MAMAKATING
MESSENGER 

New Kid In Town. Ellenville Journal stringer Tod Westlake of Stone Ridge, NY — seen here at his first assignment, the July 15th Mamakating town board meeting.

Cynics up in Ulster County sometimes dismiss Ellenville as outsiders — a suburb of Sullivan County. That sentiment rang true at the July 15th town board meeting, when aspiring journalist Tod Westlake turned up as the Ellenville Journal’s latest stringer.

This was Westlake’s first reporting assignment — ever — and Westlake confessed he drove all the way down from Stone Ridge, NY in order to earn his inaugural byline. When asked why he didn’t simply apply at the Blue Stone Press (right down the road in High Falls), Westlake responded he never heard about them.

The Ellenville Journal has not covered Mamakating since June 2007, except for Joe Bevilacqua’s brief but memorable visit earlier this year. Nothing appeared on the Journal’s website this week, probably because Tuesday is their production deadline — same day as Mamakating’s town board meetings. Articles from our town might suffer a one week delay. The Journal can be purchased at Benny’s restaurant on Sullivan Street, and at G-Mart on US Rt. 209. Stewart’s still refuses to carry them in Wurtsboro.

Cooler Heads Prevail. Mamakating town supervisor Bob Fiore defused a heated argument which took place at the July 15th 2008 town board meeting.

The July 15th Mamakating town board meeting bore witness to raised voices during public comment. The heated debate concerned business practices under the administration of Mamakating Superintendent of Highways Richard Johnson.

Resident John Berry objected to lack of bidding on certain jobs, and the absence of “spotters” to insure integrity of the materials and labor provided through contract with the town.

Councilman Teddy Brebbia took umbrage at Berry’s characterizations, noting that Johnson has statutory authority as an elected official which falls beyond the power of a town board to regulate.

The discussion nearly degenerated into a shouting match, until town supervisor Bob Fiore intervened and mediated the conversation with a cooler head. The fireworks were captured by video gadfly Richard Morris, and promptly posted to the internet. You can watch the verbal sparring here:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=F9zIpWhMkwY

http://youtube.com/watch?v=4r5XKh61oiY

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9Uh2yJR60fs

Politicians on Parade. Sullivan Street in Wurtsboro, which was resurfaced last September, can now withstand heavy traffic (but for how long?) — such as these military vehicles on parade at July 12th’s Founder’s Day event. Jeep in foreground driven by Bloomingburg village mayor Mark Berentsen; riding shotgun is Bloomingburg village clerk Sue Berentsen. Atop the truck following them, Mamakating town supervisor Robert Fiore rides in a gun turret.

The public comment section of July 15th’s Mamakating Town Board meeting was more raucous than usual. Former Wurtsboro mayor Bob Whitehead, age 78, spoke his mind at length about recent media disclosures surrounding last year’s hasty Sullivan Street repaving project.

Whitehead had put together a multi-million dollar state grant during his tenure in the late 1990s, to completely rebuild Sullivan Street from soup to nuts. After Whitehead left office, progress on the project floundered. Village, Town, and State officials pointed fingers in different directions, while Wurtsboro’s main drag disintegrated into a dangerous moonscape of potholes & puddles.

Eventually former Mamakating town supervisor Charlie Penna arranged a lateral grant diversion from town to village, working through the office of state senator Charles Bonacic. Money originally earmarked for the rail trail via member item, were applied to blacktop Wurtsboro’s crumbling thoroughfare. The resurfacing took place in September 2007, conveniently timed just before hotly contested town board elections.

Days before the vote, Bonacic’s office mailed a full-color oversized postcard, paid with taxpayer money, which read “You may have noticed that recently Sullivan Street got a facelift.” Pictured on the front were local Republican slate candidates posing with senator Bonacic. Many considered the townwide mailer to be a thinly-veiled political campaign ad.

Later it was disclosed that last summer’s emergency repaving job interfered with mayor Whitehead’s previous grant project, causing a ten year delay which will likely whittle away the remaining fund’s effectiveness through monetary inflation.

First Husband, Second Wife? Newspaper error mixes up spouses. Pictured above, Wurtsboro village trustee Barbara Piper, riding alongside Wurtsboro’s “First Husband” Bill Maher — mayor Micky Maher’s hub — at the July 12th Founder’s Day Parade.

Last Sunday’s Times Herald-Record contained several glaring mistakes, highlighting their poor reporting standards, and inability to cover small communities with any reliable detail.

Most humorous was mixing-up village trustee Barbara Piper’s name as “Barbara Maher.” The real Mrs. Maher is Wurtsboro mayor Michalena “Micky” Maher, however the Record reporter flubbed it. Wurtsboro’s remaining village trustee shares the Piper’s first name — Barbara Semonite. In the same article, Lyman Holmes’ name was misspelled as “Lyman Homes.”

You can see from the picture above, taken during Saturday’s annual Founder’s Day Parade, Micky’s husband Bill Maher tooling around Sullivan Street in a Wurtsboro Renaissance cart — with trustee Barbara Piper.

Bill was briefly interviewed in the Record for a non-story about Wurtsboro, regarding the latest census results (a statistical fluke pegged Wurtsboro as the “fastest growing municipality in New York”). The Times Herald-Record completely forgot to mention Founder’s Day Parade — the small village’s biggest event all year.

Instead, the Middletown daily took a picture of one of the floats and made it appear to be a parade in and of itself: the “Come Clean” initiative. Wurtsboro Board of Trade instituted “Come Clean” earlier in the year, distributing reusable shopping bags to reduce environmental impact of the ubiquitous plastic variety.

Other mistakes made recently by the Times Herald-Record about Wurtsboro include confusing its geographic location — mixing north & south with east & west; and erroneously stating that Sullivan Street is a state highway.

The Sullivan County cocaine ring, which was busted up in Rock Hill last month, had an interesting twist last week, when the Times Herald-Record ran a story reporting recent indictments. A reader suggested on the TH-R’s discussion forum that at least one law enforcement officer was probably involved with the criminals. That message was quickly deleted from the Record’s website, and an internal affairs chief knocked on the source’s door later the same day.

Trailer Parks: A Disproportionate Source of Local Crime?

According to today’s Times Herald-Record newspaper, the Grand Jury indicted Brian Romer of first degree sexual abuse. His offense allegedly involves repeatedly molesting a ten year old girl. Other charges include child endangerment and criminal contempt. Mr. Romer is listed in the phone book as living at 111 White Birch Trail, Bloomingburg — located in the New Twin Lakes Village Trailer Park, off Nashopa Road, a few miles north of Bloomingburg, in the town of Makakating, county of Sullivan, state of New York. Trailer park residents comprise almost 20% of Mamakating’s population, and are widely considered to be a disproportionate source of crime inside the community.

…You betcha!

All NY Municipalities, as well as the State of NY, are drowning in debt.

We cannot trust the mainstream US media to tell us the truth.

The following is from today’s London Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/05/12/ccambrose112.xml

The California city of Vallejo (117,000 inhabitants) has just made history by opting for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, the result of tax erosion from a 26pc fall in local house prices. Half Moon Bay may be next.

“This is the tip of the iceberg: everybody is going to line up for Chapter 9 in California,” said John Moorlach, Orange County board chief.

A response has been sent to the New York State Comptroller’s office by the Mamakating town board, in answer to that damning state audit from late last year. Read the original criticisms here: http://www.osc.state.ny.us/localgov/audits/2007/towns/mamakating_town.pdf

One of the many ways the new Mamakating administration has addressed problems, is by implementing a more transparent accounting system.

Every town board meeting begins with a verbal disclosure by new town supervisor Bob Fiore, announcing the general fund and highway fund balances. As of last night’s meeting, balances are:

• General Fund: $452,675.38
• Highway Fund: $816,790.31

“We have money in the bank to pay the bills,” observed supervisor Fiore. He went on to note this month’s abstract of $137,238.49 was comprised of:

• over $32K (23.8%) on petroleum products
• over $53K (38.9%) on health insurance

“So,” concluded Fiore, “62.7% of our budget is eaten up by just two factors.” Councilman Ted Brebbia, the deputy town supervisor, indicated some of the vouchers he signed did not make it onto this abstract.

Brebbia made observations about the impact which the rising cost of fuel has on the Mamakating town budget. “For everything in ‘07, on January 1st of this year, it would have cost us 28% more than it did over the course of the year (for ‘07). Right now that’s going to be an additional (probably) 30%.”

“As we track and watch, we have to be very conscious of our fuel costs for the upcoming 2009 budget,” Brebbia advised. “This is going to put a tremendous hole in the 2008 budget as we go. This is not something specific to our town.” Health insurance costs are rising as well, he said.

These considerations should be addressed in the future with Mamakating’s Highway Department. Several trucks from the Highway Department are deteriorated, and Mamakating needs to look at more efficient vehicles, it was suggested.

Brebbia briefly mentioned the town’s answer to the comptroller’s audit, in terms of rising prices. “I know everybody did some portion, and in the end there was a general response. One of the things I put in there, I’ve been tracking futures markets. Because, the graph for increases has changed dramatically — where we used to be able to take one generalized inflationary index, and do the whole budget.”

“Now, when it comes to anything that’s petroleum related, in the past couple of years that graph just skyrockets, where the general costs have gone up higher than traditionally, but they [the NYS Comptroller’s Office] haven’t followed that same curve.

“From what the markets are telling us now, by the end of June you’re going to see another 15% increase in fuel costs; and probably by October, you’re looking at another 35% increase, and that’s coming at the heating season, and snow plowing season. As we adjust that budget accordingly, we have to keep that in mind.

Councilman Nicholas Salamone, Jr. made a suggestion, “I was wondering if we could study the possibility of a 4-day, 10-hour work week, from Monday to Thursday, lower the heat on Friday, Saturday.” Brebbia concurred, “I think that’s a great idea.” Salamone countered, “The only bad part is, we are a seasonal community, people come up from the city, and find out Town Hall is closed on Friday…”

Supervisor Fiore concluded, “We’re going to be looking at other heating options, I know right now they haven’t come to fruition yet, but we’ll be looking for alternatives like solar; geothermal is also another thing to look into.”

He added, “In our response to the audit, our short range was a year, our long range was three years. I have to tell you they’re looking for ten year plans to be developed, they’re [State officials] offering more funding, more reimbursement from our government structures when we do these ten year plans.”

In case you’re wondering how the Times Herald-Record covers local news in and around Wurtsboro, check out the latest bulletin about Wurtsboro Village’s engineering firm.

This story is a month old, because that’s when the last meeting took place where this decision was made. No Times Herald-Record reporter was present at Village Hall (missing in action for over a year).

Nope, this “news article” was lifted verbatim from the engineering firm’s own press release.

Note how the “Ellenville” dateline in the article also wound up in the Record, making it appear that the TH-R doesn’t know the difference between these two villages.

http://www.bartonandloguidice.com/PressRoom/tabid/345/Default.aspx

Village of Wurtsboro Selects Barton & Loguidice as Village Designated Engineer

ELLENVILLE, NY — The Village Board of Wurtsboro voted to designate Barton & Loguidice, P.C., (B&L) as Village Designated Engineer at a recent Village Board meeting.

“We are continuing to work with Barton & Loguidice and are very pleased with the service the Village has been receiving,” said Mayor Mickey Maher. The Village of Wurtsboro will be served out of B&L’s Ellenville office.

B&L provided design, bidding, and construction administration services for water main replacements along Water Street and First Street in the village, and is currently assisting in securing funding for system-wide upgrades including new water hydrants, increasing the size of distribution pipes, and the installation of water meters.

Wonderful essay written in 1973— amazing how timely it is…

Also some thoughts on convivial transport: Social effects of motorized transport

Ivan Illich gives a set of very interesting facts and figures when he discusses his concept of convivial transport:

The United States puts between 25 and 45 per cent of its total energy (depending upon how one calculates this) into vehicles: to make them, run them, and clear a right of way for them when they roll, when they fly, and when they park. For the sole purpose of transporting people, 250 million Americans allocate more fuel than is used by 1.3 billion Chinese and Indians for all purposes.

The model American male devotes more than 1,600 hours a year to his car. He sits in it while it goes and while it stands idling. He parks it and searches for it. He earns the money to put down on it and to meet the monthly installments. He works to pay for gasoline, tolls, insurance, taxes, and tickets. He spends four of his sixteen waking hours on the road or gathering his resources for it. And this figure does not take into account the time consumed by other activities dictated by transport: time spent in hospitals, traffic courts, and garages; time spent watching automobile commercials or attending consumer education meetings to improve the quality of the next buy. The model American puts in 1,600 hours to get 7,500 miles: less than five miles per hour. In countries deprived of a transportation industry, people manage to do the same, walking wherever they want to go, and they allocate only 3 to 8 per cent of their society’s time budget to traffic instead of 28 per cent. What distinguishes the traffic in rich countries from the traffic in poor countries is not more mileage per hour of life-time for the majority, but more hours of compulsory consumption of high doses of energy, packaged and unequally distributed by the transportation industry.

Man, unaided by any tool, gets around quite efficiently. He carries one gram of his weight over a kilometer in ten minutes by expending 0.75 calories. Man on his feet is thermodynamically more efficient than any motorized vehicle and most animals. For his weight, he performs more work in locomotion than rats or oxen, less than horses or sturgeon. At this rate of efficiency man settled the world and made its history. At this rate peasant societies spend less than 5 per cent and nomads less than 8 per cent of their respective social time budgets outside the home or the encampment.

Man on a bicycle can go three or four times faster than the pedestrian, but uses five times less energy in the process. He carries one gram of his weight over a kilometer of flat road at an expense of only 0.15 calories. The bicycle is the perfect transducer to match man’s metabolic energy to the impedance of locomotion. Equipped with this tool, man outstrips the efficiency of not only all machines but all other animals as well.

Bicycles are not only thermodynamically efficient, they are also cheap. With his much lower salary, the Chinese acquires his durable bicycle in a fraction of the working hours an American devotes to the purchase of his obsolescent car. The cost of public utilities needed to facilitate bicycle traffic versus the price of an infrastructure tailored to high speeds is proportionately even less than the price differential of the vehicles used in the two systems. In the bicycle system, engineered roads are necessary only at certain points of dense traffic, and people who live far from the surfaced path are not thereby automatically isolated as they would be if they depended on cars or trains. The bicycle has extended man’s radius without shunting him onto roads he cannot walk. Where he cannot ride his bike, he can usually push it.

The bicycle also uses little space. Eighteen bikes can be parked in the place of one car, thirty of them can move along in the space devoured by a single automobile. It takes three lanes of a given size to move 40,000 people across a bridge in one hour by using automated trains, four to move them on buses, twelve to move them in their cars, and only two lanes for them to pedal across on bicycles. Of all these vehicles, only the bicycle really allows people to go from door to door without walking. The cyclist can reach new destinations of his choice without his tool creating new locations from which he is barred.

Bicycles let people move with greater speed without taking up significant amounts of scarce space, energy, or time. They can spend fewer hours on each mile and still travel more miles in a year. They can get the benefit of technological breakthroughs without putting undue claims on the schedules, energy, or space of others. They become masters of their own movements without blocking those of their fellows. Their new tool creates only those demands which it can also satisfy. Every increase in motorized speed creates new demands on space and time. The use of the bicycle is self-limiting. It allows people to create a new relationship between their life-space and their life-time, between their territory and the pulse of their being, without destroying their inherited balance. The advantages of modern self-powered traffic are obvious, and ignored. That better traffic runs faster is asserted, but never proved. Before they ask people to pay for it, those who propose acceleration should try to display the evidence for their claim.

[from: Energy and Equity. In Ivan Illich: Toward a History of Needs. New York: Pantheon, 1978.]

Richard Ryder, a Bloomingburg truck driver, was involved in a 4-vehicle pileup on I-81 in Penn., according to this morning’s Scranton Times-Tribune.

4-car pileup on I-81 causes minor injuries

http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=19513390&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=590572&rfi=8

MOOSIC ? A rear-end collision on Interstate 81 north led to a four-vehicle pileup, including two 18-wheelers Wednesday afternoon, police said.