Q. A $40,000 hit?
A. Yes, and fortunately we made it up — thank you Airbnb, and the parking lot revenues — and the building department came up with some extra, and Town Hall rentals provided some extra than we had anticipated…maybe all those parking tickets from the top of the mountain. So we actually came out this year, I’m projecting a surplus of about $24,000 despite that shortfall from the mortgage tax. The sales tax came in a little bit more than we anticipated, too.
Q. So we’re selling fewer houses?
A. It’s hard to say. The mortgage tax only goes to those transactions that take out a mortgage and there are a lot of cash transaction in Woodstock. You don’t get any taste of that. And the assessor’s tried to figure out what the relationship is, but hasn’t come up with any figures yet.
I don’t think its that prices are lower. Our values are back to where they were in about 2005, before that last real steep climb, before the crash…I think it’s mostly the cash sales that affect us.
Q. The County Comptroller wants hotel taxes on short term rentals…
A. The county has a tax on hotels, and if you’re running a hotel, you should pay the tax. And to me, if you are renting out your whole house and you look at the definition of a hotel in the zoning law, that’s a hotel. And if you are doing it outside of the commercial districts, it’s really not allowed. It’s going on now, and again, this is why the conversation has to be had. Before we go gangbusters, we should take the temperature of the community.
Q. Do you see a heroin epidemic in the community?
A. I’ve been talking about that epidemic for the last two years. And it is tragic, horrible, awful and I think it’s a medical issue and not a criminal issue, and being a medical issue, I think it is horribly underfunded by county, state and federal governmental agencies.
We have here a policy, a so-called drug court policy that the justices adhere to, where people caught in an infraction relating to drug laws have an option of either going to jail or going to treatment. The sad fact is that those who opt for treatment are given lousy facilities for treatment. They’re practically non-existent. It’s a very bad situation. It’s something that the county, state and federal officials must address with a better medical approach for those who are caught up in addiction, rather than an enforcement approach.
Q. It’s prevalent in Woodstock?
A. Yes. I say this anecdotally because I don’t see it with my own eyes, but I hear more, I sense more, and I’ve had conversations with parents, whose children are caught up in addiction. A couple of years ago, there was that doctor in Woodstock who was dispensing with opiates rather freely. I think the law in that case lost a tremendous opportunity to send the right message — he should still be in jail. That was exactly the kind of behavior that led to this epidemic that we have now. Those are the people who are most responsible, the people who just dispense those opiates as if they were jelly beans. There is a serious epidemic.
What can be done about it, as far as locally? I frankly don’t have an answer for that. I was here in the 1960s when we had a severe heroin epidemic. I still remember those who didn’t make it. On the encouraging side, I see people on the street today who did make it, who survived it and went on to lead productive lives.
But the thing I remembered then and I sense now, is that the addiction — it’s like rain in the sense that it falls on the economically privileged and the unprivileged alike. It doesn’t matter what your social status is, or economic status is, addiction is just as dangerous and one is just a susceptible to its horrors. And that’s the sad thing. Parents play a very important role in their children’s lives, but when it comes to a phenomenon like this you an be a very good parent and still see your child suffer the tragedy of addiction. You can be a lousy parent and see your child totally immune to it, it’s something that falls with such indiscretion.
What can the town do? I don’t know, except make parents aware that it’s a serious problem, not try to sugar coat it, and as a people, demand of the officials in higher agencies that they put aside money to address treatment.
Q. The town has built a new highway garage and renovated the Town Hall (with its police station and courthouse) and Community Center. Any other big projects on the horizon?
A. Nope. I know some people want to go up there and do things to that Comeau house, and I do agree that there’s some winterization and things that can be done to that house to make it more ecological. However, as far as big grand designs for it, I don’t see how it’s possible. Everybody who comes up there to pay their water bill or their taxes, they walk into it, look around, and feel that, hey, these people are working in heaven. And now they’re going to go home and read their newspaper and see that the town wants to spend a million bucks to make it better? I just don’t see the support for that.
Q. Are the town facilities in good shape?
A. I think so. We’ve got a good cop house now, emergency dispatch, good court facility. I think we’ve got a good Community Center and we’ve obviously got a good functioning highway garage, and the facility out on West Saugerties road. It all seems to function very well.
Q. How about the town wells, out in Bearsville?
A. The DEC, before granting the withdrawal permit to send water out to the RUPCO project a couple of years ago, required the town to do an analysis of its wells…this was during my absence, the four years when I wasn’t Supervisor, and yes, the municipal water supply is more than ample. They guesstimated close to 200 million gallons a year from that aquifer, and we draw roughly 45 million now. So there’s likely plenty of water for the municipal system. The wells, themselves, of course, they always need some upgrading. Every once in a while you have to go in there and refurbish them, put new cages down there and of course new pumps every now and again, but they’re all functioning very well. So I don’t see us having to tie in at any soon date to the Kingston water supply.
The one time that we did tie in, was very briefly back in 1964 when we had a severe drought over the entire northeast. It’s my understanding that even then the aquifer didn’t run dry, the recharge had slowed considerably. Whoever was the water superintendent at the time had failed to take this into account when setting the pumps. And so the pumps all were on at the same time and not pumping water and they all burned out. And there we were without water. So they connected to the Kingston water line and about five minutes after they connected, it started to rain and the drought ended, they replaced the pumps and that was that.
Q. Are we examining the agreements with the City of Kingston over the use of Cooper Lake water?
A. They’re not agreements, they were decisions handed down by the authority that then regulated all the waters of the state of New York, what the DEC, the successor agency now does. Yes, the city of Kingston, before 1929, had come and constructed Cooper Lake and done all these sorts of improvements for their system and had gotten around to getting approval for all these improvements in 1929. And there was a fuss that was kicked up by several Woodstock residents at the time who felt that Kingston was simply taking liberties with our watershed. So yes, the Water and Power board did make a decision, which by the way, as I look at them I do believe it protects the inhabitants of the town, but the question is, are they as valid now as they were the day they were written? And this is the issue we’ll be presenting to the attorney who we will eventually be hiring, to find out if these agreements that are now 80 some years old, and the 1954 decision that allowed the Kingston Water Board to sell water to the town of Ulster for the IBM facility, are still valid, and if there are any other agreements or decisions that we may not be aware of.
And what is the daily yield for the city of Kingston now? It’s my understanding that it was 4.1 million gallons, but that’s not absolutely clear to me. So I would like that clarified.
Q. Any opinion of City of Kingston charter vote that will allow the Common Council to have a say in any future sales of Cooper Lake water?
A. I think it’s interesting considering the reputation that politicians can have that the people of Kingston so overwhelmingly entrusted their common council with that responsibility. I can’t speak for the interests of the residents of the city of Kingston. However, that vote does not surprise me.
Q. What about the decision to allow some hunting at Yankeetown pond?
A. Let’s talk about it. Look at all the options the town had before making a recommendation…and lets remember that these were recommendations that the town made when these parcels become open. They are not fiats, not done deals, they are recommendations. I’m not saying that the New York City DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) is blithe about it, but they do not have to accept it. If the town had made the recommendation that all those 818 acres, or however much it exactly is, are going to be no hunting at all, period, one can speculate on what the DEP’s response would have been. I can tell you that the coalition of Watershed Towns adopted a resolution that basically stuck its nose in the Town of Woodstock’s business and called for that property to be open to hunting, as described in NY law. There are those who think that there may be influence from the governor’s office to support hunting interests because the Gov is sensitive to the upstate unhappiness with the SAFE act, as expressed in the vote.
I have to remind you, that I have never shot an animal in my life, I don’t shoot animals.
So the compromise is to allow hunting in a more restricted sense. Instead of there being hunting basically from September through the early spring, that there would be big game hunting for a period of September through November and then small game, from, what is it, dawn until noon in the month of May. So this was seen by some, and I’m one of them, as middle ground. The question was, what was the DEP going to think about it?
I felt it was something palatable to all sides. And I don’t think DEP would have honored our request for no hunting at all.
Q. Will there be another handicap ramp on Community Center for access to the TV station?
A. It’s a tough engineering thing. I suppose if it had been planned from the beginning, it could have been put in there. But the way it is now, if you run it perpendicular to the building you’re going to take away the fire lane to access the building, if there’s ever a fire back there. If you run it parallel to the building, you’re running it right over a water line, which may or may not have to be accessed, because it’s also used to flush the lines. So I don’t know. There is handicapped access into that building.
Q. Anything else you’d like to add?
A. I hope that more and more people, especially some young ones, will take an active interest in the affairs of the town. We will be advertising for vacancies on various volunteer boards, we will be at some point putting together a Comprehensive Plan committee, and I just hope that people who care for this community will consider giveing your time to these committees. I will remind everyone that it requires absolutely no expertise in these areas, it’s just good will, good judgment and a willingness to learn. You don’t have to be any maven of anything to contribute to your community. Just come in with an open mind and a willingness to learn and you’ll be a tremendous help.
