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Comments from the Garden Party:
"What a great bunch of people and what a reprieve from the pettiness and insanity of what otherwise passes for life in this County! For a little while at least, when reminiscing about Pete Seeger with Steve K_, I felt transported back to the Sixties, when we were full of hope for the future. With 100 people like that still around, practically oozing good will, enthusiasm and the spirit of can-do, there is still hope!" HK
 "Our thanks go out to you Jeff, the party was marvelous, your organization great, good healthy food, beautiful flowers and weather. But our major thanks go to you for bringing together so many wonderful people at your great party, and for the many ways you always draw us all into a community." - B&P
"Thanks for the hospitality. It was greatly appreciated. I hope we didn't leave too much of a mess." DP
"I personally want to thank you for allowing the children to entertain themselves with the water hose. Not only did it keep them cool, but it got them together in a playful and fun way... It was nice to see the neighbors in a social atmosphere, as usually we are going or coming from school..." Patricia
"It was great to spend time with kindred spirits on a beautiful piece of land." BH
"Thank you for inviting us to your Splendid Garden Party. Everything, the setting, the food, the music, and especially the people was perfect. The only thing we missed was the bonfire but I have already marked July 11th, 2009 on the calendar so we won't miss it next year." JC
Happy Bastille Day,
It was on July 14th 1789 that residents took up arms against the monarch and stormed the Bastille, a prison in Paris. The aim wasn't to free those inside as much as it was a direct challenge to what had become a regime immune to pleas from the people for meaningful assistance and change. Those involved got their ideas from their brethren on this continent and modeled both their movement and their constitution on what our founding fathers had created a few years earlier. The French version, adopted in August of that year, was called the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and led to the establishment of the First Republic.
About 40 people showed up for the demonstration last Friday held by the Stop Patterson Crossing folk. They lined Route 311 from the interstate west towards town garnering a good deal of support from those driving by. Now that they're on the streets again, let's hope the movement grows. Write Paul Spiegel for more information if you'd like to get involved.
From Cathy Croft: The Southeast Planning Board meets tonight where there will be a Public Hearing on Stateline Retail Center, which is a project proposed for Route 6 East in the Town of Southeast. Stateline is a fairly significant project so anyone who is interested can read the DEIS and comment on the project. Public Hearings are usually noticed to start after 8PM and Stateline is the third Public Hearing on the agenda for Monday night. A hard copy of the DEIS is also available at the Brewster Public Library. The Planning Board Meeting takes place at the Southeast Town Hall located at 1360 Route 22 and starts at 7:30PM.
Now that the county has closed its recycling plant, a decision Deputy Supervisor John Tully says he has no regrets about, the county jail is swimming in recyclables with no place to send them. Attempts to get one of the towns to take them have failed. Kent, with the county's most mature recycling program said, "Um, nah... I don't think so," and Patterson said, "What?". The only out I see is for Sheriff Smith to start bringing them to Mr. Bondi and Mr. Tully's homes since they seem to be perfectly happy with the situation as it is. In the meantime, the DEC insists the county must come up with a plan that does not include paying private contractors.
The Keep Putnam Beautiful campaign is seeking volunteers to man their display at the upcoming annual 4-H Fair in Kent. Write Walt Thompson for more information.
The Clearwater organization will premiere their new radio show "The Clearwater Moment" on WAMC radio in Albany. WAMC has many sister stations in our area so check their website for the nearest station. The two-minute module will air at approximately 11:11am each weekday morning during Roundtable. You may also listen to an MP3 recording of the show beginning this morning at the Clearwater website.
And now, the News:
- Patterson says no thanks to jail's recyclables
- New coalition questions need for Hudson River water plant, stresses more conservation instead
- The Pleasure of a Pool on a Cleaner Hudson
- Required environmental reviews don't ask the right questions (Article of the day!)
- 'Region at Crossroads' a new series
- Greens Nominate McKinney
Patterson says no thanks to jail's recyclables Michael Risinit
The Journal News
CARMEL - Prisoners aren't the only ones biding their time within the confines of the Putnam County jail. The jail's empty metal and plastic containers don't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon, either.
Since the county closed its recycling site April 1, jail officials have been stockpiling the jail's recyclables - mostly empty food containers. Authorities have attempted to release their refuse but haven't found any takers. They inquired of Patterson recently but were rebuffed. Patterson, like Kent, has a recycling center where items can be dropped off.
"We've been advised the town of Patterson is not able to accept the recyclables from the Sheriff's Office and the correctional facility. We're still exploring other possible solutions," Putnam County Sheriff's Capt. William McNamara said.
McNamara said there are about two-dozen "large, contractor-sized trash bags" (about 40 to 50 gallons each) filled with empty containers and placed inside a jail storage room.
Previously, the metal and plastic were taken to the county recycling center at the Donald B. Smith County Government Campus off Old Route 6 in Carmel. But County Executive Robert Bondi closed the center, citing the move as one that would save Putnam about $300,000 at a time when the county is struggling financially. That move also presented the Kent Recycling Center with some growing pains, as center officials were forced to start a waiting list for membership.
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New coalition questions need for Hudson River water plant, stresses more conservation instead Laura Incalcaterra
The Journal News
Environmental and civic groups opposed to a proposed Hudson River water-treatment plant have formed a new coalition to fight the project and require more water conservation.
The Rockland Coalition for Sustainable Water questions the need for the plant, along with the costs involved in building and operating it.
"It's a question of looking at the big picture," said George Potanovic, president of the Stony Point Action Committee for the Environment. "We're being asked to accept much higher water rates and the potential for more development that is not sustainable."
But United Water New York, which proposes building the plant, called it the "best solution for providing long-range supply of drinking water to Rockland," spokesman Steve Goudsmith said.
"A new treatment plant on the Hudson is less expensive, more resilient and will have significantly fewer environmental impacts than alternative plans," Goudsmith said.
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The Pleasure of a Pool on a Cleaner Hudson By PETER APPLEBOME
BEACON, N.Y.
It’s a small thing, really, an odd-looking rainbow-colored circle in the Hudson, 20 feet in diameter, that you can spot from the Metro-North trains rushing by or from a plane flying overhead.
Still, when the folk singer Pete Seeger and a cluster of about 50 supporters and co-conspirators gathered by the river on Thursday to dedicate the River Pool at Beacon, a partly submerged pool in which Hudson River water flows through an intricate mesh framework, it was hard not to see both a small thing and a small miracle.
A quirky tribute to Mr. Seeger’s vision of the Hudson reborn, a minor marvel of engineering and design, a glimpse backward and forward, the pool is both a century out of date and perhaps a few steps ahead of its time.
“The thing about Pete is that he really is a visionary; he can see what’s not there,” said Alan Zollner, an I.B.M. engineer from Newburgh who was part of the nonprofit organization that created the pool. “He was able to look at a dirty river and see a clean one. He was able to visualize the Clearwater and then there really was a ship. And he was able to visualize the Hudson as a place where people will come to swim.”
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Required environmental reviews don't ask the right questions By MICHAEL TROUT
First published: Sunday, July 13, 2008
The Times Union deserves credit for printing the first serious critique I've seen of the State Environmental Quality Review Act. The July 6 article by Jordan Carleo-Evangelist, "Black day in court for greens?" concentrated on the question of who can file an environmental lawsuit under SEQRA, and legislative plans for improvement.
But even if improvements are made, to me it's the equivalent of painting a house that's on fire.
Some years ago, I was involved in a community effort to stop the construction of a large project in an Albany County town. For more than two years, the developers, the town and the opponents were locked in an agonizing SEQRA ballet of the absurd, dealing with every conceivable issue except those that mattered.
Al Norman of Sprawl-Busters.com, a nationwide organization tracking development issues, said the project's eventual approval "shows how useless the SEQR(A) process is in New York. All it really does is delay permits and cost developers time and money. But it does not protect the environment or local economies from sprawl."
We opponents had no intention of filing a lawsuit. As the Times Union article points out, this effectively negated all our efforts.
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'Region at Crossroads' a new series First published: Saturday, July 12, 2008
There was a time when the sidewalks of downtown Troy were so packed with shoppers on Friday evenings that some people had to walk in the streets. Neighbors greeted friends as cars crawled by. The little city was bustling.
But that was before the suburban explosion of the 1950s and '60s, before malls lured shoppers away from downtown stores, before the Northway and other wide roads made it easy to drive farther to get home, before all the government policies that subsidize sprawl changed the face of America.
It was in the 1960s that the Capital Region reached the tipping point -- more people living in the suburbs than in the urban areas of Albany, Schenectady, Troy and our other small cities. And before long, the benefits of suburban life -- the green space, the good schools, the growing tax base that kept individual property tax bills lower -- began to be clouded by less attractive qualities: sprawl overtaking nature, traffic slowing commutes, families isolated from neighbors, taxes rising faster than income. Meanwhile, our cities were all in decline.
Three years ago, a report by the Open Space Institute found that housing starts in the Capital Region were outpacing a largely flat population -- that is, we had sprawl without growth -- and that the suburban expansion was costing communities about one-fourth more than it was generating in property taxes. Yet local governments, the study found, lacked the political clout or will to cope with the challenges presented by sprawl. The suburbs were falling behind, even as people continued to abandon the cities.
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Greens Nominate McKinney Posted by John Nichols on 07/13/2008 @ 09:22am
The Green Party has made a good deal of history this weekend.
The party has nominated a former member of Congress for the presidency, a coup for the party that itself has yet to elect a U.S. representative or senator.
The party has nominated a woman for president, no small matter in a year when Democrats have rejected an opportunity to crack the political glass ceiling.
The party has nominated an African-American for president, no small matter in a year when the Democrats have embraced Barack Obama.
And the former member of Congress, the woman and the person of color that the Green Party has nominated is a smart, articulate and outspoken public figure who – despite the fact that she has taken her hits from a media and a political class that never could get comfortable with the idea that a young black women was walking the corridors of power and making no apologies – is more than capable of standing her ground in a presidential race that so far has been longer on style than ideas.
Cynthia McKinney, a former Democrat who represented Georgia in the U.S. House during the administrations of Bill Clinton and George Bush and often sparred presidents of both big parties, easily secured the Green nomination Saturday at the party's convention in Chicago.
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