Students are worth the investment

My name is Serena Marie Gregory. I am 12 years old and a student at Eldred Central High School. I felt disappointed when I heard that the budget vote did not pass.

The educators at our school are some of the best in New York State. Each teacher is personally concerned with the success of each individual student. We all can agree that in today’s educational system, this attitude is rarity. Thirty-two dollars a year does not sound like as big of a problem as losing 14 of our gifted teachers.

Technology is always changing and improving. Being educated in these changes is a way to be prepared for the modern world we live in. Without new computers, the students at Eldred could fall behind. The distance-learning program is a wonderful idea. It gives students the opportunity to learn things that are not offered in our school. Losing this extraordinary program due to budget cuts would be a very big mistake.

Sports at Eldred are a source of pride. Studies show being part of an organized sports team is a great way to improve self esteem. Not to mention the exercise that we receive. After all, national N.B.A player Tammy Reese came from Eldred. The teachers and athletic programs offered by this school played a big part in her success. This was told to us by Tammy Reese herself during a visit last year.

Music, art, and drama are all part of a well-rounded education. These programs tie into all our education processes in one way or another. A future without these programs would be a depressing place.

Field trips give students a chance to learn things in different places and from new people. Each class looks forward to a field trip. Every student can remember their favorite field trip from years ago.

The most important investment any person can make is in the future. We will be the future lawyers, the future doctors, artists, farmers, teachers, and leaders of our great country. The students at Eldred Central High School are your future and we are worth the investment.

Serena Gregory

Glen Spey, NY

A contingency budget hurts us all

I am voting yes on June 15 in support of the Eldred Central School budget because I believe that learning not only occurs in the classroom but also on the football field, the basketball court and on field trips. Learning occurs while participating in a school play and while trying to learn how to play the clarinet with the rest of the fifth grade band. Learning occurs when a child works on the yearbook, when a child is learning to act on stage and while participating on a Ski Club trip.

If the budget is defeated a contingency budget will be enforced. The following programs will be eliminated from the lives of our students: boys modified and varsity football, girls fall and winter cheerleading, boys and girls modified and varsity soccer, boys varsity wrestling, boys and girls modified and varsity basketball, boys and girls varsity indoor and outdoor track and field, boys and girls modified and varsity golf, boys modified and varsity baseball, girls modified and varsity softball. There will be no homecoming, prom, yearbook, drama club, ski club, computer game club, homework hall, honor society, models schools, environmental club or S.C.I.L. There will be no field trips. There will be no chorus, no band, no play and no art. There will be no new computer and classroom technology. Ninety percent of the seventh through 12th graders participate in the athletic and co-curricular activities, some of which I have mentioned here. The loss of these programs will be devastating to our students and painful to the entire community.

The contingency budget, meaning the loss of 20 teachers, teacher assistants, and teaching aide positions will be harmful to our students. The student-to-teacher ratio will grow and class sizes will likely increase.

I have been told that many community members voted “no” because they wanted to send a message to the school administrators regarding various aspects of the school district. This message was heard loud and clear so please do not send the message again. Instead, exercise your right to voice your opinion by attending board of education meetings, by speaking with Dr. Katz, Mr. Krebs, and Mrs. Ryan, or by becoming a member of the school board (there was an unopposed seat this year).

As a taxpayer, I truly understand your frustration. However, voting “no” on this budget will not change your property assessment. A “no” vote could possibly decrease the value of your home. Who wants to live in a town where the school is operating with an austerity budget? Who wants to live in a town where the school has no sports or co-curricular activities? The 2.19 percent increase in the budget for a house assessed at $100,000.00 is an additional $32.00 a year. I just spent that much filling up the gas tank of my Jeep Cherokee. Don’t the kids in our district deserve at least that?

Our students, our teachers, and our community deserve a “yes” vote. Vote on June 15 between 11:00 am and 9:00 p.m. at the George Ross MacKenzie Elementary School.

Susan Vorstadt

President of the MacKenzie Elementary School PTA

Highland Lake, NY

ECS budget increases are justified

Recently something unfortunate happened in the Eldred School District. By a mere 49 votes the 2004-2005 school budget was rejected. While I understand the backlash that could cause someone to vote against the budget, there are three very important points to keep in mind. First, most, if not all, of the increases are in areas that are beyond local control. Second, Eldred is an increasingly unique educational situation. Last and most important, as a result of recent changes in the New York State educational law, there can only be two votes on the school budget and if the budget is defeated twice, there is a very low percentage that a contingency budget can increase over the past year’s budget.

The vast majority of the increase in the school budget is in areas that are out of local control. Three examples are health insurance, retirement payments and oil and gas prices. Increases in health insurance and fuel oil are obvious. Less obvious is the big increase in payments to the retirement system. For years, while the stock market was doing well, school districts did not have to pay in to the retirement system. Over time school districts either reduced greatly that budget line or even eliminated the line altogether. More recently as the stock market has not done so well, school districts are again required to make payments to the retirement system, which causes a fairly large percentage increase in the budget.

ECS is an increasingly unique educational situation. ECS is a small community, which is populated by and incredibly caring and professional staff, an interested and involved parental population and a tremendously talented and bright group of students. These groups work together to provide our students with a truly unique educational experience. It is almost a cliché, but in Eldred every staff member knows pretty much every student by name. One example of the progress Eldred has made is in technology. Over the past three years we have more than quadrupled the computing power in the district while putting every classroom and office on the network and the Internet; all without increasing the technology portion of the budget.

Finally, while the recent budget defeat was unfortunate, another defeat would be disastrous to all that has been accomplished in Eldred. As a result of the low ceiling of increase in a contingency budget, the only way that a school district can stay within this ceiling is to cut staff. The vast majority of any school budget is salary and benefits for its staff; therefore, the only way a school district can significantly lower its budget is to cut staff. Already two positions have been cut (one of them mine) in order to reduce the budget.

I would encourage all voters in the Eldred School District to come out and vote for the budget on June 15 between 11:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. at the high school. You are getting excellent value for your money. Another defeat would be a disaster for the school district and especially the children in the district. The results of such a defeat would be felt for years to come.

Bill Kroohs

Glen Spey, NY

Former teacher, coach, athletic director, computer consultant

Port Jervis, Marlboro and Eldred school districts

It’s better to live as a free individual than as an ant

To the editor:

I found myself gnashing my teeth while reading your editorial expounding the benefits of living in a society like the ants. While ants are fascinating to watch, I certainly do not want to live in such a society, where everyone is born with purely instinctive abilities, where everyone does his job and nothing else and where one lives and dies having lived a life with no meaning other than being a part of a community.

Aren’t we lucky to live in a society that actually appreciates the uniqueness and individuality of its citizens? We are each creative in our own way—some in the arts, some in business, some in parenting.

Yes, it’s a shame that there isn’t world peace. But certainly it is better to live as a free individual than as an ant.

And by the way, I believe the butterfly on the cover of your paper is a Tiger Swallowtail, not a Monarch.

I love your newspaper.

Lynne Dodson

Greeley, PA

Will America survive a loss of our rights?

To the editor:

Some maintain that what is at stake at present in the “War on Terror” is nothing less than “the very survival of America itself.” I agree—but what exactly do we mean by “survival”?

Consider these two scenarios:

1. Someone sneaks a suitcase nuke into the U.S. We lose a city, and take some 30 million or more dead or wounded, along with billions of dollars in damages—but retain our Constitution and our Bill of Rights, and our democratic institutions continue to function.

2. For fear of the first scenario, we dismantle our Bill of Rights, suspend the Constitution, undo the system of checks and balances in our government, and surrender our liberties to a small group of ideologues who assume near-dictatorial power.

And here is the question: after which scenario would we be able to truly say, “America has survived”—and which scenario poses the more likely threat?

Skip Mendler

Honesdale PA

Establish a rule of law system

To the editor:

The Iraq “detainee/prisoner” abuse scandal and detainee abuse scandals at other United States detainee facilities have yet to be totally determined.

These “detainee/prisoner” abuse situations would not have mushroomed as they have, were it not for the arbitrary and secret environment they are cast into.

In contrast, consider our criminal-system where “suspect/prisoners” are given a Miranda warning, allowed a phone call, get legal representation and have visitors. Here our rule of law system works because a humane-system of transparency, respect and openness discourages dark and secret environments.

The United States can regain our moral high ground by prosecuting all the aiders and abettors of detainee abuse; adapt our rule-of-law system for “all” detainees, re-affiliate with the international criminal court treaty and more truly interact with other nations.

John Bauer

Martinez, CA

Sullivan West district is fundamentally flawed

To the editor:

The “historic” ribbon cutting ceremony for the Sullivan West High School turned out to be a slap in the face for Sullivan West Superintendent Michael Johndrow and BOCES Superintendent Martin Handler. By actual count, only 128 people were in the audience at the peak of festivities.

This widely publicized event, which was five years in the making, turned out to be a microcosm of the big talk, poor planning, disorganization and meager delivery that have plagued the Sullivan West district since the merger.

For example, Sullivan West administrators bragged that they were inviting Governor Pataki and Hillary Clinton to these once-in-a-lifetime festivities. Instead, we got state senator Bonacic and assemblywoman Aileen Gunther.

The “state of the art” sound system failed, while Superintendent Johndrow was speaking, and an inexpensive corded microphone had to be substituted for the defective wireless one. A plaque scheduled to be presented to William Boucher for his contribution hadn’t arrived and would be delivered at a later date. Three past and present school board members, who were conspicuous in their initial support for the merger and the new high school, failed to attend.

Some people commented that the $30,000,000 high school reminded them of Barney Rubble’s rock pile and nicknamed the odd-looking asymmetrical clock tower face, the cuckoo clock. It is now very obvious that local residents did not get what was promised in the “soaring architecture” of the original designs.

The public should know that the Sullivan West High School did not come in on budget and on time. Because of faulty price estimates and bad planning the high school had to be downsized by $8,000,000 and is actually more than a year late.

Gone is the promised peaked roof. Instead, we have a flat roof that already has had major leaks starting last September. The classrooms aren’t air-conditioned and union representatives are complaining that teachers can’t open the windows enough to get sufficient fresh air and the windows don’t have screens. The athletic fields aren’t finished because the storm water management design has repeatedly flunked DEC specifications.

The final kick in the teeth for local taxpayers came at the May 20 school board meeting when Sullivan West business manager Paul Nienstadt admitted that we are only going to get 55 percent state aid on our collective building projects, which is less than what the three districts would have received if they remained independent.

The Sullivan West debacle is a good lesson for Sullivan County. This is what happens when you think you can get something for nothing and don’t use common sense and higher order critical thinking skills. That lesson particularly applies to the proposed Roscoe-Livingston Manor merger and those naive people who think that gambling will solve all the county’s problems.

Given everything that has happened, it is quite apparent why Sullivan West Superintendent Michael Johndrow failed to have his contract renewed by an irate school board and a furious community which only passed the Sullivan West budget by a razor thin 63-vote margin.

Noel van Swol

Long Eddy, NY

Court delays benefit the gaming industry

To the editor:

Gambling interests have regularly and stridently complained about delays imposed on their plans. Paradoxically however, they have quite as persistently, and seemingly pointlessly, consumed a great deal of time by dragging out the legal proceedings against gambling whenever possible. One must wonder why.

Imagine that the state appellate court’s remarkably extended delay in reaching a decision concerning gambling (it was anticipated over a month ago) is being encouraged by increasingly influential gambling interests—and that the delay is designed to permit gambling venues time to begin operating.

Mickey Brown, CEO of the Seneca Casino, has expressed the perhaps over-confident belief that, once open, an establishment such as his would not be closed down. The situations at Turning Stone and the existing Mohawk casino (near Canada) do tend to support that notion.

If Mr. Brown is right, then by employing the expedient of delaying a court decision, a legitimate and vitally important legal issue could effectively be manipulated beyond legal remedy.

Pataki, who has lost every single major legal decision thus far concerning gambling, now seems desperate to employ any means possible to push his eager fervor for further impoverishing the most impoverished among us, upon us.

I’m not saying that Pataki and gambling interests are responsible for unethically delaying the court decision in order to try to get their way; I’m just wondering what would be different if they were.

Lee Karr

Venice, FL

Class warfare in Bethel? You bet!

To the editor:

As much as Bethel’s Town Board wants to talk about diversions like a new park, a trout stream and an unsafe road let the public not be sidetracked from what the two-year battle for Toronto Reservoir is about. And, it’s certainly not about parks, trout or dirt roads. Four years ago Bethel builder, Steve Dubrovsky, and his associates Woodstone Development Corp. started buying up 5,600 acres of forest land surrounding the 860 acre Toronto Reservoir and began marketing five-acre plots for $1,000,000 homes in a gated community …repeat, a gated community, called The Chapin Estate. The only glitch was the existence of a federal license guaranteeing public access to a boat launch and beach through Smallwood’s Pine Grove Rd. and Town Road 62.

For the past two years the Bethel Town Board, acting at Woodstone’s behest, has tried to eliminate that glitch by closing the public access to that boat launch. On May 30, 2002, it voted to allow Woodstone to illegally gate Town Road 62—a resolution it was forced to rescind that October. Then, on the blackout night of August 14, 2003, after completing its agenda and sending the public home by going into executive session, the town board returned to an empty room, reconvened in public session and voted to recommend the closing of Town Road 62 for safety reasons. Only the intervention of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) kept the access open last summer. Then, just when it seemed like peace was at hand, on March 11, 2004, presiding over his last town board meeting on the eve of pleading guilty to felony insurance fraud, then newly elected Town of Bethel Supervisor, Ira Liff, violated his own campaign pledge by supporting a recommendation that the federal license be amended to close the public access.

All the while the background grumbling one hears from Woodstone supporters is about “class warfare”—the blue-collar populace of Bethel being riled up against the potential residents of The Chapin Estate. And, in a sense, they’re right. It is class warfare. But this time, it’s in reverse. Contrary to the traditional concept, it’s being perpetrated from the top, by the rich and powerful against those below. After all, it’s not the guys with dirty fingernails and driving pickup trucks who don’t want to share a beach with the daughters of millionaires. It’s the developer, Woodstone, aided and abetted by Mirant, Inc. and the Bethel Town Board that has resorted to every conceivable means to keep the townspeople out and deliver Toronto Reservoir to the Fortune 500 crowd.

And, that, my friends, is class warfare! It’s real, and it lives right here in Bethel, thank you. For the time at least, thanks to FERC, the access in question remains open to the public.

We can only hope that the civil servants at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and FERC, who ordinarily protect the public interest against entrepreneurial incursions, won’t cave in to the political and monetary pressures soon to surface in Albany and Washington.

In time, someone will sort out all the sordid details of this endeavor and those who betrayed their neighbors and constituents—the public trust they swore to uphold—will be called to task, and, in the end, nobody who sold their soul to the devil will walk away scott-free.

Harold Saltzman, 2nd vice president
Smallwood Civic Association
Smallwood, NY