Be prepared
My friend Peter Poccia asks how we plan to heat our homes when the electric grid goes out in January. My answer is that we need to be connected to our neighbors before there’s an emergency situation so that in the event, we will know what resources we all have to share and how to support each other. Of course every household needs to be prepared with emergency food, water, and many other supplies. But the great American ideal of self-sufficiency applies to communities as much as it does to individuals, and I think sometimes that we have forgotten that.
Last spring I organized an evening with speakers (including the Red Cross presentation) about emergency preparedness for my Quarryville neighbors. The same number of my neighbors turned out for that as turned out from the whole town for the presentation at the library on Sept. 16. A neighborhood support system is just as important as a town-wide and regional ones. I urge residents of Saugerties to organize on this smaller scale so that staying warm in a winter storm emergency will not be something to be afraid about.
Janet Asiain
Quarryville
Water knows no bounds
Selling pure public water to a corporation to be bottled and resold in a deli in Manhattan should be a crime. It is stolen from us. Clean water is our most precious natural resource in the Northeast. Clean water is disappearing world-wide. Every drop from every faucet should be appreciated as if it were a diamond dropping into the drain. More so. We can live without diamonds.
What is the Kingston city government thinking? The loss of almost 2,000,000 gallons a day of a rare, life giving, endangered resource overwhelms any gain you make in fees, jobs, and taxes. The jobs will be low pay; the corporate profit margins from the water, enormous. And Cooper Lake virtually dried up during a drought just two years ago. If water is low, who will have priority, the Kingston Fire Department or Niagara Corporation?
Residents of Painted Post, a town in Western NY, sued and won because their town government sold 1,000,000 pristine gallons a day from their aquifer. The corporation that bought it, a subsidiary of Chevron, is appealing.
Water drinkers from all towns should watch a documentary — “Flow” or “Tapped” or “Blue Gold” — and then speak out at the Kingston Council Meeting on Oct. 7 at City Hall, 420 Broadway. Any water we save will be our own.
Joan Walker-Wasylyk
Woodstock
Return of the zombie crawl
The festivities may not be up to par, the security may not be included, but the thought of being gathered in costume trumps the concern for people who were anticipating another ghoulish night this year! I was so disappointed when I saw it wasn’t going to happen! For Halloween lovers, this is an excuse to dress up twice and have a good time! I have to say, I’m amazed at the local businesses’ lack of interest in affording people the pleasure of another Village Invasion. The bars most of all, because you can’t deny they probably brought in double the cost the past few years! —Haley Jeanne, via Saugertiesx.com
They should not let it go on without the proper insurance and police coverage. —Bob Peters Jr., via Saugertiesx.com
Astorino’s ad in poor taste
I just saw a really stupid ad by Astorino who is running against Cuomo for governor. In the ad, a little girl is holding a flower in which she is pulling off petals and counting out loud each time she pulls out a petal. Suddenly from the background a voice counts from ten to one and when he gets to one an atom bomb explodes. It is a stupid and senseless endorsement by a man who doesn’t deserve to hold that office and using a child in such a way is disgraceful. Funny but so much is done in these frightening times to protect the security of children but it only shows that no matter what age, politics has no mercy nor respect for some of the actions it takes to win an election.
Robert Aiello
Saugerties
Join the family! 
