Serving the Towns of Wawarsing, Crawford, Mamakating, Rochester and Shawangunk, and everything in between
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Our Schools Are Under Attack!

If you have been following the news lately, it is apparent that a systematic attack is being waged against the public school system. Our own governor has made it crystal clear where he stands on the issue and is all for privatizing education. Is that what you want for your children? It is not what I want for mine.

Over the last several years, wealthy business owners and corporations have declared themselves experts on education. Politician and businessmen claim that the public school system is broken. They are incorrect. I will be the very first person to say that there are problems in the public schools. The public school system is a reflection of society. The core reason for poor academic performance is segregation, poverty and the inequitable funding of schools. Charter schools and privatizing education have not, and will not, solve that problem. There is a wealth of research available that will validate the fact that most charter schools have fared no better than their public school counterparts. There is also a wealth of research on successful and unsuccessful public schools. The data is as clear as day. Schools in more affluent areas, where parents are actively involved in the education of their children, and programs are well funded, achieve higher rates of academic success. I do not believe that privatizing education and creating charter schools, as they exist now, will do one thing to close the gap that exists.

I am very passionate about the need for great public schools. The last twenty years of my life have been dedicated to working toward that goal. I know hundreds of bright, intelligent public school educators who want nothing more than to help our students achieve and are working incredibly hard to do so. I am not saying that public schools are not in need of improvement. There is a great deal of work to be done to meet the needs of all students at all levels. I am saying that when public schools are attacked and criticized by people who have spent little to no time in classrooms, or who have little to no experience actually working with students, it is incredibly frustrating. Since the establishment of this country, public schools have been a fundamental aspect of our communities. The solution is not abandoning them in the pursuit of privatization. The answer is for parents, educators and concerned community members to work together to strengthen our public schools. If we can find a way to achieve that goal, our public school students will be in a far better place.

Marianne Serratore Quill
Pine Bush


Support All Of The Women's Equality Act!

As a Unitarian Universalist lay community minister, I believe in religious liberty and reproductive justice. That's why I support the full Women's Equality Act, which protects a women's human and civil rights at work, at home and when she makes a private health care decision.

The Women's Equality Act promises real religious liberty by ensuring that a woman of any faith, or none, can continue to receive the care guaranteed by Roe v. Wade — just as she has for the past 40 years. It safeguards her and her doctor's decision-making — whatever that decision — so that she gets the care she needs, consistent with her faith and her understanding of her own situation and her own body.

Politicians and groups opposed to women's equality are using the term "religious liberty" to misrepresent the full Women's Equality Act, in a thinly veiled attempt to impose their personal and denominational religious restrictions on others.

My faith tradition, and the many traditions represented by Interfaith Impact of NYS, has long stood for ensuring access to birth control, keeping abortion safe and legal, and making sure our teens have age-appropriate, comprehensive sexuality education.

Reproductive justice is imperative.

New York state policymakers should support religious liberty by standing up for the Women's Equality Act.

Robb Smith, Executive Director
Interfaith Impact of NYS
Albany


Niagara Plans Need A "Positive Declaration"

KingstonCitizens.org was formed in 2004 to support transparency and civic engagement in government. We are concerned that the Niagara Bottling proposal is being rushed without adequate consideration of potential economic and environmental costs. If the Town of Ulster is named "lead agency" in the State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) process, it will determine whether a full environmental impact study (EIS) is needed for the Niagara Proposal.

A "Positive Declaration," which triggers the EIS, is necessary to assure a safe, responsible evaluation of the Niagara Bottling proposal in the Town of Ulster. A Positive Declaration is required when potential exists for at least ONE significant environmental impact.

This potential exists.

The last scientific evaluation of the capacity of Cooper Lake, Kingston's water supply, was in 1961. Even if the final engineering study for Kingston's Water Board delivered on November 12th concludes our water capacity is adequate, it has done so without up-to-date science. Weather and rain patterns are changing and unpredictable. There is more erosion and drought, and less snow melt to replenish our water table.

At last week's Ulster town board meeting, Supervisor Quigley admitted he hasn't seen any cost/benefit calculations to prove that a limited number of below-industry-standard jobs are worth expensive highway wear and tear, the foreclosure of the opportunity to attract other industries, limiting the supply of water available to create new housing in the future, and 10 years of enormous tax breaks to Niagara. Our citizens and school district residents could end up PAYING to host this company.

A positive declaration and thorough evaluation of impacts are imperative. Let's not sacrifice our region's long term well-being for short-sighted development unsuited to our needs.

Rebecca Martin, Jennifer Schwartz Berky, Heather Schwegler, Debra Bresnan, Kitty McCullough and Rachel Marco-Havens
Kingston


Here's Another View On The CMRR Controversy...

I keep hearing a lot of complaints about the Catskill Mountain Railroad on the part of a few trail supporters who want the railroad torn out, so here are a few points to consider:

First off, the county acquired the U&D right of way from the bankrupt Penn Central in lieu of property taxes owed to the county by the railroad. The county paid nothing for it, so it has no monetary investment in the right of way. It isn't as if the county plunked down millions of dollars for the U&D and then signed a sweetheart deal with the railroad as some claim. To the contrary, when county did execute the agreement with the railroad, it had the advice of legal staff. Instead of complaining, critics should consider the fact that if it wasn't for the interest in the right of way on the part of rail proponents at the time, an agreement never would have been drawn up and the right of way would have been lost forever.

Some of these same critics say the railroad should be paying property taxes but since the railroad only leases the property it would not pay them and any suggestion to the contrary is not based in fact. And why would a private operator pay property taxes on publicly owned right way in the first place? After all, trucking companies do not pay property taxes on the New York Thruway.

The railroad puts all of its proceeds back into the physical assets which are owned by the county, with the exception of lease payments, franchise payments for the Thomas events, legal expenses and operating expenses. This is quite different from most normal tenant-landlord relationships, in which the landlord is expected to maintain the property in question. This should lay firmly to rest the notion that the railroad is somehow remiss in its lease payments when the county itself has done little to improve its own asset over the last 23 years.

Related to the previous item, the county has, in essence, been an absentee landlord over the last 23 years, not paying much attention to its own asset. That changed when it arbitrarily decided to boot the railroad out in favor of a trail proposal. Since then, it has actively downgraded its own property to push the railroad out. That downgrading took the form of refusal to release FEMA funds to restore damage done by Irene, especially at Boiceville, but elsewhere as well. It has also removed a bridge and many feet of trackage at Big Indian. So, the railroad is denied the property the County agreed to lease to it.

The railroad relies on 100 percent volunteer labor so it can put more money back into the fixed plant. These dedicated people are what makes the railroad work and they should be thanked by the county for their hard work. Yet the railroad is expected to be "profitable" even as the trail would be publicly supported at the county's expense, even as it has to devote scarce financial resources to its legal fight to survive.

The Thomas the Tank Engine and other events could easily bring in 30,000 visitors in 2015 to the City of Kingston as the Polar Express event has already exceeded Thomas' ridership in ticket sales. The city should think long and hard as to whether it's so well off that it can afford to turn this activity away. Characterizations of these events as "cartoon" events downplays the fact that they are instrumental in keeping the railroad running and in turn the county's asset a viable attraction.

Who rides these trains? The widely quoted Camoin report shows that about 23 percent of visitors for the trail will come from out of town, while actual experience of the railroad shows a much higher percentage rate of 60 percent or more. It's these out of towners that we should zero in on, since they will spend much more than the locals.

Calls for the railroad to be relocated to a rump operation out of Phoenicia are also not workable as others have pointed out and even that idea has come under attack by at least one prominent trail supporter over a new storage barn. People connected with Thomas the Tank Engine are not interested in a location other than Kingston. Some trail supporters also point to Arkville as an alternative for Thomas (a convenient excuse to kick the railroad out of Ulster County altogether), but if that was a viable possibility, we would have seen more events there since the one that was held years back.

Finally, the notion that there is some unique feature of Ulster County's topography that would preclude a rail/trail solution is nonsense. Objections of some trail supporters aside, there is nothing that would stop construction of both, as actual video and photos and a preliminary study by the railroad show. The question is why the blind opposition to the railroad on the part of Ulster County and City of Kingston officials and some trail supporters? What's missing is a willingness to work together.

Bill Hutchison
Largo, FL


It's Time To Put Fracking Issue To Rest

Election Day has passed, the science is in, and now it's time for Governor Cuomo to permanently put to sleep the noxious idea of hydraulic fracturing in New York State. Hydrofracking uses millions of gallons of water for each well, which we can never get back. Sacrificing necessity for commodity is flat out irresponsible. While we are focusing our efforts to keep up with the demand for energy, we need to keep in mind that it is inevitable that someday locating and supplying fresh water is going to be even more of a challenge. We can no longer afford to risk our most important natural and limited resource, water.

The world is faced with a crisis to find the next energy source while the Village of New Paltz is struggling to supply enough water to its residents, a problem brought to the forefront with the ten week closure of the Catskill Aqueduct. Our small village cannot even come up with a viable water source to run on for the short time period of two and a half months. If fracking were to take place in New York, we would be having an even more difficult time trying to find an adequate water supply. In Wyoming, gas companies are outbidding farmers for what has become an endangered resource. Do we want our local municipalities bidding against corporate giants for water rights?

The best way to achieve social and environmental justice is through the governmental system. Governor Cuomo owes it to his many citizens who voted for him in the hope he would make the right decision; the decision to ban fracking. Don't leave our next Governor with a water shortage crisis; energy supply problems are much more manageable.

Alexandra Miller
NYPIRG


Believes Farmland Loss Is A Tax Problem

Mr. Rowley rightly bemoans the "alarming" loss of our farmland. And though he doesn't say so, of course, he knows that it is high property taxes, and even worse, inheritance taxes that force farmers to sell to developers.

He will certainly back the notion that farmland (and woodland) not be taxed — perhaps even receive credits — since they do so much good for the citizenry and for the environment.

The people who farm and maintain the land, which, believe you me, is hard and constant work, should be aided and encouraged by any means possible to continue to do so, and should be protected from having to sell out because they cannot afford extravagant levies. Per acre, farms and woods put very little demand on schools and other civil services. Thank you, Mr. Rowley, for calling our attention to this situation.

Hank Harwood
Montela



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