May 15 – Greetings faithful readers of the Kenoza Lake news. What a wet May we have been having! When the sun finally comes out it will feel like the tropics here and things will really start to grow. Yesterday I ran into Town of Bethel vegetable farmer, Matt Burns who told me he has only been able to plant his strawberries and hasn’t planted any potatoes yet. I haven’t seen any fawns yet. Tuesday night I heard a wood thrush bird at my house, the most melodic of our songbirds. I have catbirds at my house, and they do a lot of singing. My Baltimore Orioles hung around for just two days. I haven’t seen any baby turkeys yet; however, I have seen several baby geese! Turtle crossing season is upon us! I put my turtle escort shovel in my car and my “I brake for turtles” car magnet out.

May 20 is the School Board vote. On principle, I always vote no. Normally the school budget is less than the 2 percent property tax cap, however with declining school populations, it is more than 2 percent per student. This year, the Sullivan West proposed budget increase is 3 percent, which (in fairness to the Administration) is slightly greater than the Consumer Price Index of 2.95 percent. I am happy to see that the budget for program content increased, and administration decreased. Why doesn’t Eldred school merge with Sullivan West? I am happy to see that the Roscoe and Livingston Manor school districts have merged.

Ten years ago, on May 19, 2015, I voted on the day of the Sullivan West budget vote and then drove to East Stroudsburg to give a presentation to a group of accountants. At 3pm, I passed out, crossed a double yellow line, took out a utility pole, a tree and then crashed, headfirst into a pole or tree, totalled my husband Ray’s new pickup truck. I spent eight days in the East Stroudsburg hospital and was diagnosed with atrioventricular block which was caused by Lyme Disease. After one month of intravenous antibiotics, I was cured. Praise the good Lord, I lived to tell the tale. Why don’t we, have vaccines for Lyme Disease? 

Heads up, you can no longer mail overnight documents from the U.S. Post Office in Sullivan County. If you want to mail out a letter overnight for delivery within 24 hours, you must use UPS. (FedEx picks up from Dollar Generals, but the pickup time varies.) It used to be that you could go to UPS in Ferndale at the end of the day and mail things out. I’m not sure if you can still do that or not. However, you can go to Kristt and Company and mail things out early in the afternoon, for overnight delivery. Things have slowed down considerably with the U.S. Post Office. Mail that is placed in RFD mailboxes normally doesn’t get mailed out until the next day. 

Did you know that our mail sometimes goes to Hartford Connecticut for processing and then to Albany, for sorting. I can understand going to Albany however I don’t understand how going to both Hartford and Albany saves time and money. Two different postal machines are stamping the mail. I saw that in my role as the Town of Bethel Tax Collector. You must go inside the post office and hand the mail to the post office clerks if you want to make sure that the mail is going out that day. Do your homework on mailing out time sensitive documents, especially property and school tax payments.

It is my understanding that the ballots for the upcoming primary have been mailed. In the Town of Bethel, there are four Democrats running for two, council seats. (Councilwoman Lillian Hendrickson is not running for re-election.) As most everyone probably knows, there is a primary race for the Republican line for the Sheriff’s race.

People are wound so tight these days. I recently read online about an incident where someone thought that they got cut off on Brown Town Road/CR 115. The one person went to apologize to the other person at Heinle’s Store at Cochecton Center and the other person ended up throwing a cup of coffee in the person’s face. What is going on in the world?

I have been watching American Idol the past few weeks. This past week I cast all ten of my allotted votes for John Foster, the country western singer from Louisiana. The grand finale will be Sunday, May 18.