Come to The Well
As the days are beginning to lengthen, are your thoughts toward simplifying your home by cleaning out non-essential items? Yet would you like your former treasures to find new homes where they could brighten someone’s life the way they used to brighten yours? Are you looking for some very affordable clothes to refresh your wardrobe, or for some much needed things for your home? Are you seeking a fun and fulfilling volunteer job that really makes a difference to your community?
If the answer to these questions is yes, then The Well in Saugerties is the place for you. The Well accepts new and gently used clothing, kitchenware, knick-knacks, toys, books etc. ( The Well does not accept furniture or electronics.) We are also looking for volunteers to help sort and sell these items.
Located at 80 Partition Street in Saugerties (across from Montano’s shoe store), The Well, which is operated by the Saugerties Area Council of Churches, is open from 8 a.m. to noon Monday-Friday for sorting and receiving donations.
The Well is open for selling things from noon to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. On Saturday, the store is open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Our fabulous free side is open most mornings and during the selling hours in the afternoons. Our telephone number is 845-247-3154. Proceeds from our store go back into the community.
Please come by and check us out. I’m sure you will be delighted.
Toni Weidenbacher
Woodstock
Don’t undermine new bail law
At the behest of the Saugerties police chief, Joe Sinagra, the Saugerties Village Board adopted a resolution calling for changes in the bail reform law. Unfortunately the police chief has been gunning for this bill before it became law. Bail reform isn’t even two months old yet — too new to be evaluated.
Opponents of the law give fear-mongering examples of people who’ve been set free without bail. But most people now being freed on appearance tickets would have had no bail or low bail before the law took effect. Violent felonies, sex-related charges and some domestic violence charges are still subject to bail. Our former bail system had poor people remain behind bars while those with money walked free.
Pressure Albany for adequate funding to ensure that the new bail law is properly enacted. But don’t undermine the law in its infancy. Change is difficult and scary for some. Rather than chipping away at the new law with resolutions, law enforcement and government officials should learn how to effectively implement it by contacting organizations with expertise on bail reform such as the Vera Institute of Justice or the Greenburger Center for Social and Criminal Justice. Let’s make this law work for everybody.
Christine Dinsmore
Saugerties
Term Limits Limit Corruption
Saugerties needs term limits. Long time incumbents become complacent and are less motivated to govern proactively. The reason is clear: their concerns about reelection. A long-serving politician wants to keep their position of power and is more willing to make deals with those she/he oversees. And, the longer an incumbent stays in office, the more power they wield, making them more corruptible.
Imposing term limits will encourage new people willing to run for office. Saugerties doesn’t need anymore career politicians. Kudos to Mike Ivino for doing what he said he would during his successful campaign for Saugerties Board. Let’s see if this much-needed law becomes reality. I would encourage a thorough and serious debate.
David Radovanovic
Saugerties
Above the law
In the last week, the Attorney General of the United States has shown himself to be using the Department of Justice to benefit the president’s friends and investigate Trump’s political enemies. Writing in The Atlantic, Donald Ayer said “Barr has appeared to function much more as the president’s personal advocate than as an attorney general serving the people and government of the United States.” This is no partisan pronouncement; Mr. Ayer served in the Reagan Department of Justice and was Deputy Attorney General under the first President Bush.
Donald Ayer concludes, “Bill Barr’s America is not a place that anyone, including Trump voters, should want to go. It is a banana republic where all are subject to the whims of a dictatorial president and his henchmen.”
How many times during the impeachment process did we hear that “No one is above the law”?
No one except Trump and his friends it seems.
Kathy Gordon
Saugerties
Slaying The Dragon
Timothy Snyder, the Yale history professor and author of the New York Times #1 bestseller “On Tyranny,” recently said a number of things we should all take to heart: “It’s horrible that these people [who’ve lost positions and reputations after standing up to Trump] have faced consequences. The rest of us should feel solidarity with them, and try to make it understood that those consequences are worth something, that we hear them — that we will do something about it.
“We have a long tradition of recognizing heroes as the people who resist power. Freedom isn’t a ride you take; it’s something you have to take hold of. A lot of us have to be willing to dissent. When a lot of us dissent, it’s no longer dissent — it’s opposition, and people aren’t so lonely, and more people can have courage. Because you can pick on a hundred people, but it’s a lot harder to pick on a million.”
Right on! There’s strength in numbers, and none in numbness. If all of us with eyes to see, hearts to feel, and hands to join rise up together in opposition, we can slay the dragon.
We’ll do it by organizing, by marching, by protesting, by rallying, by candlelight-vigiling and doorbell-ringing and letter-writing, by speaking loudly and clearly to our government and gently but forcefully to our children — especially those of voting age — and then by going to the polls, en masse but as one, and restoring the United States as the Land of Opportunity rather than the land of opportunism, a nation united and not a nation divided.
After all, we’re the United States. And our motto is “E Pluribus Unum”: “Out of Many, One.”
Tom Cherwin
Saugerties
Term Limits? Really?
I read with interest your article about term limits for Saugerties. Mr. Ivino states that term limits was “one of the hottest topics” among voters, but your article indicated his campaign made term limits the number one bullet point on all his campaign literature. Could that have created a confirmation bias? Is his and Mr. Andreassen’s concern really with term limits?
Mr. Ivino states, “if the party doesn’t do a caucus during the nominating convention and they do a regular vote through the committee, the committee is deciding who can and cannot run on the line.” By that reasoning his argument should be focused on the process by which candidates come to the ballot, not how they are selected once nominated. Rather than asserting Saugerties needs term limits, it appears both Mr. Ivino and Mr. Andreassen are dissatisfied, perhaps rightly, with the way the local political parties select their nominees.
Mr. Andreassen states the absence of term limits creates a “monopoly,” (which in that context it appears he means “exclusive possession or control of something,” as defined by Webster’s dictionary) with “the same people running every year.” Again, the party committees determine who runs; if they are supporting the same candidates every year, Mr. Andreassen’s argument lies with the parties and their processes, not the limits of a candidate’s term of office. When a number of different parties field candidates and sometimes cross endorse, and when candidates do not usually run unopposed, it is hard to understand how a monopoly is the problem.
Term limits create an immediate and on-going lame duck situation, disincentivizing both voter and elected official, a situation that undermines our participatory democracy. Mr. Andreassen laments “the same people running every year,” but becoming a local government official is the result of winning a competition, not having everyone who is interested line up to take a turn. People who want to run for office find a way to get on the ballot. After that, the people vote. Anyone can term limit him or herself, should they choose to do so. Elections are about making choices, for both the candidate and the voters.
Mr. Ivino states, “Term limits make you focus on…what your constituents want you to do.” But how does that work when the voters want to re-elect a candidate who has well served his or her community and the voting public? In that situation term limits thwart the people’s will in arbitrarily denying them the right to vote for the candidate they believe best able to meet their needs.
To vote for the candidate of one’s choice is a privilege and a right ; it should not be legislated away. The argument for term limits is an attempt to constrain the voters’ choice. Term limits abrogate the people’s authority. Now more than ever we should be paying attention to and participating in our voting process; it provides a means for limiting the terms of our government officials: it’s called an election.
Deidre J. Byrne
Saugerties
Delgado, pay attention to climate emergency
Rep. Delgado may be coming to understand we are already in a global climate emergency. At a meeting on February 20, he promised a group of constituents to soon reveal his positions in three key facets of policy for changing our currently disastrous trajectory.
He was asked to support a bill declaring a national climate emergency. (H.Con. Res. 52). He was asked to support a national ban on fracking. (S3247). He was asked to support the Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act of 2020, which would ban use of certain single use plastic, and update other aspects of plastic’s industry policy.
On the local level we asked him to publicly come out in support of shutting down the fracked gas Cricket Valley Energy plant in Dover and come out against the expansion of the fracked gas Danskammer power plant in Newburgh.
Congressman Delgado was polite and welcoming. He listened to us and even stayed late to complete our meeting. However, in response to these requests, he was evasive and said he would get back to us with a definitive stance in two weeks. All of these issues are about protecting our future.
Declaring a national climate emergency sets the stage for managing our situation. We know that plastic is everywhere; adult Americans consume a credit card size amount of plastic each week. Plastic also is a fossil fuel product, adding to our climate crisis. Fracking produces methane leaks, toxic waste, contaminated water, and is a greenhouse gas 86 times more destructive than carbon dioxide.
We know that our global temperature is rising, worldwide wildfires have been raging, floodwaters are rising, wildlife is disappearing. We have no time to lose. Our fossil fuel infrastructure must be switched to sustainable energy now. We hope that Rep. Delgado will see that we are all striving for the same thing, to have a sustainable future, and state clearly that he is for all of us and our children. Please call him and urge him to do so! His Kingston office number is 845-443-2930.
Janet Apuzzo, Wallkill; Michele Riddell, New Paltz; William Barr, Saugerties; Liz Elkin, New Paltz; Jill Obrig, Stone Ridge
‘Don’t Hang Back With The Brutes’
In anticipation of Performing Arts of Woodstock’s upcoming production of Tennessee Williams’ “Suddenly Last Summer,” I decided to reread Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire.” One passage in particular chilled me this time around:
In Scene 4, Blanche DuBois pleads to her sister Stella regarding her sister’s husband, Stanley Kowalski — who ultimately destroys Blanche for the threat she poses to him and his frail, ravaging ego.
“He’s like an animal. He has an animal’s habits. There’s even something subhuman about him. Thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is: survivor of the Stone Age.
“There’s been some progress since then. Such things as art, as poetry, as music. In some kinds of people, some tenderer feelings have had some little beginning. That we have got to make grow! And cling to, and hold as our flag in this dark march toward whatever it is we’re approaching… Don’t—don’t hang back with the brutes!”
I make much the same plea to each of my own sisters and brothers: If you’re someone who’s eligible to vote but doesn’t plan to…Do — do it for progress, for art and poetry and music, for tenderer feelings! And if you’re someone who plans to vote…Don’t — don’t hang back with the brutes!
Tom Cherwin
Saugerties
Health Care Facts
It’s quite clear that the President’s State of the Union speech was not factual regarding tax cuts for low and middle income citizens considering that those earning between $10,000 and $20,000 per year average less than $1 per week and those whose incomes are greater than $200,000 per year get an average tax break of $1,327 per week.
Trump also claimed that the U.S. has the best health care in the world. BOGUS, only if you can afford it. According to the National Economic & Social Rights Initiative, “The market-based health insurance system in the United States has caused a human rights crisis that deprives a large number of people (about 32 million) of the healthcare they need” (nesri.com). Most distressing is that more than 100,000 people die each year in the U.S. because of the way the health care system is organized.
The U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate and a lower life expectancy than comparable countries (World Health Organization [WHO]).
The U.S. has the highest rate of maternal mortality among higher-income countries (WHO).
45,000 people die each year because they have no health insurance (American Journal of Public Health).
Around 50% of African Americans have no health insurance (Center for American Progress).
Prior to Obamacare, nearly 700,000 families went bankrupt each year paying for their healthcare even though 75% were insured (WHO).
The U.S. has fewer doctors and nurses than other high-income countries (WHO).
Hospitals and doctors are disproportionately located in wealthier areas. Public hospitals are closing where they are most needed.
President Trump has declared that he would prefer people from Norway to emigrate to our country. In response, some Norwegians pointed out that they have had universal healthcare since 1912. College is free. They are ranked #1 in the Global Retirement Index. Both public and private sector workers are covered by some kind of pension. In the U.S. “roughly half of corporate employees lack access to an employer sponsored retirement plan. “Why would we want to move to the U.S.” they say.
Ask yourself, if we are the richest country in the world, how come countries poorer than us can have universal healthcare and we can’t. Is it that we aren’t smart enough? Is it too expensive? Or, are some of us unwilling to share.
William Hayes
Saugerties
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