HV Chronic Vol II No 3

ChroniC News ThAT wANTs To mAke yoU sAy ‘Ah’ volUme 2, No. 3 • APRIl To mAy 2009 oN The web AT hvChRoNIC.Com

INSIDE:When Cultural Bias

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The Hudson Valley

Pike Plot

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It’s a hot time in the old town of Kingston, as tempers are flaring over the apparent inevitability of a $1.8 million renovation project to bring the Uptown dis-

trict’s “Pike Plan” — the deteriorating 1970s-era covered canopy that lends a seedy, anachronistic Neo-Colonial “character” to the former Dutch stockade area — into the 21st century. Tom Hoffay, Uptown’s Second Ward alderman who serves on the Pike Plan Commission at the behest of Mayor James Sottile and who is spearhead-ing the push to get the canopy renovations over and done with before the end of 2009, has said, to the derision of some, “The train has left the station.”

But by the time you read this article, a group of insur-gents may have succeeded in throwing a legal monkey

Uptown Kingston biz owners conspire to derail $1.8 million canopy restorationBy Steve Hopkins

Continued on Page 3

wrench into the wheels of the “unstoppable” juggernaut. The litigation, under consideration by a growing and in-creasingly vocal band of disgruntled property owners headed (reluctantly, he says) by Wall Street real estate bro-ker Jon Hoyt, would target the Pike Plan Commission itself as being, in its current incarnation, illegal under the city’s municipal code — therefore rendering it at least temporar-ily powerless to impose the project as well as unauthorized to have taken out a controversial $100,000 bond it floated in the owners’ names to jumpstart the process.

The “Pike Plan,” for those unfamiliar with Kingston esoterica, was named for a now-obscure watercolorist named John Pike, a mainstream painter with a long, odd

If anybody knows the evil that lurks beneath the placid facade of Up-town Kingston’s rotting, termite-infested Pike Plan sidewalk cano-py, it’s Marcus Jones, a former employee of the now defunct Fitness Unlimited health club who moonlighted throughout the summer of 2006 repairing the canopy’s fascia as an interim measure.

Solar SubterfugeHow SpectraWatt, a $50 million startup backed by Intel and Goldman Sachs, left Oregon at the altar and eloped to tax-break heaven in East Fishkill

How Green is My Stool?Omega Institute goes for the (LEED) Platinum in reimagining its

sewage problem into America’s first Living Building project

By the time this newspaper hits the streets, The Solar Energy Consortium (TSEC) will have saved face somewhat, introducing Prism Solar Technologies,

Inc.’s new 93,000-square-foot holographic solar manufac-turing and operations facility in Highland. But that won’t quite make up for what must have been a major PR setback when, just a couple of weeks earlier, a $150 million solar spinoff of Intel called SpecraWatt beat them to the punch by suddenly and without warning jumping ship from Oregon. Making an end run around TSEC, the company landed across the river in the Hudson Valley Research Park in East Fishkill, prompting Dutchess County Executive Bill Stein-haus to crow that his county had landed “the first solar manufacturing plant in New York State!”

The company will be setting up shop in a 100,000-square-foot leased space in old IBM Building 334, which will house its corporate headquarters, manufacturing and eventually its global R&D center, said Steinhaus, adding that: “The initial investment will total nearly $81 million in building construction, equipment and materials, research and development and other various investments.” Spectra-Watt CEO Andrew Wilson told the website greentechmedia.com that the company is developing “multicrystalline” sili-con cells, and that it intends to begin producing cells de-signed to convert 16 percent of the sunlight that hits them into electricity — a rate considered pretty darned efficient by nascent industry standards.

The company’s first factory line reportedly will have an initial manufacturing capacity of 60 megawatts. Ad-ditional lines are being planned as well, with site capac-ity expected to exceed 120 megawatts before the first two years are out.

SpectraWatt has quite a pedigree. According to greentech-media.com, Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel, the world’s larg-est silicon chip maker, began developing a business plan for incubating a solar cell company back in 2004, and an-nounced the spinoff in June of 2008. The first $50 million investment round also attracted Cogentrix Energy, which it-self is a wholly-owned subsidiary of a legendary Wall Street

Pretty green, as it turns

out. Skip Backus (right), the self-made director of the Omega Insti-tute, which resides in the Town of Clinton in Dutchess County

but maintains a tony Rhinebeck mailing ad-

By Steve Hopkins

Continued on Page 7

dress, hosted a contin-gent of visiting journal-ists on March 26 to take a gander at the nearly completed Omega Cen-ter for Sustainable Liv-ing (OCSL), a natural wastewater treatment facility designed to double as a state-of-the-

Continued on Page 7

• aPRIL-MaY 2009 CHRONICThe Hudson Valley

I Was

Editor & PublisherSteve Hopkins

Associate Publisher EmeritusPaul Joffe

ContributorsMolly EaganCarrie Ross

[email protected]

Gabrielle CompolongoSteve Hopkins

Carrie Ross

Contact us at:phone 914-388-8670fax 866-800-4062

[email protected]

PhotographyPaul Joffe

Fionn ReillyAndy Uzzle

Steve Hopkins

The Hudson Valley ChronicPO Box 709

Pleasant Valley, NY 12569

CHRONICThe Hudson Valley

You Say ‘Heat Wave,’ I Say ‘Runaway Greenhouse Effect’

Bias in the media, and in people in general, can be a difficult thing to confront. Call someone on his or her bias, and he or she can turn right around and accuse

you of being biased, too, and to a certain degree, this is true. We are all inherently biased. It is an integral part of how our minds operate. People evolved for the greater part of human history in forests and jungles, and our minds adapted in ac-cordance with this primordial environment. Our environ-ments have changed, and the technologies at our disposal have changed, but our minds have not.

Seeing an animal drink from a stream is no longer the only qualification available to us for drinking from that stream our-selves, but a human today would interpret this scene much in the same way as our distant ancestors, and assume that if an animal can drink this water, so can he, if nec-essary. Regardless of whether or not this turns out to be true, it does nothing to quantify the nature of this water in particular, other than in the broadest possible terms of immediately lethal versus imme-diately non-lethal.

If scientists were to announce that trace amounts of an element in that water, while harmless to humans at present, could poten-tially have a negative effect on the environment, a typical person would probably accept that, yes, anything is potentially possible, but also largely discount the risk, rationalizing that if an animal can drink it, and I can drink it, how bad could it be?

Responsible scientific state-ments are never explicit. For ex-ample, smoking may cause lung cancer, or may cause birth defects. Scientific statements don’t usually offer a clear course of action or a direct causation, because in science, as in life, almost nothing is 100 percent certain, and all responsible science acknowledges this uncertainty, to however miniscule a degree. Herein lies the integrity of sci-ence. It isn’t perfect, and it doesn’t attempt to present itself as perfect, but it is the best tool by far that human beings have for quantifying reality. Sacrificing any pretension of abso-lute certainty is in line with the reality of the world, and it is the cost of eliminating bias.

So how is a person who isn’t a scientist ever supposed to objectively analyze information, and separate fact from opinion? For the answer to this, we have to go all the way back to the third grade. If you were lucky enough to have a decent teacher at around this age, you might remember a student, or maybe even yourself, starting an argument with the phrase “I think,” and being immediately cut off. At this point, the teacher says, as diplomatically as possible, that what you think and believe just doesn’t matter. Who are you, anyway? No one cares what you think. All that matters are the facts and the data. You can formulate an opinion based

I Was Just Thinking ...By Harry Seitz

on these facts and data, and that opinion, right or wrong, will at least be based on some semblance of reality. But you can not simply pull an opinion out of thin air based on what you think, and then attempt to articulate reality around it, because this is misleading and irresponsible, both to yourself and anyone else foolish enough to take you seriously.

So we’re all biased and flawed, but most of us can still dis-tinguish facts from opinions, even if it does require a small degree of mental discipline. When encountering new infor-mation for the first time, we have to make a conscious effort to put aside our beliefs and opinions for a moment, and focus

solely on the content of the information. We have to decide what can be considered a fact, and what can be considered an opinion. This isn’t as easy as it sounds.

Take a recent article published on a conservative website (http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/the_clear_and_cohe-sive_message_1.html) that argues, among other things, that global warming is little more than an invention of the liberal agenda, which seeks to increase government restrictions on industry, business, and in general. There are several obvious flaws in this article, such as the opening statement implying that scientists now agree that global warming was never re-ally a problem. Scientists, and people in general, don’t tend to debate the past. The issue has always been what the poten-tial effects might be in the future.

Putting much of the article’s agenda and rhetoric aside (as we’d be here forever otherwise), its three main points were as follows: A: There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other green-house gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disrup-tion of the Earth’s climate; B: The heat of the earth couldn’t rise anyway because of the conservation of energy; and C: Some scientists actually think that heat causes CO2.

Let’s start with statement A: There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon diox-ide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heat-ing of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. This statement attempts to present it-self as a fact, and it is, in fact, a misleading fabrication. Independent research data from nonpartisan scientific organizations has confirmed to a 95 percent degree of certainty that there is a correlation between human-pro-duced CO2 and greenhouse emissions and atmospheric temperature increases. When a hypothesis is confirmed by independent research to this degree of certainty, it is generally considered to be a fact. This is not to say that there will be catastrophic heating, and the earth will f lood, or that it won’t, but that the effect is there. So un-less you personally believe that there is no correlation, and this personal belief carries more weight with you than the general consensus of modern science, we can dismiss this first statement as categorically false. No re-sponsible scientific statement in regard to causal events with any degree of separation would ever state with ab-solute certainty that catastrophic events are inevitable, and all of the data in this case supports a positive corre-lation between human-produced greenhouse emissions and atmospheric temperature increase.

B) The heat of the earth couldn’t rise anyway because of the conservation of energy. Here it gets a little trickier. The conservation of energy is a scientific fact after all, isn’t it? This statement is an example of a fact disguised as an opin-ion in order to obfuscate itself with an intent to mislead. Yes, the conservation of energy is an accepted scientific fact, but conservation of energy does not mean constant temperature. If you burn coal, the energy is conserved and transferred into heat, and the temperature goes up. If you

were to detonate every nuclear weapon on earth simultane-ously, the total amount of all the energy on earth would be conserved and remain the same, but some of it would be in a vastly different form. In short, this is a diversionary tactic. The conservation of energy has almost nothing to do with the nature of CO2 and greenhouse gases in the at-mosphere with regard to the issue of global warming, and one could even argue that the conservation of energy in the universe is being affected by the heat trapped inside the atmosphere (and that we’re destroying the universe!).

C) Some scientists actually think that heat causes CO2. This is another fact disguised as an opinion. Scientists actu-ally know that heat can and does cause CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Add heat to water and it boils, and the resulting water vapor acts as a greenhouse gas. Ignite gas-oline and CO2 is one of the end products. When the out-side temperature rises, people start using air conditioners and consuming more elec-tricity, which in turn raises CO2 emissions down the line. Add enough heat to anything and short of obliterating it, you’ll reduce it to its compo-nent parts, whether it’s CO2 trapped in the soil or H2O trapped in a rock. And if heat causes CO2, this still qualifies as a correlation, so this article has contradicted itself. And on a side note, this article also failed to include these or any other clear examples of heat causing CO2, as these exam-ples would illustrate that the point, while true, is moot.

This last statement C is, among other things, a trap. By this point in the article, most people who accept global warming are so appalled by the treachery they detect that they dismiss the fact that heat causes CO2 as a fallacy out of hand, which puts them in the wrong and opens them up to attack. In a different context, with a moment to think about it, most people who’ve gotten past the 6th grade will realize that yes, heat can and does cause CO2. This is a tautological statement, a truth so gen-eral and wrapped around itself that on its own, it basically amounts to saying nothing. It’s like saying that the sky is blue and the earth is round. It has nothing to do with the proposition that human-produced CO2 and greenhouse gases correlate with increased atmospheric temperature, which, again, has been confirmed by independent research to a 95 percent degree of certainty.

So the animal is drinking from the stream, and you’re drinking from the stream, and all is well (except for global warming). The element in the stream is present at, say, one part per billion. At higher levels, it could be harmful to hu-mans, but at this level, at this time and place, it is harmless as far as drinking it goes, even by the most stringent scien-tific standards. The water from this stream eventually flows out into the ocean, and the element is inadvertently con-sumed and absorbed by plankton, wherein it accumulates. The plankton is eaten and absorbed by small fish, which are then consumed by larger fish, and so on and so forth. The percentage of the element present rises at a rate of 10 to the power of each step in the food chain, as the digestible parts of the eaten animals are consumed and expelled, while the element remains trapped in the flesh of each subsequent ani-mal, and is, in effect, refined into a higher and higher con-centration. By the time we get to an animal like a swordfish, on the 6th link of the food chain, the presence of the element has increased exponentially to the point that every pound of this juicy delicacy has as much of the clinically cancer-inducing substance present in it as 100,000 pounds of plank-ton, or one million pounds of water from the stream.

So should people be banned from drinking from the stream, or should the element be removed, or both? And how do you bring attention to this issue without being alarmist, and maybe even inadvertently deceiving people into fearing the water, or fearing fish in general? Does this agenda justify these means in this case (as opposed to the article dismissing global warming)? And why didn’t science just tell us in the first place that this would lead to deadly fish, instead of just implying that it potentially could?

When you’re on the other side of the argument, the motives behind pandering to subjectivity, aiming at the lowest common denominator, and conscientiously in-tending to mislead become a little bit more clear, but no less wrong. People will be never be intelligent enough to understand what they don’t want to, but you have to at least give them the option. Eventually, people will have to become more concerned about the reality of a situation, and less concerned about simply validating their opinion, regardless of the motive. Sadly, most of the time, it’s just easier to drink out of the toilet bowl with the dog.

aPRIL-MaY 2009 • PAGE 3CHRONICThe Hudson Valley

Norman Mintz on the job in Uptown Kingston in 2007. Note the termite-eaten post and column being eyed by his boxer, Casey.

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Pike Plot From Page 1

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history of commercial and military work before settling in Woodstock in the 1960s to teach his successful proto-realism technique to budding commercial artists referred to him by ad agencies and corporations. While living in Jamaica in the ’30s, he painted murals, did advertis-ing for the rum industry and designed stores, nightclubs, and theaters (in Kingston, Jamaica!) in the signature Euro-Caribbean plantation-influenced style that would later show up to keep shop-pers’ heads dry in Kingston, NY. Trained as a military pilot, he served in the Psy-chological Warfare Branch of the U.S. Army in Egypt and Italy, doing God knows what until he was shipped off to the Philippines, where he headed a unit of the Com-bat Art Section of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which someone thought nec-essary to bring in to record the American occupation of Korea in 1945. Those paint-ings are reportedly still be-ing maintained somewhere in the bowels of the Histori-cal Properties Section of the Defense Department.

Pike also did paintings for the U.S. Air Force in France, Germany, Greenland, Ec-uador, Columbia, Japan and Formosa, from the mid-’40s to 1960, as well as paintings, illustrations and covers for Colliers, Life, Fortune, True and Readers Digest; and advertising paintings for Al-coa, Standard Oil, National Cash Register, Equitable Life Insurance, General Tire International, and so on. He was also one of two official artists hired by NASA to render the Apollo moon shot.

But calling his eponymous Pike Plan “historic,” in the sense of requiring the excruciating and expensive resto-ration of every rotten, worm-eaten timber in its shoddily-built fake façade, is a stretch. From the canopy support-ers’ point of view, it’s about the money, which is the true driver of this train. The renovation plan, although put into motion and shepherded by the seven-member Pike Plan Commission, is being funded by the usual inedible bouillabaisse of federal, state and borrowed money, head-ed by $860,000 in earmarks painfully extracted from the federal government by an increasingly exasperated U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, whose contribution has been held captive by this long, drawn-out process since 2006. The proposed project languished in limbo for a year or

two as a preliminary study performed by urban designer and “Main Street” marketing guru Norman Mintz (who famously said that the canopy should be taken down un-til he was shushed by city officials and preservationists)

failed to provide the neces-sary impetus to spend the money on the big fix. Even now, as timelines are being drawn, little is known about just how much “renova-tion” will need to be done to implement the designers’ vision, which includes sky-lights and possibly a more open and sustainable sup-port system than the rotting columns barely holding the thing up today. Bidding has not even begun on the proj-ect, and building owners are understandably pointed in their criticism of the Pike Plan Commission’s unwill-ingness to plan for the event of serious cost overruns, a distinct possibility judg-ing from the massive can of worms — or termites, more likely — hiding behind the thin fascia of the 13,000-square-foot wooden struc-ture.

The project is being de-signed under the aegis of a NYC consulting firm with a wider role in the efforts to re-imagine Kingston: The RBA Group, which is under contract to the city to imple-

ment its Uptown Stockade Area Transportation Plan in conjunction with a bewildering array of public planners and quasi-public agencies. The mayor’s economic devel-opment director, Steve Finkle, is involved, as are Ulster County Planning director Dennis Doyle and Rural Ul-ster Preservation Company (RUPCO) executive director Kevin O’Connor, as well as representatives from Scenic Hudson and the Kingston Uptown Business Association (KUBA). All of them want to see the money spent and the myriad projects concerning Uptown revitalization and transportation tinkering completed, if only in some of their minds to ensure that Kingston doesn’t screw up the possibility of getting even more money, especially given the current loosey-goosey stimulus package cli-mate.

Further confusing the chain of command, RBA is abetted in the Pike Plan portion of its work by a small consortium of subcontracted local architects that in-cludes Brad Will of Ashokan Architecture and Robert Young, a Pike Plan Commission member who since he

got the job has recused himself from participating in votes and meetings pertaining to the project.

Showdown at Backstage CorralWhat exists of the Pike Plan Commission held court

at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, April 7 in the Wall Street storefront of Backstage Studio Productions, owned by Teri Rossin, one of the more vocal opponents of the canopy renovation. Among the commissioners at the table facing a glower-ing group of building owners sat the beleaguered Hoffay, Dream Weavers business owner Dominick Vanacore, the lone project critic on the commission he in fact chairs; Cart-er Hastings, the canopy project’s main champion among building owners; and Suzanne Cahill, director of the City of Kingston Planning Department.


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Among the owners present, Jon Hoyt did most of the talking, at times going almost mano-a-mano with Hoffay. Of great interest to this observer was the attention paid among the insurgent contingent to remarking on who wasn’t there, including the Godot-like figure of Mike Spada, who owns one of the larger yawning, empty holes under the Wall Street canopy, the former Woolworth’s building. Spada has been reported as being in favor of ripping the Pike Plan down, and had promised at least one of the insurgents he would be there to lend his support, until he realized he had a doctor’s appointment. His presence would certainly have bol-stered their argument in the face of a united front of officialdom. The two-story Woolworth’s property, blessed with a large off-street park-ing lot in the back, has also been rumored as a site for relocating a number of county offices.

Whether or not a lawsuit is filed, the insurgent contingent maintains that the existing Pike Plan Com-mission is not legal. In making their charge, they cite the following paragraph in Kingston’s municipal code:

“There is hereby created in the Office of the Mayor, of the Executive Department, a Commission to be known as the Pike Plan Commission, which shall consist of seven mem-bers appointed by the Mayor. Of the foregoing members of the Commission, the City Planner of the City of Kingston and the Mayor or his designee shall be perpetual members. A local architect shall be appointed to serve on the Com-mission for a term of two years. The remaining four mem-bers of the Pike Plan Commission shall be members of the business community who have business interests located under the Pike Plan Canopy and/or property owners who own real property under the Pike Plan Canopy. These four members shall be appointed, one for a term of one year, one for a term of two years and two for a term of three years. No such member shall serve for more than two consecutive


terms. Following these initial terms, all future terms shall be for a period of three years.”

So how does the current commission stack up to the above? For one thing, say critics, Carter Hastings has long out-stayed his welcome. Since his final regular term as a representative building owner ran out, he has been serving at the behest of the mayor until the canopy project is over, “in the interest of continuity.”

Hoyt was the first to bring it up. “Carter, I apologize,” he began. “I like Carter, and I trust his judgment and every-thing, but there are some people who think that you’ve been on that Pike Plan Commission for a long time, and that you have exceeded the two-term limit.”

“I have. You are correct, OK? I have,” said Hastings, a bit defensively. “And I started four years ago on this proj-

ect. OK? Four years ago. And when my last term went out, the mayor appointed me — what word am I looking for? — I am basically serving at the pleasure of the mayor, and by law, that is allowed. I want to conclude his project. I want to see it go right to the end. Because I have been here for a long time, and I have spent many, many hours, and many, miles. OK? Time with people … a lot of people have spent a lot of time on this proj-ect, and I would just like to see it out. I didn’t necessarily ask the mayor to do this; he did it on his own, and it was under the law.”

The detractors, however, maintain that Hastings’ contin-ued presence on the commis-sion alone is enough to render it illegal. In addition, they say, having an architect on the com-mission who is being paid to design the project renders that position effectively empty as well, with no architect even pre-tending to act in the interest of property owners.

Hoffay had done his best to ward off an insurrection by reporting on the status of a re-

quest by Vanacore and others for more equitable represen-tation by property owners on the Pike Plan Commission. He said the original state statute as adopted by the city calls for all seven commission members to be appointed by the mayor, and that the Common Council is in the process of amending local law to provide for elections for four of the seven, to come from the ranks of building owners. He said, however, that no matter what, the commission will remain in its current state until attrition requires an election, and that the mayor in fact would retain the right to reappoint any one of the existing commissioners for one additional two-year term, which would give Mr. Hastings at least one more crack at completing his dream project.

But Hoffay’s explanation didn’t deter Hoyt from his goal of laying the groundwork for legal action. “Carter’s here because he was appointed by the mayor,” said the broker, who is also an attorney. “As I understand it, from the 1984 resolution passed by the Common Council, [the Pike Plan Commission should consist of] the city planner, an archi-tect, the mayor or mayor’s representative, and four, basi-cally, stakeholders. I assume that you’re the mayor’s repre-sentative. But how is Carter the mayor’s representative, and you’re the mayor’s representative?”

“I’m the designee of the mayor because the mayor can-not attend the meeting,” said Hoffay. “The mayor has asked Carter to stay on as an appointed member because he has the ability to appoint, in spite of the fact that he has served the two terms, because he has been so integral to the process.”

“I appreciate that,” said Hoyt. “But that’s not what the resolution says. I appreciate that, and I appreciate Carter’s work, and I believe that Carter is an intelligent individual who’s put a lot of effort into this. I’m just saying that there are a lot of people who are a little bit frustrated with the way the entire process has been handled.”

Hoyt also leaned hard on another of the insurgents’ main points: that they’ve never been properly consulted or com-municated with, despite the commission’s contention that legal notices were posted in the Daily Freeman. “I think perhaps, because there are so few people involved — this is not like a citywide thing,” said Hoyt. “There are so few peo-ple involved, that it seems there could be a compiled list [of owners to contact], and that minimally, moving forward, it’s not enough to say ‘OK, we put it in the paper, you didn’t show up; you’re apathetic, so we’ll make your decisions for you.’ So if you’re going to authorize, say, a $100,000 bond, when there are so few people involved, what does it take to reach out and go after them and say: ‘Hey, I want your input; what do you think about it?’ And I am less of a posi-tion than I am for a process. And the process as I see it has failed along the way.”

Hastings pushed back hard at Hoyt’s aggressive lob-bying on behalf of the insurgent owners. “Here’s what I’m getting at, people. I just want to be clear,” he said. “I know most of you, and I respect your ideas and your concerns and everything. But here’s what really both-ers me, OK? I’ve been on this commission for four-plus years; I’m not really sure even how long it’s been. Every year when the tax bills go out, there’s a little cover letter that goes with the tax bills. It explains to you what’s go-ing on, we give out our cell numbers, office numbers, if you have any concerns please call us. We also in those letters tell you that the meetings are posted in the paper. They’re the first Tuesday of the month, they were at 9 o’clock at City Hall. And what really bothers me is I’ve gone around to several people, OK? Including you …”

Hoyt: “Absolutely, no question …”Hastings: “OK … and as of two months ago, you had a whole

different tune, and you’ve had a different tune for the last three years. And now all of a sudden it’s like a total turnaround. And I understand, like I said, everybody’s frustrations, but where

Kingston Second Ward alderman Tom Hoffay (left) and real estate broker Jon Hoyt (right) go head to head.

aPRIL-MaY 2009 • PAGE 5CHRONICThe Hudson Valley

Sick SudokuAs any die-hard puzzlehead knows, Sudoku is not a game; it’s either a

means of warding off dementia, or a form of dementia in itself. Either way, this seemingly harmless little pastime has become an unspeakable facet of daily existence for millions of silent addicts, and a likely root cause for the

simultaneous and precipitous drop in the GNPs of several the world’s leading economic powers. Enjoy this fifth in a series of brainstoppers. Again, for the

solution, go to hvchronic.com. If you figured it out, go buy yourself something so you can add a little to all the economic stimulus going on.

Puzzle # S0005

As a publisher, one must choose one’s battles care-fully, and try not to alienate the entire region you’re trying to serve. As a reporter and writer,

you strive to get at the truth, whether it be literal or some-thing deeper and more complex. In that respect, I’ve his-torically erred on the side of incaution, more interested in making a point than in making friends. Since with this modest experiment in gonzo self-publishing I’ve chosen to embrace all of the above roles, as well as those of advertising salesman and business entrepreneur, I’ve got a pretty thin tightrope to walk each month.

I believe the Chronic so far has a pretty intelligent, no-non-sense readership, with their bullshit meters tuned to zero. I also trust that when I get going on one of my digressive rants, or veer into scatalogical territory, that they at least understand and appreciate the effort, if not the result.

Still, it’s hard to stay out of trouble. Two of last month’s stories put me temporarily in the doghouse, so to speak. The

Yellow (Lab) JournalismNobody’s Business By Steve Hopkins

first, “Ruff House,” aspired to tell the tale of the Beek-man Animal Shelter. With the part about the toxic waste, I had no problem; five years of research and two filing cabinets full of supporting documents backed me up. But the critical interview with the woman from PANT, charging that the shelter was a chlorine-filled nightmare, turned out to completely bite me and ev-eryone else in the ass. The Beekman Animal Control Officer, Paul Hood, categorically denied the woman’s charges, backed up by a chorus of supporters. For giv-ing what she thought was an honest assessment to a journalist who presented it in such a negative light, the woman was asked by the board of PANT to step down. The organization is in jeopardy of losing all the good-will and cooperation it has worked hard to achieve, and may have difficulty saving another suffering critter.

For that I am truly sorry to all concerned, even though I technically did nothing wrong. I hope nothing like it ever happens again, although it probably will. I am constitutionally incapable of avoiding all risk.

The other piece that boomeranged on me was my “paean” to the City of Kingston in support of the efforts of Mark Greene and the Kingston Digital Corridor initiative, of which I’m a card-carrying booster. Still, my tone was considerably less than uplifting, as I tended to fawn over the negative as-pects of Kingston’s legacy that I’d grown to love so much while living there.

Well, whatever. Some people got it and some people didn’t, and it all seems to have turned out well enough, for the time being anyway.

Just be forewarned. While, as Associate Publish-er Emeritus Paul Joffe says, I may be “one of the charming, talented people that make Kingston in-teresting,” I am obviously not that nice. And there’s nothing “nice” about this “newspaper” either. The Chronic aspires to nothing less than re-igniting a new golden age of Yellow Journalism, as a counter-weight to all the “fair and balanced,” low-attention-span fluff clogging the dying mediasphere.

Wish me luck. ... On second thought, don’t.

PAGE 20 • APRIL-MAY 2009 CHRONICThe Hudson Valley

NASCAR NewsSports Beat

Sick SudokuAs any die-hard puzzlehead knows, Sudoku is not a game; it’s either a

means of warding off dementia, or a form of dementia in itself. Either way, this seemingly harmless little pastime has become an unspeakable facet of daily existence for millions of silent addicts, and a likely root cause for the simultaneous and precipitous drop in the GNPs of several the world’s leading economic powers. Enjoy this particularly nasty little chestnut. For the solution, assuming you find yourself in the 99% of people who will be

completely stymied, go to hvchronic.com. We won’t tell anybody you gave up.

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was everybody three or four years ago, when these things were … we had press conferences in the Freeman, we had a lot of things going on. And I just don’t understand where everybody was. Now all of a sudden the train’s left the station, and now everybody’s like, ‘Whoa, we think we should rip it down.’

No shrinking violet, Hoffay managed to re-convey his mes-sage while answering Hoyt’s list of concerns. “You’ve said a lot of things, and I want to address the process issue. Because I came late to this process. This started five years ago; I came on as an alderman less than a year ago, so I sort of walked into the project. And it took me a while to catch up with where they were in the process. I think the first thing that it took me a while to understand, because as a resident of Kingston, when Jen Ringwood was the alderman here, I was always pushing her, saying, ‘How come we’re not doing this? How come we’re not doing that?’ And she’s like, ‘The process is very slow, this has got to be done, that has got to be done.’ It has been a complex, complicated process. And it’s complicated for a number of rea-sons, one of which is the funding sources that are being used. This is not a straight-out, one-shot funding source, and we have to go by the calendars of the different sources. The biggest part of the grant, the part that’s actually going to pay for the con-struction of this, is the grant that Congressman Hinchey was able to secure for us, and it’s not just between the congressman’s office, or us, or the city; it’s going through the New York State DOT. So every one of those regulations become a hoop that the commission has to jump through.

“And in addition, as you know, Rural Ulster Preservation has got a $200,000 grant that they have dealt with the state on. And they have had to renew that and hold that for us. Against a lot of pressure to let that grant go, they have held on to that for us, because of our commitment to the process. So I think it’s fair probably to look at this and say, ‘Well, you guys were very funding-oriented’ during the process. And that’s what I get from it.

“These guys became very technical-minded, very much looking at these funding sources — ‘Can we get that ap-proval? Can we hold onto it? Can we meet this objective?’ They did have, however, from everything that I’ve been able to reconstruct from talking with Kevin O’Connor, who is really very important to the beginning of this process, to Sue [Cahill] and others, and I was at, already during the last year, now two public hearings on it — they have had a number of public sessions right from the very get-go when Norman Mintz was brought in. RUPCO essentially paid for that, and got that whole process started.

“In the last year, in the 11 months that I’ve been the alder-man, I have heard the complaints about the process from the

point of view of the stakeholders themselves. And that’s what we’re trying to do with the legislation, to make this more user-friendly. I mean the Common Council, which also approved the bond, represents much bigger areas in the city. Everybody in the council has huge numbers of either residences, busi-nesses, or a combination thereof. And they try to have a public dialog — through residents’ associations, through public meet-ings, through individual meetings — it’s work, in the sense that you’ve got to be proactive with it. And it’s possible that the com-mission in the past, at a certain point, became pretty focused on holding onto this funding. This is a relatively big amount of money that has been pledged to this project; we’re talking a cumulative $1.8 million of money coming in, for electricians, carpenters, painters, architects, being spent locally. This is a big sum of money. And it’s taken apparently a lot of work on the part of the commission to hold that funding in place.”

By this time Hoyt’s tactic of disarming his foe with faint praise before firing another volley was becoming apparent. And Hoffay, for his part, was losing patience. The discourse became heated. “The funding efforts are to be applauded,” he said. “But if it’s for building a bridge to nowhere, it is a frustrated effort. The research that should have — that may have — preceded this, and the input from the stakeholders who are paying the freight …”

Hoffay: “No, they’re not. And that’s an important point.”

Hoyt: “The bond …”Hoffay: “The bond is for $100,000, out of $1.8 million.

It’s a $100,000 contribution. That’s not even … that’s half of what RUPCO’s putting into it. So, you have to put this thing in …”

Hoyt: “For a bridge to nowhere, it’s meaningless.”Hoffay: “The definition of a bridge to nowhere is a

definition we could all argue about. We could have this discussion …”

Hoyt: “But that research should already be in …”Hoffay: “And as you say, it may have been done al-

ready …”Hoyt: “How many towns and cities have these ’70s

arcades?”Hoffay: “Jon, this is an argument we’ve had, and we

could continue to have all day long. But let me just point this out to you. Under the state-authorizing legislation for the Pike Plan Commission, and in the legislation it-self, it specifically says that the obligation of the com-mission is to the maintenance and repair of the Plan. That’s the stated obligation of the commission itself …”

Hoyt: “We’re way beyond repair …”Hoffay: “And we are now to the point that we expect,

within 60 to 90 days, to have work begin after a five-year process, with $1.8 million to be invested, primarily by taxpayers who had nothing to do with the plan, and by groups that are not under the plan.”

‘Not an option’Hoyt was not done. He wanted to revisit the question as

to whether any research was done concerning whether a sidewalk canopy is even a good idea or not. In a missive he had passed around before the start of the meeting, he alluded colorfully to this line of inquiry. “Is the effort to rebuild or reconstruct the Pike Plan the result of studies of sidewalk arcades and their effect on business districts or, rather, having grant monies available and finding a use for these grant monies?” he wrote. “Proper market-ing and planning would involve the appropriate research preceding the decision-making. What other towns and cities can be cited that have such sidewalk canopies which were fads if the 1970s that did not appear to receive wide-spread acceptance? Locally, Woodstock, New Paltz, Stone Ridge, High Falls, Rosendale, Saugerties, Highland and Marlboro seem to be surviving without sidewalk canopies. Moving on to larger cities and a larger search area, do Bea-con, Newburgh, Albany or any other cities in the region have sidewalk canopies? Does New York, London or Paris have sidewalk canopies? It rains frequently in Seattle; does Seattle have sidewalk canopies?”

Hoyt pressed the point further in the meeting. “Was there any exploration as to the availability of grants to remove the arcade?” he asked.

“No,” said Cahill, the city planner.Hoffay: “Well again, that would be contrary to the ex-

press duty of the commission. You see if the Pike Plan dis-appeared tomorrow, there is no commission.”

Hoyt: “Good.”Hoffay: “Well, you may say that. But there’s a group of

business owners, as opposed to building owners, who want to form a business improvement district. And the new legis-lation is designed to take this commission in that direction. But under the existing legislation, it’s clear that if the plan did not exist, then there would be no commission and there would be no BID. So, you sort of have to choose. We’re at a point now that the money has already started to be spent, let’s be clear. The grant is being drawn down on. We’re pay-

aPRIL-MaY 2009 • CHRONICThe Hudson Valley

The putative new home of SpectraWatt.

ing RBA, we’re paying some architects. We’ve already paid out a considerable amount of money. Yes, you’re right. Af-ter five years of studies, and funding, and meetings, and public hearings … Boom. Sixty to 90 days from now, the carpenters will be here.

Hoyt and Teri Rossin both reiterated that they had been told early on that tearing down the canopy was not an op-tion for historic reasons, that it was a protected structure.

“There were people four or five years ago that discussed taking down the Pike Plan,” said Rossin. “And we were told, in this room, ‘That is not an option. You cannot take it down.’ We were told that. And so the reason people have been as apathetic as they are, is because they were told that there were no other options. And it wasn’t true, flat out. … We were told things that weren’t true. The studies that were done … Norman Mintz came in and he was paid, I don’t know, $100,000 or something like that, to give ideas about what should happen Uptown, and he said the first thing that should happen is to tear down that thing, and he was told that wasn’t an option. We have a statement from him that says that.”

“Taking it down was not even an option,” said Hoyt. “That’s the way it was explained to me. So then it was simply a question of, rather than having the storefronts look like cave entrances, to try to get as much light com-ing through as possible. So I didn’t think taking it down was an option. That’s my fault; that’s my lack of under-standing and lack of getting involved.”

Hoyt summed up the thoughts of the insurgents, who would later convene to plot strategy and consider legal ac-tion. “Just one quick one, please if I could. And then I’m shutting up, and I won’t say another word for the rest of the day, to anyone. If this thing looks like it’s going to get rammed through, or whatever it’s gonna do — some people think it’s rammed through, some people will find it’s the end of a long, orderly process — fantastic. If we could do two things for me, I’d be so happy. Number one: establish that this is a reconstruction as of 2009 or 2010, whenever it’s completed, a reconstruction. So that some-where down the road, when somebody says, ‘You know something? It’s gotta come down,’ that there’s no argu-ment that this is in some way a ‘historic’ façade or historic structure, or anything of that nature. Let’s get the ‘histor-ic’ right out of it. Also, since this will not be the result of a design by artist John Pike, could we rename it something else? And that also will help get rid of this continuum that could lead down the road where someone could say, ‘Oh, this is historic, you can’t touch it.’”

survivor, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.; along with PCG Clean Energy and Technology Fund (CETF) and Solon AG, a German solar panel maker and power plant developer based in Berlin. In a statement announcing its investment, Solon referred to Spec-traWatt as a “strategic partner” for “expanding the company’s supplier base.” Ger-many, as TSEC’s CEO Vincent Cozzolino is fond of saying, is miles ahead of the U.S. at this point in terms of solar research, development, manufacturing and marketing.

Intel has been accused of trying to buy its way into a market pioneered by others. SpectraWatt will be compet-ing against a small constella-tion of solar cell makers large and small, which have had a significant head start. Accord-ing to greentechmedia.com, “key competitors include pure solar-cell makers such as Q-Cells, as well as solar panel makers who produce their own cells, such as Suntech Power Holdings in China.”

In the U.S. in the Age of Obama and Economic Stimulus, competition to attract a bona fide player in the supposedly red-hot “green” technology sector is fierce among state and regional entities hoping to re-tool aging factory complexes into the next Silicon Val-ley. New York State has quietly been encouraging the feeding frenzy, dangling multimillion-dollar Empire State Development (ESD) and New York State Energy and Research Development Authority (NYSERDA) tax incentives along which localities can hang addi-tional economic incentives. With the state in this case providing $3 million through ESD and $1.5 million from NYSERDA, Dutchess County kicked in a re-source assistance package that included training grants from the Dutchess County Industrial Development Agency and the Dutchess County Workforce Invest-ment Board. Additionally, said Steinhaus, “Dutchess Community College has agreed to work with Spectra-Watt to tailor technical and professional development

courses for employees based on the needs of the com-pany. The deal-sealer, though, must surely have been the 200 metric tons of solar-grade silicon ESD was able to throw in as the result of an earlier swap with the state’s new Niagara Falls-based silicon manufac-turer, Globe Specialty Metals. In exchange for provid-

ing Globe with 40 megawatts of low cost hydropower, the state was given 1,000 metric tons of the stuff to do with as it wished. Twenty percent of its stash was enough to entice SpectraWatt.

Sounds a lot like something TSEC might have come up with, had they been given the chance.

SpectraWatt, however, may not be all it’s cracked up to be, accord-ing to The Oregonian newspaper, which reported the sour-grapes perspective from the losing state, starting with revealing that the reason for the move to New York was that the cash-strapped compa-ny couldn’t find financing to build a plant. Desari Strader, executive director of the Oregon Solar En-

ergies Industry Association, was paraphrased in an Or-egonian article as saying that “impatient venture-capitalist managers at SpectraWatt have unrealistic expectations of Oregon officials, who must ensure the company is finan-cially sound before confirming tax breaks.”

Are they saying that New York officials have no such standards?

New York’s gain is Oregon’s loss. The planned 65,000-square-foot Hillsboro, Oregon plant, an-nounced in June 2008, was to have employed 135 workers. A month later, Wilson announced plans to build an even bigger plant that would boost Spectra-Watt’s work force to 1,000 within eight years, put-ting the company on track toward supplying up to 5 percent of the world’s solar cells. The hammer be-gan to fall on December 17, when, according to The Oregonian, Hillsboro officials were 85 percent done with reviewing the company’s building-permit appli-cations. Here’s hoping SpectraWatt treats us a little better than that.

Solar Subterfuge From Page 1

Omega From Page 1

art education center. As setting seemingly impossible goals is ingrained in the Omega consciousness, the OCSL is also striving to attain a lofty designation as a LEED Platinum-certified piece of sustainable architecture, as well as to be-come the first building in the United States to be deemed a Living Building.

In 2005 Omega began to look at replacing its aging sep-tic system and decided that a living machine — a natural wastewater treatment system housed in a building designed and built to the toughest criteria of sustainable architecture — was the most appropriate response for these times.

In creating the OCSL, Omega worked with a number of progressive, forward-thinking companies. John Todd, a pioneer in the field of natural wastewater treatment systems and head of John Todd Ecological Design, collaborated with civil engineers from the Chazen Companies to do prelimi-nary engineering work to envision the living machine and how it would fit into the systems currently on campus. They laid the important groundwork for BNIM, the sustainable architecture firm that ultimately designed the facility.

The full team also included Backus and others from Ome-ga, along with Natural Systems International (NSI), which provided comprehensive and specialized engineering servic-es in natural wastewater treatment, stormwater treatment, water reuse, and water resources master planning, utilizing natural systems including constructed wetlands and the ap-plied ecologies of the pond, river, prairie, and woodland; the landscape architect, Conservation Design Forum (CDF), a nationally recognized design firm that explores and creates integrated, water-based design strategies that promote eco-nomic, social, and ecological sustainability; Tipping Mar + associates, a highly skilled structural engineering firm dedi-cated to engineering excellence, creativity, and innovation; BGR Consulting Engineers, Inc., a full service mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection, and technology design engineering firm; and Dave Sember Construction.

The result of their collaboration is a 6,200-square-foot building that contains a classroom, laboratory, and a 4,500 -square-foot greenhouse for Omega’s living sewage treat-ment processor, the Eco Machine. Slated to come online sometime this spring, the Eco Machine will treat more than 5 million gallons of wastewater annually. The OCSL will offer visitors a direct experience with the most recent, cutting-edge technologies in green building and sustain-able living, and will show in an experiential, accessible way, how we can move forward together.

accepting the Challenge; LeeDing the wayIn taking on the Living Building Challenge, a program of

the Cascadia Region Green Building Council, the OCSL is

helping to push the boundaries of green building and sus-tainable architecture to help our society move quickly to a state of balance between natural and built environments.

Taking a holistic approach to green building, the Liv-ing Building Challenge requires buildings to be informed by their eco-region’s characteristics; generate all of their own energy with renewable resources; capture and treat all of their water; operate efficiently; and be designed for maximum beauty. There are six performance areas: site, energy, materials, water, indoor quality, and beauty and inspiration — and certain criteria must be met in each category in order for a building to be designated a Living Building.

The point is to facilitate changes in the green building industry by examining the best knowledge and practices available today in sustainable architecture — including design, sourcing, building codes, economics, consumer expectations, and so on — and creating a benchmark of the highest level of sustainability currently possible in the marketplace. It is a challenge to building owners, archi-tects, engineers, and design professionals to build in a way that moves us toward sustainable architecture and a truly sustainable future.

As mentioned earlier, the OCSL is also being construct-ed to meet the highest green building standards of the trade: LEED Platinum status. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating system is a third-party certification program and the na-tionally accepted benchmark for sustainable design, con-struction, and operation of high performance buildings. By meeting certain criteria, a project accumulates credits. The total number of credits a project finishes with determines its LEED status: Certified, Silver, Gold, or Platinum.

Developed in the 1990s, LEED has helped take green building and sustainable architecture into the mainstream. It provides building owners and operators with the tools they need to have an immediate and measurable impact on their building’s performance while encouraging a shift in the global marketplace of sustainable architecture and green building.

The soul of a new machineThe Eco Machine (the name is trademarked, so don’t

try to steal it, kids) that lies at the heart of the OCSL is the latest in living machine technology. Designed by John Todd, a pioneer in the field of ecological design, this liv-ing machine is natural wastewater treatment system that cleans water by mimicking the systems of the natural world. Wastewater comes into the Eco Machine and is run through various treatment zones where all major forms of

life are represented, including microscopic algae, fungi, bacteria, plants, snails and fish. This natural wastewater treatment is a robust ecosystem that cleans the water with-out the need for hazardous chemicals.

The size and components of a living machine depends on how much water the system will process. Omega’s Eco Machine can process up to 52,000 gallons a day and includes anoxic tanks, constructed wetlands, the Eco Machine lagoons, sand filters, and large dispersal fields. Much of the Eco Machine’s natural wastewater treatment process is gravity fed, decreasing the amount of energy needed to operate the system. Omega plans to eventually use the purified and sterilized water from the OCSL for irrigation and in toilets throughout its campus.

In the first stage of the Eco Machine, all wastewater comes into two large septic tanks (10,000 gallons total) and naturally occurring microbial organisms living in the water begin to digest the sludge that settles to the bottom of the tanks. This process happens in the absence of oxygen (called either aerobic or anoxic) and produces a modest amount of methane gas, though not enough to harvest and use as an energy source.

From the anaerobic tanks, water makes its way into a constructed wetland full of plants known for their ability to treat wastewater. These plants help clarify the water as particles in the water stick to the plants’ roots. They also remove nitrates from the water, converting them into a harmless nitrogen gas that escapes into the atmo-sphere. There are four constructed wetlands in Omega’s system, each the size of a basketball court.

From the constructed wetlands, the water is collected in a 5,000-gallon tank where it is then pumped into the greenhouse and into the two aerated lagoons of the Eco Machine. There are four cells in each lagoon, and as the water makes its way through each cell it is scrubbed and cleaned by plants, fungi, algae, bacteria, snails, and oth-er organisms in the tanks. In turn, these organisms use the nutrients to grow and thrive and the tanks become full of lush plants and teeming with life.

Before being reintroduced back into the environment, water is sent through a re-circulating sand filter. Tiny mi-croorganisms living in the sand are capable of removing any nitrogen, organic matter or particulates that may still be present. At this point the water meets advanced waste-water standards and is ready for non-potable use.

Finally, the processed water is reintroduced to the en-vironment via a subsurface network of chambers in two large dispersal fields under the parking lot. Eventually, the hope is to use the water to irrigate Omega’s gardens, flush its toilets, and maintain an outdoor water garden.


Mike Hein

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I Was Just I Was I Was

The LasTwerd

Dear Supervisor:P.A.N.T. would like to advise you that our Board

of Directors was shocked and appalled by the article written by Steve Hopkins in the Hudson Valley Chronic.

While the article states that Connie Price is the vice-president of P.A.N.T., her quoted statements are hers and hers alone. They do not reflect the opinions of P.A.N.T., its board or any other members. In light of her statements, Ms. Price s no longer affiliated with P.A.N.T. We would like to work together to repair the image of the agencies referenced in the article.

P.A.N.T. truly values the working relationship that we have eagerly developed with our local animal control officers; and each of them provides ethical, dedicated and comprehensive care to the animals they serve. By working together, a large number of dogs over the years have been provided with new homes. The animal control officers are instrumental in P.A.N.T.’s process of re-homing animals; and we are devastated by the prospect of losing their support.

Sincerely,Joan Trombini, President

On behalf of the entireBoard of Directors of P.A.N.T.

(Editor’s note: The following letter was sent by the P.A.N.T. president to town supervisors in the municipalities affected by last month’s Ruff House story:)

Associate Publisher Emeritus responds to ‘My Kind of Town’

Bad Press

To the Editor:As “Associate Publisher Emeritus” I felt it was my

duty to offer a rebuttal to the article “My Kind of Town, Take 2” by editor Steve Hopkins in the last issue of the Chronic which I read for the first time as it was being distributed. I wonder if any town has ever been so savagely insulted in a local paper before? What deep personal rage and grievance gave voice to this rant which opens as an article about the Kingston Digital Corridor, but gets the name wrong, never interviews the organization, and doesn’t give the url. The misrepresen-

tations begin there but don’t stop. Saying that Kingston and Ulster have the highest cancer rates in the state is just wrong.

http://www.health.state.ny.us/statistics/cancer/registry/docs/volume1.pdf shows that the cancer rate in Ulster county is lower than the average for NY state.

• 594 per 100,000 for all upstate males, and 573 in Ulster County.

• 453 per 100,000 for all upstate females and 449 for Ulster County.

• also see: http://www.scorecard.org/ranking/rank-counties.tcl?how_many=100&drop_down_name=Cancer+risk+score&fips_state_code=36

Are we to believe by the logic of Mr. Hopkins that Hamilton County, with a rate in the 700s, suffers from a native curse, or more likely an elderly population? Could our relative health be due to the fact that Kings-ton’s water supply is one of the best in the state, coming as it does from an ancient dedicated country spring, instead of being drawn from the Hudson River like so many more expensive nearby municipalities?

Who knows? Statistics are puzzles, not proofs. Was Mr. Hopkins attempting to position himself as cham-pion of the Kingston residents he describes as “the swarthy lower class,” who “squabble over the right to fix their toilets or haul away their filthy garbage”? As one who is often described as having a swarthy complexion, and on behalf of similarly complected Kingstonites, I re-ject his leadership. In his “paean” to Kingston, Hopkins describes a scene of pugilism and debauchery reminis-cent of a gold rush town strewn with crack vials and “un-collected garbage.” Maybe I don’t get out enough but in my three years in Kingston I have never witnessed

a brawl or fistfight or even a physical public argument. I don’t doubt the police are called to many every year, but it doesn’t seem to be emblematic of Kingston’s population.

As for garbage, it’s collected every week along with leaves, Christmas trees, and snow. In case any debris ends up at the curb in front of my house, it is swept clean by a sweeper truck run by a gentleman who waves hello as he passes by. I guess

there weren’t enough “misanthropes” to go around at the department of sanitation.

Finally these descriptions of the town: “a nasty reputation”, “A crucible of dark feeling since the dawn of time”??, “a high degree of unexplained anger and frustration”, “ making us all as angry as treed wolver-ines.” The real tale is the side-trip that Hopkins takes us through the Albany apartment he shared with his best friend, an alcoholic, violent criminal. It is then the reader sees that the high degree of unexplained anger and frustration is the author’s, and that the crucible of dark feelings is his own mind. I have never met a friendlier group of talented people than the ones I know here in Kingston. One of them is Mark Greene, whose work to publicize the town for what it is, a popular choice for successful, intelligent, happy people, can be seen at: http://www.kingstondigitalcorridor.org .

If you want to sample the Kingston music scene that Hopkins calls angry, go to itunes, look up Rebecca martin and decide for yourself. By the way, as if “my Kind of Town, Take 2” had not been enough of an ad hominem diatribe, it certainly made that milestone when it called the residents of Kingston “fantastically ugly,” and then ended with “Good luck Mark, I hope this helps.” Sometimes the difference between joke and insult is a laugh. I know and like Steve Hopkins; he is one of the charming, talented people that make Kings-ton interesting, and I think he would have preferred this work not be taken too seriously. Done.

Paul JoffeAssociate Publisher Emeritus

Hudson Valley Chronic

Mark Greene addresses the inaugural meeting of the geeks of the Kingston Digital Corridor.

HV Chronic Vol II No 3

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Transcript of HV Chronic Vol II No 3