by Thaddeus Flint
The monthly Board meeting at the Town Hall in New Lebanon was standing room only Tuesday night as a large group from New Lebanon High School came to defend their school’s reputation from what they felt were “outrageous rumors and comments” concerning the students of that District and heroin use.
[private]“I’m here to deliver facts and set the record straight in regards to the Town’s heroin drug problem,” said Leonard Brown, New Lebanon High School physical education teacher and co-advisor of SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions). “A member of the Town Board has made derogatory statements about our School District.”
Brown was speaking of Councilman Matt Larabee. Larabee has been concerned for some time that the use of drugs, especially heroin, is a threat to the youth of the Town. With that in mind he wanted to bring in an anti-drug and alcohol coalition, TRACS (Together Reducing Alcohol and drugs in our Communities), which was reportedly successful in lowering drug and alcohol use in the Berlin School District.
The first meeting of TRACS in New Lebanon was held March 11 after Larabee announced he had received information that heroin and needles had been found along a roadside. Almost nobody attended the meeting. Both Larabee and TRACS President Biffy Cahill have commented on their difficulties in getting the New Lebanon School District to accept the TRACS program in their schools.
“We at New Lebanon do not deny that the New Lebanon community has a heroin problem,” said Brown, “nor that it might someday hit our school.” But Brown and a large group of students from the school wanted to refutes some statements.
“Upon investigation there was no bag of heroin or needles found by State Police or the Sheriff’s Department,” said Brown.
Brown also questioned Larabee’s “shock” that a teacher from New Lebanon would not have even alerted students to the date of the TRACS meeting. Brown said he has been promoting TRACS since last September.
New Lebanon Court Clerk Tistrya Hamilton was quoted by the Eastwick Press in September 2013 saying that the Town now had a “huge drug problem – unfortunately much of it is youth related.” The quote was re-quoted in a March 29 story on the TRACS meeting to show that Larabee was not the only person in New Lebanon warning of drug problems.
“This would lead one to believe that it’s the students,” said Brown. “Again this is not the fact.” Brown pointed out that the Eastwick Press article on the TRACS meeting made it seem that the “heroin problem is in the New Lebanon Central School,” because of statements that mentioned the school districts.
“According to a recent survey conducted at the New Lebanon Junior Senior High School,” pointed out Brittany Warner, Senior and President of New Lebanon’s chapter of SADD, “100% of the student population never used heroin in their life.”
Both Brown and Warner listed the many programs and events that SADD hosts each year to help keep the students in New Lebanon drug free. The point seems to be that the District is already happy with the program it has. It seems to be successful. Just to make sure, Columbia County Sheriff’s Deputies and NYS Troopers come in with drug dogs and do locker searches of the innocent students’ belongings. So why would they want a second program from another District that would largely duplicate the first?
Unfortunately neither Larabee nor Cahill were at the meeting, so their insights were not heard.
“If you want the youth of any community to be involved in a proactive and preventative program, the last thing you do is make false accusations based on gossip and hearsay about them, then put it in the local newspaper and then make posts on social media with no truthful facts,” said Brown.
“I certainly feed badly if you or any student or anyone else from the school was insulted by the comments of anyone on the Town Board,” Town Supervisor Mike Benson said to Brown. “I think what the Town Board should do is stick to running the Town, and we should let the school do what the school does.”
Resident and Planning Board member, Trina Porte, later asked that the media try to fact check more thoroughly. “Do your job as journalist and not just rumor-monger,” she advised. She claimed that she herself has been “severely misquoted and sullied in the local press.”
Reporting on a meeting is hardly rumor-mongering. It’s what happened at a meeting. Sometimes a report is criticized by people who haven’t even attended the meeting. One fact anyone can check is that neither Larabee nor Cahill were quoted as saying that anyone from the New Lebanon schools was using heroin. Their motive was to prevent that from ever happening in the future. This is a key fact that many seemed to have overlooked.
Covenant Circle
As if all that wasn’t interesting enough for one Board meeting, Covenant Circle’s road to nowhere is finally getting somewhere.
Residents who live on a development at Covenant Circle have been trying for over twenty years to get New Lebanon to take over their forlorn little road. Back in February the Town’s Attorney, Andy Howard, explained that if over fifty percent of the residents with property in the development sign a petition to be classified as a Special Improvement District, then the Board would hold a public hearing on the matter. Should the measure ever be adopted, Covenant Circlers would pay higher taxes, but the Town would then take over and fix up the road.
The Covenant Circlers’ attorney, Bill Better of Kinderhook, presented that petition to the Board Tuesday night.
“The folks in the subdivision have banded together to ask the Town Board to take the road over and improve it,” said Better. Thirty out of thirty-two lot owners signed the petition, far greater a percentage than was needed.
“We are doing this at our own expense,” Better said. “We just want the Town to provide the mechanism. We are asking the Town to facilitate the ability to tax ourselves.”
Better said that the homeowners there are looking at a figure of around $100,000 for the road improvements
Town Highway Superintendent, Jeff Weinstock, probably would have laughed out loud at that number, but he seems to have very little humor left when it comes to the road at Covenant Circle.
“I’m not happy with any of it,” said Weinstock, who really didn’t look happy with any of it.
He has been having contractors give estimates on repairs for the road. One gave him a “quick quote for just the fabric and gravel that I would like to see on the road. The estimate is $400,000 with another $350,000 to put a little pavement on it. And that doesn’t even include pipe replacements, tree removal and ditch repairs.”
Better seem unconcerned with Weinstock’s figures. “We should calmly, and with all the information go forward, and not reach conclusions in advance,” he said. And that is what will happen. Although how calm the public hearing will be is anyone’s guess.
The public hearing for the Covenant Circle road improvement is scheduled to take place starting at 6 pm on May 13 before the regular May Board meeting. A second public hearing, this one on some Zoning re-write issues, will also be held the same night, right after the one on Covenant Circle.
“We won’t get out here until 11!” laughed Councilman Chuck Geraldi. “Bring dinner!”[/private]