Irene / Flood News from New Paltz

Village Mayor Jason West and Town Supervisor Toni Hokanson have declared a State of Emergency in New Paltz - it was enacted for 8:00 pm, Saturday August 27th 2011 & shall be in effect til 8:00 pm September 1st, 2011, or until lifted by a subsequent Joint Executive Order of the Supervisor and Mayor of New Paltz.

Ulster County Executive Mike Hein declared all county roads closed to non-emergency services personnel/vehicles early today. Around noon, the Town and Village of New Paltz banned all pedestrian and vehicle traffic except for Town Village official business or evacuation. Both the mayor and supervisor warned residents that due to the massive amount of water all roads must be checked for structural damage - roads may look fine but actually have structural damage. People are urged to stay off the roads and stay away from the river.

Many areas of New Paltz had mandatory evacuations: Springtown, Sunrise, Kaegill, High Ridge, Dug Road, Coffee Rd., Cragswood Rd., Mountain Rest (from 299 to Canaan Rd, which is at 111 Mountain Rest), Rapp Hill, Julia Avenue, Calvin Blvd., Charles Lane, Lewis Lane. Town and Country Condominiums, western most ground floor units. Water Street, single family homes to the south of the box factory, at the intersection of Pencil Hill, Water St., Plains Rd and Mohonk Ave.

At 8pm Sunday, the Wallkill River was predicted to shortly crest 6 feet ABOVE the road on the Carmine Liberta bridge. The cresting record, last set in 1955, was broken by 7pm. This is a VERY dangerous place to be - there are already (stupid!) people in kayaks and tubes that are missing... Seriously people, stay away from the river - we need the police to focus on emergencies - NOT chasing people away from the river.

There is a curfew for both residents and businesses from 7pm Sunday night till 5am Monday morning. There is also a ban on alcohol sales tonight. (This news was Wall Street Journal worthy apparently.) (Gannett too.)

On the SUNY New Paltz campus - Hasbrouck Dining Hall is open till 9:00 tonight. The lines are long but students have been advised to please be patient and stay on campus. Tomorrow, classes are cancelled, and only essential personnel (University Police Department, Food Service, Maintenance and Custodial) need to report to work. There is an emergency shelter on campus at the Health and Wellness Center.

School district - the New Paltz Central School District will be closed Monday, August 29th, 2011. All activities scheduled for the 29th will be rescheduled.

Central Hudson will be distributing dry ice and water on Monday.

2011 Democratic Caucus Results

Supervisor
Zimet 167
Hokanson 56

Town Council (2)
Gallucci 162
Barry 148
Leverette 81

Highway Superintendent
Marx 97
Johnson 64
Takacs 54
Lecesse 6

Uncontested:

Town Clerk
Roseanne Mazzacarri

Town Judge
Jim Bacon

Democrats fire their engines

The race for town supervisor is starting to shape up for registered Democrats in New Paltz.  Mid-Hudson News reports that the New Paltz Democratic caucus will take place August 23.  In the past it's been held at the high school, so I'm guessing they'll try for that location again.

Once again, the local Democratic party committee is apparently opting not to back the party member who is already in office.  In the spirit of "what's old is what's new," they will be supporting former supervisor and current county legislator Susan Zimet for the job over incumbent Toni Hokanson.

I don't know who else will be trying to get the party nod, but here's a tip:  be prepared to bring a couple hundred of your registered Democratic friends to secure any nomination from the party.  You can be sure that both Zimet and Hokanson will.

Slash Root to Host First Ever Hudson Valley “Hack-and-Tell”

“Hack-and-Tell”
Tuesday August 16th 8:00pm
Slash Root Cafe and Technology Dojo
60 Main Street New Paltz
(845) 633-8330

Forum will showcase local technology innovation
NEW PALTZ, NY – Following a trend among developing tech-sector regions, the Hudson Valley will hold its first “Hack-and-Tell” next week.

Hack-and-tell is a forum in which technology innovators show inventions, programs, or experiments that they are developing or have completed. No sales pitches are allowed.

“The Hudson Valley is becoming one of the fastest-moving growth zones for the nation's tech sector,” said Justin Holmes, founder of SlashRoot. “We're geographically in the middle of the Hudson Valley and proud to be the leader of the regional innovation culture, so it makes sense for us to host this event.”

Applications from interested participants are due Friday, August 12th at 5:00PM here.

you can RSVP on Facebook

New Paltz Caucus Dates Announced

Democratic Caucus
Tuesday August 23rd
New Paltz High School
6:30 PM

Republican Caucus
Wednesday September 7th
New Paltz Community Center
7:00 PM

Two primaries for the village County Leg seat - Democrat and Working Families - will be held on Tuesday, September 13th.

Greenfield announces for District 17

Because I have a sincere interest in getting to know my possible coworkers, I attended Steve Greenfield's announcement that he's running for legislature in the new district 17.  The entire announcement should be on Channel 23 sometime soon.

Steve has a problem with incumbent Susan Zimet:  he doesn't think it's okay that she has a lobbying business.

By contrast, he pointed to his three years on the New Paltz School Board as proof that he doesn't try to profit from his influence.  He also said that he will bring his knowledge of emergency services, infrastructure, education, land use, and transportation to bear upon problems at the county level.

When asked about Golden Hill, the only specific issue which came up before I had to leave, he hedged his bets a bit.  He acknowledged that there are some services which can't be provided well by private industry, because there's no profit in it; however, he didn't specifically say that Golden Hill is one of those.  He would solve that problem "by the numbers," he said.

Recycling roads

A couple of weeks ago I had a chance to go down Plains Road with Highway Superintendent Mike Nielson, so I could see what a recycled road looks like.

Plains Road was the first one in New Paltz which was resurfaced by a process that allows for the reuse of the existing asphalt on-site.  Reusing materials is nothing new, but typically the road gets ground up and carted away for reprocessing, and ends up on another road elsewhere in the county.  This equipment allows it to be ground down, picked up, melted, and mixed with some new material right there; then it's laid back down and rolled.

Here's Mike, annoyed that I have a camera but explaining how the whole shebang works:

There are limits to this technology.

• Because of the length of the train, short roads and dead-ends can't be resurfaced like this.
• If there are deep cracks in the road bed, a full replacement will be needed anyway.  Anything that needs to be ground down more than five or six inches can't be replaced this way.
• The process leaves the road pebbly, and it still needs to be sealed, which isn't the case with traditional road replacement.
• Nielson hasn't tested it to see if the results can stand up to our highest-wear roads, like Horsenden. (The fact that we send our truck traffic along that narrow, windy road is another problem entirely.)

I haven't looked at a full cost-benefit analysis, but the benefits to the residents are pretty clear:  a two-week process, including curing, took six hours to complete.  It's also pretty cool to watch:

Making campaign promises is easy.  Fulfilling them, not so much.