Scenic Byway looks OK
As for any points of difference that came up during the election season this past fall,
Rozzelle noted that as far as she could remember, the biggest issue centered on the Scenic Byway proposal being put together for a consortium of Route 28 municipalities that Republicans said they were against on home rule grounds, and she’s long been in favor of. “I figure, now, that that’s a done deal and I don’t want to go back and try to rework that territory again,” she said. “It’ll likely take a year and a half to approve anyway.”
Friedel, who attended a November 20 NY Rising committee meeting where Olive residents made up a plurality of those discussing the big state grants, said this week that he no longer thought the byway would prove a stumbling block…or that there’d be any problem with working together as a town board under Rozzelle.
“If they’re going to come up with the document they said they would, incorporating all the changes we asked for and they promised us, I see no problem…The scenic byway is good for everyone; it’s just some of the stuff they added to it that had to do with being green instead of tourism that bothered me,” he said. “As for the future of this board? Things are going to flow…I don’t think being a Republican or Democrats matters right now. We’re all Olive.”
Phones, wireless, other maintenance
As for appointments come January 2, and the naming of a deputy supervisor, neither Rozzelle nor Friedel said they’d thought of the matter yet.
“I’m still being town clerk here,” Rozzelle said. “I’m more interested in making sure the county replaces its bridge on Route 213 before something bad happens there…they promised that for us years ago.”
Friedel said he was encouraged by the NY Rising meeting he attended with his new supervisor, after having worried whether the program was legitimate before the election. His worries, he added, tended to congregate around streams and flooding, Boiceville, and finding ways to get allowances to fix some water flow issues that he feels threaten much of West Shokan, including the site of the fire department and town hall there.
“The stream seems to be trying to get back to an earlier channel there,” he said.
Speaking of town hall, both town officials were asked what happened with the phones there over the first two days of the week.
Friedel said such things take a couple of days to fix and all was well. Rozzelle said she didn’t know they were out, having been answering her town clerk line and out at meetings both days.
But then she noted how that was a recurring problem on her list of maintenance issues.
“It happens a lot and is in the lines and not our system at town hall,” she said. “It has to do with a substation out there on Watson Hollow Road…sometimes I think they should just up and build a house there in which a repairman can live full time.”
She paused, then took off her clerk hat for the new mantel of supervisor she’s newly elected to.
“We don’t have a lot of wireless in town yet, and cable and broadband shortages,” she said. “Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of such technologies and feel there may be some dangers there; nevertheless I understand how important it all is to our economy, and our citizens.”
Committees, both new Olive supervisor Sylvia Rozzelle and returning senior councilman Peter Friedel continued, would be a key to the upcoming administration…focusing on everything from maintenance issues to wireless accessibility…and the phones at town hall.
