An intimate success

I am writing to thank The River Reporter for publishing an article about the house concert at our house in Sparrowbush on September 4. There were some 20 people in attendance to hear Keith Kendrick and his partner Sylvia Needham sing British Isles traditional songs with accompaniment on the concertina. Their performance was not only highly professional, but also incredibly intimate. The result was that not only did we get to hear some great music, but the audience and the performers became instant friends. Several of those in attendance found out about the concert through The River Reporter article for which we are very grateful. In addition to Keith and Sylvia, local musician Jeffrey Moore sang a couple of songs on which he accompanied himself on the dulcimer and we would like to thank him too. We are certainly looking forward to doing this again.

To Dave: thanks for the memories

We all have our good memories of time spent at Dave’s. For me, there’s the summer night when it rained suddenly, soaking the tables and chairs on the deck. We and other diehard outdoor customers grabbed some towels, dried our chairs and had a wonderful meal in the gorgeous long summer night. There are all the cold days when Chris and I were warmed, and fed a good breakfast, a wonderful lunch. There are the many Friday nights, when we dropped ourselves into the lap of the luxury of “dinner at Dave’s.”

What really stands out is how entirely welcome we felt. We felt like we were visiting a home where we could be ourselves and always have a sense of acceptance and belonging. I don’t think it’s just us who felt this way; you and your family and crew created this feeling for our whole community.

So, as the song says, thanks for the memories. We’ll see you as soon as you put out your next meal, whereever that may be.

The whitewash comes off

The recent meeting between more than 200 Sullivan West residents and representatives of the New York State Education Department was originally designed by local authorities to avoid placing blame and to ostensibly “move forward” without ever looking back and learning from past mistakes. In other words, it was a very sophisticated whitewash.

But angry local residents, including me, refused to allow those in charge to censor public comments with a sterile and carefully scripted question-and-answer format. By the end of the meeting, it was obvious that there are major problems in the essentially bankrupt Sullivan West Central School District, and none of the problems are the fault of local residents.

The major culprits for the fiasco include Suzanne Spear, the State Education Department’s so-called merger expert, who helped sell the merger without ever adequately discussing the negatives, and former Sullivan West school superintendent Michael Johndrow, who spent the better part of $50,000,000 for facilities that were never needed. But a significant portion of the responsibility is borne by Sullivan County BOCES Superintendent Martin Handler.

For more than 40 years, Sullivan County BOCES superintendents scrupulously maintained their neutrality and avoided involving themselves in local school issues. Handler broke that tradition by pushing for the Sullivan West merger. In his Superintendent’s Corner newspaper column of May 18, 1999 he said there would be 95 percent state aid for construction and renovation, improved curriculum and programs and a virtually free new high school. It is unlikely the merger would have gone through if local residents had realized that BOCES Superintendent Martin Handler wasn’t serious about keeping his promises.

Recently, I informally met with Martin Handler on two separate occasions, once in Ted’s Restaurant and the second time at his wife’s vitamin store, to try to work out a solution to the Sullivan West situation that would save the Delaware Valley and Narrowsburg schools. At the end of the second occasion, I asked Handler what his solution to the problem was. He actually repeated many of the suggestions I had previously made in the press. We parted cordially.

Imagine my surprise when a letter I sent to Mr. Handler on July 25 was returned to me unopened and marked “Refused” in two places.

As a public figure and a representative of the education commissioner, Martin Handler has an obligation to listen to all his constituents, including his critics. His behavior with respect to that letter tells me that BOCES Superintendent Martin Handler hasn’t learned a thing about dealing with the public over the last six years. That might be why his proposed $17,200,000 BOCES expansion project was voted down by 2,484 to 737 across the county in March, with Sullivan West voters against it ten to one.

But he still doesn’t get the message. If he can’t or won’t straighten out the Sullivan West debacle he helped create and find a way to reopen the essential Delaware Valley and Narrowsburg schools, he should resign. If he won’t, it is time for the State Education Department to intervene and remove him from office.

Sullivan County deserves a BOCES superintendent who doesn’t have a credibility problem.

(Editor’s note: a “My View” letter from Martin Handler representing his position on many of these issues was printed in the September 1, 2005 issue of The River Reporter.)

Thanks from Sullivan First

The members of Hurleyville-Sullivan First would like to publicly express their sincere appreciation to everyone who worked so hard on the building of the Hurleyville Firemen’s Park.

The support, generosity and cooperation of the community, the Hurleyville Fire District, the Hurleyville Fire Department, the Hurleyville Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary and the Town of Fallsburg, resulted in a wonderful park on Main Street. It was incredible to watch the park grow through the sharing of talent, equipment, skills and time.

Our deepest thanks also go to the Sullivan Renaissance Steering Committee, Senator John Bonacic and the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development for their valuable support and guidance.

Thank you to everyone who helps to make Hurleyville more beautiful.

The populace is being misled

Our general populace is being willfully misinformed on what is really going on. President George W. Bush’s coddled Karl Rove, a deputy chief of staff and close advisor, created President Bush as a mere figurehead for the GOP. The president himself takes pleasure in snowing ill-informed deadheads with nice sounding but stale remarks and red herring speeches, and has mastered the politics of misleading, surrounded by certain bureaucrats who wield the real power.

When given an unforeseen chance, Bush’s junta, incited by corporate greed, rushed our country into a violent struggle for oil. This was initially sold to the country as a war on weapons of mass destruction but became an ill-defined “war on terrorism,” with the open-ended terrorism never having existed in Iraq until after the invasion.

The public is still being flooded with an unceasing hypocritical flow of patriotic propaganda, making sympathy with the orchestrated struggle a test of patriotism. Meanwhile, we still live during the most dangerous times ever imagined, with our present administration pursuing total domination. This will be followed in due course by disastrous results around the world.

Too many of the common people feel alone like corn stalks in a field. They should not sit on the sidelines during pending election campaigns, as they are being agitated and confused by the national leadership.

If we allow those in power to be re-elected, we will have one party continually controlling the White House and every branch of government.