Living in Dryden

Flowers, truck

I took some pictures of blossoms on a tree in front of my house. The first picture here is pretty typical flower stuff, but the second has an extra feature you don't normally see in flower pictures, a passing truck.

Spring blossoms

Spring blossoms with truck

School grades, expenditures

The print edition of today's Ithaca Journal contains a "Grading Our Schools" supplement which lists test results for schools and school districts in the area, including Dryden, Ithaca, and many more. It also lists spending per pupil for the 2000-2001 years (which is odd, given that the test results are for 2002-3). For comparison, here are the expenditures per student for all the districts listed:

This is about 1% of the data provided in that booklet, which is a huge information overload if you try to look at everything at once. While total expenditure is not the right way to compare school districts, it's the easiest piece to extract from this for a blog entry. I strongly encourage you to pick up the Journal today or visit the New York State Department of Education's data.

Varna BBQ tomorrow

I'll be barbecuing chicken along with a lot of other people tomorrow, May 1st, at the Great May Chicken Barbecue at the Varna Community Center (map).

$6.50 for adults, $5.50 for seniors, or $3.50 for children under 12 gets a meal including a barbecued chicken half, baked beans, salt potatoes, cole slaw, roll and dessert. $3.75 buys half a chicken only. You can have your food eat-in or take-out.

(I'm still working on an events calendar, but if you have an event you'd like listed here, please contact me with details.)

News near Dryden

This morning's Ithaca Journal has two stories one intersection west of Dryden, including an accident at the Sapsucker Woods-Route 13-Brown Road intersection that backed traffic into Dryden and a celebration of a one-lane bridge's 100th anniversary in Forest Home.

(Anyone know how old the Freese Road bridge currently under repair is?)

A guest column lists resources for seniors in Tompkins County.

Living wage discussion in Dryden Tuesday night

Martha Ferger writes (and the Dryden Courier also reports):

Town of Dryden residents who support a higher minimum wage for New York State are invited to meet on Tuesday, May 4 at 7:30 pm at the home of Martha and John Ferger, 10 Union Street, Dryden (map).

Carl Feuer, an organizer for the Tompkins County Living Wage Coalition, will lead a discussion on ways we can help pass legislation currently before the NYS Senate that would raise the minimum to $7.10 hour. A recent study from the Fiscal Policy Institute in Albany found no evidence that a minimum wage higher than the current $5.15 per hour caused job loss and unemployment. On the contrary, between 1998 and 2001 the number of small employer establishments grew significantly faster in states with a higher minimum wage than in those with a lower minimum.

Grange honors, Dryden school renovations lead Courier

The front page of this week's Dryden Courier has a picture of the Dryden Middle School production of Fiddler on the Roof. The lead stories focus on the Dryden Grange's honoring of farmer and school board member Tom Miller and Red Cross volunteer Marylyn Brooks, as well as the Dryden School Board's effort to 'resurrect' improvements for music classes at the high school.

Inside, there's a story on Cassavant Elementary School's work on a project about stories of people who immigrated to the area, and an editorial on New York's Freedom of Information Law, a key tool for making this site work. There are also announcements of some events this weekend:

• There will be a New England Contra and Square Dance tomorrow, April 30, from 8pm to 11pm at the Bethel Grove Community Center, 1825 Slaterville Road (map).
• On Saturday, May 1, there will be a Jazz Dessert Night at Dryden Middle School gym, featuring the a cappella groups beyondmeasure and Dryden Voices. Tickets are $7.

There's also a article on Groton's efforts to turn a house over to Better Housing of Tompkins County for renovation, which seems an example worth learning from.

Two Dryden residents leaving ICSD board, one running

This morning's Ithaca Journal reports that six people are running for three seats on the Ithaca City School District Board of Education. None of the three incumbents, including Dryden residents Arthur Berkey and Henry Kramer, is running again, while Dryden resident David Lee is running.

The district also voted to add a reading specialist if insurance fees drop enough to permit it.

In other Dryden news, the Freese Road bridge, which has seen lots of recent activity, will be closed another week, to May 6.

In county news, there's a report on Tompkins County Area Development's work on attracting high-tech businesses and encouraging affordable housing as well as a story on County Legislator Michael Koplinka-Loehr's plan to swim the length of Cayuga Lake to raise money for the Tompkins County Quality of Life Fund.

Softball, scrap metal cleanup, and chipping

This week's issue of The Shopper includes three handy notices from the Town of Dryden:

• The Recreation Department has a notice about registration for the Duke Erickson Adult Co-ed Softball League. There are two leagues (Tuesday and Saturday). Team roster forms are available at Dryden Town Hall (map) and must be submitted by May 15th. Players must be men or women sixteen or older.
• There will be a scrap metal cleanup with a dumpster at the Dryden Highway Department (map). They'll take scrap metal from May 3rd to May 30th, Monday through Thursday 7am-2pm and Fridays 7am-11am.
• The Town will also be having a chipping day on May 8th, rain or shine from 8am to 4pm. Twigs and small branches will be accepted at a Johnson Road site (map). The notice says to "bring your own containers if you want to take chips with you."

There's also a notice for the Freeville PTA Carnival, which will be Saturday, May 1st at Freeville Elementary School (map) from 11am to 3pm.

Elementary principal retiring, open houses

I try to write my coverage of the Ithaca Journal in the morning before the workday starts, but apparently today I wasn't too awake when I did it.

In addition to the stories I mentioned earlier, they also report that Paula Thoma, principal of Freeville and Cassavant elementary schools, has given notice that she will retire in 2007. The article also discusses the board's work narrowing down their choices for a new superintendent to six applicants from the current pool of seventeen. (There were thirty-three to start with.)

The print version of the Our Towns section also includes data on the number of households per resident in the Village of Dryden. Three-quarters of households have one car or two cars, but I'm impressed that almost 11% of residents have no car at all.

Also in the print version but not online are a Community Agency section on Head Start and a Community Calendar that includes three open houses:

• Tompkins Community Action Early Childhood Department Head Start, tomorrow, April 29th, from 4-7pm at the TC3 farmhouse, 168 North Street (map)
• Tompkins County Comprehensive Plan Open House and Public Meeting Draft Plan Review - tomorrow, April 29th, from 3-7pm, with a meeting a 7pm, at the Dryden Town Hall, 65 East Main Street (map)
• TC3 Open House - Friday, April 30th, from 11am to 1:30pm.

More houses in Varna

Continuing west from the last few houses, these houses are next.

975 Dryden Road (map)

974 (or 976?) Dryden Road (map)

973 Dryden Road (map)

972 Dryden Road (map)

As mentioned in an earlier story, the last two of these houses have been for sale. I think I saw a SOLD sign on one, but I'm not sure. Also, the building I have listed as 974 may be 976; there's nothing to indicate which address it has, and it seems to be empty.

beyondmeasure, Grange recognition, more

Since the Ithaca Journal instituted the Our Towns section, Wednesdays have consistently been a busy day for Dryden news. Today's paper includes:

• a story on beyondmeasure, the Dryden High School a cappella group that recently recorded a CD (and recorded it at Masterview Soundcrafts, along Route 13 in Dryden);
• Cathy Wakeman's Dryden Town Talk, which looks at honors the Dryden Grange gave Marilyn Brooks and Tom Miller last week, as well as a quilt presented by "Mary Ellen Rumsey and Sue Cardwell on behalf of 'folks who want to contribute to the annual Dryden Dairy Days, but who are not part of the Grange or the farming community'";
• and news of absentee ballots for Dryden Central School District elections and Dairy Day organizers seeking volunteers. Elections are May 18, while Dairy Day is June 12.

In county news, legislators have agreed to aim for a 3% tax levy increase, though they haven't agreed where to make the cuts that limited increase will require.

Cortland Road Sewer District complexities

[Note: I wrote this last week but held it for documents I'd requested from the Town under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL). Most of those are now enclosed, but there's one document here which the Town didn't have, and I only requested it from the Village today. It doesn't make sense to hold up the story further, so I'll update it with that extra document when I get it. Update: It's there now.]

Nearly two hours of intense discussion about the Cortland Road Sewer District between the Town of Dryden and Village of Dryden boards Wednesday produced a list of issues to resolve and a few conversational highlights.

The contract for the Cortland Road Sewer District apparently expired in 2002, though it was worded vaguely enough that the expiration wasn't clear. The Town Board took steps at their last meeting to make billing in the Cortland Road Sewer District more like the billing in the Village, based on usage, removing one issue.

Most members of the Village and Town Boards were there, but the attorneys were not; the hope was that the two groups could decide on the content that needed to go into a new agreement and then have the attorneys draft language reflecting that agreement. The conversation started with a proposed new agreement (541KB PDF) and copies of the old agreement (573 KB PDF), though there were concerns about how to tell what had changed. Jon Bradley, Village of Dryden Public Works Superintendent, said that too much had changed structurally for redlining to be easy. Town Councilman Chris Michaels still hoped to make it work.

Mayor Reba Taylor of Dryden also had a list of almost half a million dollars of work the Village had done and never charged back to the Town (37KB PDF), though that may now be "water under the bridge".

Village Mayor Reba Taylor speaks to the joint meeting

The biggest issues seemed to be the nature of costs in supporting the district and how best to distribute them. The Town's users pay both a usage fee (at 1.25 times the Village rate) and a water district tax, while Village users pay only a usage fee.

The costs of the system affect the two parties in a variety of ways. The Village has borne most of the burden in identifying problems in the system and frequently helps out - Mayor Taylor brought up how the old Dunkin' Donuts (now Todi's Pizzeria) used to "lift manhole covers with the grease in their lines", and the Village's greater ability to collect and analyze data about the performance of the system came up frequently. The Village also has primary responsibility for operating and maintaining the sewage treatment plant. The Town has been responsible for its own lines, but limited capacity on the Village lines means that the Village may be asking the Town to build separate "interceptor" lines to carry sewage to the treatment plant more directly.

Superintendent Bradley felt that the Village's provision of services to the Town was costing the Village a lot of money. He said that when "I heard Supervisor Varvayanis's proposal [for the Town to build its own sewer plant], I shouted for joy... the Village can get by with a lot less sewer plant without the Town, since there's not that much more to develop." If the Town built its own plant, that would cost the Town much more, but remove a lot of the strain on the Village.

One of the most complicating factors, brought up by Mayor Taylor at the start of the meeting, but never addressed in depth, was the amount of development the Town is planning to permit or encourage around the Village, and how much additional load that would place on the Village's sewer system. The future land use map (301KB PDF) in the Town's Draft Comprehensive Plan shows a lot of suburban residential development in areas just outside the Village. While there is some discussion of cost for water and sewer services on page 76 of the draft plan, the Village's current assessment of upgrades to their plant are vastly complicated by uncertainty about how much capacity they'll need in the future.

Another complication, though a problem in the present rather than in the future, is the unclear position of two of the biggest users in the sewer district - Dryden Middle and High Schools, and Tompkins-Cortland Community College. The original contract with the schools (477 KB PDF), which was with the Village and became the Town's reponsibility when the Cortland Road Sewer District was formed, is long since expired. TC3 presents particular problems, as its lines seem to be the culprit for massive infiltration when it rains, forcing the sewage plant to support much higher peak capacity than it should.

After much circling around and through these issues, Councilman Michaels proposed a summary of steps needed to move forward. The first - adjusting the terms of the Town sewer district to match those of the Village more closely, was already done. The remaining steps include:

1. Updating the ordinances for the sewer district to better handle a variety of concerns raised;
2. Stopping the infiltration problems flooding the plant with water;
3. Assigning responsibility for monitoring the system and identifying problems;
4. Assigning responsibility for fixing problems and enforcing rules for the system's use;
5. Sorting out who pays for pipes the Town uses through the Village and how.

Councilman Mike Hattery suggested that updating the contracts between the Town and its largest users - TC3 and the schools - was also a concern, though Michaels suggested it could be addressed by ordinance. There were also questions about what might happen to all of these costs if the Village annexed the sewer district or parts of it, and how costs in the Town should be shared by new districts and the existing district if new sewer districts relying on the Village's treatment plant are formed.

While Michaels concluded optimistically by saying that "we have a lot of work to do, but we're not so far apart", it's clear that there are an enormous number of issues to work out to build a coherent and workable contract.

One of the Town's consultants, Chuck Franzese of Hunt Engineers, provided some concrete evidence that resolving this issues is possible, citing his own experience as a Councilman in the Town of Dix, in Schuyler County. Dix had to iron out a lot of issues to connect its sewer district (which includes Watkins Glen International racetrack) with the Village of Watkins Glen. It didn't sound easy, but it did, in the end, get accomplished.

Mysterious markers

The other day I noticed concrete markers along the south side of Route 13. I'd driven by them for years without seeing them, but suddenly they seemed to be everywhere.

Monuments at Ringwood Road and Route 13

The survey map for my own house includes one of these, though the marker is in my neighbor's property by a few feet.

Survey map, 1259 Dryden Road.

Based on this map, my guess is that the monuments indicate the southern edge of the right-of-way for the highway. I'm still not positive of that, though, because there are places where groups of markers (like those at Ringwood Road) appear. These markers aren't just indicating the edge of the highway.

Another possibility is that the monuments indicate tax map boundaries, as my property is in the corner of a tax map section, but the highway seems more likely. If you have an explanation, please leave it in the comments!

Dryden resident running for ICSD; county news

Today's Ithaca Journal reports that a Town of Dryden resident, David R. Lee, was the first to file petitions for a school board campaign in the Ithaca City School District.

The rest of the Dryden-relevant news in today's paper seems to be county news. There's a piece on the Budget Community Advisory Council's initial recommendations to the county for ways to change the budget process and save money. I wish the article was a little clearer about what this committee was and who is on it - all I can glean from the article is that it has eleven members, including John L. Neuman, CEO of eCornell.

There's also news of how to get a free ride on TCAT tomorrow, thanks to a coupon in this brochure (191 KB PDF). The coupon is only good on April 28, 2004, and is part of Curb Your Car Days.

Finally, the editorial examines last week's "Tompkins County: State of the Workforce" report, and discusses ways to build a more attractive workforce here. I'm not sure if the editorial is referring to a more updated document, but I did find a Tompkins County State of the Workforce 2003 (212 KB PDF) report.

Busy day at Freese Road bridge

There was a lot going on at the closed Freese Road bridge today, with NYSEG doing electrical work to support the replacement sewer pump on the south side of the bridge, and Tompkins County working on the north side of the bridge.

Bridge work at Freese Road

Electrical work at Freese Road bridge

The sewer pump also had a new panel, a change from my last visit.

Sewer pump work at Freese Road

Draft County Comprehensive Plan available

If the Town of Dryden Draft Comprehensive Plan wasn't enough planning excitement for you, you can now add the Tompkins County Comprehensive Plan to your reading list.

I haven't had a chance to read it, but I'll be looking it over and writing more soon. Also, on April 29, the Tompkins County Planning Department will be holding an open house from 3pm to 7pm and a public meeting from 7pm to 8pm at Dryden Town Hall (map).

Dryden benefit raises $2700 for Lansing teen; environment thoughts

This morning's Ithaca Journal reports on the success of yesterday's country dance benefit for Lansing teen Valerie Glass, held at the Dryden Veterans Memorial Home.

An article on Earth Day quotes Dryden nine-year-old Gabriel Banford.

Finally, there's a guest column on designing communities around people's needs, not cars' needs, which is part of the Sustainable Tompkins project. Their nightly salons include one in Lansing at Rogues' Harbor, which I've been attending, and a few other Dryden folks have been there as well. Tonight's session, from 5:30pm to 7pm, is on "Designing Sustainable Communities". (I reported earlier on the first meeting.)

Populations for Ellis Hollow and Bethel Grove

After the Greater Varna calculations, I thought I'd take a look at Ellis Hollow, Bethel Grove, and Snyder Hill. Unfortunately, the U.S. Census Bureau uses Snyder Hill Road as a dividing line between blocks that front Ellis Hollow Road and blocks that front Route 79, Slaterville Road, so I can't calculate Snyder Hill separately.

Ellis Hollow and Bethel Grove census blocks, with Varna to the north.

These figures are only for the portion of Bethel Grove that is actually inside the Town of Dryden, though there is development on both the Ithaca and Caroline sides along Route 79. Ellis Hollow includes Ellis Hollow Road, Ellis Hollow Creek Road, and roads that come off of those. Snyder Hill is divided among the two areas, with the north side of Snyder Hill Road going to Ellis Hollow and south side going to Bethel Grove. As usual, all figures come from the 2000 census data.

And looking at housing, we get:

The Village of Dryden around the Civil War

The period right before and during the Civil War seems to have been a good moment for the Village of Dryden, if not a great a time for the country in general. George Goodrich looked at development in the area around the time of the village's incorporation. (Discussion of the Civil War itself is in other sections of the book.)

Chapter XXV.

Dryden Village in the War Period.

While the town and rural districts have been declining in population ever since 1836, the village of Dryden has had a slow but steady and continuous growth from the beginning of its settlement. Perhaps, however, at no time was that growth so rapid as at the commencement of this period. The building of the stone Woolen Mill by A. L. Bushnell at this time afforded a promise of future buisiness prosperity to the village, but if its somewhat checkered career, involving at least two failures, and two fires, in one of which all of the combustible material was destroyed, could have been foreseen, the high hopes based upon its success would have vanished. Still in its periods of prosperity is has been a source of great advantage to the village, giving employment to a considerable number of inhabitants, and at no time has it been capable of yielding products of so much value as at present.

The building of the stone block in 1852-3 by Jeremiah W. Dwight was a great undertaking for a young business man in a small village, but under his efficient direction and management it has always been a success, affording a good and continuous income from the investment.

At about the same time P. M. Blodgett built next west of the stone block the three-story wooden building known as the Blodgett block, which was not so successful, and which was destroyed by fire about 1866. Stimulated by these improvements, Col. Lewis Barton, who kept the old hotel opposite the stone block, enlarged it by adding a third story at this time, (1855.)

Col. Barton was a very popular landlord and a public spirited citizen, serving as president of the village in 1860, and as marshal on various occasions, one of which was a large temperance parade. He came to Dryden from Virgil early in this period and did in 1863. Among his descendants were Lieutenant Daniel W. Barton, who was killed in the battle of Spottsylvania, May 12, '64; Chas. W. Barton, whose surviving son, Daniel W., resides at Elisabeth, N. J.; Mrs. Mary E. Hiles, whose surviving son was recent engaged here in tracing out the annals of the Hiles family, and Lucy Ette Spiece, of Ardmore, Pa., who is now the only surviving child of Col. Lewis Barton.

Dryden Woolen Mill.

The first newspaper published in the village came from the handpress of H. D. Rumsey, in 1856, and was first known as "Rumsey's Companion." After several changes in name and ownership it was discontinued, within two years after it commenced publication. It had, however, fortunately for us, published and thus preserved under the title of the "Old Man in the Clouds," the series of articles which have been of great aid in the preservation of the early history of Dryden. In July, 1858, it was revived under the name of "The Dryden Weekly News," by Asahel Clapp, who continued its publication successfully until 1871, when he removed it to Ithaca where it is still published by his son as The Weekly Ithacan. Soon after, a new paper was published at Dryden village under the name of The Dryden Herald, which, after changing hands several times, was greatly enlarged and improved under the management and ownership of A. M. Ford and now under the proprietorship of his son, J. Giles Ford, is one of the most enterprising local papers to be found issued in a country village.

The war itself left but very little impress upon the village, and, as already stated in the town history, it was from a business point of view a time of unusual prosperity.

The advent of the Southern Central railroad in 1869 has already been referred to and produced no great immediate change in the affairs of the village. To the merchants the advantage of reduced freight rates and quicker transportation was offset by the ease and frequency with which their customers sought places in larger towns to do their trading. To the farmers, because it offered a better and nearer market, especially for such bulky articles of produce as potatoes and hay, the permanent benefit of the railroad has been considerable, and without railroad facilities to-day our condition would be deplorable. A proposition was made when the Ithaca & Cortland railroad was being built that by raising the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars, the junction could be secured within the limits of Dryden village, and at almost any other time it would have been seriously entertained, but at this time, the village had almost exhausted itself in the effort to secure the Southern Central, and affected with the reaction already being experienced from the decline of the unusual prosperity of the preceding years, the people were content to let the opportunity pass by.

The merchants of this period included J. W. Dwight & Co., (the company including E. S. Farnham, Isaac P. Ferguson, and A. F. Tanner) in the stone block, George L. Truesdell and William H. Sears, in the Exchange block, and Hiram W. Sears, Eli A. Spear, and later Merrit Baucus, in the brick block. Hiram W. Sears, who married a daughter of John Southworth, for a number of years carried on an extensive business in packing pork, buying wool, and other mercantile enterprises.

Cyrus French developed a flourishing business in the hardware block. G. H. Sperry and Alanson Burlingame inaugurated the coal and lime business at the railroad station. H. F. Pierce conducted a moderate furnite and undertaking business, while Harrison Marvin and Otis Murdock conducted the boot and shoe business.

The Woolen Mill flourished in the hands of E. Rockwell, the tannery was greatly enlarged and improved by the Kennedy Brothers, and the grist-mill was managed by John Perrigo, assisted later by his son, Charles M.

The medical profession was reinforced during this time by the arrival of Dr. Wm. Fitch, from Virgil; and Dr. J. J. Montgomery succeeded to the practice of his father.

The old hotel passed from the proprietorship of Col. Lewis Barton to Deuel & Jagger, then to Jagger alone, and afterwards into the hands of Peter Mineah, whose co-partner at one time in the business was Ex-Sheriff John D. Benton, while James H. Cole developed the Grove Hotel after the Blodgett House was destroyed by fire. Mills Van Valkenburgh, Garry E. Chambers, W. W. Hare and Silas S. Montgomery developed into lawyers from law students in the office of Milo Goodrich.

A literary society, sometimes in the form of a reading circle and at others as a debating club, flourished in these days and many of the older citizens will remember with what earnestness and zeal Dr. Briggs, J. W. Dwight, T. J. McElheny, John C. Lacy, and many others maintained the affirmative or the negaive of numerous questions in debate at the old school house. Our attention has recently been called by one of the old members of this literary organization, to the beneficial results which were seen in the subsequent careers of some of its members, and a little reflection should awaken in us of the present generation an appreciation of such means of self-culture.

In the year 1857 Dryden village was incorporatied, the population then being about four hundred and the corporate limits including 999 1/4 acres. The petition for incorporation was signed by Thomas J. McElheny, Isaac P. Ferguson, George Schenck, Lewis Barton, Freeman Stebbins, Hiram W. Sears, William W. Tanner, David J. Baker, N. L. Bates, Abraham Tanner, Jeremiah W. Dwight and fifty-eight others, and upon the vote taken upon the question of incorporation one hundred and twelve ballots were cast, of which seventy-eight were in the affirmative. In 1865 the village was re-incorporated under a special charter (chapter 320 of the laws of 1865) prepared with great care by Mills Van Valkenburgh, then an attorney residing the village and afterward county judge.

The first officers elected in 1857 were as follows: Trustees, David P. Goodhue, Rochester Marsh, William W. Tanner, John B. Sweetland, and Isaac H. Ford; assessors, Augustus H. Phillips, Orrin W. Wheeler, and John C. Lacy; collector and poundmaster, Godfrey Sharp; treasurer, Horace G. Fitts; clerk, Thomas J. McElheny.

The following table gives the names of the presidents and clerks of the village to the present time:

Goodrich, George B. The Centennial History of the Town of Dryden, 1797-1897. Dryden: Dryden Herald Steam Printing House, 1898. Reprinted 1993 by the Dryden Historical Society. Pages 94-8.

(The Dryden Historical Society, which sells this book, may be reached at 607-844-9209.)

More houses people drive by

Just west of the houses on the Mt.Pleasant/Freese Road corner are these three houses.

979 Dryden Road (map)

978 Dryden Road (map)

977 Dryden Road (map)

A quiet Saturday

This morning's Ithaca Journal is pretty quiet on Dryden. There's an article on a benefit for Lansing teenager Valerie Glass at the Dryden Veterans Memorial Home tomorrow from 2-6pm.

There's also an article on what this week's change from the DeWitt Historical Society to the The History Center in Tompkins County will mean.

Speaking of history, I'll be the docent at the Dryden Historical Society (map) today from 10am-2pm. Stop by and see the exhibits!

Greater Varna

In an earlier entry, I calculated how many people lived in the Varna hamlet as defined by the Draft Comprehensive Plan. I was curious about how many people a larger picture of Varna might include, and so I came up with the following map:

Census blocks which highlight the core hamlet of Varna and a possible larger interpretation of Varna.

In addition to the areas I used before as the "core" hamlet area, I've included blocks further east along Route 366, stopping at Baker Hill Road, as well as blocks between Route 366 and Stevenson Road along Turkey Hill Road. This is by no means a 'canonical' Varna, but it seems reasonable, especially for purposes of discussing development and traffic impacts.

The boundaries are certainly negotiable, but reflect my next project, which is to calculate populations for Ellis Hollow and Bethel Grove, so I've avoided some areas that are more commonly accessed from Ellis Hollow Creek Road. I also could have gone all the way to the 13/366 intersection, but stopped at Baker Hill Road. Adding that last block would add 14 people, 8 households, and 10 housing units to the total.

(It's also worth noting that while Observatory Circle is pictured on the map, the block surrounded by it reports zero population, so undoubtedly there's been some growth since the 2000 census surveys.)

And looking at housing, we get:

History and development

The news in today's Ithaca Journal is county news, not Dryden news. The Journal looks at "Creating a Competitive Workforce Advantage," a conference that was sponsored by Tompkins County Area Development, Tompkins Workforce New York, and the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce. Consultant Edward Barlow told listeners that the broad context of life here makes a tremendous difference to the local workforce:

"Affordable housing, training workers, a livable wage, the educational pipeline -- it all needs to come together. It is important to recruit people but it is not just about jobs. It's also about lifestyle."

In other news, the DeWitt Historical Society is trying to improve the future for the past by changing its name to "The History Center in Tompkins County" and seeking more members. Update: They've changed their web site address as well, to http://www.thehistorycenter.net/.

Two memorable houses

The houses on the western corners of the Mount Pleasant Road-Freese Road-Route 366 intersection are quite distinctive, though very different.

981 Dryden Road (map)

980 Dryden Road (map)

980 Dryden Road also seems to be the only house along 366 with a short stretch of sidewalk.

Dryden School updates in the Shopper

The April 20th issue of The Shopper includes the Dryden Board Briefs for the April 12th meeting. (Unfortunately this brief doesn't appear to be posted yet, but hopefully that will change. Update: It's been fixed.) I noted this meeting's coverage in the Ithaca Journal, and the Board Briefs are much the same. One interesting piece that the briefs provide is attendance - apart from the board and superintendent, there were "9 District employees, 4 students, 11 community members, 2 members of the press."

There's also a notice that absentee ballots for the May 18th school board elections are available. To get one, apply to Linda Carr, the district clerk, at 844-5361 extension 225.

Walrath announces run against Boehlert

It looks like there will be a Republican primary in the 24th Congressional District, which includes Dryden. The Auburn Citizen reports that Dr. David Walrath announced Tuesday that he will run for the Republican nomination, claiming that "my candidacy represents the Republican wing of the Republican party, whereas my opponent represents the John Kerry wing of the Republican party."

The 2002 primary between Walrath and incumbent Sherwood Boehlert was within 2700 votes, though Boehlert won the general election against Walrath by about 81,288 to 26,578.

Green buildings, ICSD

Today's Ithaca Journal, taking note of Earth Day, takes a look at green building practices in Tompkins County, including the Tompkins County SPCA expansion building under construction on Hanshaw Road.

There's also a lot of coverage of the Ithaca City School District, with coverage of a press conference Superintendent Pastel held on continuing incidents of racial bias. They also cover its passing a budget with a 5.2% spending increase (for a likely tax levy increase of around 6%), though the Journal's editorial points out that all tax levies are tentative until the ever-delayed state budget is in place.

Finally, there's a guest column from J. David Ferris of Lansing on the county executive proposal that Republicans made back in December. This column has a very different tone from prior pieces on the subject, notably the guest column from John Marcham to which it responds.

With broad swipes like "our county legislative chair who was elected by the sum total of 524 votes in his district and does not have to worry about standing in front of the entire county electorate with his extreme political views", "I also think that the current board chair represents the most extreme left of the Democratic Party in this county," and "a similar campaign that I can only call 'Politics of Mass Distraction'", this column seems like a straightforward partisan charge for changing the the county's government, with relatively little interest in its supposed concern about the form of government.

This guest column reinforces my belief that the people pushing for this change see it as their last chance to put a Republican at the top of the county government rather than a Democrat. Given demographic trends in the county, I'm not sure they'd be happy with the results even if they got this change.

(I made a list of earlier Journal articles on the county executive proposal.)

This week's Courier

This week's Dryden Courier includes an article on Dryden Middle School's production of Fiddler on the Roof, which will be performed April 22nd through 24th at 7pm each night. On a similar note, the "Mind over Matters" column looks at a CD release party for beyondmeasure, Dryden High School's a cappella choir.

There's also an editorial on open government, noting the obligations governments have under New York's Open Meetings Law. It's well-worth a read, and next week's editorial will be covering the Freedom of Information Law. Those two laws make a lot of what you see here much easier, not to mention possible!

There's also a piece on NYSERDA, the program we used when doing our house's energy improvements last year.

Finally, Tony Hall profiles me and this site. Fortunately he doesn't give me any titles I have to live up to, and there are some nice comments from Kathy Zahler and Town Councilman Steve Stelick. The only glitch is that he says I've been here a year, when I've been here four. On the other hand, if I could change the date on the paper from 2004 to 2000 and read the same story today, I'd certainly have learned a lot more about how the town works in those four years than I know after about six months of this.

Update: Oops, missed one. There's also a piece on the Sustainability Salons, which I mentioned earlier. I've been going to the one in Lansing at Rogue's Harbor (map), which meets from 5:30pm to 7pm, Mondays through May 3. They caught me in the picture.

TC3 memories

Ron Space, the first Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Tompkins Cortland Community College (TC3), gave a presentation to the Dryden Town Historical Association Monday night, shedding some light on how exactly the college came to be, and how it came to be in Dryden.

County Legislator Mike Lane introduced Space, and suggested that that "this union of two counties, this intermunicipal system of education, is one of the best examples of intermunicipal cooperation we have." Lane pointed out that the college now serves 3000 full-time equivalent students, has dormitories for 450 students, and is working on a new round of capital projects to move athletic facilities to a fieldhouse to make room in the main building for classrooms.

Space stepped back to 1964, when thoughts of TC3 were just getting started, introducing Walter Franklin of Cortland County, one of the "instigators" behind the community college, and invited Franklin to come up and speak. The Cortland school district, of which Franklin was superintendent, had been looking at possibilities for a college in the area to address local needs.

Walter Franklin discusses the earliest days of the TC3 idea.

Franklin said that while there were several colleges in the area - Cornell University, Ithaca College, and SUNY Cortland - there was a gap. The nearest community college was in Auburn, a long drive from Cortland. The Cortland group heard that Ithaca was also interested in similar things, though in Ithaca. When the two groups got together, meeting at Groton High School, they looked at formulas for support, but there hadn't been a multi-county college at that point. Smith-Corona especially encouraged them to move forward.

Space picked up the story again at this point, emphasizing the regional battles over the college. While the SUNY master plan encouraged joint projects between counties, that wasn't going to be easy. Tompkins County had twice the population and tax base of Cortland County, and Space said "the City wanted it for itself". There were multiple simultaneous conflicts - between the two counties and between the rural areas and the City of Ithaca within Tompkins County.

Space said that:

"I often feel that the City of Ithaca and the surrounding rural towns are quite different, although they are becoming a lot more similar now. The City of Ithaca prides itself on its own vision, inspiration, etcetera, and I often think that where the city boundaries end and the town begins is where reality begins. The study committee came to the agreement that it should be a two-county project, but there were those in the city especially that wanted it for themselves, and wanted it very strongly, and it showed itself in the final step that came up."

The State University of New York pushed hard for a two-county solution as well, wanting rural counties to get together. Because of its own division, Space said Tompkins County decided Cortland County should vote first, hoping that they might vote it down, so that "we can have it all for ourselves." The vote in Cortland County, in September 1966, was 19-2 in favor, and Tompkins had to vote the next week. The Tompkins County Board of Supervisors split 8-8, with town supervisors voting for and city representatives against. Helen Hoefer, a city representative, changed her vote, and it went through.

The college was approved, but that was hardly the end of the politics. Tompkins and Cortland counties both got to appoint two members to the Board of Trustees, and the governor appointed five members, three from Tompkins County and two from Cortland County. Ron Space was appointed to the board from Tompkins County with a nine-year term, the longest of the original staggered terms. He was the only board member who wasn't from the City of Ithaca or the City of Cortland.

Before the initial board meeting in September 1967, two of the Cortland appointees arrived at Space's house, unannounced, hoping he would consider running for the chairman's position. "I had to decide if I was egotistical enough to vote for myself," said Space, then the youngest of the members (at 36). Why?

"I've always lived in Tompkins County, but being a farmer, we were much more business-oriented toward Cortland County than we ever were to Tompkins County. And it just so happened that my wife... is a Cortland girl. They didn't want the chairman to be from the City of Ithaca. They didn't trust them, and felt it would be unfair."

Space had never met the trustees from Ithaca, but knew several of the trustees from Cortland. In the end, at the meeting, it was a 5-4 vote for "the farmer from McLean". Space was happy with the cooperation he had from the Tompkins County trustees, singling out Robert Sprole of Therm for his help. Helen Hoefer, whose vote made it possible, was also one of the trustees.

Now that the regional battles were largely settled, SUNY focused on getting the board to work together, controversially telling them to meet in private for their first few meetings, much to the fury of the Ithaca Journal. They forged a common vision, put in for a budget, and hired a president. After interviewing five of six candidates on a cold Saturday in January, the board was exhausted, but the sixth candidate, Hushang Bahar, woke them up again, and they hired him. Space described Bahar as "the kind of person you loved or hated, but boy did he make decisions... and if he made a wrong one, wow, would we hear about it."

The next step was finding an interim site. The Agway headquarters on South Hill was an option, but Agway couldn't provide enough room. There was a high school in Ithaca that was possible, but voters turned down funds for a new high school. Smith-Corona owned an old high school in the Village of Groton, though, and offered it to TC3. Smith-Corona gave it to the college, and the Groton school board forgave the mortgage they held on the building.

Ron Space talks about TC3's first building in Groton.

They also had to come up with a name. "South Central Community College" was considered, but the state encouraged "Tompkins Cortland Community College", and students came up with the TC3 abbreviation.

Opening the building meant clearing it out, reorganizing it, finding furniture (SUNY Cortland helped), and hiring faculty. With eight faculty and 150 students, the school opened in Fall 1968.

Now that the school was running, politics could return, as the board looked for a permanent site. It clearly couldn't be in Cortland or in Ithaca, and it had to have public water and sewer. Groton and Dryden were the most viable candidates, and the college asked the communities for proposals. Groton suggested an area on the southeast side of the village, while Dryden suggested both the current Yellow Barn commercial park (where the school board offices are, for now) and the current location of TC3.

The president of the First National Bank of Dryden bought the property, though Space didn't think he'd made anything on the deal. The proposal also considered building the parcel out to 500 acres (from 220) by buying two adjacent parcels. After much heavy lobbying, involving Space's next-door neighbor and college roommate/best man, the Dryden parcel won out, with about 470 points of a possible 500 in the evaluation to the Groton site's 300. Groton was further from Ithaca, which didn't help. The Tompkins County board approved the smaller version of the Dryden site, buying it for $70,000.

In 1974, the college opened a $14 million facility. The state paid half, and the counties were to contribute half, but the counties found $4.5 million in federal funds, and so only had to contribute $2.5 million, split 2-1 between Tompkins and Cortland counties.

Part of the TC3 memorabilia display.

There were a few questions. Gina Prentiss asked about the growing number of students from outside the county. Space guessed that about 70% were still from the county, though also said that Tioga County provides a large number of students. Other counties with students attending make contributions that go to the capital fund of the college. Town Board member and TC3 Director of Information Technology Marty Christofferson noted that out-of-state residents pay double, and that the diversity is "great for the local students."

Someone asked if was a success, to which Walter Franklin said it went way beyond their hopes for the college. Lucille Baker, a professor at TC3, reminisced about the early days of the college when Hugh Bahar's charisma held them together, though faculty meetings were often in uproar, running late, with professors standing on tables. Space said that they sometimes kept Bahar from going to budget hearings and banging on tables.

More from the TC3 archives.

The night concluded with a video on the college, opening with scenes from the Eight Square Schoolhouse and celebrating the rather different-looking new college. Rod Serling, more famous for The Twilight Zone, narrated, describing TC3 as a "hectic relaxed noisy quiet busy peaceful place... a flexible place in a flexible place."

(The Dryden Town Historical Society recorded the session on both audio and video, so if you'd like more information - this article is just a brief summary - contact them at 607-844-9209.)

A quiet Our Towns

Today's Our Towns section is mostly about Groton, though there are several Dryden pieces in that section and elsewhere in the paper worth attention:

• The Dryden Sertoma Club's 2004 Service to Mankind award goes to William Deming, superintendent of Dryden Central Schools from 1962 to 1980, and Director of the Rural Schools program at Cornell for nine years.
• Dryden Middle School is presenting Fiddler on the Roof from April 22-24.
• The Community Calendar includes events for this week.
• An editorial on speeding uses an Ellis Hollow Road example.
• The Tompkins County legislature voted overwhelmingly to encourage TCAT to change to a public authority, or a non-profit if that isn't possible, to address concerns from the state about its structure.

The Journal lists the Sertoma reception for Bill Deming as on April 17th in the article and April 27th in the Community Calendar. I'll find out which one it is. Update: It's the 27th.

Freeville hearing on parental responsibility

Today's legal notices include this one from the Village of Freeville:

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that a public hearing will be held at the Village Hall of the Village of Freeville, 5 Factory Street, Freeville, New York on May 4th, 2004, at 7:30 PM. The hearing concerns a proposed local law, the Parents Responsibility Act, which makes it unlawful for a minor of the age of 15 or less to commit, or a parent of such minor to knowingly consent or permit the minor to be in a public place in the Village of Freeville so as to allow, permit or provide the minor with the opportunity to commit, certain acts defined in the proposed law. The Act provides for procedures to be followed upon violation of its provisions and penalties. A copy of the full text of the Act is available for review at the office of the Village Clerk.

Joint Town-Village meeting on Cortland Road Sewer District

The Town of Dryden Public Notices page announces that tomorrow night there will be a:

Special joint board meeting with the Village of Dryden Board of Trustees to discuss matters pertaining to the Cortland Road Sewer District, and any other business which may properly come before the board.

That's Wednesday, April 21st, at 7:00pm at the Dryden Village Hall (map).

Planning board on subdivision, hamlets, agriculture

Thursday night's Planning Board meeting included a sketch conference for a proposed sudivision on Sheldon and Wood roads near Etna (map) as well as continued discussion of the Draft Comprehensive Plan's sections on hamlets and agriculture.

The Planning Board welcomed new member Jim Crawford, and approved the minutes from the previous meeting, the first minutes to appear on the town's web site in a long time.

The next discussion, which lasted about an hour, concerned the Daniel Armitage subdivision, which Joan Portzline presented. The initial sketch is oriented with north to the right. Sheldon Road's curve is the northern edge of the property in question. Wood Road runs along its eastern edge, and the road on the left edge is Etna Road. Parcels labeled with letters are part of Phase I, and the parcels listed with acreage are part of Phase II, except the lots in the northwest and the one with a a house shown on it, which have already been sold.

Joan Portzline explains details of the Daniel Armitage subdivision to the Planning Board.

The area used to be Cornell research fields, and all of the parcels in Phase I have access to electricity along Sheldon Road. There was discussion of stormwater management - apparently there had been a presentation on stormwater that afternoon - though the lot already includes drainage put in earlier.

Most of the other questions the Planning Board had related to issues of how responsibilities fall if the property is subdivided and sold to people who develop individual lots as opposed to subdividing and developing it simultaneously, as well as to issues around adding driveways to these lots. Planning Board member Tom Hatfield noted that the line of properties in Phase II would be adding six road cuts in a quarter mile, which would be really dense, and was also concerned about the eight potential driveways into Sheldon Road. There were questions about whether shared driveways were possible; Board member Joseph LaQuatra pointed out a lawsuit in progress against the town over a shared driveway on Bone Plain Road. There were general questions about the use of flag lots - narrow driveways to large parcels.

Deed restrictions also came up a number of times, as Portzline plans to include minimum sizes for houses and restrictions on modular housing, as well as limitations on further subdivision. There is also a county Unique Natural Area near the edge of the property that can't likely be built upon, and there were questions about how much disturbance would be involved in development.

Zoning Department Head Henry Slater announced that another subdivision proposal, for four parcels on Etna Road, had been withdrawn.

The board next reviewed changes made to the Draft Comprehensive Plan at the last meeting. Most of the changes were accepted without new changes, except that the last sentence of the first changed paragraph was modified from "small scale multi-unit" to "small scale single family and multi-unit".

Other changes were meant to ensure that active farms in areas slated for possible future development be encouraged to continue, and there was discussion about changing the maps to show active farms and, as Planner George Frantz said, "consider them reserve areas." Tom Hatfield wanted it made clear that suburban development "would only kick in if these farms are unable to sustain themselves". Frantz noted that the Department of Agriculture and Markets is actively policing zoning and planning to make sure it isn't opposed to the interests of farmers.

Environmental Planner Debbie Gross had a map showing active farms overlaid with the (now outdated version of) the land use map. The map hasn't been revised to show changes in the Etna area and north of the Village of Dryden, and the map of active farmland is approximate, based on tax assessment information from 2003. (If you know of an active farm that's missing, contact Debbie Gross at 844-8655.) It looks like it's missing Cornell fields, which is perhaps not surprising given their tax-exempt status.

Ken Miller, a resident of Richford who farms in both Dryden and Caroline, was concerned that the plan didn't take a different point of view into account: farmers in the agriculturally-zoned areas who want to subdivide their properties. He felt the restrictions on subdivision outlined in the current Draft Comprehensive Plan were "a very poor concept for the farmer," and would lead to lots of brush lots. He was also concerned that there hadn't been any signs of a meeting with farmers, and that he had only just learned of this plan, not having received any notice of it or the survey that preceded it.

Joseph LaQuatra reflected that no one had brought those issues up at all at the public meeting. George Frantz suggested that a Saturday morning meeting with farmers to explain the implications of the plan for farmers would be a good idea. Board members Tom Hatfield and Lisa Stuttle asked for a written explanation of the fixed-ratio zoning described by the plan, with some sample scenarios and descriptions of what would happen if a parcel was no longer used for agriculture.

There were also some questions about how planning for the Etna area had turned out. Skip Thorne of the Etna Community Association was there, concerned about plans for development to the south and west of the hamlet. Planner George Frantz described the proposed changes to the south, removing the industrial area and adding a green buffer between Etna and Route 13, which seemed to go over well.

George Frantz shows how plans for Etna have changed.

As the board reached the agriculture section of the plan, Miller also objected to language restricting the kinds of businesses permitted on agricultural land, and a line about "crafty zoning language" that was apparently a typo for "crafting zoning language". The board ran out of time for discussion, and will discuss this in more detail in future meetings.

Rape charges, bridge staying closed

Today's Ithaca Journal is especially unpleasant reading. The most prominent Dryden story is about a 16-year-old charged with raping a 4-year-old, after investigation of a February 4th incident.

Elsewhere in the Journal, Freese Road bridge will stay closed until the 29th (and Route 13 through Ithaca will be down to one lane through Saturday.)

Ithaca High School continues to have problems with racial issues, this time with graffiti, and the Ithaca City School District is looking at a 5.8% budget increase.

High-speed chase in Dryden?

I don't typically report from The Monitor, the Ithaca Journal's crime reporting. Lately it seems to have had some stranger entries, though. Today's Monitor reports on a Cortland man who was:

driving east on Fall Creek Road in Freeville when police spotted him speeding at 2 a.m. New York State police followed him at 90 mph before stopping him on Gulf Road behind the McLean Post Office. Officers smelled alcohol...

There's also a letter today from Shirley Woods of Freeville, complaining about a speech Connecticut Senator Chris Dodds gave praising West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, a former Ku Klux Klan member.

Native Americans in Dryden

The signs welcoming visitors to the Town of Dryden say "since 1797", dating it to the arrival of Amos Sweet, but George Goodrich, even while writing a centennial history based on that date, knew that there was activity here before. His chapter on "Indian Occupation" is generous in neither length nor opinion, but it brings Goodrich to the key point necessary for the rest of his story to proceed:

Thus it happened that the early pioneers of our town escaped all annoyance from hostile Indians, who had been effectually driven out of the country before any settlement was attempted.

Chapter II.

Indian Occupation.

Although there is no record that the town of Dryden was ever the site of any permanent Indian settlement, there is abundant evidence that the Indias occupied it as a hunting ground. The little flint arrowheads which are still found, especially along the banks of the streams and upon the shores of the Lake, are unmistakable proof of the presence of the Indians, and the chips of flint, the waste product of the rude manufacture of these arrowheads, and other implements of stone found frequently about the shores of the Lake, indicate that at some time they had there at least a temporary encampment. The nearest Indian villages of which we have any authentic account were the habitation of the Cayugas, near the present site of the city of Ithaca, and extending on both sides of Cayuga Lake to its outlet. Central New York, when first known to civilization, was the home of the "Iroquois," a term applied first to five and afterwards to six confederated Indian tribes, which included the Cayugas and is said to have constituted the most powerful force of Indians on the American Continent. We may perhaps claim some significance in the fact that the part of the territory which now constitutes the central and western part of the Empire State was once the home and hunting ground of the victorious Iroquois, the conquerors of all the neighboring tribes. It was said that such experiences had the New England tribes of Indians suffered from the Mohawks - the eastern branch of the Iroquois - that the very name of "a Mohawk" caused them to flee with terror. The Iroquois had recently conquered the Adirondacks of the north and the Eries and Hurons on the west, and after becoming known to white men, in one of their southern excursions, they rescued from their enemies the whole tribe of Tuscaroras of North Carolina, whom they brought home with them and adopted as the sixth branch of their nation.

The conditions and habits of these aborigines form an interesting study to those who have investigated the subject. The first white men to go among them, except occasional fur traders, were the missionaries of the French Jesuits, who for a century prior to the English occupation of their territory, had lived and labored among them in the vain effort to effect their conversion to their form of Christianity. These, like other American Indians, from the first seemed to take much more naturally to the vices than to the virtues of their white brothers and the sacrifices of those zealous men, who left their pleasant homes in France to live and work among the Indians of North America for their education and development in the Christian faith, were worthy of better success than resulted. But the reports which these French Catholic priests sent back to their native country of their experiences among them are now found carefully preserved in French monasteries, and constitute one of the most interesting and trustworthy sources of our knowledge of the actual condition in which the Indians were then found. The "relations" (as they are called) of one Father Carheil, who spent over twenty years of his life among the Cayugas, and who in the year 1672 describes Lake Tiohero (now Cayuga) and the beautiful county surrounding it, with its abundance of fish and game, have thus recently been resurrected and translated into English, throwing much light upon this subject so interesting to the antiquarian.

In the French and Indian wars, which preceded the Revolution, the Iroquois, in spite of the French priests, took sides with the English, and rendered efficient assistance in the conquest of Canada from the French. When the War of the Revolution followed between the English colonies and their mother country, the Iroquois at first decided to remain neutral, but the most of them were afterward persuaded to join their old allies, the English. This exposed the outposts of the colonies to a merciless enemy in the rear, and the frightful massacres of Cherry Valley and Wyoming were among the results. Fortunate it was for the early settlers of our locality that these bloody times passed before they ventured into the Western Wilderness.

To avenge these outrages and to punish the hostile Indians and drive them from the neighborhood of the advance settlements, an invasion of the Iroquois country was executed in 1779, known as "Sullivan's campaign," which, after a battle with the combined forced of Indians and Tories near Newtown (now Elmira), resulted in their complete defeat, followed by the subsequent overrunning of the Indian country and the destruction of their villages, including those along Cayuga and Seneca lakes. This campaign, forming a part of the Revolutionary war, planned by Washingtons and executed by Generals Sullivan and Clinton with a force of about five thousand men, detachments of which marched within a few miles of the town of Dryden, and perhaps within its borders, resulted in the complete humiliation of the fierce Iroquois, and opened the way for the subsequent purchase and settlement of this section of Western New York, over which up to that time they had absolute sway. With the exception of the Oneidas, who had remained friendly to the colonies, and a part of the Onondagas, whose descendants still remain on their reservation near Syracuse, the Iroquois were driven from this part of the state never to return in large numbers. Some took refuge in Canada and along the Niagara frontier, others, including a number from the Cayuga and Seneca tribes, were colonized in the extreme western part of this state, while most of the Cayugas were induced to make their homes in the Indian Territory, where their descendants now reside in considerable numbers. Thus it happened that the early pioneers of our town escaped all annoyance from hostile Indians, who had been effectually driven out of the country before any settlement was attempted.

Those readers who desire to follow more minutely the details of "Sullivan's Campaign" will find the journals of the officers of that expedition, with full explanatory notes and maps, given in a large volume recently published by the State, a copy of which can be found in the Dryden village school library.

Goodrich, George B. The Centennial History of the Town of Dryden, 1797-1897. Dryden: Dryden Herald Steam Printing House, 1898. Reprinted 1993 by the Dryden Historical Society. Pages 4-6.

(The Dryden Historical Society, which sells this book, may be reached at 607-844-9209.)

Freese Road, Mt. Pleasant Road, and 366

Just west of Autoworks is an intersection that isn't much fun to drive through. I've mostly been focusing on houses, but felt this intersection (map) important enough - by virtue of being dangerous - that it was worth taking some pictures from inside my car.

From the Mt. Pleasant Road side, the views out of the car are okay. These pictures were taken in light morning fog, and the curve to the west definitely doesn't help, but while it isn't the kind of visibility I'd like to have, especially for a left turn, it isn't terrible.

Looking east from Mt.Pleasant Road's intersection with Route 366

Looking west from Mt.Pleasant Road's intersection with Route 366

Even without fog, however, the views from the Freese Road side aren't very reassuring. The view to the west is particularly well-blocked, even before the road heads into a curve.

Looking east from Freese Road's intersection with Route 366

Looking west from Freese Road's intersection with Route 366

Because this might seem like photographic trickery, and because taking pictures from inside cars isn't much fun anyway, here are some extra details. The pictures were all taken from the driver's seat of my 1996 Saturn SL2. The focal length of the lens used to take the pictures was 24 or 25mm for all of the pictures except the one on Mount Pleasant looking east. My camera has a multiplier of 1.6, so they were taken with the equivalent of a 44mm or 53mm lens on a regular 35mm film camera. Distances on most of the pictures therefore look longer than they actually are, and distances in the Mount Pleasant looking east picture look only a tiny bit smaller than normal. The views from Freese Road were taken later in the morning, after the fog had burned off.

I avoid making left turns at this intersection whenever possible, and I'm cautious even about right turns and driving straight through it. Even when I'm approaching it on 366, I keep an eye out for drivers who might not have seen me. I'm surprised that this intersection doesn't have a light, but maybe it hasn't quite reached critical mass for traffic.

(The next intersection up Mount Pleasant Road is pretty scary itself, combining hills and curves in an even more dramatic way, though there's less traffic there.)

County and environmental issues

The April 8 Town Board meeting also included a number of conversations about activity at the county level, making town tax policy match county policy, and about environmental planning in conjunction with the county and the state.

As noted in legal notices, the town had hearings on property tax exemptions for senior citizens and people whose incomes are limited by disability. County Legislator Mike Lane spoke in favor of the exemptions, noting both that it would put residents on an equal footing with regard to town and county taxes and that "it's the right thing to do for senior citizens." The board passed both exemptions, which operate on a sliding scale based on income up to $32,400.

Lane opened the county briefing by noting that the state budget was late once again, but the county was working hard to keep up with the latest news from Albany on likely costs. Lane reported that there hadn't been surprises so far, but there "could be things we don't anticipate in the fine print."

Mike Lane discusses the state and county budgets

Lane noted that the county had decided to participate in the Virgil Creek aquifer study, which would reduce the costs of that project to the town. Lane also discussed the tourism grants made from the room tax, and encouraged Dryden organizations to apply for them, especially the celebration grants of $500 to $1500, which will have another round in the fall.

County Legislator Martha Robertson began by discussing the budget, noting that a preliminary rollover budget, keeping services the same next year as they are this year, would result in a 10-12% tax levy increase - "still real serious, but not quite as bleak as last year." She said that legislator Peter Penniman had heard that costs to the counties would not increase this year, and pointed out an Assembly proposed to put a cap on county shares of Medicaid.

Martha Robertson presents upcoming meetings on the draft County Comprehensive Plan

Robertson also discussed the draft County Comprehensive Plan, in particular that there would be an open house on the subject April 29 at the Dryden Town Hall from 3-7pm, followed by a presentation, and that there would be presentations at the Dryden and Freeville village halls on May 13th and 20th respectively.

Robertson brought up a study that the Learning Web, the Tompkins County Youth Services Department, and the Cornell University Family Life Development Center had done with and on "independent youths", ages 15 to 24 and living on their own, often homeless. (The Ithaca Journal has an article on the study.) Robertson pointed out that 16 independent youths had created and carried out the study, which spoke to 165 people. She presented a copy of the survey results to the Town Board.

Environmental Planner Debbie Gross asked the board to hold a public hearing at their next meeting on the annual stormwater management report, which has to be submitted to the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), and the board scheduled one.

Gross built on Mike Lane's earlier mention of county participation in the aquifer study, pointing out that the county had suggested an additional test well be drilled "to improve confidence in the survey." While there were still questions about the timing of the disbursements, the largest piece of which is likely to arrive in 2005, the overall commitment was fixed. Councilman Steve Stelick thanked former Supervisor Mark Varvayanis and Town Councilmen Deb Grantham and Charlie Hatfield for their

"vision to put the money up on this with no guarantee that the county was ever going to come through with this money. It's nice that the county is backing it, but the former town board had the vision to want to go through with this, regardless if there was funding from the county."

Gross also asked the about an agreement related to the Six Mile Creek watershed monitoring project. The board had authorized negotiations at the previous meeting, but there wasn't yet a contract. The project needs $2350, and Gross provided a rough outline of the contract details. Councilman Hattery asked for more details on the Community Science Institute, and there was a general request that the results be presented to the board. The supervisor is already authorized to move forward, so no further action was taken by the board.

The Town Board also completed a short form State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) for the annexation of a parcel to the Village of Dryden that they had approved last month.

Letters on Republicans and Christians, speeding

This morning's Ithaca Journal is quiet on Dryden news but has two letters from Freeville residents:

• Stephen Prentice thanks the Journal for their recent coverage of speeding and notes the dangers of speeding and tailgating.
• Shelley Forsythe writes to say she thinks that "if the religious right were to truly align themselves with a party according to Jesus' teachings, it would be almost any party other than the Republican Party."

Businesses at Mount Pleasant Road

Just west of the apartments and shops with the vast parking lot are two businesses. The first is apparently a tile business, and the second is Autoworks.

989 Dryden Road (map)

987 Dryden Road, Autoworks (map)

Lane challenges annual assessments

This morning's Ithaca Journal reports that County Legislator Michael Lane is proposing legislation to shift from annual assessment to a three-year cycle., though it isn't clear how much support there is for that in the legislature. A simultaneous combination of rising assessments and rising tax levies has made a lot of people angry, and Lane says that "I think we need to take a break."

(I've noted before that I like accurate assessments and think the main problem is on the tax levy side, but I can certainly see where he's coming from.)

Today's Journal also includes a listing of recipients of Community Arts Partnership Grants, including the Town of Dryden and the Constance Saltonstall Foundation, as well as a criminal contempt charge with an unusual setting and a letter about mutual respect from Alicia Alexander of Dryden.

The Meeting Master

I've had stranger titles, but the Ithaca Journal's Jennie Daley gives me that one in Meeting up with the meeting master, in which she profiles the work I've done on this blog.

Most of it echoes our conversation at Googer's verbatim - I wish I could take notes like that! - but there are a couple of minor things. I haven't yet been to a Conservation Advisory Board meeting, though I'm planning on getting there soon. I've been writing for six months but only attending meetings for four months, though I think I'll reach six months soon enough! Also, at the time of the interview, I was a member of the Dryden Democratic Committee, and Tuesday I became the Chair.

I can't say I thought much of this would happen when I started this, but as adventures go, this one's going very well.

Update: Jon Udell of Infoworld Magazine picked up this story and talks a bit about how it connects to the potential of weblogging more generally.

Just inside Varna

After the sign for Varna, there are a modern house on the left followed by apartments with offices and laundromat set well back from the road.

999 Dryden Road (map)

993 Dryden Road (map)

What you need to do this

I've had a few questions recently about how I write this and what it would take to do something similar - how much technical knowledge is required, what it would cost, what equipment, what software, etc.

The software I use to manage this site is called Movable Type. To write an entry, I open up a web site that presents me with a form. I type my entries directly into those forms, and pick categories. I can also customize the way that the information is presented and the way the site looks generally, which I do every once in a while. (Wordpress offers similar features.)

For the most part, I use very simple HTML in the entries - probably seven or eight pieces total - so I just type it in directly. You can get by without knowing any HTML to start with, as Movable Type can manage basic formatting for you, and learn the bits of HTML you need along the way. Alternatively, you can use an HTML editor and copy and paste the HTML into the forms.

I already had a web site, so setting this up was a matter of asking my provider to get it going. (More recently, I manage it myself, on a server in Ithaca.) If you don't have a web site, there are other ways to do it. You can set up a site through TypePad, a service provided by the same people who create Movable Type. Similar tools and hosting options are available through Blogger and Radio Userland.

A digital camera is really helpful, if you want to include photographs. You don't need a fantastic camera to create pictures to display on the Web, but you'll probably want to use it for other things as well. Pictures of people at meetings are surprisingly difficult to get, largely because of flash and distance issues, but most pictures are easier. (Sports photos are always hard.)

You'll also want software for editing those pictures. I use Photoshop Elements, which came with my camera, but PaintShop Pro and the full version of Photoshop are also good alternatives, as is the GIMP, a free program. Much of the editing I do is to correct flash pictures that didn't get enough light because I was too far from the subject.

On the reporting side, if you wanted to do that, note-taking is really important, though I'm also using a voice recorder. Listening to two or three hours of meetings isn't much fun, especially since the recorder always seems to pick up more noise than I hear when I'm there. Notes help me minimize that repeat listening. The notes are the foundation, and the recording the backup.

There are a few things more important than the technical stuff, though. The first is interest - there are lots of weblogs that ran a week or two and ended because their creator didn't find it exciting enough to pursue. Time is similarly critical. There's no obligation to update a site every day, but it does keep readers coming, and helps to build a rhythm. The last thing I'd recommend is a theme or personality of some kind. This site has a tighter focus than most weblogs, certainly, but readers like to come back based on what they found before.

It's also worth noting that most weblogging systems support multiple authors, so if a group of people wants to share a site, that's possible too, and it's one way to avoid the time and interest drain.

News including Dryden

After yesterday's relative torrent of Dryden news, today's Ithaca Journal is fairly quiet about Dryden. Three pieces definitely affect Dryden, though:

• The state Department of Environmental Conservation's Wildlife Management Unit 76, which includes Dryden south of Routes 13 and 366, is aiming for a 36% decrease in the deer population through increased hunting.
• Congressman Sherwood Behlert is getting an early start on fund-raising. Potential Republican primary challenger David Walrath is getting some assistance from the Club for Growth, while Boehlert has had help from the Republican Main Street Partnership.
• The Journal's editorial supports the effort to keep the county tax levy within a 3% increase for the next two years.

There's also a piece in the New York Times (registration required) that Verizon is considering selling off its upstate lines, which include part of Dryden. The first two paragraphs:

Verizon, the state's largest local telephone company, said Wednesday that it was considering selling off all its phone lines in upstate New York, prompting some state lawmakers and union officials to warn that jobs and service quality could be put at risk.

Paul A. Crotty, the group president for New York and Connecticut at Verizon, told a State Assembly hearing here that the company had "asked for expressions of interest" from companies that might consider buying its 2.5 million phone lines in upstate New York from Orange County out to Buffalo. But he said that no sale was pending.