13- Musical Workshops

Guess what. Remember how the Woodstock Planning Board was supposed to have two workshops for its members to discuss the findings of the Final Environmental Impact Statement? ( I remember.) They were announced, with dates. Then the dates changed. The "workshop" covering the impact of traffic was supposed to be held Nov. 5, but it was not. Something else happened that night. I and others waited for it to happen. There was a "special" workshop two days before Thanksgiving, which covered the Woodstock planner's, the Planning Board's attorney's and a consultant's comments on traffic (and safety, I guess...) None of the Planning Board members brought up comments of their own. I found out this morning that that Tuesday Nov. 24 workshop was NOT the awaited workshop about traffic. Turns out the workshop I have been waiting for was the one I attended on October 29th. Other RUPCO followers and I were there and did not notice ANY discussion about traffic, which leads me to these conclusions:

i- the planning board failed to give the public notice of its workshop at which it (would have) discussed traffic impacts (if anybody had anything to discuss, that is.) See the agenda for the October 29th meeting: it does not include traffic. http://woodstockny.org/content/Calendars/View/1/2009/10;/content/CalendarEntries/View/1644 The agenda includes these items: STORMWATER, WETLANDS, STREAM CROSSING, SEWER & WATER. With traffic not even ON the agenda, what chance is there for the planning board to address it? The answer is zero. Zero chance. I think this is a violation of procedure as outlined in the scoping document.

ii- The planning board left the reading and analysis of the FEIS traffic section ENTIRELY to the town's professional planner, the planning board's attorney, and the consultant. It was not supposed to happen that way.

It is, obviously, extremely difficult to glean any information from the planning board about what they are going to do and when. Even for somebody paying close attention and willing to ask for clarification as many times as necessary, it is next to impossible to find out what is going on and when.

It's OK though. Read on to the next posts. They make this episode of dupe the locals look like a game of peekaboo.