The decision to voice Fallsburg’s Future’s preferences for elections is a difficult one. Fallburg’s Future is primarily concerned with the sustainable residential development of our town. Our future, however, is largely in the hands of our elected officials.

We endorse Michael Bensimon for Town of Fallsburg Supervisor. Michael has worked in public service in several government jobs as an auditor and financial manager for the Sullivan County Office of Management and Budget and Sullivan County Office of Audit and Control.  He has been a member of the Fallsburg Zoning Board for five years. He has served as a Firefighter and EMT in Mountaindale for the last six years. In all his professional capacities, Michael has been a respectful and dedicated public servant working to improving each agency. He believes in teambuilding, treating everyone with respect and decency, enabling individuals to be the best they can be in service to the public.

Michael has three main issues he wants to address as Supervisor: Integrity, Transparency, and Accountability.

1. He will focus on sustainable growth; rebuilding the water/ sewer infrastructure, upgrading cellphone and broadband service as well as improving traffic congestion.

2. He will grow economic development by reducing regulatory barriers, providing resources to aspiring business owners and attracting new businesses to the town.

3. Most importantly, Michael wishes to create a professional workforce and quality public services by building a dedicated staff that will deliver efficient and effective public services.

On the ballot is also Joe Levener and Nathan Steingart for Town Councilmen. Together they have 34 years of experience serving on the Town Council. Together with Michael, they will be able to make the necessary and difficult decisions to plan for and improve the future of Fallsburg.

Be sure to register! Be sure to vote! Get your friends and neighbors to vote! Early voting begins Oct 28th - Nov 5th at the Government Center, 100 North St Monticello, NY.

Dear Supervisor Rappaport,

We would like to congratulate you on your election as Town Supervisor for Fallsburg.

It is notable that you are the first woman elected to this position, so special kudos.

Election campaigning often gets rough and offensive. Misleading information, personal attacks and electioneering hyperbole get deployed in the heat of battle. But now that the campaigning is over, a fresh start is important for everyone with the good of Fallsburg at heart.

It is important that a long-time Fallsburg resident, a member of the school board, and a parent won this election. Together, we share many of the values and hopes for our town. We take your campaign pledges at face value -- that you want to make Fallsburg a great place to live and work, now and into the future.

We look forward to working with your administration to implement common goals: building bridges between disparate local communities, encouraging sustainable development, protecting the natural resources of Fallsburg, addressing serious infrastructure challenges like traffic, water and sewage and above all ensuring the wellbeing of all, year-round and summer residents alike.

We are sure that the transition period to get up to speed is hard work. We are encouraged by the hiring of the new legal counsel and that you have chosen to reappoint the Town Code Enforcement Officer.

We plan to be following the various board meetings carefully and request that they continue to be accessible by Zoom. We trust that you will continue to ensure that there will be plenty of opportunities for public comments during these meetings.

Hopefully when you are settled in, we can meet to see how we can be supportive in promoting our shared vision. We wish you well.

Sincerely,

Members of Fallsburg’s Future

Fallsburg’s Future is a network of concerned residents advocating for the sustainable development of the Town of Fallsburg since 2016.

Many Fallsburg residents are alarmed by the victory of Kathy Rappaport over Steve Vegliante for Town Supervisor as the result of the late count of absentee ballots, mostly from Brooklyn residents.

Steve Vegliante decisively won the initial Fallsburg election voting for Town Supervisor upon the local count on November 4. Full time, year-round residents cast machine-counted votes, 1102 to 696 for Steve, knowingly rejecting Rappaport’s campaign agendas. Nate Steingart (1,011-745) and Michael Bensimon (940-604) likewise defeated their opponents, Sean Wall Carty and Miranda Behan for two more open seats on the six-member town board.

Yet Rappaport and her running mates were declared the winners of the election by 275 votes thanks to Brooklyn residents.

The upset has worrisome implications for the town’s future. How did it happen?

Loophole

First, N.Y. State has a well-meaning but lax and faulty law, allowing summer residents to vote from their summer vacation home, despite only residing here for as little as one month a year.

Although the law stipulates that summer residents must demonstrate they have “legitimate, significant and continuing attachments' to that residence.” As witnessed in other towns, summer residents are thus able to gain control of local town administrations and sometimes undermine if not ignore the needs of full-time residents.

Second, since last spring and summer, 2021, Abe Rutner, Abe Rosenberg and Yermia Solomon, politically connected organizers, actively recruited absentee ballots from ultra-Orthodox second-home owners, who would normally vote in New York City, to register and vote in Fallsburg.

Rappaport and her supporters, ultra-Orthodox rabbis, developers, and businessmen continuously spread malicious lies during the campaign, accusing Vegliante of anti-Semitism among other falsehoods. Republican Sheriff Michael Schiff and Undersheriff Eric Chaboty also significantly aided and assisted Rappaport, a political novice, in her campaign.

With Rappaport in place, it is now evident that the ultra-Orthodox are in a position to have massive control of the future development of Fallsburg. If experience in other Upstate towns is any guide, these individuals will promote the narrow interests of their religious community above year-round residents.

It is clear what the developers want from their candidates, Rappaport et.al. They have long pressed for unlimited development in the town and outlying agricultural lands as well as for a Planning Board that will allow new over-sized development plans, a compliant Building Department that will overlook blatant violations, and a Zoning Board that will grant frequently specious zoning exceptions.

The ultra-Orthodox voting bloc in this last election is one that is sure to grow. By the next election, they could feasibly take over the entire Town Board.

In this new context, it is hard to see a future for sustainable development that will preserve our natural beauty and resources. All previous work, such as the 2018 Town Comprehensive Plan that provides a blueprint for healthy town development, are at risk. The will and wishes of the local community may be largely ignored if this religious bloc protects these newly elected, inexperienced candidates.

Having put personal agendas ahead of the needs of full-time residents, the new administration has made clear that they speak for themselves and their backers, not us.

How can those who oppose excessive development and its negative impact on the natural environment respond? What will happen with the schools? How will the new Town Board manage the town budget and taxes? What changes will they make in managing the overstretched water, sewer and transportation infrastructure? Will local businesses thrive or be thwarted?

Perhaps now the advocacy of Fallsburg’s Future is more important than before, to participate, witness and report on the work of the new Town Board.

The way forward

As a network of concerned residents, Fallsburg’s Future advocates for the sustainable development of the Town of Fallsburg.

With the pending changes in town leadership, we must closely follow the work of town officials to help ensure that the residential development of our town is well planned and that the town’s infrastructure is able to absorb construction in the works and curtail a potential avalanche of new construction.

Your ideas as to how best to respond to the new political and administrative situation are welcome. We need strategic thinking, constructive dialogue and compelling advocacy. Your participation is the key to building a sustainable future for Fallsburg in the months and years ahead.

If you are interested in getting more involved with our next chapter of community organizing and coalition building, please respond to this email.

With thanks and a sustained commitment to the sustainability of our beautiful town,

The Members of Fallsburg’s Future

Fallsburg’s Future is a community group that advocates for the sustainable development of the town of Fallsburg to protect the fragile beauty of its natural habitats and enhance the opportunities and quality of life for all its residents and visitors.

We at Fallsburg’s Future would like to offer a brief recap of our actions over this past year and share with you an outline of our priorities for the months ahead.  All in all it was a busy time for Fallsburg’s planning and development, and we are pleased that we were able to make a substantive contribution to the public dialogue, especially around the town’s updated Comprehensive Plan. We lent our support to the Basha Kill Area Association (BKAA) in its effort to watch over the environmental protection at the proposed Thompson Education Center project.  Most of the project lies in the Town of Thompson with a sliver of land in Fallsburg.  Early in the year BKAA challenged the legitimacy of the building permit that was issued in Fallsburg for the construction of a large residential building as part of the project.  The permit had been issued even though the Environmental Impact Statement for the overall project has never been completed.  After a lengthy review process and two public hearings, the Fallsburg ZBA upheld the permit despite our efforts. We joined with the Pleasure Lake Homeowners’ Association in their effort to stop a developer from using blasting procedures at a nearby project that threatened the Pleasure Lake dam and surrounding environment. Eventually, the developer rescinded the request to blast. We submitted complaints to the town pertaining to six business storefronts in South Fallsburg that were run-down and in violation of the town maintenance code. Most of the problems have, to some extent, been addressed by the building owners. We appreciate the efforts of Code Enforcement. Aided by generous support from BKAA, we consulted with an engineer to get up to speed about the Fallsburg’s water and sewer system and the challenges it faces with over 200 new homes coming on line each year. We met with the town engineer to learn more about the water and sewer infrastructure in Mountaindale and the costs associated with operating, maintaining and expanding it. See our Update regarding this issue on our website. We continued to reach out to other organizations like the Columbia Hill Neighborhood Association, the Rock Hill Neighborhood Coalition and Catskill Mountainkeeper in support of their campaigns to protect the environment and align residential developments with Town codes and regulations. Many of our members supported the successful campaign to elect Rebecca Pratt to the Town Board. Rebecca made her mark on the Comprehensive Plan Committee and one of our members served as her campaign manager. She took up her position in December. We regularly attended Planning Board meetings and voiced our points of view when the public could make written and verbal comments. Often our members were the only people representing the public, but through our regular FF Alerts and Updates, we were able to rally more residents to attend important meetings. In our central effort during 2017-2018, we very closely followed the work of the Comprehensive Plan Committee as it updated the 2006 Comprehensive Plan.  After their work was finished, The Town Board adopted the 2018 Comprehensive Plan Update (CPU) in June and we were pleased that many of its 100 recommendations reflected our concerns and suggestions. We saw that some of our input had influenced changes to the reconfiguration of the zoning districts that will help control development in the decade ahead. On the other hand, we were disappointed that the town did not take action on reigning in several aspects of the Duplex Development Law or abolishing it altogether as one member of our group had advocated for in recommendations to the Town Board. The year ahead With the Comprehensive Plan and the new Zoning codes in effect as of last June, our group of concerned residents believe we must now focus our attention on the list of recommendations that need to be carried out. A key recommendation is that the town set up an Implementation Committee to assist the Town Board in following through with those recommendations.   Here are general areas that we believe are important and should be focused on. An overall assessment of the cumulative impact of large-scale development Increased transparency with regard to the Town, Planning, Zoning and Architectural Review Boards processes. Environmental protection of water, open space, etc. Aesthetics related to building design, public spaces, etc. Development of community parks and eco-friendly recreation facilities We will continue to update our website (www.fallsburgsfuture.org) and send out our Alerts and Updates through our email list. If you wish to receive our mailings, please send us your contact information to neighbor@fallsburgsfuture.org. We wish all of our friends and neighbors a wonderful new year, with the hope that our town continues its slow renewal and development in ways that improve the quality of life for all of us and our many visitors. Fallsburg’s Future, an activist group of Fallsburg residents, is concerned about issues relating to sustainable residential development.

Fallsburg’s Future is a group of concerned local residents. We have been closely following Fallsburg’s town meetings and advocating for the kind of development that will ensure a healthy town for all of us to enjoy in the years ahead. We learned a lot about the town’s planning process during this eventful year, and look forward to 2018 -- with eyes wide open. We believe our attendance and participation in the Comprehensive Plan Update since August (a process that should be completed early next year) helped shape the CPU’s far-reaching recommendations and establish many of the new regulations in the Town’s revised zoning code and districting map that will guide decisions for the next decade. We supported the Town Board’s unanimous decision to impose a year-long moratorium on the authorization of new residential developments in order to give the town the time to undertake the CPU. The moratorium, which allowed for many exceptions, concluded last July. Systematic implementation of the CPU’s recommendations in the coming years should go a long way to preserving the rural nature of our town. The CPU has the elements needed to moderate the trend that has allowed Fallsburg’s rapid and poorly conceived suburban-style development over the past decade. If Fallsburg had implemented the recommendations of the previous 2006 Comprehensive Plan, we would not be facing the serious challenges before us today. The surge of residential developments and gated communities threatens to overwhelm our natural habitats, our roads, sewer and water systems. It is the type of development that does not encourage year-round economic sustainability or a sense of shared community that is at the heart of thriving small-town life. The current draft of the CPU, which is the fruit of the work of a seven-person committee of representative residents and the consulting firm hired by the town, has many strong points, including: -     Increasing the land area of the AG district, which helps protect more farmland from development -     Greater control over acreage requirements for homes built in the REC districts which eliminates the ability of developers to increase the number of homes they are allowed to build -     Greater regulation of Duplex Developments that can improve their visual impact and help make them more a part of the community -     Expansion of rules for conservation design methods, including Cluster Development that will help establish more Open Space -     Stricter regulation of summer camps that limits the ability to develop year-round homes within them -   Creating the Neversink River Overlay Protection District which will help protect the town’s primary aquifer Members of Fallsburg’s Future, in addition to having a representative on the Comprehensive Planning Committee, attended all Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) meetings to monitor development projects and speak in the interest of the community when possible. We presented compelling charts, maps and information highlighting our concerns at various venues, including at events like the Columbia Hill Neighborhood Alliance “Friend-Raiser” in August. We also reported on the meetings through our website and emailed Updates and Reports that keep interested residents abreast of the often obscure developments at town meetings. Our reports circulated through our Facebook page and the Rock Hill Neighborhood Coalition Newsletter as well as the Basha Kill Area Association newsletter, The Guardian, reaching thousands of interested residents.

2018 Preview

We are very clear what the next phase of Fallsburg’s healthy development requires. We are looking closely at ways to support Fallsburg officials in the implementation of the recommendations of the soon-to-be-adopted Comprehensive Plan Update.

We expect that transparency and timeliness regarding the availability of public documents and meetings will be given serious attention.

We hope that the town will create some form of implementation committee that will work on a voluntary basis with town officials to find solutions that will be financially feasible for Fallsburg.

The challenges we face are many but not insurmountable. Everyone recognizes the growing problem of traffic congestion and safety, for example. While the creation of more sidewalks may be financially prohibitive given Fallsburg’s budget constraints, we can envision improvements, such as white lines delineating protected pedestrian traffic, that will make our roads safer at lower cost. Zombie properties, which are ugly, depressing and dangerous, should also be on the short list.

We anticipate collaborating with the Delaware River Watershed Initiative to bring greater awareness to the need to protect our precious water resources in the Neversink and Mongaup watershed areas.

We hope to work with Catskill Mountainkeeper and other important environmental organizations that bring together smaller community groups like Fallsburg’s Future to study our problems and come up with feasible solutions that our town can afford.

We will continue to engage with our municipal officials, pressing them to find the resources to ensure code enforcement, infrastructure requirement surveys, and continuing planning efforts.

And we encourage residents, especially those with legal, financial, environmental and economic expertise, to join in our activities and efforts to promote ecologically sound and sustainable growth in our community. Please visit our website (www.fallsburgsfuture.org), sign up for our email Alerts and Reports and follow us on our Facebook page.

We are planning for a Spring Meet and Greet for Fallsburg’s Future so stay tuned for more details.

Let’s get Fallsburg back on the right track with a vision that includes all its residents!

All the best for the holidays and the year ahead,

Fallsburg’s Future Executive Committee

Dear Neighbors, We at Fallsburg’s Future send you warmest greetings for the holidays. We also want to give you a little year-end update and peer into 2017. As we mark our first year, we are struck at the impact our small group of concerned citizens has had on the difficult issues concerning Fallsburg’s future. Perhaps our biggest accomplishment is rallying neighbors to attend Town Board meetings during the year. For sure, the Town Board has taken notice of residents’ renewed interest in its work and, we suspect, is appreciative of the demonstration of support for doing the right thing around the town’s development. The good news is that we think Board members do indeed want to do the right thing. On a more mundane level, we feel we have established Fallsburg’s Future as a presence in the complex landscape of debates, specifically as they relate to residential development, the environment, and the process of updating the town’s Comprehensive Plan designed to guide Fallsburg’s development. Our participation in public events (e.g. Kite Day in June and the What the Hill Day in August) and petitions that we circulated to our growing (200+) mailing list gave the Town Board support for its decision to establish a one-year Moratorium on authorization of big residential developments. We have made it clear that we feel these developments are overwhelming the infrastructure, environment, rural character and diversity of our town. With the Moratorium in place, we rallied against waivers that virtually all the developers requested. The Board recognized the validity of just four of 22 “variances”. And we are actively participating in the new Comprehensive Plan Committee (CPC). One of our members, Rebecca Pratt, is a representative on the CPC. Together we are formulating recommendations that the Town Board can take forward by the middle of 2017. We will advise you of all the CPC meetings in advance so you can attend as they are open to the public (the next CPC meeting is January 5). We have created a website (fallsburgsfuture.org) where you can find more information about us as well as links to public information that is crucial to making informed decisions about Fallsburg’s future. We aim to have information in Spanish and Yiddish as well. We have reached out to the media and other community organizations that have been very supportive in spreading the word. We want the website to become a center for discussion and information. We are plugging into various networks at the town and county levels. Our members are attending workshops that educate citizens about the complex issues around the Town’s development, including environmental concerns, especially water, and zoning, accountability and code enforcement. While we are confident that we can have an even greater impact (especially around the recommendations and eventual implementation of the Comprehensive Plan), we remind you all that you are Fallsburg’s Future. Please participate in this educational process and attend Town Board and CP meetings. We also welcome you to join FF’s committees where you can bring your particular expertise, whether it be on environmental issues, legal and legislative initiatives, media and community outreach. And pass this message along to interested residents. We are sure that there are enough concerned citizens to build a powerful movement to ensure a sustainable and healthy future for our town. Please join us and be sure your voice is heard! Gerald Faucher, Evadne Giannini, Steve Gordon, Tina Hazarian, Paul Hoeffel, Karen Luse, Brian Manown, Regina Moné,  Rebecca Pratt