Takings for Granted?

GRANTED, to GreeneLand’s Thomas Cole National Historic Site, by the United States Institute of Museum and Library Services, for cataloguing and otherwise organizing collected materials: a Museums for America award of $46,624. From among 448 applicants who sought $42 million in grants, the Institute included the Cole House among 177 winners of $17 million. According to the Institute’s Marsha L. Semmel, “a draft of your logic model” is due by September, semi-annual narrative program reports are required until the expiration date in mid-2008, and the Institute “will help you administrate your award.”

GRANTED, to Catskill Central School District, by the United States Department of Education, on recommendation of the State Education Department, to further the Reading First program (early literacy development): an award of $90,000. According to The Daily Mail’s Jim Planck (6/29), the three-year grant will help to fund the hiring of a reading co-ordinator and two reading coaches at elementary level. Here’s hoping they pay close attention to computer-based literacy programs.

GRANTED, to Columbia Memorial Hospital, by the Hudson Valley Foundation, $10,000 for school mental health screening, some of which will be done by GreeneLand’s Mental Health Center (in Cairo).

GRANTED: to Blackhead Mountain Lodge, by GreeneLand’s Planning and Economic Development agency: a Tourism Enhancement award of $25,000. The gift will help to pay for a new mini-conference center and fitness facility at the resort, whose proprietors, the Maassmann family, previously received a low-interest loan of $200,000 that helped to cover the costs of expanding the golf course to 18 holes. In the words of Warren Hart, director of the agency, the project is “precisely the kind of project we envisioned when the Greene County Legislature launched the Tourism Enchancement Program last year…. We are leveraging county funds against a significant private investment to help this vital sector of our economy grow and remain more competitive.”

WHAT’S HOOKING? Our absentee State Assemblyman, Daniel Hooker, recently distributed two mailings that have every appearance of being campaign documents. . One is a “special report” touting a “Hooker Plan” aimed at “protecting your family’s personal information.” Included in the flyer are five photographs ostensibly showing that Mr Hooker “works with local leaders to keep your family safe!” The other flyer, “A Special Report on Protecting Our Community,” warns that the Gilboa Dam “poses a serious risk to the Schoharie Valley” while assuring recipients that Mr Hooker is “teaming up with local officials…to assure your safety.” In addition, the flyer avers that Assemblyman Hooker “is fighting to: *Protect rural communities *Preserve home rule, end downstate influence *Protect family farms *Take a stand against New York City” and thereby, or additionally, “Save the rural way of life.” Both mailings encourage the impression that Assemblyman Hooker is actively on the job, is looking after his constituents’ interests and is keen to remain at their service. But he’s not. He’s not in Albany or in his district, warring against Gotham. He’s down in North Carolina, on active duty as a Marine Corps major. He has been on active military duty for more than a year. He announced back in January that he would not seek re-election. So why the mailings? His representative, “Chuck”, in his Catskill office, says Mr Hooker is just letting people know he’s doing his job and doing it well. For more information call (518)943-1371 or e-mail hookerd@assembly,state.ny.us . MORE POLITICS. Two up-scale gatherings in GreeneLand recently added to the coffers and to the hopes of Kirsten Gillibrand, the lawyer who aims to supplant John Sweeney in the United States House of Representatives. With regard to that prospect, professional handicappers have lately reclassified the district’s political coloration from “safely Republican” to “leans Republican.” Gillibrand has solid backing and she can talk (but is inclined to deliver blue-collar words to white-collar listeners). She is banking on attracting support from the district’s many “Rockefeller Republicans” (“conservative on fiscal policy, progressive on social policies” as she puts it) and who detest the Bush Administration. Those people evidently are numerous. Thus, although voters who are registered as Republicans out-number Democrats (by about 190,000 to 110,000) and miscellaneous others (about 100,000), majority support was given in the last elections to the Democratic candidates for U.S. Senator (Charles Schumer) and attorney general (Eliot Spitzer). Still, Mr Sweeney is the incumbent; he wears the brand of the locally dominant party; and he has brought bags of Federal money to needy local organizations. Viewed from the narrow standpoint of bringing home the bacon, the best result of the Sweeney-Gillibrand contest is either that Sweeney wins and the Republicans retain the majority of House seats, or that Gillibrand wins and so do enough other Democrats to produce a House majority.

NON-PROFITS. Organizations that are classed legally as non-profits can be important sources of jobs, hence of payrolls and retail sales and tax revenues. According to a story broadcast by MidHudson News, these aggregations differ substantially in scale of local importance. In Columbia County they account for a fourth of all jobs and wage payments in the private sector, and in Ulster County they account for almost one fifth. But in GreeneLand, non-profits account for only 3 per cent of private sector employment. Explanation: we don’t have a hospital and our private non-profit schools are few and small.

EVENTS. There’s a lot happening in GreeneLand this weekend. A Renaissance-themed fair. Music in Catskill and Athens. A stage play (“Six Characters in Search of an Author”) in Windham. German Alps Festival at Hunter Mountain. Lighthouse tours. Paintings by the renowned Jasper Cropsey. Photographic display of GreeneLand scenes (at Bronck Museum). Farmers’ and artisans’ markets (two sites). Special Saturday shopping & gallery-hopping & strolling in Catskill…. Best single source of information is www.GreeneTourism.com.

ALSO, we tardily report news of the renovation and re-opening of the Mountain Drive-In [!] Theater on Route 296, off State Route 23A, between Windham and Hunter. According to The Daily Mail, the cinema is owned by Moondance Theatres Inc. and managed by David Gage. This weekend’s nocturnal fare, costing all of $15 per car, is a double feature, “Cars” and “Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest.” There’s a web site: MoondanceTheatre.

NOT GROUNDED. The bulk carrier ALAM SEMPURNA, for most of last Thursday (8/3), looked to be stuck in the Hudson River just south of the Rip Van Winkle Bridge and directly east of Beattie-Powers Place. A GreeneLand sheriff’s team went aboard, determining that the vessel was not stuck in the channel, but instead was afflicted with engine failure. After the necessary repair was made, a tugboat turned the vessel around so that it could resume is southerly course. The story was duly reported in our local newspaper. A swift investigation by Seeing Greene staff yielded the additional information that the ocean-going, 178.2-meter, four-crane bulk carrier, with raised forecastle and poopdeck, was built in 1984 in Japan, and was christened “St Laurent” before it became the Malaysia-based property of Tekumata Sdn Bld. Moreover, 1.5 meters per minute, 0.70 rpm and 50 seconds are, respectively, its hoisting, slewing and luffing speeds. That’s what you wanted to know, no?

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