Woodstock CT Café

TODAY 6/30 OUR SELECTMEN ARE HOLDING A SPECIAL MEETING AT 4 PM. ON THE AGENDA IS VOTING TO AUTHORIZE THE CONTINUED RETENTION OF CME. I FIND IT HARD TO BELIEVE THAT THIS IS APPROPRIATE SINCE TWO OF OUR SELECTMEN ARE RELATED BY MARRIAGE TO DEXTER YOUNG A PZC MEMBER. IT IS ALSO RECENTLY BEEN NOTED THAT THERE IS A RELATIONSHIP TO DEXTER IN CHARGE OF CME. HOW CAN THIS NEPOTISM BE ALLOWED TO CONTINUE?

‘not again’

From Harry Stefan:

At the Board of Selectmen’s Special Meeting today the selectmen passed the resolution to authorize the continued retention of CME Associates, Inc. for environmental and site planning engineerin services.

Selectman Walker recused himself from the discussion and the vote. Selectman Eaffy and Selectman Paquette voted to retain CME.

Under normal conditions, I would have to agree with ‘referee’ and Ken 100%, however, we are reaching the point (silly season) where courtesy, propriety, respectful conversation, are no longer valid means for solving problems. This is a result of long standing problems fostered by long standing individuals. As our town continues to progress in a fashion that rewards backroom deals, good ‘ol boy politics, the status quo, irresponsible growth, denies the need for an ethics ordinance, and provides fallacious lip service, more extreme measures to counterbalance are called upon as a legitimate and learned response. A response perhaps stemming in anger but one that adds a wonderful bonus which is to enlighten the community and perhaps wake a lazy electorate rather than to being simply revengeful. A vengeance of transparency made possible now through this wonderful website…

We all do wish for more transparency, right? I mean transparency and accountablity are the in-fashion buzzwords, right? Well I guess, as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for. While this new found level of transparency via the internet certainly has its benefits, it also has a way of stirring the bees nest in a way never seen before…the ability to spread information anonymously. Good for some, bad for others, but free to all. While you may call it slander, spin, the blogoshere, ect. as a way of diminishing its validity, I call it facing the facts of the 21st century, brutal honesty, tough love, or simply an opportunity for rebuttal and counter argument… so that the voter can witness true democracy in action sans the fear of retaliation and name disclosure. Read the rest of this entry »

I need to clear up a misconception.

In Mr. Wetzel’s comment he implies that there are more homerooms than classes in the K-8 system, thus reducing the class sizes during academic instruction time. In fact, there are no “homerooms” in the K-4 system. The students are with their class and teachers all day (including specials- art, music, pe) so the class size does not reduce into smaller classes during the day as Mr. Wetzel wants you to believe.

In the 5-8 system, the students start out the day in homeroom but then travel to the classes in mass. For example, if there are five homerooms in 7th grade, there are only 5 teachers that teach these students all day (plus the specialist teachers who teach all children at WMS). Again the class size does not reduce just because they have left homeroom. This phenomenon only occurs at Woodstock Academy where in fact they do have larger homerooms and travel to smaller (sometimes much smaller classes). Some of the classes at WA only have 12 or less students per class for academic classes. So perhaps Mr. Wetzel is confused and is really accusing WA of manipulating numbers. All of the class size information is readily available at each school. All Mr. Wetzel has to do is ask for it. However, I suspect that if the numbers do not prove his point, he will just ignore them or say that it is more of the conspiracy.

Mr. Wetzel, why don’t you ask for the actual class sizes at Woodstock Academy? The parents who commented on this subject do know what they are talking about when they say that the class sizes in the K-8 system are between 20 and 25 per class, depending on the overall size of a particular grade level. Again, however, I suspect that Mr. Wetzel would never believe a parent who actually has children in the system since it does not fit into his small minded thinking.

graylady

The team of Tim Bates (Robinson and Cole) and Marc Goodin bringing up facts and holding people accountable for the plans submitted to PZC.

I suggested the town could have hired this pair to represent Woodstock and make developers pay for their expert advice instead of concerned citizens! But a majority of Woodstock voters elected the current PZC board. Sorry … Wetlands members are appointed even if members are unable to fill out an ethics form.

Danny Very, have you figured out what the line asking for you name means?. This means you are suppose to print your name, not leave it blank! But Woodstock citizens, no worry, he understands soils! Anyway, forget PZC. They can do as they please and the only impact is lawsuits which the taxpayers fund … boo hoo Snuffy and taxpayer!

Bottom line, the BS over pulpit rock road did nothing to awaken the electorate over something so obviously incorrect … and now PZC now reflects the draconian wishes of Woodstock, build anything anywhere. Snuffy may be right (wrt regulations), but the courts side with the elected officials so his comments rings hollow.

My suggestion, purchase some pom-poms, and start to figure out where the best bleacher seats will be!

Ken Rapoport

As I came from a time when the breakfast of champions was a cereal, I can say that things sure have changed. My first mother-in-law said “Who’da thunk it!” That was part of the problem with that marriage - speaking of the devil.

You may have noticed that the Cafe was ranked 4th in the state for last week’s activity - 4th in ‘political influence.’ We beat out professional journalists in acheiving this vaunted ranking. But, don’t pay to much attention to it. The previous two weeks the Cafe was ranked 2nd in the state. And four weeks ago we were numero uno. And even before that we were 4th in the state. However, these people who rate us don’t actually read our articles. So this tells you that this rating doesn’t mean very much.

It just means that we Cafe’ers are very active in writing articles and commenting on what has been said. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg because there are probably as many as a thousand readers, including the new handful from the Bay Area that followed Becki across the country. These high ratings were awarded to all Cafe’ers, not just the ones that talk a blue streak like Wetzel, Snuffy, John, and Becki. Indeed, the Aussie once said that Wetzel could talk under wet cement with a mouth full of marbles. The writers and commenters are a very small percentage of our constituency, so the importance of the Cafe is definitely in its readers (if there is anything important going on here at all).

You may not have noticed Head Master Foye’s statements in the Villager on Friday. Read the rest of this entry »

The town of Woodstock funded a professional town planner position, trained and capable of doing a thorough review of the application, pulling together all engineering, storm water, wetlands, survey, landscape design, and other issues with an executive summary (”Planner’s Report”) with options assessment and recommendations for the PZC consistent with the town’s regulations. This is THE NORM for other towns.

Delia Fey has never - not once - even attempted such a review as she is not capable of doing so by lack of training and experience. Sadly, Delia and the PZC do not even know this is the town planner’s job. Instead we have a glorified zoning enforcement officer who struggles to complete her administrative tasks. This is not about liking Delia Fey or thinking she tries hard. The town needs a serious, experienced professional planner and does not have one. Credit Gail Dickensen, Dottie Durst and Margie Wholean who hired Ms. Fey without consulting the PZC as they had promised to do. In Ms. Wholean’s case, I suggest that she wanted a less than competent ‘Town Planner’ so that she could manipulate the building permit process on behalf of the Academy. Indeed Ms. Wholean used Delia for two years in this way.

‘Boots’ said “Woodstock has regs but PZC can ignore them all if they have a quorum of members who approve on any application for Special permit. PZC can also approve any application adding stern modifications. And, of course, they can deny this application.”

This statement ignores the law which actually says the opposite. Read the rest of this entry »

The Cafe brought back the Aussie’s article on electorate IQ that was published just before the November election. We thought it would be interesting after eight months to reflect on the past election. As I recall, the electorate got an above average score in spite of the fact the Planning & Zoning was replaced with a large red rubber stamp.

G’day Folks,

Back home in the outback of the down under (actually the up top by my way of thinking) in my home town of Alice Springs we had somethin put together by the Board of Elections that determined the town electorate IQ based on candidates that won elections in every town in our territory. The idea behind this was to see what towns were smart in terms of their evaluation of candidates and what towns were not so smart. The Board of Elections commission rated candidates for their various offices based upon their background and expertise relevant to the elective office that they were seeking. After the election was over the commission would analyze the results of the election to determine which towns were acting smart and which were less intelligent in the way they chose candidates. The electorate IQ of various towns usually ranged from genius (150 or better) like Erldunda south of us down to moronic (75 or less) like the town of Barrow Creek (where the crows fly backwards) north of us. A town like Darien in Fairfield County would probably be in the genius range while Winsted might be closer to the moronic range - a place where a guy like Wetzel would thrive since he could call everyone a moron.

This electorate IQ was calculated by candidates’ ratings based upon qualifications and who was elected. Candidates were rated 0, 3, 6, 9, and 12 with zero being based on no qualifications or negative factors up to 12 for those candidates with seemingly excellent qualifications for the job. With these town electorate IQ’s political parties could assess how to approach and campaign in a town based upon their electorate IQ. Read the rest of this entry »

Breen rewrote the subdivision regs for residential projects. The Academy project comes under the Zoning regulations as a nonresidential “special permit” application. Goldsmith re-wrote the zoning regs to put some teeth in them, and Dottie Durst, Ed Higgins and the RTC publicized a phony conspiracy theory to defeat them as an election issue. Refinements since the election consist of a lot of wordsmithing at an administrative level directed by Delia Fey and thats about it. The basic flaw is still there - the special permit process which controls all nonresidential development in the town essentially has no concrete, specific standards and is therefore not really enforceable. This is essentially an illegal zoning program called “spot zoning” with the rules essentially devised after the fact on a case by case basis. Hardly anyone on the PZC - or the town planner - even understands this. The exceptions are Dexter Young, Fred Rich, former PZC chair Ed Higgins and the boys at CME. Its basically a plan for the farmers, who own the land, and CME, that processes all the applications and does all the engineeering work, to get rich developing the town without any zoning.

Make sense?

Snuffy

Snuffy didn’t need to enter harsh criticism of Ms. Fey. it was cowardly and serves no good purpose . . nor does making analogies to third graders.

Woodstock has regs but PZC can ignore them all if they have a quorum of members who approve on any application for Special permit. PZC can also approve any application adding stern modifications. And, of course, they can deny this application.

Atty. Bates and engineer Marc Goodin presented plenty of hard evidence that Woodstock regs for special permit are NOT being met in this plan. A report has been turned in and is a matter of public record. The report is extensive in its delineation of non-compliance regarding environmental and water drainage issues. A copy can be obtained from the Planning office.

We in Woodstock, who voted last fall, elected this group of PZC members, if it is approved and you don’t like it, we have no one but ourselves to blame for not getting out the voters who think like us.

Any group of laypersons would be over their heads with a proposal plan like this one. The real crime is that this astonishingly flawed plan has all but final approval by Inlands and Wetlands Commission. Read the rest of this entry »

I agree that this group on PZC has tried hard to be attentive and good listeners and that they have sat through many hearings on this proposal. That is, afterall, their job and what they sought election to do.

Also in agreement, Delia Fey is a very bright talented young professional who should be spending her time hard at work as a PLANNER. Too bad for us that she can’t.

Fairness has been questionable at times. We carefully skirted the football field on the site walk. From this area, through the thick underbrush — it is easy to see the houses on the hill. Granted, it is tough to get a bush hog in there for it is so wet and rocky. (Standing and running water bordered by trees having diameters up to 4 feet. This CME plan of the walk was entirely predictable. We didn’t see the worse part of the land — we saw only the best (if indeed anyone could label any of it as buildable land).

We listened to Academy supporters get up and plead over and over again that this proposal,” was for the kids — to keep them off drugs!” The opposing group to this proposal plan said early on that they were not opposed to expansion of playing fields or that they hoped Academy kids would resort to drugs if they couldn’t play ball. But much time was taken up with statements that were not relevant to the application.  

When someone expressed interest in seeing where the football field would be — they were refused due to loss of light. Read the rest of this entry »

“I did not intend my email to be a public document- it was a cry of frustration to my RTC board that we as Board members are responsible for how the townspeople perceive our actions or non-actions. I thought the townspeople were going to punish the boards and vote NO.I was not advocating for the taxpayers, I was advocating for reason. I was advocating for making decisions based on hard data and facts, not personal feelings.
  
The BOE’s focus has been on pointing the blame on outside forces, Prop 46, BOF, Academy, townspeople, and the flavor of the month (currently me). We need to take responsible for our problems and address them straight on.

Does the BOE not realize that cutting sports costs us votes and did not add to our support?

My rant was triggered by my calling townspeople who came out in mass to stop the BOE holding back the 9th grade. This was a group I thought I could get to vote “Yes” on the budget. I was wrong to have thought I could make a difference. I made phone calls. My first call, the response was - “You are just another stooge for the BOE”, I will write you a check for a $100.00 but I will not vote YES”, “F— Off”. On others I did get a few folks who promised to go down to vote yes, “but only for the kids”. Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, times are tough, food and fuel are more expensive and yes many of our neighbors don’t make high incomes. Regardless, that doesn’t excuse us from meeting our obligations.  You talk about the community as if it’s one entity.  It’s not.  Yes, there are about 800 or so voters out there that don’t trust our elected board and commission members.  But, head’s up, they haven’t trusted them for the last 20 years, almost regardless of who is in office, exception being Mr. Wetzel.This group of voters is looking for a reason to vote no, they want to vote no, Mr. Richardson and Mr. Schultz give them a convenient excuse.  And no amount of clarity or “transparency” will make a bit of difference. 

With regard to the motivations of the BoE members, let’s take that offline, last time I checked you aren’t a mind reader, so don’t speculate about agendas and motives.  All you are doing with your irresponsible speculation is contributing to the conspiracy theories that are so insidious in this community and by there nature are impossible to disprove.

What about the 1,000 or so voters who show up to vote during a town election that don’t show up for a budget vote? That’s who needs to be engaged.So Mr. Rosendahl, are the citizens of Woodstock better off with a YES vote or a NO vote.  You tell me.

Regards, Francis L. Corden

Some advice: from an ‘RTC Friend’

1) All controversy can become good controversy.

2) Moderate yourself, moderate your rhetoric, and decide which battles are really worth fighting.

3) Continue to put education before politics. If promotion of education is not your primary motive as a BOE member you will fail at both.

4) Your role on the BOE is not to advocate on behalf of the taxpayer, but on behalf of the students. The taxpayers can advocate for themselves. You have enough to do.

5) The time and place for promoting transparency and accountability will come in small ways. You have 6 years, not 6 minutes. No need to wage a full scale pyrhiccal war on the behalf of these virtues. You risk jeopardizing their worth and your health.

The PZC has not made any decision about the Bentley field expansion proposal by Woodstock Academy. For anyone who attended all four lengthy PZC public hearings and two long site walks, each PZC member asked many questions - some general, some specific. For example, I myself wrote notes on many, many questions, which I did indeed ask about during each of the public hearings.

It is not for me to comment upon personal issues pertaining to my fellow P&Z Commissioners, who have been hard at work as a group reviewing this detailed application, other applications, and our regulations and fee schedule ordinance.

The public hearing process has been open and fair; thorough and thoughtful; and non-biased and non-partisan. We have listened to what has been submitted to us by our engineers, by the applicant; by many members of the public; and by other interested boards, commissions, and professionals. It is a matter of public record that the IWWA has yet to submit its final ruling because legal decisions about the boundary agreement between WA and the Town is pending.

Items and issues not in our legal, statutory purview we cannot decide upon or comment upon.

Look at what has evolved throughout our public hearings and with the different revised application permitting plans submitted by CME (on behalf of WA).

Regarding additional items and/or conditions of special permitting that the PZC may or may not want, there is much left to discuss and to decide. Read the rest of this entry »

The truth is there is no real professional eye on this proposal except at CME on behalf of the applicant. Almost no one on the PZC has enough background in this field to even know what questions to ask. And the Town Planner - a recent college grad with little experience - functions as an administrative clerk for the PZC with little or no substantive input. One PZC member, Fred Rich, beame famous for saying “You can’t tell a man what to do with his land!” and was opposed to any regulation of land use, as he often made clear by shouting at the commission members who did.

The PZC has not fully engaged the recommendations of its own engineer and will defer to CME which is owned by the son of Dexter Young, a longstanding PZC member. This is a blatant conflict of interest and while other PZC members routinely recuse themselves in the case of any perceived conflict, Dexter advises the PZC members that “we have to let the engineers decide” all of the issues before the PZC. In other words he believes his own son, who is being paid by the applicant, should be the sole arbiter of all conditions for development in the town. This is pretty bad - it is dumbfounding that Dexter Young does not see anything wrong with this.

And the PZC has not engaged a landscape architect, or required the applicant to engage a landscape architect, to deal with the buffering required to address the scenic route and historic district. These are simple and inexpensive tools that will make an enormous difference but the PZC has little awareness they exist.

As for your statement about meeting the regulations, the standards of the Special Permit process are so general that the PZC can require almost any conditions for approval. So it is up to the PZC to develop those conditions - they will get no help from the applicant and few PZC members have any idea how to address the problem. Read the rest of this entry »

The azure blue line is apparently the path taken during last night’s site walk to view the locations of the new Academy athletic fields. The brown line is the border of the entire complex to be developed. The redish-brown line identifies new athletic fields. There is no indication here that the area proposed for the new tennis courts was examined.

from Harry Stefan’s comment below: “Last night the Academy and CME led a tour of the site that they propose to develop. It will be a massive project to level these woods, move the earth and redirect the flow of water.

One of the first speakers at the meeting that followed the site walk was a consultant hired by several residents to review the plan. He disagreed with some of the appplicant’s assumptions and calculations and he was very critical of the lack of detail for numerous parts,large and small, of the proposal for development of the site.

Given the doubt raised by this expert, I think that the P&Z Commission has no option but to reject the applicant’s proposal in its present form.”

From ‘Bah’s’ comment below: “Please note — although this image is impressive in its accuracy of locations and size — it does not show the extent of the clear cutting that will be done.

If you strike a straight line from the football field to the nearest abutter’s property — it is approximately 450 feet. If PZC approves this application, they might as well grant the Hill folks a beer license so they can off-set their loss of property value by opening up a Sports Bar. That must be what CME means when they say that this complex will “enhance” the Hill neighborhood. Go Centaurs!!!”

From Jeff Gordon’s comment below: “…Woodstock Academy revised the proposed athletic field expansion plans and did not include tennis courts or anything else in the western area near the homes on Woodstock Hill (where the red storage barn is located). That is why last night, PZC (and many people from the public in attendance) didn’t revisit that area. Nevertheless, this second site walk covered a lot of area over a long time before we started to lose day light. And, we didn’t lose anyone in the woods or have any injuries!” Jeff Gordon