This month's Wawarsing Planning Board meeting, as you've probably read by now, was filmed by a documentary crew under the supervision of CNBC producer Lori Gordon, who was gathering footage for a piece to be aired later this year on the cable news network. So when CNBC broadcasts the documentary, what will viewers think about Ellenville and Wawarsing if all they have to go on are the comments of those who spoke at the public hearing?

There was some diversity of opinion: from members of New York's carpenters council claiming that Walmart does not hire local contractors to build their stores; to a local business owner describing what happens to downtown areas once Walmart arrives; and some threats of lawsuits. But by and large, the majority of opinions expressed were fairly unilateral: Ellenville is a disaster, it is impossible to live here, and Walmart will fix it.

The impression one might take away from the angry and resentful comments is that Ellenville is a dead community, riddled with crime and drugs, full of bombed out storefronts, and threatening gangs of unemployed young men.

That is nonsense. This is not Ellenville — and we know Ellenville. But it is a deeply rooted belief in the minds of those who endure a visceral disappointment concerning the place where they live.

Many of the evening's speakers who praised Walmart's advances simultaneously condemned the local businesses who are already here — in some instances, accusing them of overcharging and taking advantage. The economic hurt the retail giant might put on local business in some sense seems welcomed, a deserved punishment for perceived wrongs. One might even think, to borrow that cruel cliché from the Vietnam War, that they want to save Ellenville by destroying Ellenville. Or it might be put this way — if Ellenville can't be the way they want it, then Ellenville shouldn't be at all.

The anger that beats in some residents' hearts is unquenchable. And this rage is visible all across our country, too. A minority of our citizens do not like the place in which they live, nor the times in which they are living, nor the world itself. Such anger has been clearly expressed at the meetings regarding Walmart's proposed arrival in Napanoch. The angry claim the local business community is only here to rip them off. They would prefer to shop at a Walmart-type of big box store and never enter Ellenville, except to drive quickly through it, eyes peeled for danger.

And yet the Ellenville we know is actually alive. True, the economy of the place has been hammered by the rise of the malls and the era of very cheap gasoline. Ellenville, which was once the jewel of the valley, the town that people drove all the way from Wallkill to shop in, has fallen from that perch. But our schools continue to flourish. There is night life here; we have the Shadowland Theatre still doing business all summer long. We have one of the most interesting restaurants in the entire Hudson Valley that draws customers from as far away as Westchester.

The question that haunts the planning board's recent meetings is whether Walmart will actually destroy Ellenville's few remaining retail businesses. The question is far from settled, and we will not attempt to answer it here. But does Ellenville deserve to be destroyed? To that we can answer with a resounding "no." But to some who spoke at Tuesday's planning board meeting, the answer seemed closer to "perhaps."

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