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THE SHOTT THICKENS
NEW SAUGERTIES TIMES, September 6, 2001 (p20
Westchester quarry developer faces a juggernaut of
local Saugerties opposition A rising tide of citizen and official disdain
is rising to a showdown with a Westchester County contractor who wants
to resume bluestone quarrying on a hill behind Veteran. The sleepy Saugerties
hamlet along the Route 212 corridor to Woodstock hasn't seen such action
since its Toodlum days a quarter of a century ago.
Veteran was the signature stop along the Toodlum Tales
trail, the eccentric monthly publication of the late 1970's. The publication
sprang from the OZ Gazette, an even odder little newsletter that was the
vehicle for a grassroots opposition to an oppressive zoning law proposal.
After the law was beaten back, the staff wanted to keep the energy flowing,
so they founded the monthly on aesthetic principles related to an earlier
Saugerties publication, The Pearl (1874).
Aesthetes or not, the Toodlum folks were still rabble-rousers.
For a year and a half they lit up the town with their little magazine,
showing off one hamlet after another in folksy country ways. A similar
kind of energy has emboldened the property owners affected by the proposal
put forth by Shott Rock Inc. to operate a quarry at the end of Morse Road
over the next 28 years, taking out some 2.8 million tons of rubble.
As in the old OZ days, a furious force of community
opposition has been mobilized. CARES (Citizens Action for Residential
Environments in Saugerties) rose from the pastoral quietude of Veteran
to face its foe with website and legal assistance, much better equipped
that the Toodlum folks of yesteryear.
Shott Rock interest gained some momentum in June when
the town planning board gave its state to the contractor for a presentation.
Planning board chairman William Creen notified the state Department of
Environmental Conservation that the planners were not interested in pursuing
lead agency status in the environmental review of the mining permit application.
Creen has since been dressed down by New York's Department
of State for making the decision without a vote of the entire planning
board. His action also prompted the town supervisor, Greg Helsmoortel,
to lead the town board in a move against the whole idea of quarrying in
residential areas. The board passed a resolution last month to change
the zoning law to prohibit quarrying under a special use permit in any
areas of the town except light industrial.
CARES also leaped into action. Led by an effective
organizer, Pat Fitzsimmons, and aided by an attorney (March Gallagher)
who just happened to live in the affected neighborhood, the group filed
two objections with the zoning board of appeals, both of which will be
the subject of a public hearing this Monday, September 10.
One question concerned Creen's unilateral action. That
may be moot now, since the DEC has notified the contractor of significant
problems with its mining application. DEC is sympathetic to the town's
interest in taking on lead agency status, even though the state has assumed
the lead in other mining cases.
CARES also objected to the way in which the Shott Rock
case was presented to the planners. It came to their table after town
building inspector Paul Andreassen determined that the file was complete
for purposes of review.
Andreassen was criticized for making the determination
because documents claimed by Shott were not in the file, including a controversial
easement that the contractor claimed he had. No paperwork on that easement
has been filed to date, and Gilbert Shott told residents in June that
he had no knowledge of it. Andreassen has also been criticized for not
issuing a stop-work order when Shott was taking quarry rubble out of the
site in 1999. He was allowed to take up to 1000 tons under state law,
but residents said an entire ledge was removed and a huge acreage scoured
of the rubble and stone. An inspection report by Andreassen in August
1999 states that he told the contractor to stop taking stone, but no formal
stop order was issued.
Another issue that has grated residents in the town
planning board chairman's conduct of this matter concerned his refusal
to allow the videotaping of the informational forum he provided for Shott
Rock Inc. He also told a Daily Freeman reporter that the reporter could
not use a tape recorder at a planning board meeting. Another lawyer for
CARES jumped on this issue and is seeking an opinion from the State Committee
on Access to Government.
"The bottom line is we want the planning board to follow
procedures established by law," Fitzsimmons said. "This proposed mining
operation has already had a terrible impact on people living in the area,
and we just won't accept anything less than full compliance with zoning
law and the open meetings law."
The September 10 ZBA meeting will take place at the
seniors center on Market Street in the Village of Saugerties. It starts
at 7p.m.
VERNON BENJAMIN
For more information, check out the CARES website, www.stopthemine.com.
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