By WILLIAM J. KEMBLE
Correspondent
link to full article is here:
http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2009/02/06/news/doc498bb0b677a5c909710510.txt
WOODSTOCK — Town Planning Board members on Thursday heard diametrically opposing views during a public hearing on the proposed 53-unit Woodstock Commons project.
The hearing attracted a standing-room-only audience of more than 200 people at the Woodstock Community Center.
Support for the project proposed for 27 acres behind the Bradley Meadows shopping plaza on state Route 212 came from residents who said there has been a long-standing need for affordable housing.
“Eleven years ago I first moved to Woodstock as a single mother of two,” resident Carol Buskey said. “In the first four years I lived here I moved three times. This was either due to substandard housing, houses that were expensive to heat because they were not insulated, it was due in some cases to being at the mercy of absentee landlords and eventually it was due to (a) rent increase that made it financially prohibitive to live there anymore.”
Resident Nadia Steinzor noted the proposed site was recommended by the town Affordable Housing Committee, which in 2003 invited the Rural Ulster Preservation Corp. to propose a plan for affordable residential units.
“Since that time the town has done virtually nothing to advance affordable housing or comprehensive planning,” she said. “Despite that Woodstock’s own zoning law includes guidelines to encourage the development of low- and moderate-income and senior citizens’ housing in the town.”
Resident Steve Yoder said concerns over additional vehicles were understandable but were not consistent with existing traffic problems.
“Our biggest traffic problems are not the result of full-time residents but of Woodstock’s status as a weekend and summer destination,” he said.
The project was proposed about five years ago and reduced to the current 53 units after opposition was voiced at past public informational sessions to an 81-unit proposal that included a community center and was later changed to a 63-unit proposal without the center.
Among consistent concerns was the effect on wetlands and wildlife due to traffic during construction.
Resident Andrea Newman-Winston said lighting needed for the project would shine onto her property.
“RUPCO’s need to put in proper lighting, which may resemble the lighting for Dietz Stadium, is understandable but it will disturb the dark of the uninhabited area, the wildlife that resides in that area and all the neighbors in the area and on the mountain that looks down on this area,” she said.
“If this project continues on the site now proposed my house will be all but destroyed,” Newman-Winston said. “The increased traffic will increase the vibrations my house needs to withstand. The traffic will increase the dust in the air opening up problems to my house and to my health.”
Ulster County Legislator Donald J. Gregorius, D-Woodstock, said anticipated problems with the project outweigh the proposed benefits and that property tax rates will increase because of breaks given to RUPCO.
“It is reasonable to believe that eligible at-risk people from surrounding towns and counties will be applying to live here and that (there will be a limited) window of opportunity for Woodstockers to get housing in Woodstock Commons,” he said. “Yet, other Woodstockers will be subsidizing the project.”
Resident Peter Remler also said the project is not expected to benefit people who currently live in the town.
“We began this venture with the express purpose of providing affordable housing for the people of Woodstock but since the project fell into the hands of outsiders its purpose has become subverted and now it serves their interest, not ours,” he said. “RUPCO’s selections will be chosen by lottery open to all. In fact, it’s quite possible not a single Woodstocker will ever live there.”
The public hearing, which heard from about half of the 90 people signed up for comment, was recessed until 6 p.m. next Thursday at the Community Center.
Zoey Gardepe with her sled on a hillside on the SUNY Delhi campus overlooking the village. More Photos >
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FARMING the scoop-shaped hills of Delhi, N.Y., turns up “two stones for every dirt,” a local saying goes. But 19th-century settlers in this upstate town persevered. They learned to scratch out a living, and eventually earned a national reputation for their butter, which sometimes fed hungry prospectors out in the Wild West.
The dairy farms today have dwindled from the hundreds that used to surround Delhi (pronounced DELL-hi) and neighboring towns like Franklin, Hamden and Walton, which curl up against the Catskills, between the Susquehanna River and the West Branch of the Delaware River.
But a similar pioneering do-it-yourself spirit still stirs the region’s second-home owners, who have discovered its vintage homes full of period wide-plank floors, pocket doors and eyebrow moldings. Designers, professors, musicians and doctors are among those who are renovating them, making up for decades of neglect.
Those old homes grace a deeply rural landscape of former one-room schoolhouses and roadside stands selling Boer-goat meat. The clear sky fans out in all directions and the area often feels farther away from New York City than 150 miles.
Real estate prices, too, can seem a world apart. Although the restored properties with rambling stone walls and meadows can ultimately resemble spreads in getaways like, say, Litchfield County in Connecticut, their prices are minuscule by comparison, local real estate agents say.
Lawrence Lewis, a Manhattan gemologist, bought an 1820 farmhouse on 25 acres in adjacent Franklin for $380,000 in 2005.
When Mr. Lewis arrived, the green-shuttered home was abandoned, save for 13 garden snakes living in the fieldstone foundation. Today, though, the cleaned-up 2,500-square-foot house comfortably fits 18 guests for dinner.
Summers find Mr. Lewis lounging by the property’s spring-fed pond. But this time of year, he’s likely to be cross-country skiing on nearby trails that pass “mountains and little bridges and open fields and these great expanses,” he said. “The views are pristine.”
The Scene
Delhi has a population of about 4,600, according to a recent Census Bureau estimate, and its village is the region’s liveliest gathering place. It includes a well-kept three-block Main Street with two wine stores, the Steinway Book Company bookstore and a sushi restaurant.
The Quarter Moon Cafe serves panko-crusted shrimp ($9.95) and seared hanger steak with green peppercorn sauce ($12.95) beneath a chandelier made of roofing flashing. On a recent Saturday, three men sat at the bar, which serves 50 bottled beers, including Ommegang from nearby Cooperstown, and compared notes on a kayaking trip.
Although 2,971 students are enrolled across the street from the cafe at a New York State University campus, they maintain a low profile, locals say. Some spoils from the school’s presence, though, include the 50-acre SUNY Delhi Outdoor Education Center, whose paths by the Little Delaware River are popular with hikers (and their dogs) year-round.
Dropping by a neighbor’s house usually requires a car trip. The towns that dot the area also offer limited night life, so residents often have to entertain themselves, said Zonder Kennedy, a professional guitarist from Manhattan. His three-bedroom A-frame in Hamden cost $253,000 in 2005, he said.
“There’s usually not a lot going on unless you create it, which is perfect because I don’t want social obligations,” said Mr. Kennedy, who has formed a “roots-rock-punk-blues” band called Scoville Junkies with local residents. “I’m here for the sunsets and the tranquillity,” he added, “and the whole vibe.”
In season, two local theaters stage surprisingly good performances, says Julian Peploe, a CD-cover designer from Manhattan. Mr. Peploe began clearing land by hand in 2002 for his own retreat; it includes 87 acres, a 2,100-square-foot Colonial-style modular home, garage and pool, and cost $750,000 altogether.
His favorite is West Kortright Centre, a 200-seat former Presbyterian church that from May to November offers chamber music, square dancers and gospel singers. The more traditional Franklin Stage Company sticks to classics like Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” and Ibsen’s “Doll’s House.”
“There was this huge hippie exodus up here in the 1970s,” Mr. Peploe explained, “so there are many creative types around.”
Diversions are also found outdoors, even during cold snaps. Mr. Peploe snow-tubes in Roxbury and snowshoes on his wooded property. And venturing farther afield isn’t usually a problem. Of Delaware County’s 939,000 acres, development is restricted on much of it, and many areas are open to the public.
The most active conservation force is New York City, which routinely buys up land in the valley to protect its drinking water, which flows from there. Some year-rounders complain when those acquisitions result in bans on snowmobiles. Second-home owners, though, tend to support the watershed purchases, because they ensure postcard-worthy panoramas.
What didn’t go over so well, though, was the 2006 plan to install tall power-generating wind turbines on ridges in the nearby town of Meredith. They were ultimately banned after spirited protests from part-timers.
Pros
Unlike the eastern Catskills, which are still thick with old resorts, Delhi and its 64.57 square miles are still largely wild. Although some vacation homes have sprouted, pastures often return to the way they looked 200 years ago when farms vanish.
Cons
Floods almost washed Walton away in 2006, and other streams periodically slip their banks. But the weather talk this season concerned an Oct. 28 storm that dropped a foot of snow.
The Real Estate Market
Buyers who want secluded older houses on plenty of land look on Case Hill or Snake Hill Roads, or County Route 21. Those homes, often Italianate in style, need restoring and sit on parcels of 20 acres or so; they sell for about $170,000, local agents say.
Other buyers don’t want the work of maintaining large properties and so pick the village sections of Franklin, Walton or Delhi, or the hamlet of Treadwell.
Those houses, in the Stick style with decorative porches on one-eighth-acre lots behind tall oaks on Clinton and Franklin Streets in Delhi, come on the market less often than outlying properties, agents say, and sell for $250,000.
Like the market nationwide, home sales have slowed in and around Delhi. But among those homes still selling, prices have actually increased slightly.
The average price of the 64 homes sold in the area in the last six months of 2008 was $170,800, according to state sales data, compared with $143,600 for the 99 homes sold a year earlier.
The explanation may be that the lower-income buyers of the cheaper properties have not been able to get mortgages, said Barbara Roberts, a broker with Prudential Fox Properties.
“There’s been a move to higher-end properties among buyers who are priced out of Woodstock” and don’t mind a longer commute, she said.
And homes are taking longer to sell. The 104 homes currently for sale have an average price of $242,600, and have been on the market for an average of 223 days, up from 168 in 2008.
Eric Lysdahl, a Manhattan interior designer, has felt the slowdown firsthand. In August, he listed his Federal-style home in Delhi village for $289,000 with the idea of relocating to a farm on the outskirts. But after four months with no offers on the three-bedroom 1,800-square-foot home, which had cost less than $150,000 in 2004, he took it off the market, content to stay put.
“We have an exquisite, picture-perfect house,” he said, “that can still be a refuge every weekend.”
FORESTBURGH — Developers have pitched Sullivan County's largest housing proposal in its smallest town, planning houses and luxurious amenities on a huge piece of property, where pine trees grow for miles.
For the Town of Forestburgh and its 900 residents, the scale of this project is unprecedented. Double Diamond Resorts, a Texas-based developer, wants to build more than 2,600 homes just off Cold Spring Road. The half-community, half-resort project also calls for an 18-hole golf course, restaurant, hotel, spa and other recreational amenities, most of which will be open to the public. Double Diamond is calling it "Lost Lake Resort," after the 52-acre lake on its 2,091-acre property.
Proposals like these are galore in Sullivan, but many are never built. Town Supervisor Jim Galligan says Double Diamond has shown signs it will follow through on its paper plans. The company has built 17 similar projects across the country. Its top executives have flown into the Sullivan County Airport to attend local hearings and answer the myriad questions that come with such a complex project.
"They're a pretty big outfit," Galligan said. "And they do what they tell you they're going to do."
Double Diamond's proposal has piqued the interest of the state Department of Environmental Conservation, which is now tussling with Forestburgh officials over who will lead the project's environmental review. The DEC wants to take charge because the project borders state parkland and could impact regional resources like bald eagles and the nearby Neversink River, it said.
"This is an extraordinary project," said Willie Janeway, director of the DEC's Region 3. "We would usually defer to the towns, unless the impacts rise to a level where they are regional and state impacts."
Galligan fears that a state review would delay the project, which stands to boost Forestburgh's tax base by $33 million. He thinks Forestburgh could handle the project quicker, not because its review would be less stringent, but because Lost Lake would be priority No. 1 on the town's already short agenda. The Town Board has hired an experienced engineering company, C.T. Male & Associates of Latham, to review Double Diamond's plan.
"It will be our main focus, while the DEC has to review thousands of projects," Galligan said.
Town lawmakers are enthusiastic about the project because of its potential to boost the tax base and create new jobs. Many residents are concerned about issues like density and traffic on sparsely traveled country roads. Galligan said the number of lots proposed can be misleading because residents of other Double Diamond projects purchased several lots for privacy, but only built one home. Lost Lake could more than triple the population of Forestburgh if the full scale of its plan is built. Lawmakers expect shovel to hit dirt no sooner than 2012.
It might be true the housing market is tanking, especially the new home construction industry where national builders such as D.R. Horton lost billions last year and pulled out of New York.
But you wouldn't know it by surveying plans for more than 5,000 homes, condos and apartments in Sullivan's core development corridor.
In Thompson, 11 new projects are in the pipeline for 2,833 units, with the biggest being developer Robert Berman's Rock Hill Town Center, a 1,340 home, condo and townhouse proposal in Rock Hill that's targeting future employees of a reborn Concord and expanding Stewart International Airport.
In Fallsburg, 18 major housing projects before the Planning Board propose 2,411 units, a mixture of second homes, townhouses, condos and apartment units in a town with lots of seasonal homes and bungalows.
But the numbers are deceptive, town officials say. Several major housing projects fizzled last year, even ones that seemed like sure bets.
In Fallsburg, D.R. Horton, the nation's largest homebuilder, last summer walked away from its approved subdivision The Grande in Hurleyville after building just 15 of 111 homes, and is trying to sell the property. Pulte Homes, another national builder, has put plans on hold for 450 units near Morningside Park.
Still, plans keep coming. "I think what they are anticipating is by the time they get approval, the market will get vibrant again, so there will be money to invest in building," Building Inspector Allen Frishman said.
Thompson Planning Board Chairman Jim Lyttle says scores of developers, even in good times, disappeared when they couldn't get backing to build.
"Just with the economy, you ain't going to see anything happen."
Victor Whitman
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| http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=763952&category=OPINION | |
| First published: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 |
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| Wow. Talk about playing long shots. Talk about dreaming dangerously.
The push to bring gambling to the Catskills is on anew, with three state legislators from the region and near it showing the go-for-broke sort of thinking you'd expect in the wee hours in a bleak casino from the most down-and-out sort of bettor. Assemblymen Gary Pretlow, D-Westchester County; Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther, D-Sullivan County; and Sen. John Bonacic, R-Orange County, want casinos in the Catskills, all right ? where the action would include legal betting on professional sports. Imagine. The mountains of New York would have an unseemly touch of the deserts and glitz of Nevada. The underside of big-time sports gambling would be ever closer to the New York City region, which has no fewer than seven professional sports franchises. There's a reason why an otherwise growing and thriving city like Las Vegas has no professional sports. None of the leagues have any desire to be so near a place where legal sports betting is a booming industry. Bringing sports betting to the Catskills is full of obstacles, fortunately. Turning the New York Jets or the New York Knicks into playoff-caliber teams would be easy by comparison. The federal government would have to add New York to its very short list of states ? currently that's just Nevada, Delaware, Montana and Oregon ? where sports betting is permitted. Mr. Pretlow, Mrs. Gunther and Mr. Bonacic know all that, too. That's why they have a somewhat safer bet to cover their truly outlandish bet. They're also pushing for legislation that would allow for casino gambling at three Catskills locations. Even that would require amending the state constitution and getting the approval of New York voters to allow for casinos not built by Native American tribes or on grounds held in trust by the federal government for a tribe. There are better and so much less risky ways to revive the regional economy of a struggling part of New York. Economic development doesn't have to bring all the social costs of legal gambling. That these legislators would so much as propose casinos featuring what are known in the betting world as Las Vegas-style sports books is mind-boggling. Another far-fetched notion or two, and perhaps some of their constituents would consider long shots of their own ? namely running against legislative incumbents. The issue: The push for casinos in the Catskills includes a plan for sports betting. The Stakes: Not a good idea, New York, not by a long shot. To comment: [email protected] |
By The Associated Press
ALBANY — Local government leaders and environmentalists say communities across New York would be devastated by Gov. David Paterson’s proposal to cap property taxes paid on state-owned land.
Paterson’s 2009-10 budget proposal to cap tax payments at 2008 levels hits hardest in the Adirondacks and Catskills, where the state owns millions of acres. But it applies to certain state-owned land from Long Island to Jamestown.
John Sheehan, spokesman for the Adirondack Council, said the proposal would be especially harsh for communities in the Adirondack Park where as much as 90 percent of land in some towns is state-owned.
“We’re dead set against the governor’s proposal,” Sheehan said Friday. “We’re working with more than 100 local governments in the Adirondacks and Catskills to fight it.”
In a letter dated Jan. 12, members of the Tug Hill Region Councils of Governments in central New York asked Paterson to reconsider his executive budget proposal to amend Section 544 of the real property tax law to cap the state’s payment of taxes on certain lands across the state.
The proposal would save the state $9 million in the 2009-10 fiscal year and $16 million in 2010-11, said Jeffrey Gordon, spokesman for the Division of Budget. He said local governments could minimize the impact on private landowners by finding ways to cut municipal spending.
“Given the state’s fiscal situation, Governor Paterson has proposed to reduce spending or maintain it at current levels in every area,” Gordon said. “At a time when the state is experiencing a dramatic decrease in revenues, the governor has called on all entities, including local governments, to also find ways to reduce spending.”
Local governments are still trying to quantify the impact the proposal would have. In 2008, the state paid $69 million in local taxes on its 2.7 million acres in the Adirondack Park and 288,000 acres in the Catskill Park. That’s up from $48 million 10 years ago, Sheehan said.
In the Essex County town of Newcomb, which has fewer than 500 year-round residents, 84 percent of land is owned by the state. Town officials say a freeze would mean that a 5 percent increase in town spending would trigger a 31 percent jump in the tax rate paid by private property owners.
“I think it’s a horrible mistake,” said Bill Farber, chairman of the Hamilton County Board of Supervisors. “This is not a model of shared sacrifice. This is a huge shift of the burden to the local taxpayers in the park.”
State Sen. Betty Little, a Queensbury Republican, said the proposal calls for an unfair sacrifice by Adirondack private property owners, many of whom are struggling to make ends meet.
Little was among Adirondack officials signing a letter from the Common Ground Alliance, an ad hoc group that urged Paterson to drop the idea.
“Private individuals living on tight budgets don’t have the option of deciding how much property tax they pay, and neither should the state,” the Jan. 8 letter noted.
Environmental groups fear that if the state backs out of its promise to pay the same amount of property taxes as private landowners do, opposition will increase to state acquisition of pristine land tracts for preservation.
“We’re concerned that there would be a drumbeat for lifting the forever wild restrictions on forest preserve so towns could make money on it,” Sheehan said. “Taxes have been a form of insulation for the forest preserve, relieving local pressure to develop land and easing opposition to additions being made to state holdings.”
Sandy Galef, chairwoman of the state Assembly’s property tax committee, said she would recommend a one-year cap on the property taxes paid by the state, rather than a permanent freeze at the 2008 level.
New York Power Authority President Richard Kessel doesn’t like the idea of having the New York Regional Interconnect power line run along his Marcy South line.
“The issue from my perspective is that building NYRI adjacent to or close to or within our right of ways would create problems in terms of maintaining and running and upgrading our line, which is a critical backbone in the state’s transmission infrastructure,” Kessel told the Observer-Dispatch.
NYRI wants to run a power line from Marcy to Orange County downstate. Its preferred route runs along the New York Susquehanna & Western Railway line through numerous local communities, including New York Mills, South Utica, Sauquoit, Clayville, Cassville and Waterville.
The staff of the New York state Public Service Commission, which is evaluating NYRI’s application, has recommended the line instead follow the route of the Power Authority’s existing Marcy South line, which also runs from Marcy to downstate.
The commission does not have to follow the staff’s recommendation.
NYRI spokesman David Kalson said the company would abide by the commission’s decision on the route.
“NYRI is interested in building a line from point A to point B, and the actual route is the domain of the Public Service Commission,” he said. “They are the choosers of the final route.”
Gerald Norlander of the Albany-based Public Utility Law Project energy policy think tank said the Public Service Commission certainly would listen to the power authority’s views.
“I think it would be given considerable weight,” he said.
Kessel called the NYRI proposed route “extremely difficult and problematic,” though he declined to take a position on that route himself.
“I think there is a tremendous amount of discomfort with it along the route,” he said. “I just don’t see that happening.”
Steve DiMeo, the local representative on the multi-county NYRI opposition group Communities Against Regional Interconnect, pointed to part of the power authority’s testimony in the commission’s NYRI evaluation that seemed to indicate that Marcy South could be converted to direct current, or DC, transmission, which may be more efficient.
“(New York Power Authority) has said they can convert their Marcy South line to DC, and in their testimony they pointed out a number of reasons why that would be better than NYRI,” he said. “We believe NYPA has proposed an alternative to NYRI.”
The proposed NYRI line would be a DC line.
The power authority’s Thomas McDermott said converting Marcy South would not require any additional right of way.
Kessel declined to comment on the testimony.
HYDE PARK — Gov. David Paterson announced the release of $5 million in funds to train alternative energy workers at mid-Hudson community colleges Monday.
The surprise announcement came in midst of an alternative energy conference at which Paterson praised his newly appointed “senator in waiting” Kirsten Gillibrand.
As representative for the state’s 20th Congressional District, Gillibrand, a Democrat, was one of the sponsors of the event.
Paterson announce the creation of a “clean energy training consortium” that will be spearheaded by Ulster County BOCES and will involve programs at Orange and Sullivan, Dutchess and Rockland community colleges
“This should be a real shot in the arm,” the governor said.
Paterson gave the kenynote address at the standing room only conference.
It was an ideal platform for Gillibrand to take the spotlight as the new senator from New York. Paterson named her Friday to take the seat of Hillary Clinton, who has been appointed as secretary of State in the Obama administration.
Elements of the training programs are already up and running at the various community colleges. For instance, SUNY Ulster has a lot of solar effort underway.
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Indian affairs office for state?
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| link to full article is here: http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=763582&category=REGION |
| By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau Click byline for more stories by writer. First published: Monday, January 26, 2009 |
| Amid an escalating war of words between the Seneca Indian Nation and state government, aides to Gov. David Paterson are talking about recreating an Office of Indian Affairs, an executive-branch unit with "job lines" formerly held in the Department of Economic Development, which Paterson proposes to trim through merger.
The office was created under Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, but abandoned under Gov. George Pataki. The office would help Native American governments work with state agencies and negotiate with tribes on a myriad of thorny issues, including taxation. Cuomo's original executive order should give Paterson the ability to fill slots without going to the Legislature. Several tribal members say relations with the state have been poor recently, especially after Paterson signed into law a cigarette taxation bill that is supposed to take effect Feb. 13. All this has made for a potentially volatile situation at the Seneca reservations, recalling tax revolts in 1992 and 1997 that closed a part of the Thruway and the internal fighting that led to three deaths in 1995. Several tribal representatives, including Seneca leaders, went to Barack Obama's inauguration in Washington, D.C., but other than Ray Halbritter of the Oneida, no New York tribal leaders came to Albany for Paterson's State of the State address — an event that commonly draws a few chiefs or tribal presidents. The inauguration of Obama, dubbed "Black Eagle" by the Crow, is believed to have drawn a record number of tribal members, estimated in the thousands, because he is seen as a friend of Native Americans, said Randi Rourke, a Mohawk and an editor of Indian Country Today. Catskills sports book A new bill would allow three privately owned casinos in one Catskills county to offer all the gambling options available in Las Vegas — including betting on professional sports. The measure, introduced by Assembly Racing and Wagering Committee Chairman Gary Pretlow (D-Mount Vernon) and state Sen. John Bonacic (R-Mount Hope), is unlike any other piece of legislation ever produced in the long history of attempts to get casinos up and running in Sullivan County. The legislation would call for changing the state constitution to allow the casinos, currently allowed only if built by a Native American tribe on tribal property or on grounds held in trust by the U.S. government for a tribe. The two lawmakers have hedged their bets: They also introduced a separate bill that would simply change the constitution to allow for any type of casino in Sullivan County. As for the highly lucrative sports wagering, the lawmakers put it in just in case the federal government changes its prohibition on such betting, currently allowed only in states grandfathered under a 1992 U.S. law: Delaware, Montana, Nevada and Oregon. Getting sports books in New York would be a difficult lift. Even if the federal government opened the door, professional leagues would fight such attempts. The process of changing the constitution, which requires two Legislatures and the public to pass resolutions, would play out through 2011 at the earliest. Reach Odato at 454-5083 or by e-mail at [email protected]. |
The Allman Brothers Band, Gov't Mule, Richie Havens, Coheed and Cambria and many others will perform at Mountain Jam V, May 29-31, at Hunter Mountain in the Catskills.
The concert will once again be staged by WDST (100.1 FM) in Woodstock and Warren Haynes, guitarist for the Allmans and the Mule. Click on the link to the right for the full story.
Tickets will be available Monday. Visit www.mountainjam.com for information.
MONTICELLO — Sullivan County environmental groups that oppose gas drilling in western Sullivan, casino gaming in Thompson, the landfill expansion in Monticello and the mushroom plant in the southern Town of Mamakating are getting together.
They're not, they say, teaming up to oppose economic development projects.
"This is not to fight anything," said Janet Newberg, president of Special Protection of the Environment for the County of Sullivan.
Newberg said the concept is modeled on organizations in Pennsylvania, which have pooled their expertise, established goals for environmental protection and sustainable economic development and educated the public.
For example, SPECS has done lots of research on recycling and composting, whereas other groups are experts on solar energy, community cleanup projects, green building practices and the environmental review process.
"People are thirsty for information," she said.
Several of these groups, however, such as SPECS, which opposes the county landfill expansion, have been focused on a single issue.
Tim McCausland, president of the Sullivan County Partnership for Economic Development, said he doesn't feel threatened by the prospect of having to debate a super-sized opponent at public hearings — provided they don't gum things up with unrealistic objectives.
"It comes down to hysteria and total irrelevant issues that are brought up that make my life and economic development projects more difficult," he said.
The groups held their first meeting Thursday in Monticello. Others attending included the Sullivan Alliance for Sustainable Development, Catskill Mountainkeeper, The Delaware Highlands Conservancy and The Basha Kill Area Association. Representatives from the Gerry Foundation and Sullivan County Planning Department also attended.
Link is here: http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090113/NEWS/901130336
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