Nothing Doing In New Lebanon Before Election Day

by Thaddeus Flint
It must be election season in New Lebanon. The lawn signs appeared almost overnight like mushrooms with the last rain. Tuesday’s monthly meeting of the Town Board was the final one before election day, and very little happened, perhaps in anticipation of whatever political changes will soon befall the Town.
Covenant Circle Road
[private]Those people who live in the Covenant Circle development will probably not be happy, or surprised, to hear that there is still no decision on whether or not the Town will take over their road. It appears almost certain that the Town will not, but nobody was going to stamp this project “denied” less than a month before election day.
Back in May, Town Supervisor Mike Benson wrote a letter to the Covenant Circle Homeowners’ Association saying, “It appears that while there were discussions during the subdivision process about the possibility of the Town of New Lebanon accepting a dedication of the roadways, said highway dedication was conditioned upon the following: a) construction of the roadways in accordance with the Town Highway Specifications; b) certification by a licensed engineer that the constructed roadways met the highway specifications, and c) a formal offer of the roadways to the Town of New Lebanon by the developer. Unfortunately, none of the foregoing conditions were met by the developer or the homeowner’s association.”
It seems that the Homeowners’ Association might have taken this as a ray of hope because they went out and found an engineer to come study their road. However, after the study was submitted to the Town, Councilman Doug Clark studied the study and said, “I would not give this too much weight.” The study and the road.
According to Clark parts of the road are a shale gravel mix. “Shale is great,” he said, “but not on the upper portion of a road. It turns to clay.” That takes time, and time has been hard at work doing just that.  “It’s not how you build a road,” he added.
Town Highway Superintendent Jeff Weinstock agreed. He doesn’t want this road added to his sizable stable of troublesome thoroughfares. He said he already has a road just like this one “and it haunts me every day.”
“I think the people there deserve an answer once and for all,” said Benson, who added that he “doesn’t have any opinion about it either way. I defer to Andy [Howard, the Town’s Attorney] and the Town’s engineer.”
“It doesn’t meet specs,” said Clark, and that could pretty much be considered a final “no” on accepting the road, but nobody yet has done just that. The Town’s engineer will be in contact with Weinstock, and a final decision on the matter could come soon, although nobody defined any definite time frame.
Rails To Trails?
While the Town does not want any more roads, a trail however, seems very welcome. Resident Cynthia Creech, who is also on the Conservation Advisory Council which is working on a draft Open Space Inventory, pointed out that a grass roots group in Stephentown is working on getting that part of the Rails To Trail “spiffed up.” A letter is being drafted now to see if it would not be possible someday in the future to connect New Lebanon to Stephentown along the old railway bed starting from around Old Post Road.
There was some trepidation at the recent Planning Board meeting which looked at the sketch plan for the possible supermarket at the site of Tilden Plaza that construction there could possibly interfere with future connections to trails in towns further south. Erin Moore, of Clark Engineering, said at that meeting that there appeared to be sufficient green space just behind the planned supermarket that could possibly be utilized. Should the Rails to Trails ever actually come to completion in New Lebanon it could even then be used instead of the now stalled sideway project as a kind of in-land sidewalk that still accesses many of the Town’s businesses as well as the Town Hall and the High School.
It’s all nice to think of quiet trails and shiny new supermarkets, but according to Councilman Matt Larabee, what the townspeople need to be thinking about right now is drugs.  “There is a lot of drugs in our community,” he pointed out. Years ago, back when Larabee was a kid, “The most that was around was pot,” he said. That has changed. What are the kid’s into now? “Heroin,” said Larabee. An attempt to start a local TRACS (Together Reducing Alcohol and Drugs in Our Communities) program by ex-Town Justice Darcy Poppey and Larabee has been unsuccessful so far, so Larabee is going to look towards organizing it perhaps in conjunction with a TRACS program in Rensselaer County. While Larabee is hopeful something can be done, he said the problem lies largely with the indifference of parents in the actions of their kids. He cited the recent example of parents wanting to sue Brian Holloway when he posted the idiotic Tweets of their children who broke into his house instead of taking responsibility for the moronic behavior of their offspring.
The night ended with Trina Porte of the Planning Board suggesting, during privilege of the floor, that the Town Board consider setting up a Communication and Procedures Committee. “It is our job as public officials to listen patiently,” she said. Sometimes this doesn’t happen. Much of the time it doesn’t happen when Porte is speaking during privilege of the floor at Town Board meetings. Benson seems to have lost any semblance of patience when Porte speaks. It works both ways though, as Benson created his own privilege of the floor at the Planning Board meeting for the supermarket because Porte had a number of “concerns” when it came to the sketch plan. Porte feels that such a committee could help defuse “hostility at Town meetings,” and “create more positive avenues of communication.”
Porte also feels that communication could be improved when it comes to reporting Town meetings by The Eastwick Press. She said a recent story quoted her without quoting her. This was in regard to an email she sent to some 18 recipients that said “FYI – another Benson and Clark disaster in the works.” Porte wrote that about the new supermarket project on September 3 after she was provided with a copy of the plans from the Town’s Building and Planning Administrator, Cissy Hernandez. “That was a private email,” was Porte’s rational for why it should not have appeared in The Eastwick Press as part of a story on the Planning Board’s meeting to consider the supermarket sketch plan. Porte didn’t explain why the email should not have been part of the story since she had chosen The Eastwick Press as one of those 18 recipients and the email came from a public official in regard to a plan – one she termed a “disaster” – that would affect the very public she serves. She did, however, have an opinion of using that quote (which, for those keeping score, has appeared in The Eastwick Press three times now) without her approval. “There is a term for that,” lectured Porte, who is currently running for a seat on the Town Board, “It’s called Yellow Journalism.”[/private]