SusanCampriello: My Works

Emissions and forests
The Daily Mail
July 23, 2009

What does it mean for Greene?

In late June, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The bill passed the House by only seven votes. Twenty-five of New York’s 29 representatives voted in favor of measure, one provision of which would establish a ‘Cap and Trade’ policy for carbon emissions.

The Senate is currently writing its own energy bill based on the House bill.

I spoke to folks at the Agroforestry Resource Center, in Acra, and some with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative about what the development of and passage of the bill could mean for industry and residents in New York and Greene County.

New York is one of ten states that have promised to cap carbon dioxide emissions from their power sectors and to require carbon dioxide emissions to decrease by 10% by 2018 as participants in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Emission permit auctions began in 2008. The fourth, and most recent sale was held in June and brought in $39.9 million for New York to use for energy efficient and renewable energy projects, the group announced. Data to show the effect RGGI has had on emissions is not yet available.

The bill would put a moratorium on the Initiative’s, well, initiative for six years.

According to a RGGI spokesman at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the organization can focus on other ways to lower greenhouse gas such as developing support and momentum for wind, solar and geothermal energy.

Andrew Turner, executive director of the Agroforestry Center, said the Senate bill could have implications for forest land ownership.

Rob Davies, a DEC forest manager, agreed. He said he hopes the Senate bill will go a step further than the House bill has, and recognize the carbon sequestering potential of forestlands in New York. According to DEC, more than 18 million acres in New York, or roughly 62% of the State, is forested. Davies said 85% of forest lands in New York are privately owned, so giving incentives to forest owners to manage their lands is “critically important.” He did not go into details.

Last week, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., argued this point in front of the Senate. She urged that the bill establish a carbon-offset program to be administered by the Department of Agriculture.

Not everyone agrees that a ‘Cap and Trade’ policy is a good fit for the country’s economy. And work in the Senate is not finished.

There is still time for changes to be made.

What do you think about the bill?

Catskill school board inks bus contracts
Cost of transporting students going up in 2009
The Daily Mail
July 30, 2009

CATSKILL — The Catskill Central School District Board of Education approved contracts Wednesday evening with First Student and Coxsackie Transport to shuttle more than 1,600 students between their homes and the district’s three school buildings during the upcoming school year.

District Superintendent Dr. Kathleen Farrell said she had anticipated an increase in cost for shuttling first- through 12th-grade students to the district’s three school buildings.

District Assistant Superintendent for Business Kimberly Lewis said the cost of the service would cost about 30 percent more than last year’s service.

That contract was awarded to the First Student busing company.

“The good news is even though the cost is up, it is nothing we did not budget for and did not anticipate,” Farrell said.

Roughly $2 million was budgeted for transportation costs for the 2009-10 school year.

The contract will cost $60,348 per bus and is based on 20 buses.

Any bus monitors or attendants the district requested would be paid $15,000.

The contract requires a $54,834 cost to add or cancel a bus trip.

Lewis said a local company had been interested in contracting with the district but the change in certain bus routes had not been finalized in time for an agreement to be reached.

Farrell said a company in Columbia County had also been contacted but could not add service in Catskill to its current rounds.

Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten students will be bused this coming year by Coxsackie Transport.

Four buses will transport children to Catskill Elementary School at a cost of $54,735 each. One bus will make four daily trips from students’ homes to the school, another bus will make two daily trips and two buses will make three daily trips.

The cost for adding a bus during the year would be $54, 735, as well, and the fee for canceling a bus would be $35,000.

The district could request a bus monitor or attendant for $17,220, each. Aids will be present on the morning bus to the school and the afternoon bus leaving the school, Farrell said.

She said that the two bus services provide a good return for their dollar.

“Coxsackie Transport and First Student have been attentive to our requests and our needs in terms of safety and training for drivers and equipment upgrades and other issues,” Farrell said.

She said allowing pre-K and Kindergarten students on the same bus makes financial sense, as does running door-to-door service on one vehicle.

“[Kids] will do a little bonding, hopefully positive bonding,” she said.

Board member Michael Bulich said he thought parents of young students should be responsible for bringing their children to and from school.

“I am on the fence with letting little kids, that age, on a bus,” he said.

Lewis said another bid request had been issued Wednesday for transportation of students in special and athletic programs.

NYCLU blasts Cairo for seeking fees from plaintiffs
Watchdog group says town has no legal recourse for recovering money
The Daily Mail
July 30, 2009

CAIRO — The New York Civil Liberties Union has decried a resolution passed by the Cairo Town Board as “chilling” according to documents obtained by The Daily Mail.

A complaint was made to the NYCLU after the Town Board passed a resolution April 15 to try to recover more than $13,000 in attorney fees from plaintiffs in a recent Article 78 lawsuit against the Town Ellsworth “Unk” Slater, the Cairo Township Taxpayers Association and Cairo First.

The lawsuit was dismissed in March and is currently on appeal.

Councilman Richard Lorenz, who offered the resolution, Councilman Raymond Suttmeier and Town Supervisor John Coyne voted for the resolution. Councilwoman Janet Schwarzenegger did not. Councilwoman Alice Tunison abstained from the vote because she wanted to discuss the matter with Town Attorney Tal Rappleyea before making a decision.

An audience of Cairo residents present at the April meeting applauded the resolution’s passage.

However, in a letter dated May 5, 2009, and addressed to the Town Board, Coyne and Rappleyea, Melanie Trimble, of the NYCLU, said the Town had no legal grounds to recover the money.

“We believe that there is no legal provision for the recovery of the fees from the plaintiffs, and efforts to recover fees from them would be illegal,” the letter reads.

We also believe that people should have the right to go to court

Trimble stated in the letter that residents should have the right to challenge the Town in court and should not be intimidated from exercising that right under threat of having to pay the Town’s legal fees.

“The actions of the Town Board have a chilling effect on an individual’s right to pursue his or her interests in the courts,” the letter reads.

Schwarzenegger reiterated Wednesday the position she took in April, which mirrored that of the NYCLU.

“That resolution was an attempt to intimidate the people who file a lawsuit and also to intimidate any future lawsuits and anybody who might be thinking of suing the Town,” she said.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit said Wednesday that they were glad the NYCLU had taken a position against the resolution.

Charles Umbach, president of the Cairo Township Taxpayers Association, said he and every member of the association, as well as the members of Cairo First and Slater had been slandered by the Town Board through the passage of the resolution.

He said the letter indicates that the Town Board does make mistakes, which is why entities in Cairo have sued the Town.

Erica Gravina, president of Cairo First, agreed.

”The Article 78 was created to ensure our civil liberties,” Gravina said.

She said that as a not-for-profit organization Cairo First could not ask its members to pay the fees even if the Town had successfully requested payment.

Slater said the resolution singled him out while ignored fees owed the Cairo Planning Board by developer Charles Maggio, a defendant in the Article 78 lawsuit.

“[Lorenz, Suttmeier and Coyne] voted to aggressively go after me for legal fees even though it does not appear to be a legal option and at the same time they let Mr. Maggio run up a tremendous bill on the Town for engineering fees and viewing his project by ignoring the laws we do have, This is money they will have to recover through legal action according to the Town’s lawyer at the last board meeting. Apparently they are still trying to keep the focus off of their inadequacies,” he said.

Lorenz said he did not disagree with the letter’s statement that people with legitimate concerns should not be intimidated from challenging the Town.

And Suttmeier, who had seconded the resolution, said again that the Board should seek to recover the fees.

“We would be negligent in our duty if we did not at least attempt to recoup the legal fees that cost the taxpayers as the result of a frivolous lawsuit,” he said

Although the letter from the NYCLU had been addressed to the Town Board, Lorenz and Suttmeier said they were unaware of the group’s involvement in the issue.

Coyne deferred questioning Wednesday to Rappleyea. Rappleyea declined to comment, citing attorney-client privilege.

Drug probe will be ongoing
More charges possible as investigation of suspected drug trafficking ring continues
The Daily Mail
July 28, 2009

A investigation into an alleged drug trafficking operation in Catskill will continue despite an arrest made over the weekend, according to the Catskill Police Department.

Louis Tushaj, 45, was charged Saturday after police executed a search warrant at 78 Grandview Ave. in Catskill.

Tushaj was arraigned early Sunday morning and charged with third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance with intent. He is currently being held in the Greene County Jail without bail, police said.

Police said they found marijuana, heroin, Oxycontin, Hydrocodon and Ecstasy in the residence in addition to a large amount of cash and stolen items.

Paraphernalia for the weighing, use and transportation of drugs were found as well, police said.

Police said they believe some substances found in their search originated from New York City.

Catskill Police Chief David Darling said the investigation, which began in March, is continuing and could result in further charges.

“We are looking into a lot of other avenues,” he said.

Darling said the investigation that led to the arrest included the Greene County District Attorney’s Office, State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation and a K-9 unit.

“It was a very thorough investigation and the outcome was successful,” Darling said.

Communities spar over EMS payments
Cairo, Greenville agree on one thing: Problems are ‘ludicrous’
The Daily Mail
July 24, 2009

Cairo Ambulance Chief Reay Mahler said the Greenville Rescue Squad owes the Town of Cairo roughly $16,000 for calls covered in Greenville for patients who do not pay, or do not have an insurance company pay, the Town of Cairo Ambulance.

But Greenville Rescue Squad’s attorney Bradley Pinsky disagrees.

“We owe the town not a dime,” he said.

Pinsky, of Scicchitano and Pinsky, PLLC, said that Cairo’s bid to recover the money was “ridiculous.”

“What we will never do is pay any money to another ambulance service when we had no part in providing care,” he said. “We are just not going to do that.”

Pinsky said he has asked Cairo Town Supervisor John Coyne to provide him with a list of the call for which Cairo demands payment.

Mahler said he had sent updated information to the Greenville Rescue Squad four times, but Pinsky said he has received nothing from Cairo.

Without the lists, Pinsky said, he could not determine whether patients had mistakenly sent some of the money Cairo requested to the Greenville Rescue Squad instead of to the Cairo Ambulance.

Pinsky said Coyne had indicated during a special meeting to discuss the issue that a new mutual aid contract Pinsky had drafted was acceptable.

The agreement was rejected last week by the Town Board upon the recommendation of Cairo Town Attorney Tal Rappleyea.

The Town Board also passed a resolution to notify the Greenville Rescue Squad that it would terminate a mutual aid agreement at the end of August if the money is not paid.

Mahler said that Cairo Ambulance will still respond to mass casualty call in Greenville or if other services are unable to cover a call even if the mutual aid agreement is terminated.

Cairo will only not cover regular calls to which the Greenville Rescue Squad cannot respond due to insufficient manpower, he said.

Pinsky said the town’s threat showed its greed.

He maintained that the payments were not the squad’s responsibility.

“The Greenville Rescue Squad has no obligation whatsoever to serve as an insurance company for a patient without insurance,” he said.

But Mahler said the squad does need to finance emergency medical services in Greenville.

“We understand that they are not an insurance company but Greenville Rescue Squad, because of its Certificate of Need, is responsible for the Town of Greenville residents’ EMS,” he said.

However, Pinsky said that proposition was “ludicrous” and the certificate does not obligate the squad to pay for calls it could not cover.

Mahler said Cairo Ambulance has been paid for the majority of the calls it has covered in Greenville and a small but growing number of patients have not paid Cairo Ambulance for its service.

And in those cases, he said, Cairo foots the bill for patients in Greenville.

Mahler said other ambulance services in the area, such as Durham’s service, face the same problem Greenville sometimes has with manning an ambulance at certain times of the day. Cairo, and other mutual aid services, respond to their calls, he said.

He said other communities recognize that they have a responsibility to pay Cairo when patients in their communities do not, or cannot, make the payments themselves.

“That the taxpayers in Cairo are paying for the Town of Cairo Ambulance to go into the Town of Greenville to cover the slack because their agency is not doing it is ludicrous,” he said.

The problem with Greenville has been ongoing for two years and Cairo has never received a payment, he said.

Mahler said he and Coyne had met with representatives from the squad and the Town of Greenville to work out an aid agreement and a payment schedule. He said initially the agreement was going to expire April 1, 2009, but the deadline was extended to allow the rescue to pay some of the debt.

“We have been very fair,” he said. “But we cannot continue to provide this service for nothing.”

Celebrating all the best county can offer
The Daily Mail
July 24, 2009

At around noon Thursday, Greene County Agricultural Society President Richard Bear said he was pleased with the large opening-day crowd at the annual Greene County Youth Fair.

Behind him, one of the fair’s demonstrations captivated a young audience. Inside a distant tent, fairgoers learned about forests, farms and animals from people representing local agencies and the Agroforestry Resource Center in Acra.

But the real attraction of the fair is the group of children who have spent months and even years working on a craft or raising animals to show this week.

“These kids have done a tremendous job,” Bear said.

During the fair’s opening ceremony, Society Vice President Carl Kohrs thanked the more than 100 volunteers who had worked since Monday to pitch tents and ready Cairo’s Angelo Canna Park for the fair.

Kohrs asked those present to share a moment of silence to remember Jeanne Bear, a long-time fair organizer who died earlier this year, and for all the organizers and volunteers who have made the fair possible who have passed away.

Even the sheep, cows and chickens in nearby tents observed the moment silently before they resumed their respective bleats, lows and clucks.

Greene County Legislator William Lawrence, R-Cairo, said he remembers the early days of the fair under the direction of Jeanne and Orloff Bear Sr. and Alfred and Frances Partridge.

“[The fair] is because of giants like them. We can look to them that this is a nice event,” he said.

Other lawmakers spoke at the ceremony,

State Sen. James L. Seward, R-Oneonta, said the fair was the highlight of the summer and showcased the county.

“This is a real celebration of all the best of our youth, all the best of agriculture and all the best that we have to offer in Greene County,” he said. “We have on display on these grounds all the best we have to offer.”

Sewerd said to applause that he and Assemblyman Pete Lopez, R-Schoharie, had work last spring to make sure money remained in the state budget to support agricultural-themed fairs in New York.

Lopez added that the local attention to farming showcased by the fair was important during the present time when local farmers must compete with businesses that import farm goods from overseas.

He announced that he and Seward would hold an “emergency” meeting in Cobleskill with dairy farmers to discuss low milk prices and said a similar meeting with farmers in Columbia, Greene and Ulster counties would be scheduled soon.

The state lawmakers used most of their time at the fair to meet with constituents and children from a Cairo day camp.

Other campers crowded around tables in the park pavilion to build birdhouses and other items from kits provided by Home Depot or stood against around a demonstration area to watch The Indian River Olde Time Lumberjack Show comical performance of lumberjack skills.

Children with the Flora and Fauna 4-H Club showed fowl and more children pulled their parents toward the fowl, rabbits, cattle, sheep and goats.

One of these, Emily Grinnell, wanted her mother to take her to see the dozens of cows at the fair.

The four-year-old self-proclaimed animal-lover said she helps her father feed the pigs on the family’s farm every night.

Her mother Jen Grinnell, of Jewett, said they come to the fair every year.

She said the family will hold a reunion at the fair Saturday, as it has in the past.

Richard Bear said the fair caters to families like the Grinnells, who are perennial guests or those who attend all four days the fair runs. Different animals are shown every day. Some of the daily demonstrations may be the same, he said, but every performance is unique.

“Every time you come, it is a little bit different,” he said.

Police charge 2, cat Elijah still missing
The Daily Mail
July 24, 2009

Brenda Widely has been searching for two days for her cat, Elijah, who was stolen from her car in New Baltimore Tuesday and left in a parking lot in Ravena.

Elijah is a brown and grey Siamese cat with blue eyes. Although Elijah is an indoor cat, Widely said, she has not been de-clawed.

Widely said she hopes Elijah has been taken home by someone but fears the worst.

“My grandkids are heartbroken and I am sick over it,” she said.

Widely, a Coxsackie resident, left the cat on the front seat of her car in a green cat carrier that resembles a duffel bag while she stopped in a Dunkin’ Donuts after leaving a veterinary appointment in New Baltimore.

A witness to the theft followed the perpetrators along Route 9w to the town line and copied down the driver’s licensee plate, she said.

Police later apprehended and questioned the suspects, who also live in Coxsackie, about the theft, she said.

According to State Police at Catskill, the suspects said they had left the cat in the parking lot at a Super Shop and Save in Ravena.

They were charged with petit larceny with other charges pending, according to Investigator Diane Benoit.

State Police have been working with the Coxsackie Village Police and the Greene County Sheriff’s Office.

Neither state police nor the Greene County Sheriff’s Office would release the identities of the suspects.

Widely said Elijah was prescribed medicines for an ear infection and other minor ailments Tuesday. She worried that the cat has not received the medication in two days.

Widley said area shelters and veterinarians have been notified of Elijah’s disappearance.

Elijah, who Widely’s son adopted from a shelter, has been with the family for 11 years. Elijah has lived with Widely on Mansion Street for five years.

She said the cat may have been abused early in life.

“She needs a lot of love and tender care,” Widely said.

She asked that anyone with information about Elijah’s whereabouts should contact the Greene County Sheriff’s office.

Dragonfly Performing Arts to move to Cairo
The Daily Mail
July 23, 2009

Broadway veterans Rita and John Carver hope to open a new studio on Main Street, in Cairo, for their group Dragon Fly Performing Arts.

The organization has been renting space for acting, stage combat and singing classes, but will now have a permanent performance and classroom space in a former store building at 473 Main St. Cairo.
“[A venue] like this is for the most part absent,” Rita Carver said of establishing a home for the organization in Greene County.

Carver won an Emmy for her work on the 2000 Sydney Olympics and has won other awards and nominations for her role on other television shows.

In addition, she has worked on productions on and off Broadway and in Europe. She has been teaching various aspects of theater for 15 years.

John Carver’s theater career includes credits in several musicals as well as in Broadway, regional and touring productions. He also teaches performing arts including classes in circus arts, special effects makeup and movement.

Dragonfly’s students can also learn back stage crafts including makeup, scenery development and stage management.

Rita Carver said she had looked at buildings in different parts of Greene County before choosing the Cairo building. She is currently working with the Cairo Planning Board and hopes to be in the space by Halloween weekend.

Cairo is centrally located within the County, which made the Town appealing to Carver. She expressed that the store’s floor plan was attractive and needs little work to ready it for the company. The first floor main room is large enough for actors to move. The storage room on the floor below is large enough to house the company’s scenery pieces and costumes.

“Theater takes up a lot of room,” said Carver.

The production company plans to perform “Haunted Liver,” compilation of three one-act ghost stories over the Halloween weekend.

Other plays that will be staged during the 2009-2010 season include “A Christmas Carol,” by John Jakes that is a twist on Charles Dickens’ original story, Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie” and the modern farce “Noises Off.” The musical “The Phantom Tollbooth” will be performed next summer.

Dragon Fly will also host a series of open-mic nights where people can read poetry, sing or speak out on a topic that interest them.

“Whatever is going to foster their creativity, I am all for it,” expressed Carver.

This spring, adults and children performed the musical “Cats” with the company. The youngest performer was eight years old and the oldest was an adult.

Carver said she enjoyed watching interactions between theater veterans and those who had never performed during company rehearsals.

“More experienced actors helped other students,” she said, “which is ultimately the best way to learn.”

Communities spar over EMS payments
Cairo, Greenville agree on one thing: Problems are ‘ludicrous’
The Daily Mail
July 23, 2009

GREENVILLE — Cairo Ambulance Chief Reay Mahler said the Greenville Rescue Squad owes the Town of Cairo roughly $16,000 for calls covered in Greenville for patients who do not pay, or do not have an insurance company pay, the Town of Cairo Ambulance.

But Greenville Rescue Squad’s attorney Bradley Pinsky disagrees.

“We owe the town not a dime,” he said.

Pinsky, of Scicchitano and Pinsky, PLLC, said that Cairo’s bid to recover the money was “ridiculous.”

“What we will never do is pay any money to another ambulance service when we had no part in providing care,” he said. “We are just not going to do that.”

Pinsky said he has asked Cairo Town Supervisor John Coyne to provide him with a list of the call for which Cairo demands payment.

Mahler said he had sent updated information to the Greenville Rescue Squad four times, but Pinsky said he has received nothing from Cairo.

Without the lists, Pinsky said, he could not determine whether patients had mistakenly sent some of the money Cairo requested to the Greenville Rescue Squad instead of to the Cairo Ambulance.

Pinsky said Coyne had indicated during a special meeting to discuss the issue that a new mutual aid contract Pinsky had drafted was acceptable.

The agreement was rejected last week by the Town Board upon the recommendation of Cairo Town Attorney Tal Rappleyea.

The Town Board also passed a resolution to notify the Greenville Rescue Squad that it would terminate a mutual aid agreement at the end of August if the money is not paid.

Malher said that Cairo Ambulance will still respond to mass casualty call in Greenville or if other services are unable to cover a call even if the mutual aid agreement is terminated.

Cairo will only not cover regular calls to which the Greenville Rescue Squad cannot respond due to insufficient manpower, he said.

Pinsky said the town’s threat showed its greed.

He maintained that the payments were not the squad’s responsibility.

“The Greenville Rescue Squad has no obligation whatsoever to serve as an insurance company for a patient without insurance,” he said.

But Mahler said the squad does need to finance emergency medical services in Greenville.

“We understand that they are not an insurance company but Greenville Rescue Squad, because of its Certificate of Need, is responsible for the Town of Greenville residents’ EMS,” he said.

However, Pinsky said that proposition was “ludicrous” and the certificate does not obligate the squad to pay for calls it could not cover.

Malher said Cairo Ambulance has been paid for the majority of the calls it has covered in Greenville and a small but growing number of patients have not paid Cairo Ambulance for its service.

And in those cases, he said, Cairo foots the bill for patients in Greenville.

Mahler said other ambulance services in the area, such as Durham’s service, face the same problem Greenville sometimes has with manning an ambulance at certain times of the day. Cairo, and other mutual aid services, respond to their calls, he said.

He said other communities recognize that they have a responsibility to pay Cairo when patients in their communities do not, or cannot, make the payments themselves.

“That the taxpayers in Cairo are paying for the Town of Cairo Ambulance to go into the Town of Greenville to cover the slack because their agency is not doing it is ludicrous,” he said.

The problem with Greenville has been ongoing for two years and Cairo has never received a payment, he said.

Malher said he and Coyne had met with representatives from the squad and the Town of Greenville to work out an aid agreement and a payment schedule. He said initially the agreement was going to expire April 1, 2009, but the deadline was extended to allow the rescue to pay some of the debt.

“We have been very fair,” he said. “But we cannot continue to provide this service for nothing.”

Search over for missing man
The Daily Mail
July 21, 2009

CATSKILL–A man who went missing in Catskill Monday was found in the Village Tuesday morning, according to Catskill Police.

Police Chief David Darling said William Pennington, 50, of Cairo, was discovered by two Catskill firefighters between Main and Thompson streets at around 7:15 a.m.

“He looked to be in good health,” Darling said.

Darling said the mentally distraught Pennington was transported to Columbia Memorial Hospital.

Pennington was reported missing at 2 p.m. Monday from a relative’s home near where he was later found.

Catskill Police, State Police, the Catskill Fire Department and the Greene County Sheriff’s Department searched wooded areas in Catskill for the man Monday evening. Catskill police and some firefighters continued their effort overnight, Darling said.

Darling said Pennington told officers Tuesday morning that he had spent the night walking and sleeping.