Phoenicia

Phoenicia — The October meeting of the Central Catskills Collaborative will be held at the Phoenicia Elementary School on Thursday, Oct. 27 from 6 to 8 p.m.

The public is invited to participate in a discussion that will combine Ulster County’s Main Street Strategic Toolbox Program with a new initiative, Creating Healthy Places to Live, Work and Play, being led by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County.

By Jay Braman Jr.
After months of research and scrutiny, the long-awaited design plan for the Phoenicia Sewer system is at hand.

On Thursday Oct. 20 at 6 p.m. the Shandaken Town Board will convene a special session at town hall in Allaben to give the pubic a chance to see what it is that Lamont Engineering and the Catskill Watershed Corporation (CWC) have come up with.

By Jay Braman Jr.
Some Ulster County Legislators are hopping mad at Willie Janeway.
Janeway, director of Region Three of the State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), is being singled out by lawmakers as the man responsible for a series of bureaucratic slowdowns that led to delays in the dredging of Stony Clove Creek in Phoenicia.

Those delays, officials said, made the flooding problems during Tropical Storm Irene much worse than they should have been.

Resolution drafted

By Jay Braman Jr
Ever since Hurricane Irene came to visit, Phoenicia has had a dilemma.
The hamlet suffered greatly at the hands of the storm. The flood came and did damage, high winds knocked out power, Internet and phone, but right now, weeks after that mayhem hit, the biggest problem facing this locale is the fact that they have almost completely recovered and no one knows about it.

By Jay Braman Jr.
Earlier last week State Assemblyman Kevin Cahill was quoted in The New York Times, suggesting that communities like Phoenicia should not rebuild in the same location it has been in for over 150 years.

By Jay Braman Jr.
It was the sound of emergency sirens, not school busses, that woke people up early last Wednesday morning in Phoenicia, where residents were informed that a repeat performance of last week’s flooding was on the way.

Heavy rain had returned to the region, causing the Onteora Central School District to close for what was supposed to be the first two days of school.

By Jay Braman Jr.
When Pfc. Douglas Cordo, assigned to the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division out of Fort Wainwright, Alaska, died in Afghanistan Friday of injuries sustained in the roadside detonation of an improvised explosive device, the shock was felt locally. Then it was felt statewide.

Cordo, who was 20, has roots in Phoenicia, where his grandmother, Helen Cordo, still resides.

By Jay Braman Jr.
Despite the glamour associated with the opera world, Kerry Henderson knows full well there is much more to it than donning his tux and walking onstage like he will on Saturday evening when he performs in the Phoenicia International Festival of the Voice (PIFV) production of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni.”

Henderson is not only an opera singer, but he is a co-founder of PIFV, a performing arts organization now in its second year.

By Jay Braman Jr.
There is a massive leak somewhere in the Phoenicia water system and so far no one has been able to find it.

That was the word from Alfred Peavy Monday night, when he addressed the Shandaken Town Board on the matter.

Peavy, the chairman of the Phoenicia Water Board, said they are bringing in help today, Wednesday, Aug. 3 to locate the problem.

And help could not come a moment too soon.

“We’re working on trying to figure out where the missing water is going,” Peavy said. “We’re apparently losing 60 percent of what we pump.”

By Jay Braman Jr.
They started showing up this week.

Some came from New York City, others flew in from Texas, Tennessee, and other parts of the nation, all coming to a nondescript office in the center of Phoenicia, where they use their God given instruments to reproduce what has come to be known as “The perfect opera.”
Wisps of the sound travel along Main Street on the hot summer breeze, creating a sense of curiosity, excitement and anticipation for what is in store.