Response to the response
In response to my letter on affordable housing in the recent Saugerties Times…Whew what a response and what anger. I will not apologize for how I feel but I will certainly like to make a statement regarding seniors and people who are working but just cannot make enough to live and people who are on some type of disability that makes it impossible to work.
My point is I am getting tired of those people, and all of you know what I am talking about, the people who know how to work the system and don’t have to do a thing to get all the help and other services and money. There is absolutely no reason why any able body person cannot work either full time or part time to help offset the freebies that are given to them. I don’t like the people who are abusing the system to get their pills and prescriptions and cash to buy and use the money for other things rather than use the money to take care of there kids.
I know of too many of these people who collect and then go to work off the books…that’s not right. Lastly, I really dislike the people who are the landlords and the providers of rental properties who are abusing the system in the name of greed and help feeding into the system.
I am quite sure there are some good caring landlords out there and that’s good but it’s usually the type of people who they rent to that will destroy their property etc. Now come on, I am not making this shit up. If you need help you should get it…but if can work you should be made to work.
The costs of these programs are driven up also by the doctors and dentists who have welfare practices and we all know who they are.
So, some of you were upset and that’s too bad, but I am also upset to have to pay the taxes to support these abuses.
Affordable housing should be for those who need it and not for the free generation. Remember nothing is free and someone has to pay for this.
Bob Lippman
Saugerties
Library Friends thanks — corrected version
The Friends of the Saugerties Library wish to express our sincere “Thank You” to the Town, the community groups businesses, and volunteers who were so helpful to our successful Library Fair on Saturday, June 3, 2017. We acknowledge the following:
Greg Chorvas and The Town of Saugerties workers; Rob Kleeman, Peter, and Jason from the Kiwanis Ice Arena; The Saugerties Boys and Girls Club; The Key Club of Saugerties High School; The Saugerties Police Department; Diaz Ambulance; The Ulster County S.P.C.A.; The Ulster County Sheriff’s Department; Vinny Decker and the workers; Lowe’s and Home Depot for their donation of Pallets; Peg Nau for her art demonstration;
Tina Van Voorhis for her Children’s face painting; The Stegmayer Family; Katie Hoffstater and Kevin McClernon for their music; Triumph Martial Arts; Frederico’s Pizza; Lox of Bagels; Hudson Valley Desserts; Boice’s plants; Tents Unlimited; All the Vendors…
And the many volunteers who help us year after year with the book sorting, heavy work, donations of baked goods, and those who work at the fair itself with setting up and disassembling.
Thank you again!
Elaine White and Barbara Kaisik, Co-Chair
Friends of the Saugerties Public Library
Doing harm
The Hippocratic Oath warns “First, do no harm.” Republicans should take heed. The Senate’s proposed health care bill, the Better Care Reconciliation Act, is not an improvement on the House version, the American Health Care Act. We must all speak out and make our dissatisfaction known.
Repeatedly, the Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, insist they must pass this legislation to keep their promise to the American people. But, surveys and polls show only about 17% of Americans support this draconian scheme disguised to look like health care. Why would our legislators persist in giving Americans what almost 90% of them have indicated they do not want? Are our elected representatives completely out of touch or do they just not care? Why are they working so hard to craft a health care plan that will strip health insurance from millions of Americans and bring real and immediate harm to children, the poor and the elderly?
This plan is nothing more than a legislative sleight of hand intended to give an enormous tax break to those who least need it, while taking away affordable health care from those who need it most. Under the guise of “controlling costs” the bill slashes support and subsidies for insurance premiums and out of pocket medical expenses in order to provide over $800 billion in tax breaks to those for whom medical expenses are only a tiny portion of their income.
Some of the plan’s harshest elements are deliberately structured to be phased in after the mid-term elections and the 2020 presidential election cycle. By delaying the most hurtful aspects of their plan the GOP hopes to separate themselves from the consequences of their actions. It insults American’s intelligence and illustrates just how far removed the legislating Republican party is from the basic needs of its constituents.
Dozens of lawmakers and advocacy groups have made clear that this plan will cost hard working Americans who already struggle every day to stay healthy and pay their bills more money, provide less care, and cause widespread harm to millions of people.
Mitch McConnell, with a net worth of over 9 million dollars, will never be harmed by this health care bill; his colleagues, millionaires all, will never be without health care, will never struggle to decide between food or health insurance, between medicine or mortgage. All Americans deserve full access to genuinely affordable health care. It is shameful to see that the greatest nation in the world refuses to provide this basic human right.
Deidre J. Byrne
Saugerties
How to survive these ‘interesting’ times
Wow! Lot of fecal matter going down! (Raising the tone here, dear ones.)
We are now operating without a federal government. There is plenty going on in Washington, DC, but none of it is fit to be discussed in front of people who are not already dead drunk.
The results could well be catastrophic if the Washington politicos all continue to malfunction like insane self-propelling robot vacuum cleaners — sucking up the cat but not the dust balls.
Yes, the federal fiasco costs us a fortune, but if the politicos just malinger and don’t do squat, it may be worth the money; kinda like when we committed “crazy” Aunt Mary to that pricey “facility” after she went to the Met wearing nothing but a size-two thong and singing along with the tenor in Carmen. (Actually she got some applause before they carted her off. ) Moral: Sometimes it pays just to keep federal politicos and crazy relatives in secure locations where they can’t do any damage.
Speaking of not doing squat, (remember back a few hundred words?) the outstandingly lazy and shiftless New York State government has shut down for the summer — oh you didn’t notice?
After accomplishing — let’s see — absolutely nothing, including no single-payer insurance thereby leaving us to the untender mercies of Trump Health Care AKA “take two golden showers and call me in the morning” — they have scuttled off home.
The legislators (hah!) vow not to come back even to address unfinished stuff like extending the county sales tax (without which your property taxes will go up) and maybe addressing the rampant corruption which is the only thing our Albany politicos excel at…or for that matter any other unfinished business which consists of…everything!
Deserving at least a mention is the disastrous toxic fallout on New York City from the nasty feud between Governor Cuomo and Mayor DeBlasio who dislike each other intensely. In all fairness, they are both correct in their highly negative assessments of each other. Albany did, however, waste expensive time blaming local governments for high property taxes. Huh?
Local governments do the most, okay only, public service work we enjoy and they do it in a bare bones and economical way.
Albany never mentioned — in contrast to our thrifty town governments — that we have 700+ school districts with hordes of administrative staff falling all over each other generating memos — some to folks actually working with children — and making believe they’re earning their enormous salaries and huge taxpayer-supported benefits.
Nope — Albany goes after town supervisors doing the real administering at about a buck an hour. If you have one of these hard-working townies, for goodness sake try to keep them!
At this local level, purely political fighting shouldn’t apply.
Very few town supervisors make war with neighboring towns, get the big bucks, decide on whether or not abortions are legal and work for only two months and then go home.
Save your political “Piss and Vinegar” for folks who fight viciously over that heavy stuff that is going to hurt you and invariably screw it up.
Take Faso (please). If the Trump “golden shower health bill” passes, your property taxes will pick up the extra premiums for all school personnel and county legislators and local government folks — (the last named usually have the most meager health insurance).
Faso and Albany pols have great insurance and they won’t suffer. You and your town supervisor will.
And No, Faso, the teeny bit you might save on Medicaid county taxes (down the road) doesn’t make up for the huge property tax and premium increases that would ensue from the Trump/Faso mash-up bill.
So, activists, train your political guns on the folks in both parties in Albany and Washington who are useless and/or evil.
Try to make your peace in the towns where we live. Our towns are going to be covered in shit (okay, I tried) by what’s going on — or isn’t going on — in Albany and Washington. All of us need to stay cool locally to survive these “interesting” times. And yes, I’m talking to myself also.
Gioia Shebar
Gardiner
The voice of Saugerties?
I discovered during some recent eavesdropping around Saugerties that locals, and visitors alike are unhappy with the automated voice of the pedestrian crossing at Main Street and Partition Street.
As a male cis-gender feminist I can certainly appreciate why most women feel uncomfortable being told when to cross the road by a man!, and a rude one at that.
“Wait! Wait! Wait!,” he commands you.
Could we not adopt the more androgynous pedestrian crossings that have respectfully ushered the French across the busy streets of Paris for decades now?
What about our Spanish speaking neighbors? Do their lives not matter?
Do we really want our children to grow up thinking only English speaking grumpy men have the authority to tell us where, and when to cross the road?
A gender-neutral pedestrian crossing both polite, and bilingual, imagine that!
Together let’s change the voice of Saugerties!
Glen Baxter
Saugerties
Grand opening of Chamber’s visitor’s center
Please join us Friday, June 30 at 5 p.m. for the Grand Opening of the Saugerties Chamber of Commerce’s new visitors center at 117D Partition St…which is located on the left going into the public parking lot next to Marabellas. Complimentary appetizers and drinks will be served.
If you have a business please bring any promotional materials you have.
Looking forward to seeing you then!
Mark Smith,
Chair, Saugerties Chamber of Commerce
Vets for Peace recognized
The U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation awarded the 2016 Peace Prize to “Veterans for Peace” in recognition of heroic efforts to expose the causes and costs of war and to prevent and end armed conflict.
Remarks made by President Ladendorf of the Foundation included “For 31 years, Veterans for Peace has been the only veterans organization that has consistently led the peace movement in an effort to abolish war, eliminate nuclear weapons, expose the real costs of war, stand in solidarity with veterans and victims of war, and to keep our nation
from interfering overtly and covertly into the affairs of other nations.”
Their heroic actions are documented in their journal, Peace in Our Times.
Our local Veterans for Peace will be at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Catskills in Kingston, Friday night July 7th when they will speak and show films of their latest efforts at peace-making in Palestine. It is a critical time for all of us to act heroically and we have much to learn from the courageous endeavours of the Veterans For Peace.
Jane Toby
Catskill
Join the family! 
