This is going to be a long and confusing article but it's important you read it this morning. So, grab a mug of your favorite beverage (extra points for bottles of fine bourbon sent my way), sit back, relax, and delve into the mysterious world of Kent Politics 101.

I'm not even sure where to start but let me begin with the murky origins of what has become known as The Great Hockey Castle Land Swap of 2007. Now, with that said, I would start at the beginning if one knew where that was but apparently only Kent Supervisor Arne Nordstrom and Recreation Director Bill Huestis know and they ain't talkin'. For the rest of us, the story begins this spring at a Town Board meeting where the idea first came to public light.

So what's the deal? In a nutshell, it's like this:

The town will grant a long term easement (how long and under what terms? we don't know,) to a private commercial enterprise to build an $11 million ice hockey training center on town land adjoining the Town Center complex and in return the town will receive ten acres of land to do with what we want and open ~200 acres of land to industrial development along Route 52.

Sounds like a deal But, as always, the devil is in the details and it's the details that are shrouded in mystery and intrigue. Ask yourself, why does Arne want this to move ahead so rapidly? "It's just a swap," he says, "And the Town will benefit!"

Arne: "It's just a swap"
Pat: "What mailing labels?"
Karl: "Liberals. Hrmppph"
Kathy: "Um, this is the first I heard about this. When did we first know about this?"
Arne: "It's been in the works for a year and a half. It's just a swap and will be good for the Town!"
Kathy: "Did anyone else on the board know about this?"
Pat: "I think we talked about it once. Didn't we?"
Bill: "Look at what other towns have? We don't have jack and DEP hates me!"
Board: [sighs, looks down at the table]
Kathy: "I don't think we should rush into this without knowing all the details."
Audience: * ROUSING APPLAUSE *

At this point Supervisor Nordstrom mentioned that the town had hired Insite Engineering and they thought that it was: A Great Idea. Nifty. Neeto. Best Thing Since Diversion.

Kathy: "Who hired Insite?"
Arne: [mumbling] "Uh, I did"
Kathy: "I know this cost more than $1000. We're supposed to vote on these things!"
Arne: "cough, (averts glare from the audience,) cough"
Audience: "Here we go again!"

There were several in the audience who, when looking at the Bigger Picture, also saw more than "just a swap" and said so, imploring the Town Board which was all too ready to vote 3-2 in favor, to take a closer look at what this was really about.

If we do this, Hockey Castle Training Centers can build a $9 million ice rink and a $2 million road into it from Route 52 using Ray Singer Road where the recycling center is now, on Town property under a long term lease the terms of which we do not know. Additionally, the town gets ten acres of land and a "free" road to a "future" sports complex that the Town would build using taxpayer dollars to further enshrine Bill Huestis as The Granddaddy of All Budget Busters. (A million bucks a year apparently isn't enough.)

[At a recent meeting in July, Mr. Huestis mentioned that Hockey Castle was no longer in the picture and was looking at locations in Dover Plains. If this is true, why is the Town Board still pushing this swap deal?]

If we do this, we open ~200 acres of industrial zoned property to immediate large scale development though we have no idea what that development might entail. Now, the property doesn't really need this access as there is already access from Bowen Road. But if a major development were to go in, Bowen Road could not handle the traffic and so this new Town road, this "boulevard" entrance (Can anyone say "yet another new traffic light"?), would need to be built and a spur from it into those acres. If, however, the ~200 acres are left to themselves, the land could become horse farms or something similar and enter via Bowen Road as property owners do now. But who wants horse farms when you can have 75 houses (yes, our industrial zoning allows R80 residential development,) or a nuclear waste dump or a restaurant, or a meat rendering plant or another GAP warehouse?

Serve us those irradiated omelets on fleets of 18-wheelers!

If we were to look at this issue all by itself (assuming Hockey Castle was still in the project) it seems like a deal. The town gets an ice rink that would attract a regional audience and ~200 acres open to immediate industrial development. But the State will be left holding the bill for highway traffic up and down Route 52, and the Town will be left with police, fire and municipal infrastructure costs. Being on a Town Road, whatever got built back there would require town plowing come winter and, if memory serves me right, is within the Lake Carmel garbage district meaning what, another truck and crew? And, Arne and Pat will be out of office well before the shit hits the fan so what do they care?

But there's more to the story as other issues in the Town of Kent have arisen - coincidentally - at the same time.

There's been recent buzz about moving the County's senior citizens' operations to the Kent Town complex from its current location in Carmel. This would require a building (a duplicate of the library) that was planned for but never built along with upwards of about 140 parking spaces and room for the center's truck and bus fleet - none of which can be accommodated at the Kent location since there just isn't any room. But that's not stopping Bill "we need more ballfields" Huestis from pushing the project and... the county, facing a budget shortfall, is willing to foot the bill?

When the Kent Town Center was going through the original SEQRA process the State had us do the environmental impact work with the assumption that the originally proposed light-use Senior and Community Center would be built there. Wells were sized for that, septic issues were sized for that, traffic and other infrastructure issues were sized for that. But that Senior Center did not include 140 parking places, the traffic load, and a full meal program for hundreds of people every day which would result in thousands of gallons of additional sewage effluent.

In order for this *new* project to be built we would have to go back to SEQRA and update the plan, possibly drill new wells and find a place for the additional septic effluent to be processed assuming the current fields aren't large enough and update traffic information to accommodate this vastly expanded program. This means that DEP, DEC, NYDOT and other agencies would need to give their approvals all over again under an amended plan. This will cost a lot of money and take a lot of time. Your money, by the way. With the County as lead agency is there any doubt in anyone's mind what the outcome would be?

"So what?" you say? Here's the So what: Let's take a look at this picture:

Notice the pincer movement that would make Rommel proud.
(Right-Click and choose "view image" to see this in a larger format)

The proposed County Senior Center at the Kent Town Center does not have enough room to park all the cars that would come in each day (estimates are about 140) and there's certainly no space for the fleet of trucks and buses. Yet, just a few feet away from the proposed Center stands a large Butler building on a couple of acres of level land that could be a perfect storage location. Problem is, that Butler building is currently being used by the Kent Recycling Center. (KRC)

There is also the issue, recently discussed, of giving two acres of town land to the County in order to complete this project. Where are those two acres? I don't know. Do you? Are they the site of the recycling center? Maybe. Are they along Route 52? Could be. (but why would we give the county two acres of wetlands?) Are those two acres elsewhere? Your guess is as good as any. As of this writing, the public simply does not know but the board is all anxious and ready to go!

Now, this 4-lane Boulevard Entrance we hear so much about... That would come in off Route 52 where Ray Singer Road is now, a road built by the KRC without the use of taxpayer dollars as a two lane road to access the center. If we widen this to 4 lanes, as would most certainly need to happen if the "Swap" were to take place, KRC would lose its parking lot and security fencing which would effectively put them out of business.

So, where would its 400 member families go? To private carters which, as memory serves, has long been a goal of the Town Board. Without a recycling center those 400 families, almost all from Western Kent, would need to turn to private carters giving the carters a lock on the town and costing those families much more than they are paying now for this service. We would lose a wonderful community activity and a significant reduction in recycling in our town. On the other hand, long standing personal vendettas would be resolved at your expense.

[The KRC returns a *profit* to the town - and Arne is willing to lose this sole profit center? It certainly does appear so.]

Let's assume we do lose the Recycling Center. Who benefits?

1) The three large land owners (Foursome Partners) who could sell their industrial property (those pesky ~200 acres) for millions of dollars. These lands, already available for limited development, would mushroom in value.

2) Hockey Castle Training Center, for getting a choice, prime piece of real estate for the construction of their "faux castle" which would loom over our Town Hall and,

3) Bill Huestis, who would gain another real estate coup in his taxpayer supported Empire and the long sought desire to rid the town of one of the best things that ever came our way, the KRC and,

4) The Taxpayers of the Town of Kent and Putnam County.

(Strike #4. Sorry)

There's a lot of connections there and the problem in tying them all together is plausible deniablitly on the part of those involved in the various deals and projects. If you take any part of this whole and look at it as a singular entity, there's seemingly nothing wrong with that particular part. Hence, when Supervisor Nordstrom says, "it's just a swap" he is, in essence, correct.

But when you put them all together and look at it as if it were a completed jigsaw puzzle of a romantic Castle, bathed in the orange glow of a setting sun, perched on a verdant hillside overlooking a Town Center complex we're still paying for, well, I'm not drawing any conclusions. I'll just set this out there and let you all do it.

What have we got assuming all goes according to the Supervisor's plan?

(in no particular order)

1) Vastly increased traffic on Route 52 at the Town Center.
2) Probably a new traffic light - or two.
3) ~200 acres of industrial or residential development in an area with sensitive wetlands in the watershed basin that feeds Lake Carmel.
4) A privately owned "castle" on Town Land forever visible as one enters the Town Center complex.
5) An increase in the Kent Recreation department's budget to accommodate construction and maintenance of the new sports complex.
6) A renegotiation of the SEQRA process for the County Senior Center.
7) The loss of a centralized senior center in Carmel where most of the new senior housing is being built thus forcing new seniors to travel a long distance by car when they can walk to it now.
8) The loss of Kent's truly amazing recycling center and its community.
9) Possible increase in taxes to pay for road plowing, fire and other emergency services.
10) Possible addition of 100 children to the Carmel Central School District
11) Solid control over garbage collection in western Kent by the carting industry to which our County Executive seems intimately close. (don't forget the ongoing Federal investigations.)
12) An increase in County Taxes to pay the bonds for the new Senior Complex.

And the list goes on...

The Kent Town Board is schedule to meet on Monday the 6th of August to vote on "the Swap" though we have yet to see a concrete agenda. Are you going to let them do it without looking at the whole picture? Or are we going to stop them dead in their tracks until all the questions have been answered, all the T's crossed and all the I's dotted and the environment protected? That's entirely up to you.

It's your town - Take it back.

JmG