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Saugerties
wins mining dispute
SAUGERTIES - In what may be the final chapter of a three-year legal fight over proposed mining in a residential part of Saugerties, a state Supreme Court justice has thrown out Gilbert Shott's challenge to a Zoning Board of Appeals ruling that prevents him from mining bluestone off Morse Road. Thursday's ruling by Justice Vincent Bradley rejected the central claim in Shott's appeal of the zoning board's December 2003 decision: that mining should be allowed on the property because it had taken place there before the town enacted zoning in 1989. Bradley ruled that Shott failed to prove any "substantial use" of the property as a mine prior to 1989. The judge also rejected Shott's claim that the zoning board had violated the state's Open Meetings Law by conferring privately with its attorney and that the zoning board's decision constituted an unlawful "inverse condemnation." John Vagianelis, of the Albany law firm Roemer, Wallens & Mineaux, which represented the town in the Shott Rock case, said Bradley's ruling could be the end of a protracted legal fight. "This is pretty much the end of the line," Vagianelis said. "They (Shott Rock) could conceivably appeal, but that would be fighting an uphill battle because Judge Bradley's decision is very strong." In February, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence E. Kahn threw out four of five claims filed by Shott Rock attorney's seeking to overturn the zoning board's ruling on constitutional grounds. A single claim, that the town had retaliated against Shott Rock for seeking a permit from the state Department of Environmental Conservation, was allowed to stand, but Shott Rock attorneys have yet to file paperwork or take depositions in the case. Saugerties lawyer March Gallagher, who formed the activist group Citizens Action for Residential Environments in Saugerties (CARES) in response to the mine plan, said she hoped Bradley's decision would send a message. "Let this be a lesson to other potential mine operators," Gallagher said. "If the community doesn't want you, they will fight you. And even if it takes three years, they are going to keep you out." İDaily Freeman 2004
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