Getting Rid of “Ghost” Structures: Perceiving the Catskills as a Place of Renewal, Not Decay

by Steven Kurlander

kurly@stevenkurlander.com

With or without the siting of one or two casino gaming destination resorts, it’s certain that the Catskills encompassing both Sullivan County and southern Ulster have turned the corner and are on their way back to economic viability.

It’s also certain that such a statement would be met with great skepticism and disdain from those who live here and  endured an unreasonable economic hardship for the last two or three decades.  

That negativity, which defines a common demoralization, in turn has fostered a lack of pride in our region in terms of aesthetics-in both how we preserve our landscape and how we enforce our building codes.

Last week, there were a number of photojournalistic articles published nationwide showcasing the rundown buildings and properties that “haunt” our region.  Reuters entitled their piece: “Catskills in Decline.” http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/17/life-idUSRTR4AM5N  A Hudson Valley Real Estate Blog posted: "Halloween Prep: Abandoned Catskills" http://upstater.net/halloween-prep-abandoned-catskills/.

This is not the first national display of our disregard to rid our landscape of decrepit structures.  Our own talented Rock Hill native Photographer Marissa Scheinfeld has made an art form in photographing abandoned hotels and displaying them - her most current exhibition is taking place at Yeshiva University entitled “Echoes of the Borscht Belt.” http://www.marisascheinfeld.com/Exhibitions-and-Lectures-/Current-and-Upcoming/1/

Perception is everything-and now is the time to start cleaning up our act and getting rid of the numerous eyesores that dot our landscape-and obviously now define where we live throughout the world. The resort industry’s death and their long standing ruins not only defines our cynicism and struggles, but now our economic viability in the near future

We are too accepting of them, our demoralized psyches allow them to blend into the scenery as we all drive to and from work or school everyday. Over time, we have been too oblivious to these eyesores.

Obviously, those coming from suburban and city landscapes see them and shake their heads, and reporters write articles about them.  

Even as we come back, our blighted landscape festering with abandoned buildings and decrepit bungalows ruins our image as a beautiful mountain destination to visit and a place to escape to live a better life.

It’s just not about planting flowers in our decaying villages and hamlets to make them look better anymore. It’s not enough.

The towns and county governments need to team up to begin cleaning up these eyesores by sending out crews to tear them down, or give tax breaks to their owners to rebuild them to their former architectural grandeur.  The DEC in New Paltz also needs to become part of this effort by loosening regulations that have stopped fire departments from going in and burning down these eyesores.  

The time is ripe for an initiative for our governments to start this concerted cleanup effort that also encompasses strict, no tolerance, code enforcement against absentee landowners, seasonal residents, and slumlords feeding off of lucrative, and decaying Section 8 housing.

The Catskills are coming back, and they need to be perceived now as a place of renewal, not decay.

Enough: No More Cutting the Public Sector in Sullivan County

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"Stimulating meaningful thought & debate in Sullivan County without retribution"  

No More Cutting the Public Sector in Sullivan County

The Resentment of Success, a Growing Problem in Government

by Ruby Pixman

Sullivan County has not been immune from the relentless assaults on its public workforce.

With the election of Ronald Reagan, who declared that government is not the solution, but rather the problem, resentment against those in government service would soon became a national obsession.

Using this Reagan mantra, there's been a relentless set of attacks against effective services that helped the U.S. to maintain its status as a strong and compassionate nation.

Within Reagan's two terms, he and his legislative allies began the first full-scale assault on such formerly untouchable federal programs, such as unemployment benefits, social security disability, food stamps, and even the government's ability to tax corporations and wealthier citizens. 

Reagan became the first president to destroy a labor union, specifically the one representing air traffic controllers who initially supported his election. Their brief strike wasn't even about pay raises, but rather about improving working conditions in order to make air travel safer.

When Reagan departed office, he left his stamp on succeeding administrations, be they Republican or Democratic. 

The G.O.P. used Reagan's popularity to further their openly pro-Big Business, anti-worker agenda, and Democrats lowered their expectations for better wages and benefits in both the public and private sectors. 

As workers rights diminished in the private sector, government employees voted for union representation and struggled to gain many benefits, making public-sector jobs more desirable.

In the meantime, emboldened corporations shipped their manufacturing operations overseas in order to avoid paying U.S.-mandated wages and benefits, resulting in closed U.S. company plants and shrunken union membership. 

Yet in the public sector unions were able to hold their own, if not outright flourish. 

Over the years private-sector worker incomes began to stagnate.  The cost of living rose, but incomes declined.  Many began to believe that workers in the public sector were living high-on-the-hog on the taxes paid by private-sector workers. 

It wasn't long before the idea took hold of doing away with government-sponsored programs and jobs, if only to get back at those piggish public workers. 

Instead of blaming the real culprits, the greedy corporations and their doting, mostly Republican politicos, many cheered on as their programs were either drastically shrunk or eliminated.  "After all," many thought, "if I can't have a decent job with good benefits and pay, why should those damn government workers is so lucky?"

Sullivan County has not been immune from the relentless assaults on its public workforce. 

The previous County Legislature demanded and got union concessions leading to downsizing through attrition, no raises, pay cuts, and layoffs.

The present County Legislature has continued cutting. They have been struggling with trying to deliver on expensive state-mandated programs, while cutting costs and avoiding tax increases. 

Yet the prospect looms that as Big Business continues to consolidate its grip on every aspect of American society, our county legislators will, if they haven't already, eye the next bunch of government workers for the chopping block. 

And the results will be the same: more unemployment, lower quality of government services leading to a much lower standard of living for the vast majority.

The solution lies in recognizing that public workers are like the rest of us. 

They have families to feed, rents to pay, and aspirations for their offspring. 

Their presence makes our lives better.  They and the government are not the problem.  Instead of resenting public workers, we should support them and turn our attention to the real problem causers:  greedy corporations and the politicians they control. 

Once we recognize who are the real sources of our woes, it will become easier to go after them and win!

 

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Fracking in Sullivan County: Let's call it what it is and examine the right issues

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"Stimulating meaningful thought & debate in Sullivan County without retribution"  

Fracking in Sullivan County: Let’s call it what it is and examine the right issues

There is plenty of room for compromise enabling capitalism to flourish, yet still protect our environment 

by Ben Math

Last week, Ruby Pixman wrote an article"Fracking In Sullivan County: Governments Can, And Should Tell You It's Not Acceptable" where he argued that both our country's history and de facto status as a "socialist state" justifies the banning of fracking by local town governments. '

He's wrong. Sullivan County landowners have right to be infuriated about new, developing fracking regulations being promulgated at the town level of government. 

America is unique in the world for one simple reason. Our forefathers attempted to create a system where capitalism and democracy could coexist.

In their humility they began our constitution with the words "We the people, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity..."

These courageous men had studied the various forms of government that had existed over the previous millennia and boldly decided America would have a capitalistic economy and a democracy for governance.

They knew it would not be perfect, but it would be more perfect than anything in history. 

Socialism was certainly not what our founders envisioned for their posterity.

The words in the constitution are not put into proper context unless we first read the Declaration of Independence which we should all do at least once a year to remind us from whence we came.

It is the parallels to the conditions identified in our Declaration of Independencethat infuriate Sullivan County land owners regarding Fracking.

Yes, our governments at the town, county, state, and federal levels have many parallels to the King of England in 1776 and Sullivan County residents should be outraged.

That is not to say we should unleash fracking in our farmlands without regard to its potential impact on our neighbors.

But there is plenty of room for compromise enabling capitalism to flourish, yet still protect our environment.

In fact, if we are smart about it we could actually improve the environment and create wealth in Sullivan County at the same time.

That means the rhetoric and misinformation perpetuated by both anti-frackers and pro-frackers must to be totally dismissed and we must turn away from the lobbyists behind those positions.  

For starters perhaps those people out there with No Fracking signs posted all over the county should add a line at the bottom "Support your Foreign Terrorist".

Fracking is a relatively new process and industry is still learning more about it every time they drill another well.

I'm glad there has been as much fracking activity around the US as there has before it turned its eye on Sullivan County. There have been errors in judgment by the fracking industry and the permitting agencies.

History has already shown Fracking if done without proper constraints can seriously impact the environment and individual landowners.

So what will we do within the limits of our democracy to prepare for it so it is mutually beneficial on all fronts?

History has already shown Fracking if done without proper constraints can seriously impact the environment and individual landowners.

However, history has also shown Fracking can be accomplished with only positive impacts on the environment.

Why are some wells a disaster while others a blessing? This is the issue we should be collectively focusing on.

So what will we do within the limits of our democracy to prepare for it so it is promotes the general welfare of the citizens of Sullivan County while preserving or enhancing our environment?

People in Sullivan County are so busy fighting over it they have not spent the time needed to understand what they can gain from it and how they can reasonably regulate it. 

Rest assured, we will not stop it. It’s capitalism in one of its most powerful forms.

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High Taxes & Inferior Education: Vote No On School Budgets Tomorrow

Protest High Taxes: Vote NO on Sullivan County School Budgets on Tuesday

Too many schools, too many administrators, too high salaries, too many games

by Tommie Jefferson

Vote No tomorrow on school budgets tomorrow and send the message that you are tired of paying too much in taxes, that you are tired of the waste and inefficiency, and that you are tired of not getting the educational value that is necessary to truly give our children a brighter future.

The last post in this Writer's Workshop of Sullivan County by Ruby Pixman entitled"School Budget Vote: Better education opportunities for children translate into better lives for all" urged readers to vote yes for school budgets that are being considered in an election on Tuesday. 

Mr./Ms. Pixman gave an admirable, but misguided argument that voting for the bloated budgets and the various new construction projects being proposed was necessary to improve our future as a community.  He acknowledged that taxes obviously will go up, but we had to keep the big picture in mind when funding our children's education.

While his or her argument was righteous, it was also misleading. The big picture is that our educational system in Sullivan County is broken.  There are several valid reasons to vote NO on Tuesday.

Tomorrow's vote is our only way of protesting an extremely antiquated and very expensive system of funding our children's education in Sullivan County.  It's the only real means for overtaxed voters to protest bad budgets, bad administrators, and bad educational products. Sullivan County taxes are too high and much of the blame lies with the school districts.

Many of the school districts have presented budgets where the 2% tax cap is being met.  But what they don't tell you is that they are depleting their reserves, some very significantly, that are meant to cover contingency costs in case of emergencies and to help prop bond ratings. 

Remember when our county government gave us zero budget increases year after year, then ran out of money?  Now every year is a crisis when budgeting there, and voters are facing double digit increases year after year.  We will be facing that soon in our school districts

Unlike the old days, teachers and administrators are paid very, very well.  The older teachers get health benefits for life after they retire, and the rest of them are given extremely good benefits that cost taxpayers a fortune.  On our dime, they have become the true, upper class citizens of our county.  

It's cynical and terribly misleading to tell voters that costs in school districts can be kept under 2% a year while the cost of these salaries and benefits continue to explode. 

What these administrators are doing are kicking the tax increase can down the road.  So those small increases should not be voted for now because we will pay dearly for it in two, three years.  It's plainly bad governance.

By the way, did you hear or read about anyone in these school districts freezing, or taking a cut in pay recently, like most in the private sector have done over the years?  That would be a reason to vote for a school budget. 

Has there been any real discussion in reformulating how our school districts are formed?  Some are too big and some are too small.  I give credit to Roscoe, which is experimenting with Downsville next year in sharing a Superintendent.  But why isn't Livingston Manor, and even Liberty too, looking to join that effort?  In terms of administration, shouldn't there be one county district employing one superintendent, one school attorney, one school accountant, etc.?

For the amount of students in Sullivan County, we have too many school districts paying ridiculous salaries to both administrators and teachers.  Why should an administrator of a school district with hundreds of children receive the same, if not more, salary than others who oversee school districts with thousands more children and personnel in other parts of the state?

The state education department released a report last week indicating how many administrators in school district are paid over a threshold of $126,000, a standard salary established for NYS education administrators. Here's a table that shows what some of the administrators over that $126,000 are getting paid in the nine Sullivan County school districts. 

Seriously, considering that all the Sullivan County school districts are minuscule compared to those in major cities, should administrators get paid over $200,000 in salary and benefits, particularly in these hard times?  Sullivan County is not Scarsdale.

Let's look at the stupid way we locally govern our educational system. Basically, our school boards are overseeing the administration of school districts without getting paid, who for the most part are led by the nose by administrators in formulating what policy remains to be formulated that is not dictated by the state education department, which is nil, and who sit on these boards without term limits and run basically unopposed term after term because no one wants these thankless, powerless jobs.  There's always a few ex teachers on these boards looking out for their fellow teachers interests too.

And finally, why are budget votes and school board elections held in May in the first place?  Why aren't they held in November with regular votes, when the majority of voters come out to vote on a number of races and issues?  Is it because they don't want many people voting in these elections and it allows administrators and teacher to drive their voters to the polls unchallenged?

The budgets you will be voting on tomorrow have been formulated by bureaucrats following hundreds, if not thousands of idiotic rules, laws, and mandates from Albany that give them little if no discretion to cut costly, inefficient programs and personnel that don't deliver a fine educational product to our children.

I'm not a tea bagger, but the basic premise that our government, and educational system too, is broken is truly reflected in all of the school budgets being presented for a vote Tuesday in Sullivan County.

Vote No tomorrow on school budgets tomorrow and send the message that you are tired of paying too much in taxes, that you are tired of the waste and inefficiency, and that you are tired of not getting the educational value that is necessary to truly give our children a brighter future.

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Discussing Sullivan County's Future, It's Only About Economic Development

writersworkshopofsullivancounty.blogspot.com

"Stimulating meaningful thought & debate in Sullivan County without retribution"  

It's Only About Economic Development: We Need To Move Sullivan County Forward!

Let's focus on attracting industrial & manufacturing companies to provide full-time employment with benefits.

by Abbie Addams

The way for Sullivan County to dig itself out of the recession and despair facing the residents - and which is preventing our young people from finding gainful, meaningful employment in Sullivan County - can be solved in two words:   "Economic Development."

I enjoyed the recent dialogue in Writer's Workshop of Sullivan County, particularly when it comes to a discussion of our local economy- and how the breath of social services, particularly welfare fraud, affects our citizens.

The answer to improving Sullivan County's economy does not lie in catching those who perpetrate fraud on the welfare system.

Despite being a "feel good" sound bite designed to play well in the media, it's a small drop in the proverbial $200 million dollar bucket.

Nor does the answer lie in the Sullivan County Legislature rehashing decisions, from public safety funding to re-opening the County landfill. 

Instead, we need leaders to innovate, to move Sullivan County forward, not create endless task forces to waste time and resources to "Monday morning quarterback" other elected officials, or decisions on which the current Legislature is unlikely to affect meaningful change.

The way for Sullivan County to dig itself out of the recession and despair facing the residents - and which is preventing our young people from finding gainful, meaningful employment in Sullivan County - can be solved in two words:" Economic Development."

Right now, the two loudest groups of residents in Sullivan County are those who believe their taxes are too high for the services they receive and those who believe we must do everything to protect our "rural charm."

For the taxation advocates, two quick facts: (1) Your taxes are never going to go down by any meaningful amount. It just doesn't happen. (2) If you would like to see your taxes remain at the current level into the future, then Sullivan County needs to bring in new or expanded tax rate-ables (for profit businesses) to increase the property tax revenue received by the towns and county, and also the ancillary revenues compounded by the business or its employees.

For those interested in our communities rural and green, two quick facts: (1) As much as we would like to have green everywhere, Sullivan County residents cannot afford the taxes on that green land with the jobs they have now, or with the unemployment they have now. (2) If we want to have meaningful employment for our young people, and jobs that pay a living wage, we need to recognize it's not going to come from small businesses, nor a tourism industry that largely shuts down for four months each year.

Bottom line: We need industrial and manufacturing companies to provide full-time employment with benefits.

Years ago, local residents opposed Kohl's Distribution in Wurtsboro because it would impact the "rural charm."

In reality, Kohl's provides employment and health benefits for dozens of local residents, and regularly contributes volunteers and funding to local non-profits and community events.

The Monticello Motor Club receives hostility from local residents, yet again, the Motor Club provides gainful employment for local residents, buys supplies from local vendors and regularly contributes significant funding to area non-profits and community groups.

We should be seeking economic development that's done in an environmentally-sound way that will not detrimentally impact Sullivan County's natural resources or harm the health of the residents.

But we need to stop impeding the mushrooms, the Concords and other large-scale development and facilities because these impediments are having a negative impact on our communities and our residents' livelihoods.

And we need this advocacy to begin with our county legislators, who need to step up and be advocates, not adversaries, of the for-profit industries in Sullivan County.

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