.
Representatives of Syracuse's Oncenter said the date shift was too close to accommodate the expected crowd for the fracking forum.
"We have a beautiful convention center here that can easily accommodate 1,000 or 1,200 people, but in the last day we continued to get calls about additional people, and that number was easily growing to more than 5,000," the rep said.
Helping fuel the growing protests has been the creation of a string of billboards being put up along Route 17 in Sullivan County, and the launching of a major new website by Catskill Mountainkeeper... both efforts designed to counter pro-gas drilling efforts from the Sullivan County Partnership for Economic Development and sister groups set up in Delaware County, NY, and Wayne County, PA.
Mountainkeeper and other groups have charged the Sullivan County Partnership with using public money to advocate policy, which the Partnership has denied while sharply criticizing the opponents of hydrofracking.
Meanwhile, state Assemblyman Peter Lopez - a Republican whose district serves a ribbon of communities stretching from the Massahusetts to Pennsylvania borders, recently came out to say he opposes a legislative moratorium on permits for drilling for natural gas and that any delay of permitting for an EPA study of the extraction technology would be disingenuous.
A moratorium bill has passed the state Senate and awaits action by the state Assembly, expected next month.
Opponents of hydrofracking say the process of pumping chemicals under intense pressure into an underground shale formation to release gas for extraction would contaminate drinking water supplies, including the New York City system in the Catskills. The gas-drilling industry says the process is safe and there is not a single documented case of the contamination of drinking water caused by the technique.
Kaaterskill Fall
A 19-year-old Bard College student, Abraham Mendoza of Chicago, was killed Friday, August 20 when he fell from a cliff while hiking at Kaaterskill Falls, state police said. Police said the teenager was hiking with fellow students from Bard when he left the group to hike to the top of the falls. He apparently lost his footing at about 1:55 p.m. and fell 80 to 100 feet to the base of the waterfall, police said.
The victim was flown by LifeNet helicopter to Albany Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. Assisting at the scene were the Hunter town police, the Haines Falls, Palenville, and Tannersville fire departments, Hunter Ambulance and Greene County Paradmedics, state forest rangers, state Department of Environmental Conservation Police and the Greene County Sheriff's Office.
Trout Watch
The heat of the recent summer has taken its toll on local trout populations, according to the DEC.
At the start of each summer, there is typically a limited supply of cold water in the Schoharie Reservoir. This year, construction activities at the Gilboa Dam to maintain public safety and improve operations combined with the hot-dry hydrological conditions experienced in the Catskills depleted the cold water supply by the second week of August. Currently, the water temperature of releases have risen to the mid-70's, which causes stress in trout and can be lethal if temperatures persist over 75 degrees F.
Meanwhile, it's also been reported that a number of states, including New York, have started thinking about banning felt-soled waders from trout streams as a means of keeping down the incidence of didymo, or "rock snot," which invaded the Esopus and other areas in recent years.
The response among fishermen threatened with the loss of soles that cling to slippery rocks parallels the five stages of grief, according to reports in The New York Times and other sources.
Job Fair Rocks
Finding a job in renewable energy could not have been any easier than it was on Friday, August 20 at SUNY New Paltz Campus when the county-wide Solar Energy Consortium showcased 14 companies all offering employment opportunities as technicians, engineers, and other manufacturing and assembly oriented positions.
CEO and founder of The Solar Energy Consortium Vincent Cozzolino said there were just as many specialized employment opportunities being offered as entry level ones and, building on the success of TSEC's previous job fair held last winter, approximately 50-60 people per hour were expected to be attending throughout their six hour day.
"There are entry level jobs for manufacturing, assemblers and operators that anyone can get. Then there are a lot of specialized skills mostly electronic technology jobs, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and project managers," said Cozzolino. "Those kinds of jobs are of a higher level, but plentiful in the Hudson Valley Region because of our association with companies like IBM and other very large high-tech companies."
Congressman Maurice Hinchey and Ulster County Executive Michael Hein came out to show their support for TSEC's efforts and learn a little bit about what's going on in the world of renewable energy as well.
"The companies that we've been able to bring in are functioning very effectively and they're expanding. As they expand they are looking for people to come in and work with them and continue to expand the process," said Hinchey about his work with TSEC, noting that this whole process is having a significantly positive effect on the economy in the region.
Hein added that renewable energy is the best way for the county to sustain its economy.
Climate Change
Pakistan is awash with the worst flooding in more than a century; Russia fights wildfires stemming from unprecedented high temperatures; China faces mudslides of an intensity unseen in decades. For many scientists and political leaders, the confluence of these weather catastrophes amounts to tragic evidence that climate change is not just a future concern but a present danger.
A recent unanimous resolution to strengthen emergency relief to Pakistan from the United Nations noted that the unprecedented floods reflected "the adverse impact of climate change and the growing vulnerability of countries to climate change."
In its 2007 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a scientific body created by the U.N., concluded that "it is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent."
IPCC chief R.K. Pachauri said this month that while it would be scientifically incorrect to link any single set of events with human-induced climate change, "the floods of the kind that hit Pakistan may become more frequent and more intense in the future in this and other parts of the world."
In addition, the World Meteorological Organization made a similarly qualified assessment. "While a longer time range is required to establish whether an individual event is attributable to climate change, the sequence of current events matches IPCC projections of more frequent and more intense extreme weather events due to global warming," it said.
Meanwhile, hopes are fading that nations can agree on a global treaty to combat climate change this year. Before last year's climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, the U.N.'s slogan was "seal the deal." But in the wake of that conference's ambiguous result, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says he hopes for a "realistic result" at the climate meeting in Cancun, Mexico, later this year.
Meanwhile, a new study recorded a slight dip in the amount of CO2 taken up over the past 10 years. If the trend continues, scientists say it could signal a tipping point in earth's ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
On a planet-wide basis, 30 to 40 percent of the land currently is energy-limited, while 50 to 60 percent is water-limited. The big question moving into the future is "what fraction of the land surface will continue to be energy limited and will benefit from warmer temperatures, and what fraction of the biosphere is going to have continuing droughts" that grow progressively worse?
Current projections hold that arid regions will get drier, while already damp regions will see more precipitation.
Stay tuned...
Toss The Eggs?
Following widespread reports of a massive egg recall elsewhere in the nation, because of salmonella contamination, state Agricultural Secretary Patrick Hooker released a statement saying eggs produced in New York are safe.
"Ensuring a safe food supply is our top priority here at the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets", said Hooker last week. "Accordingly, we protect consumers by maintaining aggressive food safety programs on both the retail and farm levels to help prevent foodborne illness, such as Salmonella Enteritidis (SE). Today, I want to reassure consumers that New York produced eggs are safe to consume.
According to FDA reports, the eggs implicated in this nationwide recall were solely produced in Iowa, and none of the recalled eggs have been sold or shipped to New York markets.
"We trust those statements to be true; however, to err on the side of caution, our fleet of food safety inspectors remain on the lookout for recalled eggs at the retail level", said Hooker. "To date, none of the recalled eggs have been found in New York State, nor have any human cases of SE been reported to the New York State Department of Health in relation to this recall."
Stockholm H2O
The Water Discovery Center, based in Arkville and planning to represent the Catskills greatest asset to the world, will send a member of its National Advisory Board to the annual session of World Water Week, in Stockholm, Sweden September 5 through 11, as part of its ongoing efforts to reach out to international experts concerned with water resources, as well as raise its fundraising profile. Marcia Brewster, a senior consultant with Nautilus International Development Consulting, Inc. and a former Senior Officer for Water Resources at the United Nations Division for Sustainable Development, will travel to Sweden as a representative of the WDC, which is developing an exhibition and education center in the Catskills focused on regional and global water issues.
The theme of this year's Water Week is "The Water Quality Challenge - Prevention, Wise Use and Abatement."
The Catskill Watershed Corporation is supporting the efforts to establish the multi-million dollar Water Discovery Center, envisioned as an educational resource and tourist attraction.
For more information, visit www.waterdiscoverycenter.org.
Awarded!
The Village of Tannersville was recently awarded an almost $1.1 million grant from the Restore NY III program to be used for the revitalization of two vacant buildings on Main Street. The village wants to transform the area into a year round tourist destination.
A building at 6041 Main Street, a former bar and nightclub, will have foundation work done, and receive a new roof, electrical and plumbing systems for a transformation into a mixed use building with retail, office space and apartments. A two story building at 6042 Main will receive a new roof, siding, and interior renovations to become housing for artists and performers for the soon-to-be-reopened Orpheum Theater next door, also owned and operated by the Catskill Mountain Foundation.
The total cost of the two projects is over $2 million.
Just last month, a $4.8 million loan from the state was announced to help neighboring Hunter Mountain with the building of a new ski lift and other improvements.
Hmmm...
School Physicals?
The Ulster County Department of Health reminds families that as they plan to head back to school in the coming weeks, they should also check to see if their children's immunizations are up-to-date.
Although some vaccine preventable diseases have become very rare because of vaccines, outbreaks still occur. This is why ensuring that children receive vaccinations on time is very important to their overall health - in addition to the health of their friends, classmates, and the community. Receiving the necessary vaccinations will also ensure that enrollment of children is not delayed, officials said.
Call the county health department with any questions at 340-3090.