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Census 2010 assistance available

2010-03-08T21:59:18+00:00

We just got a note about our coming census form, which reminds me of a message Mike Lane passed on from the county about help for filling out census forms. The key bits close to Dryden include:

When people fill out the census form, they 're helping to make sure that Tompkins County receives its fair share of federal and state dollars.

Accurate data reflecting changes in our communities are crucial in apportioning seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and deciding how more than $400 billion per year is allocated around the country for projects like new hospitals and schools. Human service dollars are distributed based on population size, as are funds for highways and transportation systems such as TCAT.

Starting March 19th... Tompkins County has 6 Questionnaire Assistance Centers (QAC). These walk-in centers will be available for those who have questions about completing the census form, need language assistance, or did not receive the questionnaire. The centers will have language guides in 59 languages. Staffed locations and hours are listed below.

Village of Dryden
16 South Street
Dryden, NY 13053
T,Th: 4pm-7pm

Tompkins Cortland Community College
170 North Street
Dryden, NY 13053
M-W: 11am-1pm
Th: 11am - 2pm

Tompkins County Library
101 East Green St
Ithaca, NY 14850
M,T,W,Sat: 10am-1pm
Sun: 1pm-4pm

I was happy to get the long form in 2000.

Making the most of the iPad life preserver

2010-03-05T19:25:00+00:00

I was very happy to hear less fear at last week's TOC conference than I've heard at previous shows. Publishers, while still concerned about their futures, seem to be adjusting...

Arcuri now a 'No' on healthcare?

2010-03-03T17:46:36+00:00

Update: This sounds a bit more uncertain.

Congressman Mike Arcuri won't be supporting healthcare reform in this round of votes:

U.S. Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-Utica, said Tuesday he would vote against the Senate version of the health care bill that could soon go before the House of Representatives for approval.

Why? Arcuri doesn't like the "mega bill" approach, the prospect of reconciliation, and some differences in the Senate bill.

As his spokesman put it, "The congressman is very careful about evaluating each bill based on its own merits."

Outside of Tompkins County, that may possibly help his re-election bid this fall. Inside of Tompkins County, well, it won't.

I feel bad for Arcuri's Cortland Field Representative, Bob Messinger, who will be having office hours at Lansing Town Hall next Wednesday, March 10th, from 4:00pm to 6:00pm.

(Via Talking Points Memo, and cross-posted at The Albany Project.)

Arcuri now a 'no' on Healthcare?

2010-03-03T16:51:06+00:00

Well, I guess Roatti won't likely be donating to Mike Arcuri (in addition to Eric Massa) this cycle either:

U.S. Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-Utica, said Tuesday he would vote against the Senate version of the health care bill that could soon go before the House of Representatives for approval.

Why? Arcuri doesn't like the "mega bill" approach, the prospect of reconciliation, and some differences in the Senate bill.

As his spokesman put it, "The congressman is very careful about evaluating each bill based on its own merits."

Outside of Tompkins County, that may possibly help his re-election bid this fall. Inside of Tompkins County, well, it won't.

(Via Talking Points Memo.)

Continuous publishing through Live Editions

2010-03-01T17:52:00+00:00

One of the biggest challenges of technical publishing is that sinking feeling you get a few moments, days, weeks, or months after you first see a book in print: it's...

Oh.

2010-02-26T12:31:30+00:00

Eilonwy cat marvels at snow deeper than she is.

Dark budget days for Dryden schools

2010-02-24T14:59:06+00:00

Dryden schools have had difficult budget conversations before, but this year's conversation looks, well, extremely dark. Even if it gets better than "could lay off as many as 17 employees, including 10 teachers, to stay solvent," I don't think it going to get better enough to be cheerful. Elsewhere, Kathy Zahler reports a lot of silence at the meeting, another difficult sign. This question is especially hard to answer:

Given the "last hired, first fired" policy of most school contracts, it's hard to imagine why Cortland State still has any students in its teaching degree programs. What hope do those young people have of getting--and retaining--a job?

In more cheerful news, Cathy Wakeman reports on the Dryden Music Boosters' upcoming jazz and dessert night, a parenting skills class, a report back from Haiti and a concert that raised $700 of relief aid, plus a women's retreat by the Dryden Presbyterian Church.

And I think I'm going to try to go out as little as possible for the next few days - wind and snow are on their way. Sounds like it might even happen!

Hydrofracking chemicals discussion Tuesday night at TC3

2010-02-23T05:32:30+00:00

If you can get to TC3 tomorrow night for a 6:30pm-8:30pm hydrofracking chemicals discussion, please do, or consider watching the live stream or replays the Ithaca Journal website will be hosting.

Also in the Journal, sentencings for Dryden burglaries and a fake Collegetown holdup, as well as a 3.4% drop in sales taxes for the county. But we're (relatively speaking) healthy.

In other development news

2010-02-20T20:28:01+00:00

Builder Bruno Schickel doesn't like the zoning proposal the Town is considering. Did he miss the last twenty years or so of conversation that led to the 2005 Comprehensive Plan? These aren't new issues, and the zoning draft actually softens some of what the plan suggested.

He also doesn't seem to have read it very carefully. I'm not happy that the draft bans non-commercial workshops in the Rural Residential zone, but I think that's fixable without pretending that everyone across the town will need a special permit to set up a home workshop. And larger shops probably do actually rate a conversation about whether they belong in the neighborhood. (I'd like to build one eventually, so I'm perhaps excessively interested in this issue.)

Oh well - I'm sure we'll hear a lot more of this to come. Zoning's been in Dryden a long time, but that doesn't mean everyone's come to love it. I was suprised last fall that it wasn't a major part of the campaign conversation. I do agree with Schickel about one thing, though:

The Town of Dryden is holding an informational meeting on the proposed zoning draft at 7 p.m. on March 22 at the Varna Community Center. Dryden residents who care deeply about their hometown's future should educate themselves on this important matter and make their voices heard.

You can find the key documents here.

Where would Varna II go?

2010-02-20T15:37:20+00:00

I've had a few people ask me where exactly these 260 units would go, so I pulled out some aerial photos from April 2005 that show the site. I wasn't so good with the camera that I got the entire site in one shot, but the two shots I did get show slightly different aspects of the project.

I've drawn the rough outlines of the project on the photos. They aren't precise, but so far as I can tell from the project map, they're reasonably close.

The first shows the project in relation to the Route 366-Mount Pleasant-Freese Road intersection. You can see Observatory Circle, another Lucente project, to the left, and 'downtown Varna' in the lower right.

Varna II project in relation to Route 366, Mount Pleasant, and Freese Roads (2005 photo).

The second photo shows where the project will connect to Route 366, and the demolitions planned for that.

Proposed Varna II project connections to Route 366, and demolitions (2005 photo).

You can see much larger versions of both photos by clicking on them. There's a lot going on, and the photos are just complicated enough that it's worth a closer look.

Is 260 units legal?

2010-02-19T18:55:12+00:00

I was reviewing the old Varna II environmental impact statement, created by Lucente Development for an earlier iteration of this project in 2000. I was a little startled to find, on page 22 of Volume I, this statement:

"[Section 803.5 of Town of Dryden Zoning law states that...]... In no case shall density exceed 10 units per 30,000 square feet."
Given these criteria, the allowable number of units was calculated as follows -

[(12.317ac x 43,560 sq. ft) / 30,000 sq. ft ] x 10 units = 178.8 units.

I stopped by Town Hall for a fresh packet of current zoning material, and it looks like Section 803.5 is still active. It's possible that his additional purchases of houses in Varna have increased the total acreage to some extent (to 16.25 acres?) - but they were clearly talking about 16 units per acre last night, and the formula above gives 14.52 units as a maximum legal limit per acre.

All I can figure, though I do plan to read the whole zoning packet again to see if I'm missing something, is that Lucente decided to start with a higher number to increase his chances of getting to a high number through negotiation. It may not matter that 260 units was never legal in the first place - it just gives him more ammunition for saying that any reduction is too dramatic.

New Varna II much denser than earlier proposal

2010-02-19T12:34:33+00:00

Ten years ago, Varna residents fought hard against a 170-unit proposal. Last night, Stephen Lucente unveiled a a 260-unit proposal for the same area, apparently indifferent to the work of the project's neighbors and other Town residents that had gone into the Comprehensive Plan and the draft zoning law.

The 170-unit version took up much less of the parcel, though was still large and looming. This old proposed map (click on it for a larger and more readable version) shows large buildings but still some open space.

Proposed 170-unit development in Varna (1999).

The new map is much denser, especially in the areas further down the hill. (Unfortunately, I didn't bring my real camera, and these are cell phone pictures. Hopefully you get the idea.)

Proposed 260-unit development in Varna (2010) - residences.

Proposed 260-unit development in Varna (2010) - intersections with 366, commercial area.

All I can figure is that Lucente hopes to negotiate his way back to 170, but wow - this is not a good way to make your neighbors think you're even interested in what they think.

260 units over Varna?

2010-02-19T02:35:21+00:00

Developer Stephen Lucente and his engineer Lawrence Fabbroni came to the Dryden Planning Board to have an initial conversation about their proposal for building a new development on the southern hillside above Varna along Route 366, running behind the existing houses from Mount Pleasant Road to just east of the Varna Community Center. It wasn't a formal application process, though they did have sketches to show and a rough description of what they were thinking about. I pretty much fell over, though, when they said 260 units, 16 units per acre.

Lucente had made a similar proposal about a decade ago, also called Varna II. Resistance to that project led to some very deliberate language in the Town Comprehensive Plan about gradual development and limiting development in the hamlets to smaller projects - around 20 units. That language has also made its way into the new drafts of the zoning law, and all I can figure is that Lucente hopes to slip this project through before the new zoning takes effect.

Yes, the location has access to water, sewer, and transit, and is along the likely railroad bed trail. And yes, they're working on stormwater issues. They hope to sell townhouse units to homeowners (for $150K to $200K) rather than rent them, and the plan also includes a possible 30,000 square feet of commercial space. They estimate ten years to complete the project, likely in three phases.

It's clear, however, that this is not really gradual densification. It's uncertain that the existing sewer system could carry the new load, though Fabbroni did suggest they would consider expanding it if necessary. It's on a slope steep enough to need a 25' retaining wall, in an odd location a ways from the road. And even apart from the question of density itself, the traffic impact of cars coming onto and off of Route 366 during the times that road is busiest raises questions in an area which was just handed a lower speed limit because of traffic dangers.

I'll have a lot more on this over time, as I have a chance to digest what was said and to look over the records from the old Varna II proposal. Right now, though, I'm pretty much hoping that this is Lucente's initial offer, presenting something ridiculous he knows will be bargained down. Otherwise, Varna's facing a drastic transformation it's already made clear it doesn't want, or yet another long fight.

A Live Edition for Learning Rails

2010-02-17T20:30:00+00:00

One of the best things about Rails is that it's under constant development. With the Live Edition of Learning Rails, the book will be able to track that progress and give beginners better access to the latest and greatest Rails has to offer.

170 years of tech book publishing, demonstrated

2010-02-16T13:56:00+00:00

Some of the most fascinating technical writing I've encountered recently was written 170 years ago. How is that possible? And just how different was it?

The Widening HTML5 Chasm

2010-02-15T16:54:00+00:00

Recent claims that Adobe is blocking HTML5 are glaringly wrong, reflecting mostly the incompatibilities between the two organizations,the W3C and WHATWG, sharing the process.

New York Times: Nope, not us

2010-02-15T13:24:20+00:00

As the rumors of a bombshell story move beyond their shelf-life, the New York Times Public Editor writes a bit on the supposed Paterson story and last weekend's wildfire:

The furor erupted as Paterson, a Democrat, is preparing for a difficult election fight and facing calls from within his own party to step aside for fear he cannot win. It is a normal time for a paper like The Times to prepare an in-depth examination of his nearly two-year tenure, and Times reporters have been interviewing sources about him...

I think The Times and Paterson were caught in a terrible spot, but I think the paper is right to maintain its silence until ready to speak with an article on its own pages. It could have denied the Paterson rumors. But what if the next time it really was looking into a scandal involving a public figure? Silence then would speak volumes. The demands for comment on work in progress could be limitless.

I'll be slower to jump next time, I hope.

State Forest futures

2010-02-08T22:21:43+00:00

This Thursday, February 11th, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation will be having a meeting on the futures of the Hammond Hill and Yellow Barn State Forests in the Forum room at Tompkins-Cortland Community College. The room will open at 6:30pm and DEC staff will give a brief presentation about the unit management planning process at 7:00pm.

The easiest place to see the full press release is here, including an extra conversation between Mike Ludgate and the DEC about how gas drilling might be involved. A few key pieces I've already learned from the release and conversation:

These two state forests total more than 5,000 acres.
The area between the two forests is Valley Head Moraine, which splits the St.Lawrence watershed (via Cayuga Lake) from the Susquehanna watershed.
"At this point in time, Hammond Hill and Yellow Barn State Forests have not been nominated for oil and gas exploration or drilling, which is the first step in the lease process."
For these forests, "New York State shares the mineral rights with the federal government."

There's also a link to another recently completed plan to get a sense of what they look like.

Etna Chocolate Festival, Valentine's dance today

2010-02-06T10:14:03+00:00

The tastiest event of the year, the Etna Chocolate Festival, will be this morning from 10:00am to noon at Houtz Hall, on Lower Creek Road in Etna.

Tonight from 7:00pm to 11:00pm, there will be a Valentine's Day dance for adults benefiting the Dryden Senior All Night Extravaganza June 25th.

Stormwater sorted, well delayed, SPCA overloaded

2010-02-06T09:57:30+00:00

I'm not sure why the state didn't notice a stream at the location of a gas well for which it issued a permit, but Dryden seems to have presented a case in how local officials can find genuine issues the DEC doesn't. This had come up at the January Town Board meeting, and I'm glad to see they got a positive response from the drilling company - who I suspect is aware that their popularity in the area is limited.

The future of the well isn't clear either, despite the permit having been issued by the state:

"There's a question of whether that well will even be drilled," said Jim Oursland, Anschutz's vice president of engineering. "The Cook well is one that we proposed, but we don't have any immediate plans within the next six months of actually drilling that well."

I'm very glad that the Town pursued this, especially given the state's attempts to minimize local control over everything related to gas drilling. State pre-emption of local regulation has really bothered since I first heard about gas drilling, and this seems like a step forward on that. We'll see what happens with the actual well, which isn't a Marcellus Shale well, so moved ahead under older rules.

In very different news, the SPCA is struggling after a seizure of 100 animals and hopes residents will come in and adopt them soon. Temple Grandin, an autistic professor and advocate for humane livestock handling, will be speaking at TC3 on February 23rd.

Again?

2010-02-05T22:10:33+00:00

I've been holding off on writing about this, because it seems to come drip by drip. There are more of them appearing lately, though - Liz Benjamin, NGD, and now Capitol Confidential. The New York Times seems to be the journalistic epicenter of the story - we'll see what happens, I guess.

Destiny may not always be what it seems. If this turns out to be real, I fear for New York State going forward.

Zoning meeting extremely busy

2010-01-28T02:34:43+00:00

I'm not sure what the official count was, but I'm pretty certain over 100 Dryden residents came to Town Hall last night for the opening special meeting on the new zoning law. There wasn't enough parking, even. It was a mix of people broadly supportive and openly dismissive, with a lot of people checking the maps to see where their property was and what might change.

After a presentation, the meeting broke up, with Environmental Planner Dan Kwasnowski talking to builders, architects, and contractors in one room while three listening stations (and a lot of Town, Planning, Conservation, and Zoning Appeals board members) collected comments. It was actually pretty overwhelming, and I think I'll submit my comments in writing instead. There were questions at the end, but a relatively few people spoke.

They're planning another meeting in March in Varna, and I don't think this is going to leap ahead. I suspect a lot of people who weren't that attentive when the Comprehensive Plan passed are going to be a lot more awake, now that binding zoning is in the works.

Update: Here's the Ithaca Journal story on the meeting.

Village of Dryden trustee races uncontested

2010-01-28T02:25:10+00:00

Last night, the Dryden Democrats gathered in Dryden's Village Hall to select two candidates to run for the two two-year Village Trustee positions that are up for election this March. Unfortunately, we didn't have any candidates this year, and for the first time in a long long time, there will be no Democratic line on the ballot.

The Republicans will be running incumbent Trustees Charlie Becker and Don Norman, who they selected at their caucus, also held last night.

While it's still possible for candidates to get on the ballot by petitioning for an independent line through February 9th, it seems quite likely that Village of Dryden elections will be quiet this spring.

Zoning meeting Tuesday night

2010-01-25T16:22:45+00:00

If you're interested in the future of the Town of Dryden, this is a meeting well worth attending:

A Public Workshop will be held on January 26, 2010 at 7 PM at Town Hall (snow date the 27th) on the Draft Zoning Revisions. The draft documents can be viewed here.

Definitely take a look if you have a chance. It will implement the Comprehensive Plan, but the details are always important! I'm worried about the implications of "Artist Studio / Craft Workshop" and how that differs from home occupations, as well as the mysteriously restrictive zoning on the most attractive parcel for development in all of Dryden. (Yes, that was in the Comprehensive Plan too, but I'd call that a mistake.)

Town Board meeting notes - drilling, speed

2010-01-16T18:53:11+00:00

I finally got back to a Town Board meeting Wednesday night. Most of it was reasonably routine, but there were a few pieces that stood out:

A number of people were there about gas drilling. Some of it was about the Trenton-Black River well off Irish Settlement Road that had received a permit from the DEC, and some of it was about ways to challenge the DEC on their control over the gas drilling permit process. This is clearly an issue that's only getting started.
On a related note, Zoning Officer Henry Slater discussed correspondence with the DEC over that permit. He'd found a number of errors, notably relating to streams in the vicinity, and pointed out a basic problem in having the state administer all of this from an office in Avon: "I think that if we had been considered an interested agency... these could have been considered in the declaration."
The area in Varna that will be getting a 30mph speed limit seems to be smaller than first suggested. I'd thought it would be around two miles, but it's only about 0.6 miles, in the "heart of downtown Varna".

Making the most of the snow

2010-01-11T17:18:28+00:00

The Ithaca Journal reports that Hammond Hill was busy Saturday, as the Cayuga Nordic Ski Club held its 25th annual 10K ski race for club members, as well as a 5K race and a children's race.

The night before, the news was darker. Police arrested a Freeville man in Groton "suspected of shooting and wounding a South Carolina convenience store clerk in December."

There's also a broad article on Marcellus Shale gas drilling in Pennsylvania and its future in New York.

Ford "won't be bullied"

2010-01-08T22:19:56+00:00

The New York Times is running a story that tries to cast Harold Ford as an underdog, some kind of opponent to the party leadership in New York State.

Now, perhaps it's possible that Ford didn't meet much of the New York State party leadership while he was head of the DLC, and it doesn't sound like he exactly sought political activity since moving to New York City. So maybe he's worried that these folks haven't heard of him.

I've criticized the Gillibrand campaign repeatedly for casting aspersions on and pushing out primary opponents before, but in this case I just have to wonder: what is Harold Ford thinking?

I appreciate the difficulties Southern Democrats face and recognize that they have to hold more conservative positions to represent their districts. But to move north after making those positions clear, and trying to inflict them on the rest of the party as Chairman of the DLC? Seriously?

Has he looked around at the kinds of folks who vote in statewide New York Democratic primaries at all? They aren't rabid DLC supporters.

Go ahead, primary Gillibrand. Get the conversation going. Don't feel bullied. Just bring whatever you have for this "marquee challenge." Right.

Natural gas fire in water-well drilling

2010-01-08T13:14:11+00:00

No, this has nothing to do with Marcellus Shale gas exploration - it's just an unfortunate problem that's been a risk of water drilling here for a while. Etna, Freeville, and Dryden firefighters responded to a fire at a water-well drill that encountered a natural gas pocket on its way down.

County Legislator Martha Robertson sought dismissal of her driving on a suspended license charge in City of Ithaca court Wednesday.

Dryden legislator becomes Chair

2010-01-06T23:02:47+00:00

The County Legislature elected Martha Robertson as its Chair last night by a 13-2 vote. The Journal doesn't report much about her plans, but what they do say is:

"I'm excited about the challenges and eager to really build a strong team," Robertson added.

It's a tough year to become Chair - the county's facing some serious budget challenges.

A sweeping proposal emerges

2010-01-05T15:01:04+00:00

There seems to be a rule in Albany that the loudest proponents of reform are those with the least effective power. In a new twist, though, that position seems currently held by Governor Paterson, who is now proposing a more thorough reform package than I've heard from anyone else so far:

While bills to create public financing have passed the Assembly many times, the expanded ethics oversight and term limits are expected to be a difficult sell in both houses of the Legislature, which has been slow to consider tougher ethics laws...
The legislation would effectively dismantle Albany's existing campaign finance system, in which corporations and labor unions deposit millions of dollars into central housekeeping accounts controlled by party leaders, who then use that money to finance individual candidates, making rank-and-file lawmakers dependent on the leaders.
Perhaps most controversially, Mr. Paterson will propose limiting statewide officials - the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and comptroller - to two four-year terms each, while members of the Legislature would be permitted six two-year terms. Such a change would require an amendment to the State Constitution.
Mr. Paterson is also including in his package a proposal he made last year to centralize ethics enforcement... The new commission would also have the legal authority to refer criminal and civil cases to the attorney general.

Why all this? Why now, after it seemed Paterson had moved such things to the back burner?

Mr. Paterson is pushing for the overhaul at a time when his efforts to guide New York through its worst fiscal crisis in generations have been thwarted by a powerful and well-financed alliance of state lawmakers, public employee unions and health care interests.

I'd be happy to see these proposals pass, even though I have serious doubts about term limits. I find the absence of proposals for better financial disclosure (or simply a full-time legislature, no moonlighting allowed) to be strange, though supposedly something's coming on that front.

Will it make a difference, even an incremental difference? It's hard to say. I suspect something will come out of it, but something seriously watered down. Paterson has more issues than just reform to deal with, and with everything likely in the same negotiating pot... well...

Good luck, Governor Paterson! (I haven't said that very often lately, but mean it here.)

Antiwar opponent for Arcuri?

2010-01-03T01:17:08+00:00

It looks like Congressman Mike Arcuri may have an antiwar opponent. The surprise in that, though, is that Logan Bell would run as a Republican, although he's apparently a Constitution Party member. (Update: More here.) He's not merely against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Bell called for bringing all American troops home, including from countries with which the United States is not at war, to cutting spending and taxes as the first step to economic recovery and stemming inflation.
He said is he troubled with the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, which "have nothing to do with national security," and are "undeclared and hopelessly undefined." Terrorism aimed at the United States, he said, is a direct result of decades of meddling in other country's affairs, and he believes the best way to secure American safety and "stop inciting hate" is to withdraw military personnel from all foreign countries.

The Journal says that Bell will seek the Republican nomination, but perhaps he's running as a Conservative as well, as they speak with Mike Sylvia about third-party candidacies. Sylvia, a Dryden resident (and occasional commenter here), ran as a Libertarian four years ago, and had this to say:

Mike Sylvia, 2006 Libertarian candidate for the 24th district, said the size of the district makes it especially difficult for third-party candidates to make an impact.
"Without money and support from the mainstream parties, we're just excluded," Sylvia said.
Sylvia said before Bell's speech that he has not decided definitely to support Bell, but "I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say."

Cathy Wakeman has a piece on a Dryden native's pursuit of a jump-rope world record as a fundraiser for Smile Train.

The Journal also has a broad look ahead at the county's prospects for 2010, and at the state level, absentee ballot signature rules will make a little more sense, among other things.

That long-ago first project

2010-01-02T00:22:29+00:00

I must have built this in 1981 or 1982, in sixth grade. It's getting close to 30 years old, and still works, so long as my mother can find replacement cash register rolls.

Sixth-grade note-paper wheel.

I'm not sure what the holes above the crossbar were for. They might just be a nicely-integrated mistake. It's pretty much a shaped, nailed, glued, and sanded object. One side did break along the grain when it fell, but that just adds to the patina, right?

My seventh grade project, a strange mostly useless box built out of random maple scrap, has I think disappeared. It was pretty much only good for holding dice, which you could shake out of the gap between the handle and the main box. Oh well.

The Basement

2010-01-02T00:16:23+00:00

My tools have lived in the basement as long as I've lived here, though I've occasionally set up a temporary collection upstairs while installing flooring or doing other work.

The house is about 27' x 30', and the basement is about that size, with two large posts and a staircase interrupting the space. There's also a trench along the back and side of the foundation wall, which provided some drainage to water coming through the wall, and which makes useless about a foot of space in from the wall. At one point there were shelves and cabinets back there, but I ripped them out earlier this year before we had major drainage and repair work done.

That repair work is really what got me back into woodworking. First, it forced me to remove everything I could from the back part of the basement, which meant reorganizing and figuring out what I had back there. Second, it solved a major problem that had always caused trouble: the serious dampness of the basement. I've had two floods down there, and there was always water coming through the trench and up through the concrete. It had a major effect on the wood I worked with and the tools I used, and never for the better. Now, though, it's much drier, a much better place to work.

When I started, I just used one corner of the basement, but I've steadily expanded to include most of it, except the furnace, water heater, and laundry areas. There's a lot of reorganization yet to come, but I don't think I can complain about my space much any more. True, the ceiling is low, and the floor tilted, and I need to work on lighting, but having a garage door (if a small one) coming in is helpful, and it's really a lot of space.

You can get a sense of how the basement used to look at this old shop tour. Most of the mess shown there has been tamed, or at least stuffed into labeled plastic boxes. I'll have more on that soon.

My comment on the gas drilling dSGEIS

2009-12-31T21:07:57+00:00

It's the last minute, yes, but you can still submit comments today on the Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement On The Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Regulatory Program, also known as the Hydrofracking dSGEIS.

Here's what I sent.

Reading the Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement On The Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Regulatory Program has been a disappointing experience. While I recognize that New York State is taking a more active regulatory role than many states, the proposals in the dSGEIS suggest that the state isn't especially worried about hydrofracking.
After 809 pages, I still don't see a clear explanation of how wastewater from the process will be regulated. I don't see strong mechanisms for compensating property owners whose homes, farms, and businesses may be damaged by a process they didn't agree to.
The clearest indication of this document's failure to appropriately address risks is its handling of the New York City watershed. New York City and New York State have invested decades of effort to prevent even minor threats to that watershed, as the rules for steam cleaning boats in the reservoirs make perhaps absurdly clear. The writers of the dSGEIS, however, seem to think the risk to billions of dollars in infrastructure not to mention the drinking water of millions of people is too small to worry about. While I live Upstate, the risk calculations here make me wonder whether any part of this document is to be trusted.
I also find it strange that after massive effort over the past few years to make local municipalities regulate stormwater, the dSGEIS reserves jurisdiction over the stormwater impact of drilling sites to the state. I've not been impressed by the DEC's general lack of interest in local input regarding activities permitted under the 1992 GEIS - see http://livingindryden.org/2009/12/gas_drilling_permit_letter.html. This document seems intent on perpetuating the strange system in which muncipalities can regulate garden sheds but not natural gas drilling pads.
There are many more things wrong with this document, but given that thousands of people, governments, and organizations, are already commenting, I suspect that keeping it brief will improve my chances of being heard.
Thank you very much,
Simon St.Laurent
Town of Dryden

Broadband coming to area slowly

2009-12-24T14:56:57+00:00

The Ithaca Journal has an article on hopes for a major step up in broadband delivery to the area. It notes that (Dryden resident) Chuck Bartosch, of Clarity Connect, has requested a stimulus grant for much larger-scale work than the work in the earlier grant he got for Dryden, on which I understand work is continuing, though also slowly.

There's also political news on the Marcellus shale front: New York City isn't very impressed with having it in their watershed.

Driving violation leads to arrest

2009-12-21T17:14:05+00:00

I didn't entirely understand how things were supposed to work in 2001 when I got a speeding ticket in Horseheads, but at least mailing in the fine listed on the ticket seemed to work. Losing a ticket and then trying to figure out what to do doesn't seem to have worked out so well for my county legislator, however:

Officers charged Robertson with third-degree aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle on Tuesday evening, Ithaca Police Department officials said. Officers stopped her on Maple Avenue around 10:20 p.m. because she had a tail light out, discovered her license was suspended for failure to answer a summons in Duanesburg and took her into custody.

I guess we'll find out January 6th, when Martha Robertson appears in Ithaca City Court, how this turns out, but in the meantime her critics are having a field day on the Journal's comment section.

There was also a nice piece on winter shares from Community-Supported Agriculture. We pick up our share at Ludgate Farms, but I wish more of this activity was in the Town of Dryden. It seems mostly to be to our west, on the other side of Cayuga Lake.

Donations

2009-12-18T19:35:00+00:00

(An annual story...)

People often seem to make their donations at the end of the year, both for holiday and tax reasons. This is a list of organizations in Dryden that could take donations. I believe, though I'm not entirely certain, that these are non-profit organizations, and therefore tax-exempt, but I could be wrong. Check with the organization if you have a question about that.

I've posted a list of churches earlier, and I'm sure they'd all happily accept donations, with the exception of Ellis Hollow Community Church, which has closed.

Other possible Dryden organizations for donations include:

Bethel Grove Community Center
1825 Slaterville Road
Ithaca, NY 14850
Dryden Community Center Cafe
P.O. 801
Dryden, NY 13053
website
Dryden Go-Green Team
c/o Dryden Elementary School (checks payable to Dryden Elementary School)
P.O. Box 88
Dryden, NY 13053
Dryden Kitchen Cupboard
Tompkins County Food Pantry
800 Enfield Falls Road
Newfield, NY 14867
website
Dryden Music Boosters c/o Allison Pelletier
155 Creamery Road
Richford, NY 13835
Dryden Town Historical Society
36 West Main Street
P.O. Box 69
Dryden, NY 13053
website
Dryden Veterans Memorial Home
2272 Dryden Road
Dryden, NY 13053
Dryden Youth Opportunity Fund
Make checks out to Community Foundation of Tompkins County/DYOF
DYOF
P.O Box 1076
Dryden, NY 13053
website
Ellis Hollow Community Center
111 Genung Road
Ithaca, NY 14850
website
Etna Community Center
P.O. Box 425
Etna, NY 13062
Freeville Food Pantry
Freeville United Methodist Church
PO Box 229
Freeville, NY 13068
Neptune Hose Company & Dryden Ambulance
26 North Street
Dryden, NY 13053
website
Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts
P.O. Box 6607
Ithaca, NY 14850
website
Southworth Library Association
P.O. Box 45
Dryden, NY 13053
website
Tompkins County SPCA
1640 Hanshaw Road
Ithaca, NY 14850
website
Varna Community Association
PO Box 4771
Ithaca, NY 14852-4771
website
Varna Volunteer Fire Company, Inc.
14 Turkey Hill Road
Ithaca, NY 14850
website
W.B. Strong Fire Company
21 Union Street
PO Box 129
Freeville, NY 13068
Willow Glen Cemetery Association
P.O. Box 299
Dryden, NY 13053-0299

If you have additions or corrections, please let me know in the comments. I'm guessing I missed a few.(And thanks to Kathy Zahler for helping me add to the list!)

Slow down in Varna

2009-12-17T13:25:12+00:00

I've not yet seen signs go up, but I've heard that the New York State Department of Transportation is giving the residents of Varna a brake - lowering the speed limit from 40 miles per hour to 30 miles per hour between Game Farm Road and the railroad bridge.

I think that's a distance of about two miles, which means it will cost motorists an extra minute while driving through a densely populated area with lots of driveways which currently has a steady stream of accidents. Seems like a good idea to me!

Gas drilling permit, letter

2009-12-14T17:27:42+00:00

I wrote last week about a propspective gas well drilling into the Trenton-Black River formation in Dryden. As I'd noted then, Town Board member Jason Leifer wrote the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and here's the letter he got back:

From: "Linda Collart"
Date: December 11, 2009 4:13:57 PM EST
To: "Jason Leifer"
Cc: "Town of Dryden Supervisor", "Jack Dahl", "Jodi Rospendowski"
Subject: Re: Notice of SEQR Negative Declaration, Proposed Gas Well Drilling, Town of Dryden, Tompkins County

Mr. Leifer, we received your December 7, 2009 letter requesting additional information regarding the negative declaration issued for disturbance of more than 2.5 acres of land in Tompkins County Agricultural District #01 associated with the proposed Anschutz Exploration Corporation Cook #1 gas well. Please be advised that the disturbance of greater than 2.5 acres in an agricultural district is the only issue that this negative declaration applies to since SEQRA review for individual gas wells has been completed through the "Generic Environmental Impact Statement on the Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Regulatory Program" (GEIS) finalized in 1992. The following is a link on our website where a copy of this document may be accessed: http://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/45912.html. In accordance with the GEIS, DEC has determined that drilling oil and gas wells will have no significant impact on the environment if operations conducted are consistent with Department regulations and the recommendations in the GEIS. Consistent with the GEIS, conditions will be added to our permit to address disturbance in an agricultural district. The reasons supporting the Department's determination of significance are provided in detail within the negative declaration itself under the heading "Reasons Supporting This Determination".
The Department has no regulatory requirement to contact local governments when a permit application has been received. The only noticing requirement to local governments regarding the drilling of a gas well would be in accordance with ECL Article 23, Title 3 (Section 23-0305.13) that requires the operator to notify the local government by certified mail prior to the commencement of drilling operations. When we receive an application for a permit to drill a gas well, within a day or two it is posted in the online Oil & Gas Searchable Database at: http://www.dec.ny.gov/cfmx/extapps/GasOil/ . Local governments may track applications that we have received through this database and request information regarding the application from my office.
There are no regulatory requirements for a gas well operator to conduct water well sampling on adjacent properties. Wter well testing would be up to the operator and what has been negotiated in lease agreements with individual mineral rights owners. The Department has no regulatory jurisdiction regarding the terms and conditions of private lease agreements.
Mineral Resources will request a letter from Anschutz confirming that they will not be conducting hydrofracturing operations on this well. If they do propose a hydrofrac, information regarding the frac will be required to be submitted so it can be determined if the completion work proposed is consistent with the GEIS. Typically, companies do not hydrofracture a Trenton/Black River well.
Permit application documents are attached for your information. The permit for this well has not been issued. You may keep track of the permit status on our Mineral Resources online Searchable Database using the link mentioned above. There will be no hearings associated with this permit application and/or issuance. A compulsory integration hearing will be scheduled after permit issuance and uncontrolled (not leased) mineral owners within the spacing unit established for this well will be notified to make an election regarding how they want to participate in the well 30 days prior to the hearing. The compulsory integration hearing date will be provided in the Searchable Database. There are no other DEC scheduled hearings associated with this permit application and/or issuance.
Please feel free to contact me to discuss at (585) 226-5376.
Linda Collart
Regional Mineral Resources Supervisor

It's a polite letter, but it also highlights just how weirdly distant the state is from local government on these issues, and how little care they take in evaluating applications. The only issue they evaluated was the disturbance of more than 2.5 acres in an agricultural district. The rest they automatically assume will be fine, per their 1992 Generic Environmental Impact Statement. They're also not very interested in communication with towns until the operator gets around to letting towns know that drilling is about to start.

I'm also worried that DEC thinks their Searchable Database is a solution, when I don't see any reference to this application in their 90-day permit look-back. It jumps from Tioga County to Wayne County. That could be the wrong place to look - but it's not at all clear what would be the right place to look.

I'm glad that DEC replied promptly, but I don't think this letter will exactly set anyone concerned about the longer-term potential impact of gas drilling on our area at ease.

They also sent the application (4.7MB PDF) and some supporting maps (111KB PDF).

When to buy Craftsman tools

2009-12-14T01:26:07+00:00

I know the answer for a lot of folks is "never".

But mixed in with the rest of my tools, I have a lot of stuff I bought at Sears. Not only that, I know I'll buy at Sears again. I even did, um, last week.

Yes, it's true that a lot of Craftsman tools, especially power tools, have weird gimmicks in place of solid foundations. The people choosing which tools to sell apparently believe that weird gimmicks will sell more tools than quality. For a certain audience, they're right - occasional users, folks just getting into using these tools, and people who learn about tools primarily from advertising. For other audiences, a few failures and it's never again, or never even the first time.

The first few Craftsman tools I bought - largely sanders - felt like a big step up from the Black & Decker stuff I'd used for model railroading. (Okay, some of them were actually rebranded B&D. But at least it was better stuff than I'd bought before.) They took abuse well, starting out on floor refinishing and similar projects. All of them are still going strong. I expect I'll keep my 3x21 belt sander, actually a rebranded Ryobi, for a long time to come. I recently gave away a pair of orbital Craftsman sanders, ten years old, but still working well, because I'd bought other better sanders that could do more things.

I've been less delighted with the Craftsman Industrial dovetail jig, though I've made it work a few times and have concluded that it's at least worth the battle to make it work. I'll have more on that here eventually. The one Craftsman router I own has done okay, though most of what it's dealt with is dovetails - not very demanding work. I had a Craftman tabletop drill press for a short while that did well on some difficult projects, but gave it away when I finally found the drill press I'd been looking for. Generally, Craftsman's manuals have been as bad as any I've seen, though bad manuals seem to be almost a requirement for sellers of tools.

The Craftsman machine tools and toolboxes I've bought have all been fine. A good ratchet set is a pretty normal thing these days, and the wrenches - except for one crazy strap wrench - have all been fine. Pliers, screwdrivers, retaining ring pliers, all the tools I use to maintain my power tools, have all been great. I'll happily buy those again. The Craftsman shop vac I have is loud and obnoxious and lies about its horsepower, but is what I expected of a vacuum at that price. With the Dust Deputy and a new filter, it even has great suction. So that's okay.

In tools I actually apply to wood, though... hmmm. I think I'll mostly buy Craftsman for single-purpose tools I don't plan to use very often. They work, but they usually feel strange. Vibrating, or flimsy, or loud in all the wrong ways. There's usually an obvious weakpoint that makes me cringe, like the collet in that router (a 315.275000) router which screws into the bottom of the shaft. The depth adjustment seems to work for me so far, but not for other people, who've seen the bit drop during a cut. I don't think cutting dovetails will stress it out - I hope not.

The belt sander, though, has turned out well so far.

If I had it to do over again...

2009-12-10T17:11:59+00:00

Last night, I was flipping through one of the first woodworking books I'd bought, Woodworking for the Serious Beginner. It seems to be out of print, and have some mixed reviews, including a one-star review from someone who finds the title offensive because table saws aren't appropriate to apartments.

Nonetheless, I think nearly everything they wrote in 1995 still holds true, and if was starting again without the tools I'd already collected, I'd follow their recommendations for starting up: a simple table saw with a cast-iron top at the center, a router, and a jigsaw, (plus a mix of measuring and hand tools) and then the series of shop-built shop furniture they prescribe.

Instead, I'd already bought a tablesaw that came with accessories duplicating many of their projects, with an aluminum top, and lacking the one key feature they recommend in a tablesaw: minimum need to adjust it.

While I really do like my Ryobi BT3000, and it's done some great work, testing and adjusting cuts every time I've moved the saw or left it sitting for a while isn't a great way to encourage beginners to get to work. For starting out - and I know this doesn't make sense from a long-term business standpoint - it'd be a lot easier to have a saw with a blade fixed at 90° and a fence and miter slot guaranteed to be square to the blade. Eventually, once I'd learned to work with that, then getting into adjustments would be okay...

The only disagreement I really found with them in re-reading the book is about dust-collection, and then only about a detail. The Oneida Dust Deputy, which my wife got me for my birthday, has made the shop vac plus cyclone option much more realistic than it used to be. (And despite its being a finicky creature, I do think a small bandsaw is invaluable, and much safer than a tablesaw for a lot of small operations. It can come later, though.)

Their pacing is right, and I especially like that they recommend building furniture for the shop before building furniture that will go in more public places. It's the right progression, something I'm doing even now.

Governor cheers on Wall Street

2009-12-09T20:08:38+00:00

The Governor's latest tweet reinforces a story Liz Benjamin had posted earlier today:

Iowa, corn. Michigan, autos. Texas, oil. NY, Wall Street...We must stand behind the engine of our state's economy & strengthen it.

In his speech, the Governor pointed to Wall Street's impact on state finances:

In 2007 Wall Street finances provided 22 percent of the revenues in New York, more than one out of every five dollars in wages comes from Wall Street

Before going on to make the more questionable claim that "Wall Street capital is what is able to allow for what is on Main Street - small businesses creating jobs." Don't get me wrong - there have been times in our history when Wall Street was front and center in making our railroads work and building our industry, in ways that benefited small business. It's just, well, kind of been a while since the benefits were clear to folks outside of Wall Street. (Though perhaps Paterson has a case for small businesses in New York that sell directly to these folks.)

It seems lost on the Governor that his predecessor, his sins aside, became Governor of New York precisely because he was willing to challenge Wall Street, not cheer them on. Spitzer argued that the "engine of our state's economy" should be well-tuned, operating within legal limits, and made his case despite that industry having a lot of friends inside and outside of the state.

I didn't have a lot of hope remaining for Paterson, but did he really need to sell out this severely? Is he that short of campaign donations?

Gas drilling coming to Dryden, soon?

2009-12-09T17:38:06+00:00

It's not drilling into the Marcellus Shale, which has been the subject of lots of recent controversy as the state has published a draft Supplemental Generic Impact Statement.

This is apparently drilling into the Trenton-Black River formation, which is much deeper than the Marcellus but which has been in production - mostly to the south and west of here - for a while. Trenton-Black River drilling sounds like it's usually - but not necessarily - less complicated than Marcellus drilling.

The information I have on the drilling site is pretty basic:

The permitted site is "1900 feet south of Ferguson Road and 250 feet west of Irish Settlement Road ."

It would impact a max of 3.4 acres, dropping down to 0.9 over time. The well would be 19,000 feet deep.

Update: Apparently it's 9000 feet of drilling - 7000 vertical, 2000 horizontal.

The state, in what I fear is a sign of things to come, notified the Town after issuing a negative SEQR declaration, which allows drilling to proceed. Town Board member Jason Leifer has written the DEC to ask for a lot more details about the status, the process, and the plans for drilling.

I'll post more as I learn what's up.

Holly Tour this Sunday

2009-12-09T17:00:38+00:00

Two years ago, freezing rain kept me from seeing the Dryden Town Historical Society's Holly Tour of local houses, and I've been grumbling about it ever since. They're doing it again this year, though, with five houses open this Sunday from 1:00pm to 4:00pm:

8 Library Street	Elora at Golden Gables
30 E. Main Street	Wendy Martin and Bob Ellis
122 Lake Road	Ray and Rita Harris
12 E. Main Street	The Dwight House
24 Lewis Street	The Torellos

There will be a reception afterwards at the Dryden Presbyterian Church from 4:00pm to 5:00pm.

The tour costs $10, and because of its nature, they ask that only adults attend. Tickets are available this Saturday at the History House, 36 West Main Street, from 10:00am to 2:00pm, or from Gina Prentiss (844-4691), Betsy Cleveland (844-4289), and Wendy Martin (279-6596).

Eight Square Schoolhouse: Then and Now

2009-12-08T14:18:04+00:00

The History Center in Tompkins County just sent out a message about their annual meeting this Thursday the 10th. They'll be serving refreshments at 5:00pm, having a business meeting from 5:30 to 5:45, and then spending 5:45 to 6:30pm on a "Special Presentation: Carole West and Rhonda Gilmore on The Eight Square Schoolhouse: Then and Now"

It'll be in downtown Ithaca, at 401 E. State/MLK Street, Suite 100. (The Eight Square Schoolhouse itself is on Hanshaw Road in Dryden. I've posted earlier festival pictures.)

The mess

2009-12-04T02:16:31+00:00

The basement was wet, but that wasn't the worst of it. The biggest problem was that I'd never really established where things should go, and as time went on it was hard enough just getting myself in and out of there, never mind cleaning up. Piles of wood and clamps shifted to become traps, shelving grew overloaded and unstable, and every surface became a pile. Well, except for the surface in current use.

What had started as a basement woodshop collapsed into a place where I kept tools, though only the most frequently used were readily accessible. The air compressor (and its coiled 100' hose) could power work upstairs, and I'd carry tools up to do work. Power and air tools at least mostly had cases, making them easily findable, and the machines all had their own bases. My cordless Makita tools and their charger generally stayed accessible. Hand tools and hardware had a much harder time, ending up scattered over time. A few tool boxes kept tools together for particular projects, but somehow I wound up with three awls, because I could never find them.

The one machine I used regularly, even when it required gymnastics to reach it, was the bandsaw. It may be tricky to get perfect right angles with it, but it always felt much safer than the tablesaw and far more flexible. A lot of household repair work involved small parts, which definitely was a better idea on the bandsaw. The drill press and lathe got occasional use as well, but the table saw mostly sat. The miter saw came out a few times for use outdoors, where it made 2x4 construction much easier.

In the cleanup process, I may have overreacted, buying plastic boxes to organize everything I possibly could.

Stacks of plastic boxes.

I'm still not done sorting, especially with the smaller hardware pieces, but it's slowly coming under control. I need to find a place to put all of those boxes, but I can get to all the tools and find almost everything. A few more steps, and I'll have a usable shop!

Then I can figure out which things should stay in boxes, and which need more creative storage.

Hard financial times coming to Dryden schools

2009-12-03T22:46:25+00:00

This doesn't sound good:

The district will likely owe $1.2 million in additional retirement costs, will have $1.3 million less in state aid because federal stimulus aid will have run out, and won't be getting any funding increases from cash-poor New York state.

The county is also gearing up in case funds from New York State are disrupted.

Meanwhile, in the Ithaca schools, long-time superintendent Judith Pastel is retiring.

Classes taken, not taken

2009-11-30T21:56:38+00:00

Unfortunately, I never took shop after seventh grade. I had a good time making a notepaper holder (which I think my mother still uses) in sixth grade, but seventh grade was pretty much a disaster. I was out the day they handed out wood for projects, so wound up stuck making whatever I could out of scrap. I made a thoroughly useless but extremely sanded little box with a handle. Someday I'll have to find it and post a picture.

That experience pretty completely soured me, and guidance counselors didn't recommend shop for college-bound high school students, so I didn't take shop of any kind again in high school. I did work on building sets for the school plays, though, which gave me some understanding of how all these things went together.

When I got to college, the first order of business for our dorm room was, of course, building a liquor cabinet. My roommates who'd gone to private school had taken shop, so they were the ones who found the art department's woodshop and actually built it, while us public school folks marveled at their master of miter joints. Glass windows, even!

When I first got serious about woodworking, I decided to take a class at our local vocational school. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it turned out that most of the class was there to use the machines, beaten but beautiful Powermatics. The teacher, an artist I think was passing through Ithaca, had gone to the North Bennet Street School and had all kinds of good ideas, and introduced us to scrapers. I think I was the only one, though, who set out to build the table she designed. Unfortunately, the grain of the beautiful maple I'd bought proved too challenging, and my work schedule kept taking me out of town on the nights when I wanted to be in class. I still have the table parts downstairs, and hope to finish it eventually...

I went back to sign up for another class, but they'd apparently stopped their adult ed program, and there weren't any more.

Since there weren't local programs, I signed up for a two-week class at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship... twice. Alas, I couldn't make it either time, and had to cancel.

I did get up to the Central New York Woodturners a few times, though driving to Syracuse in winter could be interesting. In summer, I was lucky enough to be in a small group and meet Bill Grumbine, who made the lathe seem a lot less intimidating and got me turning my first bowl. I also went to one of the last Ponderpaloozas, driving with friends from here to Indiana for a weekend of learning a lot about turning and talking about woodworking generally. Green turning on a Stubby lathe - now that's the way to take a shower!

This time around I'm focusing on a class that'll fill a major gap in my workshop, building a workbench. I've loved Robert Lang's books and articles in Popular Woodworking, and look forward to it, even though it's not until next October. It'll be a long drive back from Kentucky, but that's a good use for the pickup truck, I think!

How I got into this

2009-11-30T18:04:08+00:00

I fell into woodworking kind of by accident. I started with a tiny model railroad under my bed one day, and found myself building more and more to support the train and its infrastructure. After moving from New York to Connecticut, I had time on my hands and a large bay window I could fill with a layout, so I built more complicated benchwork. 2x4s, homasote, and a few Black & Decker tools - drill, circular saw, and jigsaw - made it work.

That fell by the wayside for a few years when I moved again. I still have the trains, but the tools - and their replacements - got more use. Buying a house that needed a lot of improvement meant that I put those tools to work, and learned their limitations quickly. That meant some tool upgrades, which had me spending more time at Sears and then at the now-defunct Woodworkers Warehouse.

Somewhere along the line I'd found an issue of Fine Homebuilding in an airport newsstand, and while it was facinating, Fine Woodworking was even more interesting. That led to Popular Woodworking as I went looking for projects more plausible for beginners, and a lot of other reading. I spent a lot of time on the long-gone Badger Pond as well.

Eventually, I started buying tools and wood and building projects. Household projects determined a lot of the tools, though maybe I'll find a way to use the Sawzall for furniture-making, but over time I definitely shifted toward buying tools for the shop, not just for specific projects. My basement - damp and awful though it was - became a place where I made things. I had a couple of years in 2000 and 2001 when I had (or thought I had) both time and money, so a lot more things seemed possible than probably really were.

Preserving food in Dryden

2009-11-30T12:42:04+00:00

This morning's Ithaca Journal has a great article on canning and preserving food, including photos of cider-making at a home in the Town of Dryden. Katie Quinn-Jacobs has been working hard on this for years, and it's great to see more and more people getting involved.

There's also a forum on Marcellus Shale gas drilling today in Owego.

Economic Reasons to Delay Marcellus Shale Drilling

2009-11-23T13:25:36+00:00

Most of the discussion about gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale has turned on environmental questions - will it poison our water, irradiate the area, destroy our roads, and generally prove difficult to fix? All of these are important questions, but they've mostly been contrasted with rosy pictures of large royalty payments to landowners and economic benefits for municipalities.

I'd like to suggest to landowners and municipalities that being in a hurry may not be to our advantage. Yes, of course people prefer their money now, and often place a significant premium on cash up front. At the same time, though, drilling as quickly as possible also may bring a lot less return.

The Marcellus Shale wells are not the usual natural gas wells that reach down into permeable sandstone and give gas a simple path to the surface. Drilled into less permeable shale, they need to expand horizontally to create more pathways for gas. This is typically done with water and a variety of additives, and is called hydrofracturing, or just "fracking".

This process creates most of the controversy around gas drilling, as it uses huge amounts of water, adds chemicals to the water, extracts the water from the ground, and then has to dump that water somewhere. The process of blasting water through the ground isn't exactly precise, either, and seeing what's happening thousands of feet down is difficult.

From a mining perspective, though, the problem with fracking isn't environmental - it's simply that it's expensive. Having to frack a well once is natural to shale production, and the story we've been hearing locally about Marcellus fracking, but it also seems that as production declines on a well, it may be worth fracking again and again:

"They have fantastic initial rates, but the question is whether the (rate of production) persists as they say." For example, he says, in deep shale formations "the rock collapses as gas is produced, and crushes the proppant. And as the fractures are drained you have to frac and frac and frac."

The question of the rate of decline on shale well production has created some explosions in the energy community recently, with World Oil magazine canning a column and then canning its editor for not being enthusiastic enough about canning the column, which a few gas companies weren't happy about. (For more detail on that, see the columnist's web site, with a letter from the editor.)

For energy companies, the scary questions are the size of their recoverable reserves and the cost of extracting that gas, which largely determine the value of their companies.

For landowners looking forward to what they'd hoped would be long-term income, the scary questions are how long their well will actually stay in production, and what they'll get for income. A shorter production window of just a few years makes the value of the well much more vulnerable to fluctuations in natural gas prices. Right now, prices are historically low, and likely to stay that way for a few years at least, until the economy recovers and natural gas becomes a more important component of energy generation.

Landowners, of course, have no control over when the gas comes out of the ground and for what price it's sold. Their lease agreements ensure that they'll get a share of the revenue, as it's a royalty-based system. Energy companies would of course like to get the highest possible return on their wells, but they have a lot of other factors they consider beyond the current price of gas and the return to the landowner.

They have a business to sustain, customers to supply, stock prices to watch, and while they certainly hope for high prices, they'll sell what they have to, without much worry about the people from whom they leased rights.

To the extent that municipalities and especially the State of New York stand to benefit from these revenues, they have a similar interest in waiting. Yes, of course New York is desperate for revenues, and may have a much more severe hunger for short-term fixes than landowners - but that doesn't mean the quest for a few more years of stopgap revenue is a great idea.

Whatever the pros and cons of drilling, a short potential lifespan for these wells and a crashed-out natural gas market that's likely to stay that way for a few years make a lousy combination. Even proponents of drilling should take a hard look and ask: why rush?

Final Town Board results

2009-11-17T13:50:28+00:00

All the absentee ballots have been opened, and the deadline for late military ballots has passed, so I think we can trust these will be the final result:

Candidate	Votes
Jason Leifer (D)	1388
Steve Stelick (R)	1316
Simon St.Laurent (D)	1225
Deb Shigley (R)	1149

Looking through the details, the district-by-district patterns shifted slightly. Republicans did better in District 1 (West Dryden) than I would have expected - it's a fast-growing district with more registered Democrats than Republicans these days. Turnout there was the weakest in town, though, at 18.38%. For once, District 3 (McLean), wasn't in last place for turnout.

Republicans did best in the east and north of the town, while Democrats prevailed in the southwest. Steve Stelick whomped me 37-10 in his home district 3, while I had 131 votes in District 4 to his 48, and 229 to his 53 in district 9.

Jason Leifer, I think, had the most balanced results across the town. He kept things much closer on the east side than I did in particular, while still storming the west side.

The biggest oddity in the results is the large number of blank votes, especially in the districts where the Republican candidates won. In District 3 in particular, nearly a quarter of votes were blank, and one was a write-in. On the west side, Etna had only one blank vote, while the Ellis Hollow and Bethel Grove districts had 5.86% and 2.84%. West Dryden had 8% and Varna had 9%, but the east side districts Republicans won were all over 10% - 15%, 10%, 11%, 10%, and 18%. I'm not sure if that was bullet voting, voters unfamiliar with candidates, or voters who came out only for the County Legislative race on that side. (Though District 3 was in a different legislative district.)

The lack of a contested legislative race certainly seems to have hurt west side turnout, which was around 25.5%, compared to the Mike Lane-Jim Crawford race, which had 38.4% turnout.

A community not dissolved, and the Journal mourns

2009-11-13T13:58:57+00:00

Every now and then the Ithaca Journal goes out of its way to demonstrate that it's not actually a local paper, but rather the local office of a huge company with little genuine interest in the landscape it supposedly serves - even the expanded Ithaca-Elmira-Binghamton zone it now publishes on. Today's editorial is one of those painfully telling moments, a thudding series of missteps in which the Journal assumes that the only important goal voters should have is lower taxes.

The poor Journal is shocked - shocked! - that Johnson City voters decided that preserving the identity of their village was more important than potential savings from a merger with the Town of Union. The editorial is worth tearing apart piece by piece, I'm afraid.

Self-interest prevailed and foresight was flushed away, along with a chance for residents to slash their annual village tax bill - according to a study - by about 25 percent. Change isn't easy, especially if it involves breaking with tradition....

In this context, I'm used to hearing "self-interest" used to praise people who want lower taxes, not applied as a slam to people who decided higher taxes might be worth the cost. And "foresight" seems to be used creatively here to mean only lower taxes. Then they come in with the corporate consulting style call for "change", and dismiss tradition. Given the amount of change Gannett's gone through lately, I can only assume this was written by a true corporate believer.

Certainly, dissolution wouldn't have solved all of JC's problems. But it would have been a start, and it would have sent a message to other communities to be more aggressive about saving their taxpayers' money....

Now this is interesting. Not only are these voters foolish for not reducing their taxes, their actions tell other communities that they don't need to pay attention to taxes? I can just hear it now - "Hey - Johnson City didn't dissolve. I guess that means we can hike taxes 10%!" Right.

In neither Tompkins nor Chemung did a village have to say goodbye to itself to achieve savings, but if that's what it requires, voters may have to take those drastic steps to afford to live in their communities.

Right. They wouldn't want to, say, offend readers by suggesting specific villages that should dissolve, right? Let's just make clear that voters should be on the lookout for ways to consolidate into ever-larger units because that'll make government cheaper. Not more responsive or more responsible, just cheaper.

Next, they reach back to the founders of Johnson City just to make clear how little interest Gannett has in 'tradition', really brings home how they'd like to make very certain that we all understand that it's not up to us, but up to the companies that might or might not want to stay in our area:

That didn't happen this time in Johnson City, a village named for a man who took fellow residents' problems on as his own. Maybe the majority who defeated dissolution don't mind high taxes. Maybe they're happy with the present and not worried about the future.
But they should be. As history shows, financial security can be fickle. George F. Johnson built a successful shoe business, but one that over time could not keep up with changing consumer tastes and global competition. Endicott-Johnson is a part of JC's glorious past, but those wonderful memories cannot balance the village's annual budget.

You know, that really reminds me of how the Elmira Star-Gazette was Frank Gannett's first paper, and the Ithaca Journal his second, and how these papers' glorious past cannot balance a budget that keeps reporters on staff, local news flowing, and much semblance of connection to their home cities intact. Of course, they aren't allowed the luxury of elections to decide how that goes - they're just getting merged in with the Binghamton paper and given fewer resources all the time.

The conclusion demonstrates to me that whoever wrote this doesn't have any great sense of connection with their community:

Hardly anything would have changed except the size of their tax bills.
What a lesson in missed opportunities.

What a lesson in not comprehending people's interest in control over their own area, their sense of identity, their sense of place, and how the two intertwine.

There is real work to be done in consolidation and in sharing services. There is little good reason for the proliferation of water and sewer districts, each with their own terms, billing, and accounting. There is certainly room for municipalities to share equipment and services, and to form cooperative pools for things like insurance where size leads to discounts.

But expecting that people should want to push government itself into larger units, handing off local decisions to people further away? I have a very hard time seeing the appeal of that.

I'm glad we already cancelled our subscription, though we had to tell the Journal we didn't want their paper repeatedly before they actually believed it. There's not much left there.

Route 13 bridge replacement in 2011-12

2009-11-12T23:03:32+00:00

I was wondering what the big electronic signs on Route 13 near Fall Creek that said:

RTE 13
BRIDGE
REPL MTG

VARNA
COMM CTR
NOV 17

6:30 PM
INFO 315
428-4345

would mean for life on Route 366. I tried calling the number, for the New York State Department of Transportation, this afternoon, but they open and close early. Fortunately, I didn't have to wait long to get all the details, as Jan Morgan of the Varna Community Association sent this PDF out. Here are the key parts about what'll be coming:

The proposed project will involve replacement of the existing bridge on Route 13. The new bridge will be on an adjacent alignment just southwest of the existing bridge. The project will include resurfacing and reconstruction of the highway approaches, drainage improvements, guide rail replacement, and minor stream work. Traffic on Route 13 will be maintained on two lanes (one in each direction) with the exception of short term operations using flaggers. Construction of this project is scheduled to begin in late 2011 and be completed by the end of 2012.

I hope the new bridge will be wider, so folks on the Finger Lakes Trail who have to cross Fall Creek there can walk on the bridge without disrupting traffic patterns. The bridge was listed as 'functionally obsolete' back in 2007, but it's not clear from this what they have in mind.

I'd been fearing a massive diversion of traffic from 13 to 366 over the course of the project, but it sounds like we'll avoid that.

For more details, be at the Varna Community Center - 943 Dryden Road, Varna (map), next Tuesday, November 17th at 6:30pm. (Though the formal presentation starts at 7:00pm.)

Update: Here's the Ithaca Journal article on the meeting:

The new bridge is not expected to have a pier, and it will be around 5 feet higher in order to reduce the grade of the slope as vehicles approach from the high ground on either side. The road on either side of the bridge and its drainage system will also be upgraded.
The new bridge is also expected to have 10-foot shoulders, a large expansion from the 2-foot shoulders the current bridge has -- a change that was well received by members of the Cayuga Trails Club at the meeting.

Sungiva's 19th month

2009-11-12T17:16:51+00:00

It's been busy around here, but we did notice that Sungiva's now 19 months old. Her favorite word, unfortunately, seems to be 'no', but hopefully her vocabulary will expand.

Sungiva loves swings.

Sungiva enjoys Cheerios.

Sungiva builds a removable carseat for her doll.

Every day is a new experience! For more, I've posted a gallery of 19th month photos.

Veterans Day ceremony

2009-11-11T13:23:23+00:00

I haven't seen it advertised, but the Veterans Day service in the Village of Dryden will be this morning at 11:00am at the Village Green, between the Methodist and Presbyterian churches.

Update: Here are a few pictures of the ceremony.

Salute as the flag is raised.

Firing a salute.

Crowd applauds.

Finger Lakes Land Trust expands Ellis Hollow preserve

2009-11-10T13:12:47+00:00

This morning's Ithaca Journal reports that the Finger Lakes Land Trust has added to its preserve in Ellis Hollow with a purchase of 39 more acres and a conservation easement:

The Land Trust had made protecting the land a priority because of its woodlands on both banks of a Cascadilla Creek tributary and because it borders Cornell University's Durland Bird Sanctuary and forest owned by the Saltonstall Foundation artists' retreat...

Pearman's easement on the 11 adjacent acres includes a scenic meadow on Ellis Hollow Creek Road while allowing the development of a single home on a designated portion of the land. These are the Land Trust's sixth protection projects in Ellis Hollow and put the preserve at 159 acres, in addition to easements on several forest parcels and on wetlands bordering Cascadilla Creek.

There's also a picture of Dryden students Kayla Jackson and Devin Joyce at the BOCES hairstyling contest.

Honoring Bethel Grove School and Community Home

2009-11-10T13:05:08+00:00

This Sunday afternoon, the Dryden Town Historical Society will be celebrating the accomplishments of the Bethel Grove community:

In 19th century Bethel Grove, the local school was the heart of the community. Everyone had to be involved; it was either contribute money or help with the work. The building was also used for church services on Sunday and was the location where holiday and other grand community events could be celebrated. The school operated from 1851 to 1959. However, in the 1930's, the community decided the school was too small for other uses and built a community center called the Bethel Grove Community Home.

Earlier this year, Molly Adams spearheaded a campaign to raise funds to purchase an historic marker for the Bethel Grove school. The effort was so successful that there was enough money to honor the Community Home with a marker as well.

Join the Dryden Town Historical Society on Sunday, November 15th - from 3 to 5 PM at the Bethel Grove Community Center (1825 Slaterville Road)- to celebrate a neglected part of our local history. Refreshments will be served and the event is free and open to all.

[Funding for this event was provided through a Celebrations Grant from the Tourism Advisory Board of Tompkins County.]

Looking for an overview of NYS local races

2009-11-06T20:23:31+00:00

CapCon opens its Friday open thread entry with "Republicans sweep local elections", but I haven't found an overview article talking about what happened across the state. Anyone have one? Or want to check in on their local races?

I lost my Town Board race, but fellow Democrat Jason Leifer racked up the most votes in the race, and we won the contested Dryden county legislature seat. It looks like Tompkins County Democrats also won a legislative race against the Republican County Chair, though we'll see how that holds up in absentee ballots. (It's within 23.) Plus it looks like we picked up majorities in a few Town Boards.

The end of an Ithaca Journal article has a quote from the Republican Chair that I didn't expect to see, though maybe it's sarcastic?

This is contrary to the trend statewide, where Democrats suffered major losses in several county races in what many characterized as widespread displeasure with the state's high taxes.
Sigler, chairman of the Tompkins County GOP, said he considered Tuesday's results an indication that local residents are happy with the status quo.
"I think this is an endorsement of keeping services intact and having higher taxes in order to pay for them," he said.

Outside of Tompkins, how did local races go this week?

Food and crafts this weekend

2009-11-06T17:35:39+00:00

It'll be a busy weekend in Dryden over the next couple of days:

The Dryden Town Historical Society will be having its regular baked goods sale tomorrow morning at 9:00am at the First National Bank of Dryden. It's always delicious!
The Etna Community Association will have a Craft Fair at Houtz Hall from 10:00am to 2:00pm.
The Dryden Community Center Cafe will have its Third Annual Chili Cook-off and Apple Pie Bake-off from 11:00am to 2:00pm.
The Varna Community Center will have a Pancake Buffet Breakfast from 8:00am to noon on Sunday. I'll be working there!

I'm sure I missed something - let me know if I did!