Water-plan foes make case
Say county could force municipalities to connect
By Chris Mckenna
Times Herald-Record
HIGHLAND MILLS —
Could Orange County force municipalities to connect their water systems if they don't want to?
Three people who believe it could made their case to local officials at the Woodbury firehouse Thursday night, the latest rumblings of opposition to a proposed plan for the county's public water supplies.
The part attracting criticism is a recommendation for 19 intermunicipal pipe connections, which are intended to let well-supplied towns sell water to needier neighbors and steer development to areas the county has marked for growth.
The county Water Authority, which developed the plan, insists these links would be strictly voluntary, and says it will help any communities that want to build them.
But critics fear the authority could push forward without consent.
On Thursday, three opponents who studied the plan and its supporting documents laid out their findings in a PowerPoint presentation to 11 invited officials from the eastern part of the county.
They argue the authority could seize local water systems through eminent domain and tax the whole county for its costs, using a countywide water district created years ago but never used.
They also claim some wording in the documents betrays a forceful intent.
"The Legislature has no control over this authority," said Sheila Conroy, a Woodbury Planning Board member and former town supervisor. "It's only answerable to the executive branch of government."
Conroy gave the talk with Jonathan Swiller, leader of the OCEAN citizens' group; and Robert Fromaget, a Blooming Grove resident and county Legislature candidate.
Authority leaders responded Friday by repeating the pipe links are merely suggestions and wouldn't be forced on anyone.
"The authority is there for the purpose of trying to facilitate the interconnections so that everybody has a sufficient supply of potable water," said Marcia Jacobowitz, chairwoman of the five-member authority board. "This is not something that would be mandatory."
County Planning Commissioner David Church, who serves as executive director of the authority, said the notion of seizing water systems through eminent domain is "so far-fetched I never asked anybody if we could."
He emphasized that the authority can amend its proposal in response to public input. For instance, it could consider stating that no connections would be forced through eminent domain, Church said.
It's already reconsidering some population projections that Fromaget questioned.
"We're professional and humble enough to admit that if we're wrong, we'll correct it," Church said.
cmckenna@th-record.com
Pipe connections
The Orange County Water Authority has suggested connecting local water systems in 19 places as part of an overall plan for meeting water needs as the county population grows.
The most immediate connections it suggested are:
• Town of Wallkill and Village of Goshen
• Middletown and the Town of Wallkill
• Villages of Kiryas Joel and Monroe
• Villages of Monroe and Harriman
• West Point and Highland Falls
• Washingtonville and Cornwall-on-Hudson
• New Windsor and the City of Newburgh
To read the full report, go to: http://waterauthority.orangecountygov.com/
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17 comments:
Based on this, does this mean Swiller, Conroy, and Fromage are battling windmills ala Don Quixote?? Appears they need another flag to rally around and cause undo fear amongst the citizens of the area. When are they going to realize that the voters have spoken and don't want them around anymore.
UB- care to list the 11 invited officials? Seems to me that this select group may have been chosen as a means NOT to "cause undo fear", but rather to get to the bottom of something and close up any loop-holes that may now exist, thus eliminating the possibility of the taking of wells...by the comments from Mr. Church, it sounds like they may have succeeded, or at the very least, opened up some dialogue.
The attendees included the mayors of Woodbury, Cornwall on Hudson, Harriman, South Blooming Grove, Monroe and Chester; Supervisors from Woodbury and Blooming Grove; Frank Fornario, Pat O'Dwyer and some trustees and cousilmen from those boards.
Sorry: "councilmen"
Kind of like how the voters have spoken time and time again in their vehement rejection of Ralph & company?
By LAURA ITALIANO
MODEL TEED: Goo gle must give up the identity of an anony mous blogger who wrote defamatory des criptions of Liskula Cohen (above) on this blog, a Manhattan judge ruled.
MODEL TEED: Goo gle must give up the identity of an anony mous blogger who wrote defamatory des criptions of Liskula Cohen (above) on this blog, a Manhattan judge ruled.
No skanks, bloggers.
A Manhattan judge ruled yesterday that a blogger can't hide behind a web of anonymity while flinging the ugly words "skank" and "ho" at somebody online.
The sternly worded ruling orders Google to give up the identity of an anonymous blogger-assailant who inexplicably devoted an entire blog -- titled "Skanks in NYC" -- to maligning beautiful blond model Liskula Cohen.
Once she learns her attacker's name -- possibly as early as today -- the model can serve the anonymous blogger with a defamation lawsuit.
The blog, which was posted through Google's "Blogger.com" subsidiary last year, had included sexy fashion shots of Cohen with captions using the words "skank," "ho" and "whoring."
In fighting to stay anonymous, the blogger had argued these remarks were "non-actionable opinion and/or hyperbole" -- in other words, "trash talk."
"I really hope it's not somebody I know," Cohen, 27, of Manhattan, said yesterday.
"I'm a human being. I bleed. I have feelings. When I saw that blog, it was awful," she told The Post. "All I can say for this person is, I really truly hope that they have more in their life than this," she said of the vile blog, which has been taken down.
"The thrust of the blog is that [Cohen] is a sexually promiscuous woman," Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Joan Madden wrote in her decision. That included references to Cohen as "whoring" and "ready to engage in oral sexual activity."
As such, the international cover girl is entitled to insist in a defamation lawsuit that the blogger's statements are false and damaging -- and to get from Google the blogger's name she needs in order to do so, the judge ruled.
Cohen's lawyer, Steven Wagner, said he hopes the decision sends a message to bloggers, Twitterers, and whoever else would use the anonymity of the Internet for cowardly defamations.
"The rules for defamation on the Web -- for actual reality as well as virtual reality -- are the same," Wagner said. "The Internet is not a free-for-all."
But the lawyer for the anonymous blogger warned that the real free-for-all will happen in the court system if everyone who's ever suffered an ugly insult online decides to take their complaint before a judge.
"The floodgates would be opened if you tried to regulate these very broad, common insults and invective on the Internet," said Anne Salisbury.
"You can be really, really mean to people -- you just can't lie about a set of facts that are provable as lies, and that you knew or recklessly disregarded the truth of."
If the windmills be windmills, lets open them up and see what's inside. Sounds like that's all these folks are doing, what are YOU so afraid of that you don't want them out there trying to simply examine the laws and how they effect our town?
About those windmills and undo fear - are you talking about when they stopped the pipeline, or stopped annexation three years ago, or stopped the giveaway of rt 44 to KJ or stopped the water towers from going into Gonzaga park?
No Ralph's talking about when they put on those debates that he's afraid to go to.
T H E Y didn't stop anything!!
Yes Ralph, of course. It was all your doing, you and your 6 foot tall invisible rabbit.
On another note, from the THR today...
Hasidim kick off Bethel voter drive
So far they've registered 300 to vote in Bethel since they don't like the laws there, and want them changed. I wonder who in Sullivan Co is going to watch to see that these people actually do live there...article states they "advertised" for this voter registration in BROOKLYN! When is this madness going to stop?
From lohud.com...
Ex-New Square clerk held without bail on federal fraud charges from the 1990s
By Steve Lieberman • slieberm@lohud.com •
August 18, 2009
NEW YORK - A federal judge yesterday ordered a former New Square village clerk held without bail on charges that he helped steal tens of millions of dollars from federal anti-poverty programs and then fled the country in the late 1990s.
Avrum David Friesel, 57, who is married with children, was extradited to the United States on Aug. 7 from London after he fought to stay in Great Britain.
U.S. marshals and London police arrested Friesel in April 2008 after he had eluded authorities since 1997.
Friesel's next scheduled appearance is Sept. 9 in U.S. District Court. His lawyer, William Komaroff of Manhattan, declined to comment.
Friesel, a son of New Square's only mayor, and six other men were accused of defrauding federal and state subsidy programs to benefit themselves and others living in the Hasidic Jewish village in Ramapo.
One of the schemes described in a 64-count indictment from 1997 included an $11.6 million fraud that bilked state and federal education programs, mostly for nonexistent students supposedly enrolled in a Judaic studies mentoring program approved by Rockland Community College.
Rockland repaid $5.1 million of the stolen money.
Five of the defendants also were convicted of creating a phony religious school in Brooklyn to steal millions more in education aid after the RCC scam.
Friesel appeared yesterday before Judge Barbara Jones, who oversaw the sentencing of five of Friesel's co-defendants.
Jones ordered him held without bail in the Metropolitan Correctional Center, across from the Foley Square courthouse in lower Manhattan.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan obtained an indictment involving a conspiracy that ran for two decades and was concealed by the use of false names and bank accounts and fraudulent income tax returns.
Among the programs defrauded were federal and state tuition assistance grants; a Small Business Administration program to aid small, minority-owned companies; the Section 8 rental subsidy program; and an insurance benefit program run by the Social Security Administration.
I SUPPOSE THE POLICE AND US GOVERNMENT ARE ANTI-SEMETIC FOR ARRESTING AND PROSECUTING THESE PEOPLE, RIGHT???
The Water Master Plan,
puts our water in a big can,
from which all can draw,
but there is one big flaw,
why control by just one man?
*Unrelated to the water master plan*
I've decided to begin holding constituent hours at Town Hall beginning tomorrow, September 3. They will be from 6:30-7:30pm every first and third Thursday, leading up to the regularly scheduled board meetings.
Good for you James...don't expect too much public input at first, but keep making yourself accessable, and perhaps people will begin to trust again!
See, the kid is alright!
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