Regarding Howard Baul's recent letter asking me to resign...It would be easy to get into Baul's character assassination game if only he had the facts. I will take the high road and present the facts and let the court of public opinion decide:

The Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency was created in 1987 by an act of the state Legislature to protect the county taxpayers from a waste-hauling and disposal industry controlled by organized crime. The original county-agency agreement called for siting a landfill in Ulster County. Currently, the cost of trash hauling and disposal is $8 million annually. So 28 years times $8 million a year equals $224 million, which has been spent thus far, with nothing to show for it except the highest tipping fees ($103 per ton) in the region

Ulster County has the highest tipping fees in the region mostly to pay the $8 million annually to ship our trash 250 miles to the Seneca Meadows landfill. If we had our own landfill, that tipping fee could easily be reduced to $50 or $58 per ton, thus helping attract industry and jobs to our county. Oneida/Herkimer, with its own landfill, has been able to lower its tipping fees from over $100 to $58 per ton.

The community that hosts a countywide landfill is entitled to monetary advantages such as property taxes, sales taxes, local employment and free trash disposal, totaling between $750,000 and $1 million a year in benefits. Yet, at a time when six of Ulster County's 20 towns have an average income level below the national poverty level, we choose to continue to make the town of Waterloo (where Seneca Meadows is located) very wealthy. It's not that we don't have a place to put a landfill. Ulster County is 1,100 square miles of vastness, with 17 200-acre parcels that initially qualify for landfill status. The reason we don't have a landfill is not about logic; it's more about the "Not In My Backyard" syndrome and short-sightedness.

Recently, New York City was ordered to shut down the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island. Hence, the city now is sending its trash to Seneca Meadows, which means Seneca Meadows could reach its capacity within the next 10 years. If Ulster County has to ship its trash by rail to some Midwestern state, our $103-per-ton tipping fee could easily rise to $200. Time is running out for Ulster County.

The U.S. Supreme Court has twice voted to approve flow control, both in concept and operation, and the Ulster County Legislature, by majority vote, approved it. Most importantly, it is working very effectively in Ulster County.

If it were not for eminent domain, the public would not have the Thruway, most Hudson River bridges, tunnels and most airports. There is nothing evil about this law. It has served the property owners and the public well and should continue to do so.

I have no intention of resigning my unanimously appointed position on the Resource Recovery Agency board, even though I am not paid and serve as a volunteer. I am committed to helping solve this problem for the taxpayers of Ulster County.

Charles Landi
Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency
Kingston

I met Rich Parete years ago and was impressed with his dedication to democratic principles. I can't help but think Rich is letting his anger, at not being nominated for Democratic candidate from Hurley/Marbletown, taint his thinking.

I think the reason he was snubbed by the Dem party is due to the fact that he went along with his father John Parete's quid pro quo maneuvering after the last election in 2013. Democrats won back a majority and were looking to reap the benefits of such an election result. However, the elder Parete's seeming promise of doling out committee chairmanships to Republicans in exchange for their vote for him as Legislative Chairman (which Rich supported) was bound to raise ire in the many tens of thousands of Dems throughout the county that had voted for a Democratic majority; and especially seen as a betrayal in Rich's home district.

Now, Rich Parete vows to do the same thing, maneuvering so that Republicans, even though AGAIN in the minority, will be able to rule as the majority (yet he says he's obliged to caucus w/Republicans as they elected him?). He has even promised to champion the Catskill Mountain Rail Road's crusade to keep its leasehold on the rails despite the fact that for 24 years CMRR has violated its county lease agreement in significant ways, like not providing required financial data, having delivered less than 20 percent of the track it was mandated to upgrade and has continually refused to address the very real cost to county taxpayers to rehabilitate multiple bridges and washouts (the cost severely under estimated by CMRR) and has completely ignored the authority of the NYC DEP over the Ashokan Reservoir which has very clearly stated there will be NO railroad through the reservoir. Period.

Didn't Rich, like all of us, see that rusted hulk of an eyesore headed to Kingston on 209 just beyond the trooper barracks which was blatant testament to CMRR's 24 year failure? Doesn't Rich understand that this public media saturation by CMRR supporters doesn't an issue make? Ulster County has a $515 MILLION dollar tourism industry. CMRR, even if its unsupported earning statements to the media are correct, accounts for but a fraction of one percent. Any cost benefit analysis can only clearly show that CMRR is a drain on the taxpayers.

Oh, as for having both rail and trail? Not economically feasible. The cost for widening AND increased insurance for such nearby potential hazard makes such a proposal way too costly.

CMRR is a for-profit private company using volunteer (read: UNPAID) help wishing UC taxpayers pick up the bill for its continued existence. It ran a media saturation campaign right along with the UC political campaigns in order to build the impression that its existence is an extremely important issue and that county taxpayers should ultimately pay for the CMRR hobbyists' dream.

Rich, for you to caucus with the Republicans and support the CMRR seems like vindictiveness, which is a perversion of what our democracy is supposed to be about. How have you forgotten that?

Steven L. Fornal
Accord

With Ulster County Executive Michael Hein's decisive re-election victory, we, as Ulster County voters, have surged forward, embracing Hein's leadership in creating a vibrant and sustainable economy, while taking care of our vulnerable citizens, providing better educational opportunities for our young people and adult workforce and protecting and enhancing our environment and public spaces.

I applaud the county executive on both the tone and content of his campaign and look forward to his guidance as Ulster County continues to build a healthy and bright future for our entire community.

Kathy Nolan
Shandaken

Insanity is described as a mental disorder exhibiting unreasonableness or extreme folly. It also describes our foreign policy.

From Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan, with stops in between, what have we accomplished? The so-called "war on terror" has destabilized the Middle East and has created ISIS. After 12 years in Afghanistan, the Taliban is stronger than ever.

There is an old saying; "If all you have is a hammer, everything else looks like nails." It is pure hubris to think that bombing and occupying countries is the way to get our point across.

All it does is create more hatred and furthers the creation of more terrorists.

Maybe it is time to rethink our foreign policy. The voices of reason and decency must be heard. This is true, not only for the U.S., but the rest of the world, as well.

Pasquale Giordano
Stone Ridge

Money in politics creates corruption. When the wealthy donate millions to a super-pac supporting "their" candidate, their donations are highly self-interested. Example: the Koch brothers protect their sources of wealth: oil, coal, gas, tar sands and pipelines. Republicans seeking their support deny the logic of climate change, because most fossil fuels should stay in the ground, if government acts upon the danger climate change poses to us, and the planet.

There are two candidates who do not have at least one super-PAC or corporate support. Donald Trump doesn't have a super-PAC; he is funding his own campaign, out of his billions, created, he declares, by his genius. He's beholden to no one, he claims. Trump's billions likely come from cozy relations with the elites of many governments (from local to federal). If you know everybody (who's anybody), of course you'll get the permit, the tax write-off or the contract. Trump has his own self-interest. He might become a hundred-billionaire if he were president. Bernie Sanders has no super-PAC, no corporate sponsors and just rejected Martin Shkreli's maximum donation of $2,700, since Shkreli jacked up the price per tablet of a recently purchased AIDS drug from $13.50 to $750 to extract a large profit. Sanders has raised almost as much as Hillary Clinton, all from small donors.

To whom is Sanders beholden? All of us, except the wealthy like Shkreli.

Douglas C. Smyth
High Falls

I would like to know why the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) has been cut from the people who really need them?

One family has a special-needs child who can only eat a certain kind of food because of a medical condition. Now the family, who works very hard to support themselves, has had their SNAP benefits cut so drastically they can no longer afford the food that their child needs in order to live.

One friend of mine cannot find work; had applied to nearly every place in Ulster County and still cannot find work and, therefore, has no income of any kind. She is lucky that the Department of Social Services is paying her rent. However, she is not getting any money from any source whatsoever and depends on her SNAP benefits to feed herself. Now she has no food because her food stamps have been taken away from her entirely. I would like to know why. The only way my friend can eat is if she goes begging for food. This is a sad thing. She has no transportation and no money to even get a bus pass to take her to food pantries or places that serve free food. My friend is applying for disability now, but it is a long process.

I cannot afford to feed her. I am disabled and cannot work. If my food stamps are cut, I will be right beside her begging for food, too.

What is my friend and others in her position supposed to do? Eat dirt?

Susan R. Higgins
Kingston

Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney should be supported by everyone in his constituency for his legislation designed to improve job training and hiring practices for our country's veterans. While we celebrate Veterans Day last week, we should not forgot those who served to protect our freedoms including the right to live and vote in a free democracy.

We must treasure their service as our most precious heritage. We must never forget their sacrifices. We all owe them a debt we can never repay. So this week let's take a moment to remember, to respect and to thank our veterans and those serving in the military on active duty for their service and for our freedom.

Larry Delarose
Washingtonville

Well, it's finally happened — the dreaded discussion (argument) with my children over the use of "social media" (or, I contend, "anti-social media").

At the risk of sounding curmudgeonly and codger-like (I am 59 years old), it seems to me humans invented things because of a collective need to improve the quality of life. To make travel easier, faster and more efficient, we make the bicycle, train, car and plane. To assist our intellect in making sense of the world, mathematics, the abacus, slide rule, calculator and, yes, the computer came into being.

But the deluge-of-biblical-proportions phenomenon of social media turned this view on its head. In this case, the concept materialized with no discernible need in sight (lovingly cultivated, no doubt, by cabals of malevolent, ultra-evil supervillains bent on world domination), and the unsuspecting masses were left to invent reasons to justify its existence. A classic case of the tail wagging the dog.

Suddenly, there is an artificial imperative to keep everyone we know — and increasingly (here's one of my major gripes) many, many people we don't know at all — informed of our every second-by-second movement, thought and intimacy played to the desperate and pathetic strains of "please like me."

This kind of pervasively insidious narcissism is yet another unfortunate side effect of the social media plague. We now find ourselves confronted with the not-so-veiled, creepy terminology and notion of being "followed" and being a "follower." Is it really that much of a leap for the questionably benign image of lemmings on the march to transform into something darker, more sinister and slightly fascistic?

The emperor has no clothes on, but is also lacking in meaningful substance or sense of humanity and is more than a little scary.

Alan J. Adin
Kingston