103- What's Been Going On The Last Couple of Months

Time to catch up on all the action. Here is a summary of what's in the posts I'm working on, all of which will be up by the end of the weekend.

After the Planning Board accepted the findings statement on RUPCO, I filed an Article 78 (lawsuit) against the Planning Board (= the town,) citing 22 causes of action. I will post the petition.

Drayton Grant, the town's land use attorney, called me to ask for an extension to respond. I dealt with that request honestly and honorably, and for the most part in email, which I will post.

Drayton Grant made a motion to dismiss my Article 78 petition.   I responded to this motion in a letter to the judge, who recused himself (but not because of my letter) and then Drayton wrote a letter, and then I wrote another letter. All will be posted.

There was a town board meeting October 5, RUPCO present, most attending opposing Town's allowance of RUPCO to hook up to Woodstock water and sewer systems.

The next day I received a copy of a letter addressed to the Ulster County District Attorney alleging wrongdoing on the part of the chairman of the Planning Board, which I tried to verify and which seemed in error. I am not a fan of anonymous letters, and presented the letter to the town board on October 12.

Finally, I will address the meat of the issue: the planning board's handling, or rather mishandling, of the water and sewer decision jurisdiction problem. That's the irresistible ending. Of course it's only the "ending" because it will bring us up to the present.

However, by the time all this is posted, in 1-3 days, I kind of expect there to be more news breaking....

102- Hi Again

Hi there.  I have been busy opposing RUPCO in Woodstock.  Lots of details are on the way.  I will share my lawsuit opposing the town's adoption of the project, the town's motion to dismiss my lawsuit, and the more public opposition to the project hooking up to the town water and hamlet sewer systems.  Just a few more days, and I promise I will deliver all of it, and more...

101- "Ethics 101"

Hey, did you see Jim Dougherty's letter in today's Woodstock Times? It's creepy.  First of all, remember that he wrote, in the letters of April 29, that I am a self-appointed expert. (I'm not. I'm an informed person who speaks up.  If I build expertise in a subject, so be it.  If I get facts wrong, correct my facts. Simple as that.) Remember also that he accused me of trying to scare the people in Woodstock about "new" people coming to Woodstock to benefit from affordable housing? I never tried to SCARE anybody.  I have however been and still am opposed to unsafe roads, and increasing the hamlet population by 18% with people of ANY income level.

Well, after those two statements, and in the very same paragraph, Jim Charles Dougherty wrote about "the objection."  Now, I read this to mean MY objection, since the whole paragraph, so far, was about me.  If Jim Charles Dougherty was changing the subject of his accusations, he should have done more than shifted a pronoun that was, even if that was what he was doing, vague at best.  Either way, whether he was writing about me, or about the opposition in general, I am part of his target, when he writes about "the objection" to Woodstock Commons.  He writes that "The persistence in the objection to the RUPCO development appears to be stemmed in bigotry, either economic or racial."  So, either way, he's writing about me.

In this week's letter, Dougherty denies calling me/us a bigot.  I wonder how that works...  Is the fact that he uses the modifier "appears to be stemmed in" with "bigotry" the technical excuse for not actually labeling me/us a bigot?  He only perceives me/us to be a bigot?  Is that better than labeling me a bigot?  I don't think so.  I think it is all the same thing, and Dougherty is caught.  He called me a bigot with fancy words.  Or, he called a group, of which I am a part, bigoted.

(he's wrong.)

Dougherty also accused me of writing my letter when I did in response to his letter of the prior week.  This is also untrue.  I wanted to write a letter of endorsement for Joe Nicholson, and Joe and I are similar in our roles in town as dissenters, but not as negative people.  I chose to defend myself and to promote Joe at the same time, in the same theme.  I had never defended myself against Dougherty's bigot accusation, and finally I chose to.

Dougherty accused me of writing a false statement about him.  Let's see. Here is what I wrote:

Jim Ethics Board Dougherty, in his professional life, identifies “non-performing” mortgages, meaning people whose properties are headed for foreclosure, and tips off banks and other potential “investors” to these “opportunities.” Pass the barf bag. Just because my position on RUPCO is a dissenting one does not mean that I prey on the poor and help the wealthy. That person is Jim Charles Dougherty.

Dougherty has a company called Lender Asset Solutions.  From the top of the first page: 
"

Our ever growing contact database includes over 3,500 real estate professionals including many investors who are available to purchase residential or commercial non-performing loans or lender owned properties"

What this says to me is that Dougherty sends out, to people who want to buy up non-performing mortgages, lists of properties that are in foreclosure or on the way there.  There are many stages of foreclosure, and it is part of his service to pick up on them at certain points in the process and list them.  That is what I meant by identifying and tipping off.

Dougherty argued this week that banks do not need to be tipped off to their loans, but I did not mean the banks that gave the mortgages.  I meant other banks.   I thought that was obvious.  I guess I had to spell it out. 

I wrote that he preys on the poor and helps the wealthy.  Is that a false statement?  I don't think so.  I think he has a business that helps banks and investors, and does nothing to help the people who are in trouble and cannot pay their mortgages.  If he does help them some other way, yipee, give him a public service award.  But according to his website, he works for banks and investors.  He helps money turn itself into more money. There is nothing criminal about that. I just think it is not very honorable.  That's my opinion. 


Dougherty can say that my comments were false, but they were either true, or a matter of my opinion against his.  Perhaps he is a trickle down guy. He did however just accuse me of defamation.  That requires proof that what I wrote last week harmed him in some demonstrable way.  How did I harm him?  Can he show me?  I think Jim Dougherty is still sore about being caught at lying about his identity when he signed his accusatory letter "Jim Charles."


Dougherty admits that "perhaps" his using a pseudonym to call me a bigot was in poor judgment.  Perhaps????  Wow...  He is still trying to explain how he was trying to dissociate his personal comments from reflecting on the Ethics Board, of which he used to be the chair.  Well guess what.  The Ethics Board is made up of people.  If you sit on the Ethics Board, you don't get a fake ID for after hours so that you can behave in a way that is below the standard of the service you take an oath to render.  Lying about your identity is the most basic lie there is.  I think that is what hurt Jim Dougherty: lying about his identity so that he could call me (or my neighbors and me) bigot(s) and not answer for it. If Dougherty thought that making his accusation was ethical, why hide it?  If he thought that members of the Ethics Board should refrain from voicing opinions about political matters, then he should have not written it at all.


Jim, listen.  Every person only gets to be one person.  Not two.  Not five.  Just one.  Decide who you are and don't try to negotiate the inner conflict you feel and blame others and threaten to sue the newspaper or the TV host when they declare that your interpretation of ethics is not only NOT a model for the town, but way WAY inferior than average.


I never accused Dougherty of anything criminal.  What does it mean to "tip off" somebody?  I like horse racing.  People at the track sell tip sheets.  The tips are opinions.  Opinions can be about which horse is going to run fastest, or which investment will be richest.  The fact that Dougherty sees something illegal in my description of him tipping off potential investors only shows that he is maybe a bit, or a lot, paranoid.  Too bad for him. 


As for violating the rules of the Woodstock Times, give me a break.  I never wrote anything about this Dougherty guy that I knew was untrue, in fact what I wrote about him I got from his website, and then wrote my opinion about it.  That's all.  I also did not write for malicious purposes.  It was Jim Dougherty who labeled me a self-appointed expert, my opinions stemmed in bigotry, and my purpose to scare the town into rejecting the housing of poor people.  I was defending myself, and I have the right to do that.  I also have the right to compare my own performance in local activities and overall as a contributor to society through my job, to demonstrate my social values.  I did that.  The response I wrote came four months later.  Is there a statute of limitations on self-defense?  At first I spoke about this to the Town Board, and one board member heckled me.  Another board member announced that a young person in the audience should not grow up like me. It took me a while to rally and decide how to respond to the person who made the accusations about me in the first place.  


I responded reasonably, when I could, when I decided what to say.  There was nothing Ad Hominem about my statements and my statements were not attacks, they were self-defense.  When somebody as loathsome as Jim Dougherty, a lying, opportunistic faker, is brought down the way he was brought down, shamefully, hard, and publicly, he's going to be mad.  Of course he's mad.  He had to step down from the Ethics Board because he called me names and took no responsibility for it.  It was he who made Ad Hominem attacks against me, and false accusations, and did not even stand behind them with his own name.


Jim Dougherty ought to be ashamed of what he did, and what he wrote, but he's not.  That in itself is the biggest tip of all that he's not right in the head.

100- The Trouble with RUPCO in... Rosendale.

For my one hundredth blog post, I decided to branch out of Woodstock.  Last Wednesday morning, while looking over RUPCO's website filled with false research, I got a call from a resident from Rosendale, which is about half an hour south of Woodstock, and in the same county (Ulster).  This guy wanted a legal referral since he was planning to challenge his town, which is supposedly planning affordable housing down there, also built by RUPCO.  Since I sued without an attorney, I was unable to oblige him, but I asked him what was up and he told me that that night, there would be a public hearing on the proposed project.  I told him I'd be there to lend support.  I called the Rosendale town clerk to confirm the time and so forth, and was told that it was not really an official public hearing, but rather a regular town board meeting with this housing project on the agenda.

It was only after I arrived at the meeting that night that I found out that there are two housing builders applying to build the affordable housing, RUPCO and and another developer. And, I learned that this was the evening during which the public could ask questions or, it's true, make comments about either of these two companies.

Sometimes timing is too perfect.

I raised my hand and told this town, which is five years behind Woodstock in the RUPCO affordable housing nightmare, what RUPCO has done in Woodstock, and directed the town board to this blog.  I went into just a couple of details, including the geothermal well drilling noise omission and the drilling duration omission from the construction schedule.  Stuff like that.  I also spoke about the false information on the RUPCO website, since I had been writing about that just that morning.

I hope I did a service to the town of Rosendale.  I hope they do their homework and avoid working with RUPCO at all.

The man who phoned me that morning was concerned that there is dioxin contaminating the site on which the town wishes to place affordable housing.  This, of course, is the number one concern, and unfortunately one in which I have no expertise to lend.  I hope Rosendale does the right thing and throws out the EPA tests and conducts their own.

Good luck, Rosendale.

99- RUPCO PRODUCES MORE FALSE CLAIMS

I was on the RUPCO website just now, looking at RUPCO's claims of tax revenue expected from Woodstock Commons.  First of all, the project is supposed to have 53 units, not 63 units.  The contact person for questions and comments on this information is Brad Will, so I guess Brad, the ARCHITECT, can be excused for not knowing that the project was reduced from 63 to 53 units YEARS ago since he is JUST the guy who DREW THE PLANS.

But that's the least of the problems with this table:

After looking at this table, I of course called up the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and was immediately connected with a very nice lady who told me that the NAHB uses economic models to derive tax revenues from multi-unit housing projects.  She said that there is one model for market-rate housing and one model for affordable housing.  She said the models are based on projects of 100 units.  She also said she would email me the model.

I have received nothing yet, but I have found an 18-page paper by NAHB about the economic model used to project tax income from affordable housing projects, based on 100 unit projects.  If you are interested in looking at it, here it is:

http://www.nahb.org/fileUpload_details.aspx?contentTypeID=3&contentID=35601&subContentID=119693

The study used housing projects from six states, including New York.  The study used a single method of estimating the taxable income from the projects, which is based on the market value of the properties.  As I have pointed out before, in New York State, under Real Property Law 581-A, the market value of the property has nothing whatsoever to do with the tax rate on affordable housing projects.  This has been the case since 2006.  The study was produced in 2007, which means that the data probably was collected in 2006, and since the study uses states from across the country, it is understandable that the New York data is older than the RPTL 581-A implementation date, and disregards the law entirely.

The bottom line is that Brad Will, the architect, and RUPCO, the builder, is using absolutely false numbers, under the current law governing tax generation from affordable housing.

98- under Pressure-

Last night at the Woodstock Town Board meeting, which was sparsely attended by both town residents and board members, Denis Larios of the town's engineering firm, Brinier and Larios, presented some information about Woodstock's current water "emergency." He used the word emergency, and the word draught, although it seems that the emergency is caused not primarily by a shortfall of water, but rather by a plugging up of passageways down in the town's most productive well, which is called "Number Two."  Basically, Woodstock's well is constipated, and no amount of fluids from the sky seems to be enough to rectify (sorry) the situation.

So, unconstipate the wells, and everything will be fine, right? Well, not so fast.  Jeff Moran, town supervisor, asked Larios whether the town has enough capacity to supply the Woodstock Commons project with water from our now month long restricted town wells.  Larios started to chip away at the estimated water consumption, arguing that affordable housing residents use less water than people living in market rate housing.  He did not say it like that, but that is what it came down to.  He tried to characterize Woodstock Commons as "senior"  housing, comparing it to other "senior housing," and both Terrie Rosenblum and I called him on that.   I did suggest that the water demand estimates used for Woodstock Commons actually be the ones in the FEIS, that were approved already by the teams of experts RUPCO employed and the planning board nodded forward without understanding what they were approving.  Larios agreed.  So, the only thing to do now is fix the wells and then measure whether the capacity is actually there for Woodstock Commons, given the ONE THIRD of the capacity that currently is being lost to leaks or somewhere else, all of a sudden after years of only losing ten percent to leaks.  That is roughly one bathtub full of water every 90 seconds, ever day, all year long.  That is treated water we are talking about.

But on to the question of pressure.  Not the pressure Dennis Larios was under to avoid saying that Woodstock Commons would be a burden on the water district.  I'm talking about the water pressure itself.  Among the handful of attendees at last night's meeting was none other than Paul Shultis, Jr., chair of the planning board.  He volunteered a response to my concern about water pressure, even though this subject is one contained in my current lawsuit against him and the planning board and the town board and Jeff Moran.

I stated, last night, that under the Ten States Standards, water pressure in a residence should be between 60 and 80 PSI, but that the absolute minimum is 35 PSI, and that I had personally measured the water pressure at my house, and the first time I did so it was 37 PSI.  I brought up the question of whether Woodstock Commons would decrease the water pressure in my neighborhood to a substandard level. Shultis' response revealed a total lack of understanding of how water pressure in a system works.  He claimed that he saw a map, on paper, with a pressure of 65 PSI at the entrance to the proposed Woodstock Commons site.  To him, apparently, this means that water pressure at that point will always and forever be 65 PSI under all conditions and that that will never change, when in reality, water pressure in a system changes with various conditions including demand.

Shultis also said that  water entering my house at 70 PSI would break my appliances.  This is wrong.  Water pressure over 100 PSI is dangerous, but the normal, ideal range is 60 - 80 PSI.  Somebody sold Paul Shultis, Jr. a bill of goods, why I don't know.  But he is now on record as having as good as no understanding of water pressure, and is the person ultimately in charge of approving the probable tripling of water demand on my extension of the town water main.

I also brought up the fact that there was no simulation of water demand done for the potential expansion of the water district to Woodstock Commons, but instead the 1996 expansion down Route 375 was included instead.  However, there was simulation data about firefighting pressure, so there must have been some research done, and I asked the town to try to dig up whatever research had been done.  Of course the data came from RUPCO.

Anyway, more about this later.  For now, I'd like to say that I believe that everybody, including me, and perhaps especially me, appreciates that Paul is trying to do the right thing. Thanks for speaking up, Paul.

97- my leisure suit

In my leisure time, I have designed and sewn together and filed in  New York Supreme Court a petition seeking to set aside the Woodstock Planning Board's July 1 adoption of the Findings Statement "written by" the Woodstock Planning Board. (First draft was written by RUPCO and Woodstock Planning Board, meaning Dara Trahan, Woodstock's professional planner, made slight alterations to the document.)

An article in Kingston's Daily Freeman, page 3 today, August 2, 2010, describes some of what is in the petition:
http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2010/08/02/news/doc4c561f400e595660104558.txt

I would love to comment, but my team of legal advisers suggests that I refrain.

The petition is filed with Ulster County Clerk, under index number 10-3890.

96- Water

Happy Fourth of July Weekend. It's hot. It's dry. I heard a rumor yesterday that our town supervisor, Jeff Moran, shut off the water to Woodstock's community gardens. I did not see it, but I heard that our weekly newspaper printed a directive from the town: stop watering lawns and gardens, do not wash cars, etc. I can understand letting the lawn go brown, but what about the vegetables? Some of us grow food in our backyards. In fact, I just developed a solar food dryer that I will demonstrate at the Woodstock Farm Festival this coming Wednesday, July 7. I can make sun-dried tomatoes in two sunny days. With a big enough dryer, I can preserve all of my produce. That is worth a lot of money in saved groceries during the winter. The people who tend plots at the community garden enjoy gardening, but I think they also probably rely on their yields to some extent. Is it really necessary for Woodstock to force community gardeners to sacrifice their food crops, while the swimming pool stays open for purely recreational purposes? Please use the comment area to share your opinion.

What is also very, and I mean EXTREMEly interesting, is what I saw this morning in Saugerties. Saugerties is that town about 9 miles east of Woodstock. Saugerties has a population three times the size of Woodstock's population. As I drove into town, there were about 6 girls with big signs advertising a car wash to raise money for the high school sports programs. Here is the photo I took from the car as I left town:

So the first question is: where do I want to buy my new house:

Dead Tomato Town or Shiny Car Town?

Second question is: why am I writing about Dead Tomato Town and Shiny Car Town in a blog about RUPCO's Woodstock Commons? Because, RUPCO claims that Woodstock Commons will be eligible to use Woodstock town water. This is at the very least debatable, and will in fact be debated once the issue goes before the town board, probably this fall. Look, if Woodstock is THAT low on water that the community gardens are required to wither, while the next town over is having a huge car wash, can Woodstock afford to water another 53 households?

The common sense answer is no.

95- Route 212 and Plochmann Lane---Look Out!

Last Thursday evening at the Planning Board meeting, planning specialist Dara Trahan told the planning board that the State DOT "approached" the town, concerning the sight line at the intersection of PLOCHMANN Lane and Route 212, or the striping at the intersection of Routes 375 and 212, or both, I'm not sure. Either way, this is entirely false.

What Dara told the Planning Board members influenced the swing vote last Thursday night on a RUPCO project question.

Dara told the Planners that the NYS Department of Transportation made a presentation before the town board "last year." This presentation actually was March 18, 2008, over two years ago. In this presentation, which is fresh in my mind since I watched it in its entirety five minutes ago, (as opposed to spontaneously recalling something that happened over two years ago,) the only intersection discussed in terms of "fixing" anything was Playhouse Lane and Route 212.

Tom Storey, of the NYS DOT, was not approaching the town with any kind of offer to fix the line of sight at Playhouse and 212, either. Rather, he said that THE STATE had been put on notice, which means that the state had been notified that a hazard existed at that intersection. What this means, legally, is that the State, SINCE and BECAUSE it was put on notice, is now obligated to fix the hazard, regardless of what the town board "wants."

The town board did not seem to appreciate this distinction. Instead, several members of the town board suggested that the State DOT study all of the intersections involving State Route 212 and fix the ones that it found to be most dangerous. The town board appeared to have no appreciation of the State DOT's position, with regard to having been put on notice.

What Tom Storey of NYS DOT explained, and what was very clear to ME watching it just now, is that the Kingston office, where he works, handles the complaints such as the notice that was given about the unsafe sight distance at Playhouse and 212, but that if the town wants a whole corridor study done, then the Poughkeepsie office handles that, and it is the town board that must apply for that study, not simply declare that they want it done INSTEAD of the State's mitigation of a reported hazard.

Terrie Rosenblum in particular was ridiculous in her completely undocumented "fact" that the intersection of Playhouse Lane and Route 212 was not dangerous. I have gathered documentation and reports, or personally witnessed six accidents at Playhouse Lane and Route 212 in one and a half years. Are there really more accidents than four per year at other intersections? Reported and documented no less?

But that's another story. The main point here is that Dara, as recently as last Thursday, June 17, completely misled the planning board by telling them that the State DOT offered to fix the intersection of Plochmann Lane and Route 212, and the intersection of Route 212 and Route 375, and that the town rejected this "offer," and that information is simply false.

This falsity of information is relevant since Paul Henderson reasoned that since the town had the chance to fix this intersection and rejected it, it should not be up to RUPCO or the State, at this time, to deal with something that the town "had their chance" to fix but chose not to.

Henderson's decision to give RUPCO a break is entirely misguided, and a product of Dara's falsifying the town board record. Had Dara presented the truth instead of false information to sway the board's vote, perhaps she would have then been directed to tell the town's traffic consultant that the Planning Board wished to pursue the traffic matter.

Once more, we see the Planning Board making decisions based on fantasy, not fact, this time supplied by their planning specialist.

If that's how they want to do it, I guess they can.

For now.

94- Planners Have No Free Time

Last week's Planning Board meeting was punctuated by members' comments about how long it took to review the Woodstock Commons project. My favorite one was when David Corbett announced with disgust that he had not read a novel in three years.

Allan Duane argued that a delay in moving the project forward is in itself a valid reason NOT to study a traffic impact.

Following Allan's logic, I guess the planning board should have not have bothered to study anything, since the cost of any investigation is time passing. Especially traffic issues.

This particular decision concerned an extra five seconds idling at Routes 375 and 212. For a town that has pledged to be carbon neutral in the coming decade, this was a very poor decision.

93- Affordable Housing Committee - 4th of 4 comments

Before the Woodstock Affordable Housing Committee determined that the land behind Bradley Meadows was the best for affordable housing, they looked at a parcel in Zena. David Corbett, now on the Planning Board, led a group called Concerned Citizens of Zena. This group prepared a list of questions to the Town Board on Sept 2, 2003. I will reproduce some of the questions here, with comments.

10. What alternatives to this proposal have been explored to provide affordable housing? (For instance, why doesn't the town encourage renovations of existing buildings into low income apartments by offering tax incentives? Or buy properties that have been assumed by the county due to tax default and then recycle those into low income housing?)

Comment: Well, I would probably choose a word other than "recycle," but apart from that, good question, well stated. I wonder why David Corbett is no longer asking this question. Oh yeah, because RUPCO was invited to Woodstock to provide housing in the town's "last chance" for affordable housing. Seriously, what happened to these two other alternatives? And why are they even called alternatives? These three types of affordable housing are not mutually exclusive. Answers still pending, I guess.

19. How does the town plan to address the profound impact of such a large and congested development in an outlying area on our already hard-pressed town services?

20. Subsidized housing will still require full town services but by definition, not be taxed at a rate to cover them. Will the other taxpayers of Woodstock be required to make up the difference?

Comment: These two questions certainly sound as though David and his group are not in favor of affordable housing's consequences on them as Woodstockers. Magically, these are no longer concerns once the project is moved away from their neighborhood.

Final Question: Doesn't this require some sort of vote?

Comment: This question is obviously visceral, not based in any knowledge of procedure? It is a desperate reach for control. Now that the project is no longer in David's neighborhood, and he is on the planning board, guess whose seven votes are the only ones that matter.

92- Affordable Housing Committee on Accessory Apartments

August 4, 2003: Seems like a long time ago, but between then and now, nearly seven years, and I have not heard about any affordable housing built in Woodstock. On that night, the Woodstock Affordable Housing Committee met and according to the meeting minutes, Paul Shultis Jr. "requested our approval of a tax exemption for residents who create an accessory apt. and charge an affordable housing rent. No decision reached."

Interesting. I think it is a decent idea, at least one worth looking at again. Times are tougher now, perhaps there might be more people interested in creating accessory apartments on their properties.

It seems to me that the unpopularity of this option in Woodstock is evidence of widespread NIMBYism. Those with the most land and the most money certainly do not want anybody else living close to their houses. It is preferable for the wealthy to have some centralized project somewhere, as long as that somewhere is far away from them. If enough people make accessory apartments, and affordable housing is integrated into the community, there would not be a need to construct a ghetto of affordable housing.

The word ghetto is very controversial. A ghetto is defined as a region of a city where a population is segregated based on racial or economic separation. Also, the Jews of early twentieth century Europe lived in religious ghettos. Ghettos encourage segregation, not integration.

Paul Shultis Jr. had the right idea.

91- More Affordable Housing Committee Review

Tonight we will take a look at the second of four aspects of the Woodstock Affordable Housing Committee Work: their summary of work, in a letter to the Town Board, April 19, 2004.

The letter begins by introducing the letter's contents as a summary of the past year's work of the Affordable Housing Committee of the Town of Woodstock. It continues: "This report was prepared in an effort to clarify what has been done to date and what, in our opinion, needs to be done in the future if an affordable housing project will be accomplished in the Town of Woodstock."

The letter is a decent one, and I am not here to criticize the committee's work in any way. The letter describes three different types of affordable housing that Woodstock could develop. The first is a set of "revisions to the Zoning Ordinance Local Law to more easily allow the creation of attached and detached accessory apartments on existing residential parcels." Sounds good to me. How's that going, six years later? This is a real question. How's that working out?

Most of the letter reviewed five sites for a large affordable housing project, which is the second type of affordable housing. The letter states that the St. John property, which is where RUPCO is trying to develop its current project, in in the committee's opinion, the site with the most potential. The first stated reason for this opinion, continues the letter, is that its location would allow hook-up to the town sewer system and municipal water supply.

Oops. If the property is in the hamlet sewer district, then why does that property pay taxes to a different sewer district and not to the hamlet sewer district? I don't know about you, but I conclude that the property is not in the hamlet sewer district and therefore does not have the right to connect.

But let us move on.

The third type of affordable housing "would be to identify structures around Town which might be rehabilitated and converted to affordable housing. However, this has not been done to date." Hey, great idea. Well, six years later, has this been done? Have any structures around Town that might be rehabilitated actually been rehabilitated, and made into affordable housing? Anybody?

Well, I haven't heard about it if it happened.

So there you go. The affordable housing committee recommended that older buildings be rehabilitated. Guess what: there is still time. I mentioned this option in my talk about RUPCO in February, at the community center. That aspect of my talk was not covered in the newspaper article about the presentation.

What else can I say? I suppose I can simply take note and wait to share this unacted upon advice to anybody who says that Woodstock Commons is the ONLY and LAST chance for affordable housing in Woodstock.

No problem. I'll file that away with everything else.

More affordable housing committee goodies over the weekend.

90- Affordable Housing Committee Mission Statement (a)

This is the first of four posts about the Woodstock Affordable Housing Committee's Work, 2003-2004.

Affordable Housing Committee Mission Statement:

This mission statement was produced as a result of a freedom of information law request. There is no date on it, but it can be assumed that it was produced in 2003 or 2004, since that is the time period that all of the other documents were produced, and it seems to be when the committee met.

"The purpose of the Woodstock Affordable Housing Committee is to find information and make recommendations to the Woodstock Town Board with respect to the Town's role in facilitating affordable housing in the Town of Woodstock. The committee should look to a variety of housing types to accommodate the varying needs of Woodstock residents including but not necessarily limited to seniors, starting artists and young families."

What strikes me about this mission statement is that it refers to the needs of "Woodstock residents." This means that the committee existed to serve the needs of actual residents of Woodstock. It does not mean that it was supposed to define the needs of existing residents of Woodstock, and then serve the needs of people just like them but from other towns. No, the mission was to serve the needs of people living in Woodstock. It was not to grow the town. It was not to diversify the town. It was not to attract new business such as housing developers. It was not to make a political nightmare.

The mission statement goes on to read that the committee should investigate sources of funding at all levels of government, and then presents "Areas for initial investigation" and these "areas" are comprised of a list starting with the number 1. The problem is that this list also ends with the number 1, and the number 1 is the St. John's parcel, which is where RUPCO now is proposing to build Woodstock Commons.

Hmmm. Sort of sounds like the mission statement was written after all the work to eliminate all the other sites was already completed, huh?

Plus there is no date on the mission statement.

Well, anyway, nobody is perfect. Ahem. Moving on. The committee writes in the mission statement that it is part of the mission to look at the prospects of this parcel. The "further considerations" are listed, curiously, by letter:

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

a.

b.

c.

I'm not kidding.

Anyway, the second "a." on the list reads: "Research the impact of such a development on special district (water and sewer) infrastructure, services and taxes."

OK, so was this done? Hardly. The only thing that was done was to estimate the demand for water and to figure that generally, the town's capacity to provide water was greater than the estimated demand from this project. Thing is, in a town with water flowing in a specific configuration of pipes, it actually matters WHERE you put the 53 new residences.

NO estimate of the demand in the specific neighborhood was made. No simulation was performed. In fact, in the DEIS, there was, presented so nicely, a simulation, in great detail, of a previous expansion of water service. What this shows is that the water district serves more people now than it used to. Basically, that simulation only shows that the district was expanded once, not that it can be further expanded without compromise to water pressure, in the same region.

Here is the situation in the water district: Currently, there are about 25 houses supplied with water from one six inch pipe. RUPCO wants to add 53 residences to the same six inch supply pipe.

The standards to which New York subscribes, called the Ten States Standards, requires "normal" water pressure to be between 60 and 80 psi, but in no case lower than 35. I measured my water pressure, and keep in mind that my house is right off the main, and the first time I measured it, it was 36 or 37 psi. That is dangerously close to the minimum pressure. I would bet that a simulation of Woodstock Commons water demand would show the neighborhood pressure falling well below 35 psi. That would be a problem, for the town, actually. Substandard water pressure? I don't think so.

The DEIS also does state that there will be a substandard water pressure for firefighting purposes, but that is a whole different category, not a day to day problem. We will get to that later.

Another problem with this mission statement is that it assumes that Woodstock Commons is actually eligible to hook up to the hamlet water and sewer systems. Iris York pointed out that the property currently pays taxes to a different sewer district, and so that, by definition, means that it is in a different district, and ineligible to hook up to the hamlet sewer system. This is important because it means that the project will have to dig its own septic system.

The town should have made sure that the project was eligible to hook up to the water and sewer districts prior to the future, which is when it will dawn on the town that this is not the case. I am sure that nobody will care what I say, but eventually my research will feed a legal argument. I am gathering documents, making a record, and will make it very easy to present all of this to a judge. That's where this looks like it is going, and I'm going to see it all the way through.

89- Hi, I'm Back from a Trip to the Past

Over the last couple of weeks, I have taken a break from the particulars of RUPCO in Bradley Meadows to consider the long view of affordable housing in Woodstock, which requires a study of the past. One of the things I did was go up to the Town Clerk's office, where they are always helpful and friendly, by the way, and request, and receive, all of the available documents produced by the Affordable Housing Committee that eventually invited RUPCO to town to develop the property currently under consideration for an affordable housing project.

I want to start to tell you about what the Woodstock Affordable Housing Committee did in 2003 and 2004, and what it recommended to the town, before it disbanded. I divide my report into four distinct areas:

a. mission statement

b. summary of work, letter to Town Board, April 19, 2004

c. accessory apartments effort

d. The concerned citizens of Zena

I have lots of goodies to share, but alas, today is already booked. I'll be back with succulent details later tonight or later this week.

88- Safety is Important, but only for kickers.

Last night at the Planning Board meeting, during a public hearing, I asked a question that was, apparently, not within the purview of the Planning Board. Shultis held up the planning board handbook and told me that I should know that my question was not within the board's purview because it said so in this book.

Hmm. Dara Trahan reeled him in. An audience member told him he was obnoxious.

There are three public hearings on the Comeau parking lot expansion. How am I supposed to know which questions are appropriate for which public hearings? How can the public be encouraged to participate when we are met with this kind of attitude on the boards? When I attended the Zoning Board of Appeals public hearing on this parking lot expansion, Howard Harris singled me out twice. Why? All I did was ask a question of two. My questions were innocent.

The issue is the parking lot expansion- why is it happening? I did not live in the town when the previous town board decided this was necessary, probably when there was more money to spend. I was granted the knowledge that the parking lot was going to be expanded for safety reasons. This means that the parents of soccer kids who run around the parking lot need more ordered in and out lanes to avoid accidents.

How many accidents have occurred in the upper Comeau parking lot, I asked.

Zero.

Well, I was told, it would be awful if one happened before the parking lot expansion.

I brought up the fact that the intersection of Playhouse Lane and Route 212 has experienced SIX accidents in the last year and a half, and the town is entirely idle with regard to parking lot safety at Playhouse Plaza.

Shultis interrupted me to tell me that this comment was off topic. I tried to say that this comment was exactly ON topic, because by comparison, the money on the upper Comeau parking lot is being spent wrongly. It should rightly go to a place where there HAVE been accidents.

Because I was shut down, I was not able to add the relevant fact that Playhouse Plaza is within a quarter mile of Woodstock Elementary School, which operates five days a week, about 9-10 months per year, versus the soccer league for kids which operates maybe 20 Saturdays and about as many weekday afternoons for practice.

It is clear to me that safety for the soccer kids, many of whom do not even live in Woodstock, is more important than safety for the elementary school children who walk to school, or who would walk to school if the route was safer.

Bad decision, town of Woodstock.

RUPCO is the entity that pointed out that the Playhouse Plaza parking lot is within the State's right of way. Thanks RUPCO! It's all about safety, safety is number one. So, actually, it would probably not even cost the town a cent to make that parking lot safer. The State probably would handle it. So, why no phone call to the State DOT? I think that the town has been thinking that this parking lot is private property with no right of way controlled by the state, and is afraid to limit its use for fear of a lawsuit.

Don't worry, town, you have immunity when you make decisions over things like this. Your liability is limited to ministerial acts, such as, oh, fixing potholes, or, um, maintaining the minimum standard of water pressure to your water district.

87- Give Our Volunteers a Hand...Book

With Jim Dougherty saying so long to the Ethics Board, I got to wondering what the town actually tells its potential volunteers when they are thinking of volunteering in the first place. So, I consulted the Woodstock Volunteers Handbook today and this paragraph caught my eye:

There are some requirements for appointment by the Woodstock Town Board to any of the committees listed in this handbook. A candidate must be a qualified elector of the Town of Woodstock. This means that the candidate must be at least 18 years of age, must present proof of residency, and must not maintain an address outside of the Town of Woodstock for voting purposes.

Pretty basic.

So, that's all.

Just pointing it out.

Really, no big deal.

Go back to what you were doing.

86- Kevin O'Connor Keeps on Lying

Kevin O'Connor signed his name to a Point of View article in the Woodstock Times yesterday. As usual, his facts are wrong, his claims contradict previous claims. Let us look at some of them.

"RUPCO has demonstrated that in all likelihood, there will be no major tax or other economic consequence for the community. While we were required to present a 'worst case scenario' for the FEIS, thee will likely be no extra tax burden or cost to the community."

Actually, what the DEIS claims is that taxes will increase 1.5%. The DEIS or FEIS does not call this a worst case scenario, and it is not a worst case scenario. In the scenario presented by RUPCO, the project will pay about $19,000 in property taxes. That would be the result of a net positive operating budget. The worst case scenario is a zero or negative net operating budget, which would produce a situation in which the project owners pay $0,000 in property taxes. If RUPCO really was REQUIRED to present a worst-case scenario, why didn't they call it that, and why did they lie about what that case would be? (Answer: because they are liars.)

Kevin claims that no new police will be required. How does he know that? Everybody knows that low income housing has higher crime rates than higher income housing. That's just a fact. And if you check the crime stats for the housing in Kingston that RUPCO manages, do not be surprised at what you find. This housing very well could, and probably will, require more police presence. In addition, the increase in town population will be about 2%, so why will there NOT be an increase in police presence by 2%? Also, this housing will house the elderly, including the frail elderly and the developmentally disabled. Kevin claims that this population will not increase the first responder workload at all, not even by 2%. How about by 4% or 5%? If you have a bunch of frail elderly living alone, don't you think that the paramedics will be visiting more frequently than to the rest of the town population as a whole? I do. Now, none of these people are bad, and none of their problems are wrong, but it is only realistic to admit that they will require additional services from the town.

The Planning Board didn't just DRINK the RUPCO cool-aid, they went out and bought it, poured the water, mixed the powder, and tried to get the rest of the town to drink it too.

"The question of who will live at the property has been raised most loudly by people who themselves are new to the community."

Aw shucks, that's me he's writing about. This argument is insane. I could live in Alaska, and my argument would still be valid. This is like David Boyle discounting any opposition from anybody who owns a house because they should just be grateful to have shelter. I guess David Boyle thinks that only those people who do not own property have valid positions. But back to O'Connor. He changes the subject by writing about discrimination based on many factors including place of origin. He also strays from his prior claim that the project will be for the 20,000 people currently residing in Woodstock, Shandaken, Olive and Hurley. Remember, last year, when he said: "That's who the project is going to." He also said that he didn't know where the number 75,000 comes from, but the fact is that this number is the low end of the market area to which RUPCO must advertise Woodstock Commons. If you have forgotten, here is the video once more:

O'Connor also writes that Woodstock Commons "will remain affordable by regulatory agreement for at least the next 50 years!" Sorry, but this is just plain bullshit. This housing can, by the agreement in place, be flipped to another owner, and cease to be affordable housing, the day it opens its doors.

Remember that the affordable housing committee's mandate was to create affordable housing for Woodstock, not increase the population of Woodstock by creating affordable housing for people to move into from elsewhere, and the current Woodstockers in need would be out of luck. That's where the town is headed, and nothing O'Connor writes in this piece of junk says otherwise.

Remember: Kevin O'Connor told this town that this project would "go to" the 20,000 people of this immediate area. Now he says the project cannot discriminate on the basis of where people "come from." he denies, on tape, knowledge of the Office of Fair Housing marketing rules, when he is before the town, but later, he massages the truth into this sales job. He tries to guilt the people of Woodstock into allowing this project by calling this town synonymous with peace and love. This is the guy who asked the town who wanted to go to heaven, and suggested that supporting this project is the way to get there. Don't believe a thing this creep tells you.

85- In This Morning's Mail

I love those premium incentive companies that customize pens and send samples out to new businesses:

RUPCO didn't get the pen 'cause RUPCO didn't create the company.

84- Affordable Housing Forever? NO!

OK everybody, there was a lot of excitement recently surrounding Jim Charles/Chuckles/Dougherty of Bearsville Post Office Box/Shady Street Address (see... he never REALLY lied) as he was pinned down and flushed out of circulation, at least as anybody with any moral authority whatsoever. So, what has been happening in the meantime?

I'm glad you asked, because this little video from last week's Planning Board meeting is pretty magnificent. In it, Dara Trahan, town planning specialist, puts a question to RUPCO attorney Michael Moriello, who looked up from his Quickbooks tutorial (not really) to answer: NO.

The question? Dara asked if the town of Woodstock, represented by the Planning Board, could have the authority to limit the use of the Woodstock Commons housing project to affordable housing. What other use is there, you ask. The other use is of course non-affordable housing. It is market rate housing, owned by RUPCO, or perhaps RUPCO will sell to somebody else, which is well within their right, and then the housing could be sold, for profit, and the housing could be chopped up and sold, for profit.

Watch the video. Everybody is very uncomfortable. Dara starts to discuss case law on special use permits. What she is trying to say when she discussing restaurants with drive-thru windows is that sometimes courts allow the business to run the window because it is a business, but sometimes courts restrict the use of the window because it interferes with the neighborhood quality of life. Her point, I think, is that the courts are split on who gets to limit the use of the land that has a special use permit. The courts are not supposed to regulate "the business" through land use regulation. Watch as Moriello says "business," because RUPCO is the business we are talking about. RUPCO is not a housing authority here. RUPCO is not answerable to Woodstock. RUPCO is going to take possession of the ball, start running, and won't look back, and we will be here with more housing stock, not affordable housing, and the need for affordable housing will remain.

Folks, if RUPCO wanted to provide Woodstock and Ulster County with affordable housing, why oh why would RUPCO say NO to making Woodstock Commons affordable for a long period of time, such as fifty years, or even twenty years, like the other affordable housing in town.

Oh yeah, that other "successful" affordable housing project, Woodstock Meadows, has almost timed out.

The devil is in the details, and this video shows a very very big detail. Just look at Moriello's body language. He can't even look up, he's so embarrassed.