Dressing up the town

Just a note to commend all of the folks on Main Street Narrowsburg for creating such beautiful window boxes, hanging baskets and barrels filled with flowers. It is a treat to walk down Main Street and just take in the beauty. It gives me great pleasure every time I view it, and I wish to thank all who were involved in this project. So many times we neglect to acknowledge things like this, and I just wanted you to know that your hard work has not gone unnoticed.

I suggest to anyone who hasn’t visited Narrowsburg lately to take a moment and do so. You won’t be disappointed.

Boondoggle at Pond Eddy

In reference to “Fate of the Pond Eddy Bridge discussed” (The River Reporter, July 7-14), let’s make a few things clear. The writer, Laurie Ramie, is responsible for public relations for the Upper Delaware Council (UDC), and the U.S. Park Service and UDC have long sought to destroy the landmark bridge without adequate accountability as to their motivation and ultimate development plans for the surrounding area. The costs given for rehabilitation versus a new bridge are even more fantastic than the last time the engineering consultants tried to justify this pork-barrel proposal, with vague renovation estimates inflated beyond belief, and the figure of “26 homes” served by the present bridge on the Pennsylvania side.

A large number of homes in both Lumberland and Shohola are served by roads and bridges rated at even less than the eight tons posted for the existing bridge. The Milanville and Dingman’s bridges have a similar rating and serve much greater needs just fine. And just maybe Mr. Carr of Lumberland has a point in wondering what the return on investment will be for the New Yorkers who will have to share the cost equally with Pennsylvanians.

And then let’s look at the real cost of this project in both monetary and environmental terms: the negative visual impact of a large new bridge in spite of the “artificial stone treatments,” or the damage to the Pennsylvania-side riverfront, which has yet to be adequately addressed in the engineering proposals. And what is the purpose of a “Scenic Byway” designation if we can’t save one of our most recognized scenic resources? Let’s remember that the Pike County Preservation Trust was solidly for restoration until Mr. Fluhr hassled them into submission. And as for mitigation, is loss of a nationally recognized landmark really offset by a video as Mr. Fluhr suggested?

Let’s also be clear that the June 29 meeting in Shohola cannot be considered a part of the legally mandated Section 106 reviews to the extent that the opposed consulting parties were not even invited. Let it be recorded in the notes to be compiled that one of the two women who raised their hands in disapproval had to struggle even to speak. Let’s see this project for what it is: environmentally destructive and a huge waste of public funds. Finally, go to Pond Eddy and take a look for yourself. Then ask our elected officials what this project is really all about.

More mismanagement

The renegade Sullivan West school board hit a new low at the July 7, 2005 meeting when it voted by a seven-to-two margin against rescinding the decision to close the Delaware Valley and Narrowsburg school buildings while there are still obvious financial alternatives that the district has never adequately explored.

Only school board members Shawn Bailey and Jennifer Mann had the courage to vote to reopen the schools, which is what the public wants. Incredibly, Catherine Novak, who was elected to office on a “Save Our Schools” platform, turned around and betrayed the people who voted for her by casting a vote against rescinding the closing of both schools. Narrowsburg residents Angela Daley and Rick Lander, who have long claimed to be staunch supporters of their community school, also voted not to rescind the closings.

Local voters will recall that Daley and Lander, as Sullivan West school board members, were down-the-line supporters of former Sullivan West School Superintendent Michael Johndrow, who both voted for almost everything that got us into this mess. In fact, Angela Daley made an impassioned speech and placed a letter to the editor in the newspapers when Michael Johndrow’s contract was not renewed, telling everyone how wonderful he was.

It is ironic that Angela Daley and Rick Lander are now saying that they are so concerned about the district’s finances. Both of them should have done this five years and $50,000,000 ago.

Even more incredible is the fact that the Sullivan West School Board, which rejected the possibility of renting empty classroom space for a minimum of $250,000 to BOCES, turned around at this same July 7 meeting and rented the now-empty Delaware Valley school to the Job Corps for a measly $36,000. Rejecting a $250,000 proposal in exchange for an inferior $36,000 offer is another example of the ongoing mismanagement of Sullivan West.

The Sullivan West battle is not over by any means. Voters will get a chance to throw out three more Sullivan West school board members in May.

A heaven or hell of our own making

Recently I had a brush with death and, for now, I have won a reprieve. That experience got me thinking about what I have learned from life after 65 years of the human experience. I have come to the conclusion that, until someone finds a better place, the earth to me is heaven.

I was exposed to the beauty and complexity of the earth’s natural aspects at a fairly early age. A childhood in south Florida and a college minor in botany both contributed to an appreciation of nature. Thirty-seven years of working in some of America’s most pristine national parks have further prejudiced my thinking on what is heaven and where it may be found.

I have learned that any serious effort to significantly reduce poverty in the world requires that we stop killing one another over whose religion or politics is best for everyone, but we also must recognize that world population in the last 100 years is the true cause of all the environmental degradation that faces the human race in the centuries to come.

The scientific community has been indirectly telling us this fact for the last 50 years. Poverty on a large scale cannot be overcome without encouraging birth control. All nations need to build a stable political base through better environmental practices and on-site physical assistance from rich nations. We should concentrate more on protecting everyone’s environment for future generations than on protecting profits of the very rich.

Most would agree that a very creative and powerful force set up the biological wonders, including man, that are found on earth. Is there life after death? Theologians tell us that this condition is primarily a product of how we treat each other as human beings in life. Could it be that part of man’s test for the privilege of living, in this world or the next, is his ability to protect the natural qualities of the earth that sustains him? Maybe protecting and respecting the earth should get a larger billing in religious teaching as a factor for finding salvation after death. Unless we can balance the byproducts from what man is taking from the earth with the environmental needs of all, hell could ultimately become an earth which no longer has the ability to sustain human life.

Why no peace in our times?

I am pretty sure that one of the most fundamental causes of our anguish-filled and anxious times is our great interest in that which is superficial rather than that which is substantial and lasting in our lives. Materialism is thriving and consuming and distracting, and spirituality is trying to make a comeback. Our participation will be needed for a long time to come to turn things around. Are you game for it?

How can we support the spiritual, loving side of ourselves and in our public life? By first of all taking every opportunity to be peaceful inwardly and in our outward actions. This is most challenging and has a much larger positive impact than we can usually see. Peace can prevail with our commitment to it even with our occasional or even frequent lapses. Commitment creates powerful results.

A wonderful way I have found to promote peace both inwardly and outwardly is to support the Department of Peace campaign. Please check this out at thepeacealliance.org or dopcampaign.org or call me 845/292-2279.

Let there be peace.

Legislators flunk out on hospital report card

Why is the New York State Health Deptartment (and the powers above them) against health? An estimated 6,000 New Yorkers die annually from infections they get in the hospital.

The Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths (RID) and other patient advocates worked hard to win legislative approval for a bill providing the public with hospital infection report cards. These report cards are needed. If you must be hospitalized, you should be able to find out which hospital in your area has the highest infection rate.

At the final hours of the legislative session, the health department insisted lawmakers delay making the report cards public for four years. That’s outrageous. Every delay will cost more lives. It’s time government was on our side, instead of on our backs.

[The author is the former Lt. Governor of New York State.]