UDC chair challenges Barryville livery base

David Hulse
Posted 8/21/12

NARROWSBURG, NY — “Who owns the land?” is the question central to an ongoing debate about a livery operation sited immediately adjoining the Barryville-Shohola Bridge.

The Upper …

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UDC chair challenges Barryville livery base

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NARROWSBURG, NY — “Who owns the land?” is the question central to an ongoing debate about a livery operation sited immediately adjoining the Barryville-Shohola Bridge.

The Upper Delaware Council (UDC) chairman, Al Henry, says the land is owned by the New York State Department of Transportation (DOT) and the livery is operating on public land without permission. On July 2, he pressed the National Park Service (NPS) to take action against the operator, Fred Reber.

Reber, who owns Reber River Trips, says he leases the property from the owners of the adjoining Carriage House Restaurant. Reber says the property appears on town tax maps.

Reber said he had heard nothing of the controversy about his site before the media inquiry. He said state, National Park Service and county officials visited the site last year and “didn’t see any problems.”

“I have $100,000 and three years invested here. I’d hate to lose it,” he added.

Henry and the NPS also have property maps, which were available at the July 2 UDC meeting, but they show state ownership of the land.

The UDC has been inquiring for information about the livery site since September of 2013, according to an April 28 letter from UDC project review committee chair Larry Richardson to the Town of Highland Town Board. “We have never received a reply,” he wrote.

The River Management Plan requires the UDC to review all river-related projects in member towns.

Richardson’s April letter was also copied to Jack Williams, the Sullivan County New York State DOT manager and the Highland planning board.

There has been no reply from either addressee.

Highland UDC alternate delegate Debra Conway said the planning board approved a site plan for the site, after waiving a public hearing for it, and Reber provided only a hand-drawn map of the site. She said planning board chair Berry Hafkin “kinda’ laughed” when she inquired about it.

Henry said that when he was working as an NPS ranger, agreements for a proposed public river access under the bridge were drawn. “We were a heartbeat away from installing the DEC access sign,” he said. “The access is there now, but the public can’t use it.” Henry said.

“I’m not telling the superintendent how to do her job, but she does have the power to revoke a commercial user’s permit at her own discretion,” Henry said as NPS Superintendent Kris Heister listened.

Heister agreed that DOT does own the land, but declined to take action to revoke Reber’s permit. “My position is that if the town has permitted it and the state won’t take any action, it is not a good excuse [to use] my discretion.”

The UDC approved a new letter to Williams to get a DOT response.

Reber said Tuesday that he has made an appointment to meet with Heister about the issue.

In other business, Heister reported recent “brainstorming” with local New York and PA officials in response to Westfall residents’ complaints about excessive noise from racing motorcycles on the Hawk’s Nest section of New York State Route 97. Heister said Town of Deerpark police have issued 23 recent violations related to the complaints and that the noise appears to be related to a “five-o’clock club,” consisting of “a small number of people on extremely annoying motorcycles.” Further action, she said, is a question of “how to get the cops there.”

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