Just Mid-September

JUSTICE HUNT. Four candidates to fill the remainder of Veronica Kosich’s term as Catskill Village Justice will be interviewed by the village trustees on Tuesday. Alphabetically, they are Morris Darling, who is about to retire as a senior Correctional Officer at the prison in Coxsackie and formerly was president of the board of the Catskill Central School District; Peter Markou, the veteran economic development and planning expert; Christopher Murray, who has worked as an administrator in Columbia County courts since 1993; and Bill Wootten, who among other things has been manager of Catskill cemeteries. That is a strong field. GOING from downtown Catskill, in a couple of weeks, after a sell-off of current inventory, after a stay of 106 years: Day & Holt Hardware, at 349 Main St. But Pat Walsh, who so perfectly inhabits the character of the avuncular, patient, personal service-giving small town merchant, won’t be going out of business altogether. He plans, with wife Stephanie, to continue operating the adjoining Swamp Angel Antiques business. GOING TOO, from several Catskill sites, targeted by the Village Trustees in keeping with their “ever-improving” resolve: billboards.

COMING to downtown Catskill: another addition to the home improvement stampede. This time it’s an Oriental carpets emporium (wholesale and retail) at 449 Main Street (once a bowling alley), to be opened in time for the Christmas trade by entrepreneur Muntaz Amhad.

COMING SOONER to downtown Catskill, this Monday (9/18), a day-long, moving forum devoted to how-to’s of revitalizing commercial centers of small towns…. Organized by Greene County Planning and Economic Development agency, directed by Warren Hart. It starts with a walking tour led by Linda Overbaugh. For information: 943-0989.

ASSAULT STORY. A resident of up-scale Prospect Avenue in Catskill was carried by ambulance to Columbia Memorial Hospital last Sunday night after a fight in his front yard. The episode makes quite a story. We would like to tell it straight, but do not have all the relevant information. The immediate victim, we understand, was Rick Shanks, a railroad engineer who has long been involved in local firefighter companies and controversies. The assailants were Jerod and Amber Lane, who also have long-standing connections to local fire companies. They have been charged with assault at the misdemeanor level. According to what we have been told, the Lanes went to Mr Shanks’s house after making three previous stops in a determined effort to track down either (i) the perpetrators of vandalism against an incipient new enterprise of Ms Lane’s (“Studio 69,” a dancing school in the former Jimmy’s tavern), or (ii) the pseudonymous “Sherlock Holmes” who operates a blog that has subjected Ms Lane and many other GreeneLanders to vicious unsubstantiated smears; or (iii) the main author of both offenses. The episode generated some gossip to the effect that the assailants received unduly soft treatment from Catskill’s police officers. Because Ms Lane is the sister of one police officer and the sister-in-law of another (who also has been a favorite target of smears from “Sherlock Holmes” and his claque of craven commentators), says a putative informant, the police may have been slow to respond to a call for help; may have charged the Lanes only with misdemeanor rather than felony-caliber assault, and may have waived standard procedure by not handcuffing Ms Lane and not barring her from using a cell phone while inside the police car. In an interview with Seeing Greene yesterday, Police Chief Dave Darling equated that gossip with bovine excrement. The three officers who responded to the call for help, he said, “acted promptly” and they proceeded in “a professionally exemplary” manner. Far from being scolded, they were explicitly commended. Those events and issues are of special concern to Seeing Greene. They are of concern because some people have imagined a complicit relation between this blog and the “Sherlock Holmes” operation. In point of fact, we do not know who this “Sherlock” is and we deplore his output. His clever graphics and sometimes-promising lines of local criticism are vastly out-weighed by a perverse devotion to voicing unsubstantiated slanders and to publicizing even more odious smears emitted by a squad of also-anonymous, hence cowardly, mud-slingers. With regard to the Shanks/Lane episode, meanwhile, Chief Darling refused to allow Seeing Greene’s reporter to read, or to have read to him, the official Arrest and Incident reports. He said that his refusal was firmly grounded legally. He also suggested that reporting the incident could aggravate a dangerous local situation.

STILL CASTING. A few parts in “Three Sisters” have not yet been assigned. The renowned Chekhov play, set in a sleepy backwater community, will be performed at Beattie-Powers House, Catskill , under the direction of stage veteran Joseph Capone, starting on October 15^th. Remaining to be filled are the parts of Andrey (about 35; brother to the three eponymous sisters, who falls in love with the wrong woman), Natasha (the wrong woman), Solyonly (who loves, desperately, one of the sisters) and Anfisa (old woman who had been the sisters’ nanny). To inquire about auditioning, call 943-2680. Already recruited and rehearsing are Jennifer Schilansky, Maria Moren, Lora Lee Eccobelli, David Khouri, Keith Muller and Gene Galushka. {P.S. For the first few hours after posting, we incorrectly said the play would be performed at Catskill Point}.

COMING, in mid-October or later: re-opening of Anthony’s Restaurant in Leeds. The place is currently closed on account of a MAJOR addition, described by Andrea Macko of The Daily Mail as “a multi-level reception and banquet wing,” the latter with seating for 250 people, a dance floor, crystal chandeliers…. Those words appeared in the September 14 issue, along with a note that the restaurant “will be closed for renovations beginning Sept. 11.”

FLOURISHING. That’s the story about the recently-opened City Lights store in downtown Catskill. Says owner Charlie Maggio, “Business has been much better than we expected.”

NEWBIE IN TOWN. At Cedar Grove, after interviews with some 20 applicants, the governing board has picked a successor to Amy Bruning as Manager of Education and Volunteers. She is Lana Davis Chassman. Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in art from Southern Methodist University (and the drawl to go with that). Thirty-year veteran of arts administration, museums, project management, arts-promoting broadcasting, and managing volunteers. Lives with husband in Woodstock. Incidentally, Cedar Grove could use more local volunteers to serve (after training) as docents or keepers of the visitor center and book store. Call Lana at 518-943-7465 extension 4.

GOOGLEBOMBING is the name of a game people play, in growing numbers. For a clever nasty example, go into Google’s site, then type in Failure or Miserable Failure.

PARTY OVER. Police broke up a raucous party last Friday night in Catskill, after two residents of an apartment at 1 Liberty St, Catskill, attracted scores of under-aged drinkers by means, according to unconfirmed report, of a MySpace summons. Although many participants escaped out windows and a back porch, the officers still collected plenty of names of suspected under-aged consumers. The reputed hosts, Jeremy Fiero and Eugene Carey, both 19, were charged with an assortment of offenses, such as child endangerment. When Mr Fiero put up a fight against being arrested, according the police report, he drew additional charges that landed him in jail for the night. (So we gleaned from the police department's Arrest report when it was made available to us on Thursday. The Incident report was withheld).

WHAT ELSE? Well, another party that took place in GreeneLand last weekend did not attract police action. It was a bi-confessional wedding, Christian and Muslim, conducted in English and Farsi, attended by 130 friends and relations, suffused with love.