Mailbag

To The Editor:
Thank you to everyone who supported the Margaretville Community Thanksgiving Dinner on November 22. It was a great dinner that served about 100 people in the Purcell Center, and provided another 30 people with take-out meals.

I wish that there was space to acknowledge everyone by name, but I know I’d miss someone in the process. I do want to thank the organizing committee of Carol O’Beirne, Rae Brenner, Terry Marks and Iris Mead.

To The Editor:
According to the Delaware County Public Works Department (DCPW), four bridges were destroyed (and many others damaged) in the Town of Middletown in August of 2011 during Hurricane Irene.  Two of the four missing bridges have been completely rebuilt.  The two that remain missing and the subject of much debate are both located in the Village of Fleischmanns! 

To The Editor:
Completing a world-class trail network linking the Walkway Over the Hudson to Kingston and then out to the Ashokan Reservoir and beyond offers the Catskills huge economic benefits built on healthy recreational activity. Studies across the country repeatedly demonstrate substantial economic and health benefits from building off-road multiple-purpose trail networks, and linking existing mountain biking and hiking trails in the Catskills with these trail networks obviously creates an invitation for outdoors enthusiasts from around the world to join us in enjoying these riches.

To The Editor:

To The Editor:
As an aunt and godmother of a boy who was baptized at Holy Innocents Church, I can whole-heartedly say that the good people at Holy Innocents exude warmth, acceptance, and God’s love.
I wonder, how long are these meetings at the Interfaith Council that it takes 12 years to include a valued member of the spiritual community?

Kerry Norris George,
Pearl River & Oliverea

To The Editor:
The Greater Margaretville Community Thanksgiving Dinner is set for November 22, and we hope that anyone who is alone or feels a need for community during this holiday joins us at the tables in the Purcell Center of the Sacred Heart Church.

It isn’t too late to make plans to join us. Either call with your reservation so that we know how many to expect, or simply show up between noon and 2 p.m. for a traditional Thanksgiving meal with all the fixings. If you don’t want to eat in, you can even get take-out meals.

To The Editor:
I guess we all learned this week how important each and every vote is, as the County Judge race between two great candidates, Gary Rosa and Carl Becker, came down to the wire. Although Becker pulled it out in a squeaker, it makes ever more important the question: Who are your Election Inspectors, and what do they do? 

Thanks to the indulgence of Publisher Dick Sanford (who regularly tolerates my rants), I can share the rest of my Election Inspector story, which was inadvertently omitted from the November 14 issue.

To The Editor:
First, I am a Republican, well most of the time. However, as long as the GOP locks out mass numbers of people with its policies on women’s rights, religion, gays, Latinos, preaching of tax cuts for every ill, and people in the metro inner cities, the party is good as dead.

To The Editor:
Week after week, we see it in the Police Blotter section: people learning it the hard way.  As a mom and a teacher, I know firsthand how true this path is.  However, the drunk driver baffles me and those that help hide the evidence so quickly.  Do they not hear time and again how devastating the lessons are that can be learned from that “mistake”?  

Of course, we all know that drinking and driving is a choice, not just a lapse in judgment. Maybe it is time again for one of those devastating, life-altering lessons?

To The Editor:
I want to thank your reporter Geoff Samuels for his excellent reporting of the Andes Round Table session on October 17, which featured Alan White, executive director of the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development. He summarized very well Alan’s coverage of the CCCD’s efforts to promote green energy in the region by implementing much of the same at the center’s buildings.