Woodland Ponds: A view from the Table

I haven't read the live blogging that went on during the Village Planning Board meeting last night, because I want to articulate my thoughts without being distracted by whatever excellent points my esteemed coblogger may have made.

Last night's meeting was long, hot, and complex. I'm grateful as many people showed up as did, and that as many of them stayed for the duration as did. I'm glad that Bill Mulcahy recorded most of it before he had to go, and that three Village Board members were in attendance.

I'm particularly thrilled with my colleague Linda Welles for doing such a fine job of expressing our frustrations. She told the Woodland Pond representatives that it's completely unfair to come to us for solutions to problems that were out there from day one, screaming about urgencey because they need to get people moved in next month or their funding will dry up. It's not only unfair to the Planning Board, it's terribly unfair to the people who have been planning on moving in to the facility.

I have found that the more aggressively an applicant wants to push forward with an agenda item, the more it makes me want to slow down and look more carefully at the information. Why are you pushing me to judgment? Is it because you just realized we meant it when we made you agree to these conditions, or is it because you're afraid if I look too closely that I will see things that may sway my decision in a direction you don't care for? Like Linda, I'm going to make my decision on the facts; but I for one won't be bullied into making that decision before I think the facts are all before me.

I found it incredibly refreshing that so many senior citizens were in attendance, but I regret that we don't have a public comment period at our meetings, because I really would have liked to have heard what they had to say. There were also many environmentalists in attendance, but they're quite good at making their views known to me. Since we don't have a public comment period, I would like to extend an invitation to people to comment here, email me, or call me to share their views. I want to know what people think, because that's my job. I won't put my full number here on the internet, but 9947 is all you really need to know to find me.

The chairman, Ray Curran, did a spectacular job of reminding the applicant that this urgency was created by circumstances unrelated to the Planning Board, and that the urgency doesn't mean we won't look at the issues as thoroughly as we would any other matter. In fact, I would go so far as to say he held their feet to the fire. He also controlled the meeting like a pro, keeping myself, the other members, and the applicant's representatives on point.

I wish the Woodland Pond Board would show up to the next meeting so I can meet these local folks and make sure that they know we aren't doing anything to hold up their approvals, and that any delays are simply related to the fact that the Planning Board has a job to do, and we owe it to the community to do the best job we can.

New Paltz Journal

New Paltz Journal can mean one of two things:

1. The New York Times section that highlights interesting news in our area. It's not often used, but was jam-packed back when Jason West was making headlines coast to coast with his gay marriage initiative.
2. The blog that is maintained by someone using the name "Malone Vandam."

I'm always interested in the former, but I don't get the latter. Several things about that site annoy me.

1. Identity. The individual hides behind a pen name. Anonymity is probably the best and worst feature of the infobahn, and this is a case where it's a bad idea. If you're going to comment about your neighbors, can't you do it to their faces? Let me be clear, lest a reader find that blog and be confused: Malone is not, as he states in the "About New Paltz Journal" page, Joel Cairo of the consulting firm Gutman, Cairo, O’Shaughnessy. Those are names of characters from The Maltese Falcon.
   
2. Comments. They're always disabled on the blog's posts. Why don't you want to hear what people have to say? What's the harm? My thought is that he or she hopes that comments will appear in other blogs, with a link back to the original post - it's a standard way to improve the traffic to a site.
3. Scope. If it's called the New Paltz Journal, why are so many of the posts not about New Paltz? As I sit here today, I have to hit "previous entry" four times to find a single entry about New Paltz - that's around sixty posts ago, by my rough count.
   

Why not call it "Political Journal of Some Secretive Guy That Happens to Live in New Paltz and Doesn't Particularly Care What You Think?"
Now I'm sure I'm not one to judge. Nobody reads this blog. Only one other person knows it even exists, to my knowledge. But if they ever do, I promise that all my posts will be about New Paltz, the comments will be on, and you will know my name. I've even asked another "local gadfly" if he would like to post here, and I told Ira Margolis that if he does, I would like him to follow the same rules. (I would ask Dorothy Jessup, but I do not believe I know the lady.)
So maybe Malone Vandam has very good reasons for hiding behind his computer screen, sharing views to which no one can directly reply about any number of topics not directly related to our community. But, since I don't know who he is and he doesn't allow comments, I can't ask him about that, can I?