Dear Supervisor Distel and Councilpersons:

[Regarding] the Town of Rochester's property reval that appeared in a Freeman [article] on July 9. As noted in the article, "The goal of the revaluation is to maintain equity in the tax burden among town property owners and ensure they pay their fair share of taxes in multi-town jurisdictions, such as the county or school districts."

In light of the fact that there has never been a reval in the Town of Wawarsing and the town assessor has noted on numerous occasions the inequity in the roll, I am at a loss as to why our Town would allow this clear injustice to continue. You only need to look at recent sales of properties in the Town to confirm there are residences that are selling at a significant premium over other residences in the Town yet their tax assessments are comparable and in some cases even less than homes selling at market for significantly less. Whether intentional or otherwise, the Town's failure to establish fair assessments on all properties in the Town is adversely affecting the resale value of properties that are over assessed.

I am at a loss as to why the Town continues to refuse to consider this matter and can only assume that you are more concerned over the reaction from those town tax payers that are not paying their fair share of state, town and county and school taxes as opposed to the taxpayers that are being unfairly taxed.

If your concern is the cost of the reval, I am certain that the Village Board would consider assisting the town in offsetting the cost of the reval for those town properties located within the Village of Ellenville.

Once again I would urge you to follow the lead of the Town of Rochester and practically every other township within the State of New York and maintain an assessment roll within the township that attempts to insure that all property owners pay their fair share of property taxes.

Very Truly Yours,

Jeffrey Kaplan
Mayor of Ellenville

I want to thank Rich Morris for finally succeeding in securing the removal of John Piazza as the Town of Mamakating's Planning Board chairman. We all owe a major vote of thanks to Rich, who doggedly pursued getting our town to abide by the law- writing letters to public officials, speaking out at public hearings, and in the face of official stonewalling, continued till justice was served.

The big looming question is why Mamakating officials, who were aware that Mr. Piazza was not a resident and therefore could not legally hold a public office, persisted in maintaining him as the chairman of our Planning Board. This continued for 11 years, over a number of administrations, Democratic as well as Republican. During Piazza's long tenure a number of major,contentious development proposals have been given what many of us consider inadequate, perfunctory reviews and approvals, some of which were not even in compliance with our town zoning regulations. What was the role of Langdon Chapman, the Planning board's lawyer who is also the law partner of State Senator Bonacic?

Every decision made by the board while Piazza was chair is now suspect. The residents of Mamakating have the right to know given the situation, what was behind his continuation in this position. I urge an investigation by an impartial body to get to the bottom of it.

Anita Altman
Phillipsport

Losing your job is a very demoralizing experience. You can blame yourself, feeling like you did something wrong, when you had nothing to do with the economic circumstances surrounding the loss. The Republicans add insult to injury by insinuating that the jobless are slackers, responsible for their own circumstances. The Republicans continue their assault by denying the extension of unemployment benefits. We reject this characterization of American workers who have lost their jobs during this devastating recession. We support the continuation of unemployment benefits for our hard hit friends and neighbors who are going through hard times.

The Saugerties Democratic Executive Committee

Mike Harkavy, Chair
Marcus Arthur, Vice Chair
Donn Avallone, Vice Chair
Beth Murphy, Secretary
Harriet Tomasko, Treasurer

Organizations in and around the Ellenville and the Town of Wawarsing are invited to come to the 11th annual Blueberry Festival to raise money for their groups and causes. The event is about a month away on Saturday, Aug. 21st.

The original idea for the Blueberry Festival was that local groups would make and bake blueberry treats to sell at the festival as a fundraiser. (The mother of all bake-sales!) Our local organizations often depend on our generous local businesses and citizens for funding. Bringing in out-of-town dollars from festival-goers who buy blueberry treats helps out everyone. It provides a richer experience for visitors to the event.

The application is available on line at ewcoc.com - go to the festival web page and click on 2010 FESTIVAL APPLICATION.

Everyone is invited to participate and I hope to see your group there with a creative enterprise that celebrates the history and culture of Wawarsing's huckleberry-picking past, present and future.

John Adams
Wawarsing