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iiiieiiiioiiai second exposure The Altamont Enterprise - Thunday, July 20, 2006 Editorial Rensselaerville, roll up your sleeves Layers of bureaucracy piled up and mired Sheila Whiteford just as surely as layers of mud filled her house after the torrential June rains. \I need help, help, help, help, help,\ Whiteford told the Rensselaerville Town Board last Thursday. Plenty of people in the packed hall sounded ready to help and we hope they do. Whiteford's home, near Potter Hollow Creek, has been flood- ing for years; she said the creek has changed its course as islands of debris have built up in it. She named/or us more than a dozen agencies or officials she called for help, to no avail. We made some calls ourselves this week —13 to FEMA alone, as one person referred us to another. We were trying to find out if a resolution made by the town board to request funds from the Federal Emergency Manage- ment Agency was likely to bear any fruit. Our answer: Probably not. We only had to make one call to the state's Department of Environmental Conservation; Rick Georgeson is a spokesper- son who finds answers. He called us back and told us that Sheila Whiteford had, indeed, called the DEC on June 30 \wanting us to do something.\ He went on, \We explained we wouldn't do the work; we would be the permitting agency.\ Typically, contractors are hired, Georgeson said, or public works departments do thejob. Whiteford was referred to the Albany County Soil and Water Conservation District, the state's Department of Transportation, and the town's highway department, he said. \We just issue the permit and make sure the environment is protected while the work is done,\ said Georgeson. \It's just a matter of finding someone that will step up and do the work or pay for it.\ We're printing the phone number — 357-2069 — that needs to be called to start the permit process. We don't fault the DEC for wanting to protect our water, but we hope every effort is made to respond promptly. Rensselaerville Supervisor Jost Nickelsberg called the effects of bureaucracy \stultifying.\ \Right past the Field of Dreams is the nightmare.\ \We're the highest taxed state in the country and to have this kind of response to a lady with this problem isn't right,\ he said. \That's why we as a town are getting behind it. Sometimes, you have to roll up your sleeves.\ Nickelsberg said that, when a DEC official comes soon to look at storm damage to a town dam, he will also look at Whiteford's property. The supervisor is concerned, too, about the evacuation route posted recently by the state. That road, Route 81, was under water with the June flooding. \The water surged over 81; it tossed a car about; trees coming down were going 20, 30 miles an hour,\ said Nickelsberg. He said of the water from Potter Hollow Creek, which flows to Catskill Creek, \It was up and over the bank; it was up and over the land, stripping it of its value; it was up and over the road.\ When Whiteford discovered it would cost $4,000 just to get the mud cleared from her house — she has no insurance to pay for it — she started shoveling. That's what residents of Rensselaerville are ready to do. Bob Bolte said he could organize a group of citizens to remove the islands of rock and debris from the stream. We believe he has the heart and muscle to do it. Bolte, along with K.B. Cook, and his wife, Marion, spear- headed a project earlier this year to build a ball field in Potter Hollow. \Over $50,000 of equipment and time was donated. We just went out and did it, not with town money,\ said Nickelsberg, adding with pride, \It's the best ball field in all of Albany County.\ Townspeople call it the Field of Dreams. \Right past the Field of Dreams is the nightmare,\ said the supervisor, referring to the flooded creek. We believe the people of Rensselaearville will wake up from that nightmare to the sound of shovels moving earth. From the editor Farewell to the chronicler of Dormansville BKW graduation should be on the Hill By Melissa Hale-Spencer Frances Swart spent her en- tire life in the tiny Helderberg hamlet of Dormansville -7- and . loved it. She chronicled the life and times of Dormansville residents for over half a century. Miss Swart died on Sunday, having filed her last correspondents column for The Enterprise on June 29. At 96, she penned her columns with the precision of the school- teacher she once was. He'r col- umns came in on time, week in and week out, without fail, and without need of editing, either. That last column started with a description of the weather. The daughter of a dairy farmer, Miss, Swart was keenly'aware of the weather. When she was born, she told us last year, most of Westerlo was nothing but farms. As a girl, she walked to the one-room schoolhouse down the road and otherwise — unless she ' was lucky enough to get a ride with a friend's father who had a car — traveled by carriage or wagon. After graduating from New Paltz Normal School in 1930, she taught in the very same school- house she had gone to as a child. Miss Swart had six grades to teach at once. She lived with her parents un- til they died. And, after her mother's death, in 1951, she took up her pen and continued her mother's practice of writing \items as she called them, for the local newspapers. \I'm very pleased when some- body tells me they read my col- umn and they've been keeping up with the news here,\ Miss Swart told us. She was an integral part of her community; the friends and neighbors she cared and wrote about cared for her. Her last column is emblematic of a lifetime of paying attention to the details of small-town life. She wrote about the Dor- mansville United Methodist Church, which she had attended all her life. Her last column tells us that the altar- vases were filled with bouquets of peonies from a bush planted by Clarence Bates and were placed in his memory. She also wrote of the Hiawatha Grange, of which she was a member for 78 years. She Frances Sivart, as she appeared each week at the head of her column on Dormansville. told of the \eat-out dinner\ and upcoming elections. She regularly wrote of social news — the births, and mar- riages, and deaths that mark our time on earth. Her last column was no exception. She detailed a 25 th wedding anniversary cele- bration and wrote of a gradua- tion. And what about the weather? \The rain,\ Miss Swart wrote in her even-handed way, \has washed away the blossoms on roses and peonies frut seems to help the plantings of some an- nuals.\ In the midst of rain and dark- ness, though, Miss Swart always looked for the proverbial silver lining. \In spite of it all,\ she wrote, \it has been a joy to have homegrown strawberries. We should be thankful we don't have the dry weather now in parts of Texas and other states.\ Miss Swart was also someone who was thoughtful of others and precise in recording local history. She wrote her own obituary and left it in a sealed envelope. That way, others wouldn't be troubled with piec- ing together the events of her life and the record would be accu- rate. We're running it on our obituary page just as she wrote it. Her dear friend Laura Palmer told us the last line would make us laugh. That line, which- usu- ally lists an address for making monetary contributions, says instead, \She wished that, in her memory and in lieu of flowers, friends would remember the Dormansville U.M. Church, sup- port it, and attend it.\ Miss Swart died as she had lived — thinking of others and of Dormansville. We'll miss her. Kids should be able to experiment with clothes, hair, and ornamentation To the Editor: In regards to a letter written by Sandy Willsey about the Beme-Knox-Westerlo seniors having their graduation cere- mony off the Hill and in Albany, I would like to add: Amen to that, sister. Marie Dibble East Berne To the Editor: Okay, here's some \commun- ity input\ on the proposed dress code for the Voorheesville schools. You may already be familiar with this anecdote as teenage girls everywhere in the early 60's encountered similar encroachments. Girls at Voorheesville's high school were regularly invited to the principal's office or accosted in the hallways and subjected to the old \get down on your knees so we can be sure your skirt touches the floor\ routine. If it didn't, our mothers were called and we were sent home to change clothes. Naturally, we kids all con- sidered this an outrage, and it was counter-productive as far as morale and attitude went. All the kids thought the adults in charge were idiots. There was certainly no respect for authority gener- ated. Forty years later, I still think they were idiots. We laugh now about how silly- and inconse- quential the controversy was in the greater scheme of life, but I wonder about the mentality of the power-wielders who think this kind of censorship is a good idea. Everyone needs an outlet for the expression of their person- ality and by the time a young person hits high school, they should be free to experiment with such relatively benign issues as clothes and hair and ornamentation. This is not a big deal, Even if their choices do not reflect our preferences, they deserve to be treated with respect, particularly if their teachers cannot be held to the same standard. If the kid who offends our sensibilities is still in middle school, then where the heck are the parents when the kid is heading out the door with boobs or a butt crack exposed? Ob- viously not exerting the obligatory parental authority. If a kid is a jerk, a junkie, and a troublemaker, covering up her bare back or ripping out his lip ring is not going to transform the person into a good kid. Out- ward appearances don't accur- ately reflect what is in some- body's heart or even their brain. What a waste of time and energy. Barbara Vink Voorheesville Editor's note: See related story.
