She said the students had academically earned the right to participate in New Visions, instead of the study hall sessions they will likely face in its absence. “Twelve of us wanted to go above and beyond four study halls a day,” she said.
There's a return on the tax dollar......this would make the cup 1/2 empty.....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
If the kids are going to have 4 study halls/day....then school should only be in session for 1/2 a day. Yes...what a waste of taxpayer's money.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Man jumps out of plane without chute, dies Saturday, June 7, 2008 The Associated Press
DUANESBURG — A 29-year-old Schenectady man leaped out of a plane at 10,000 feet Saturday without a parachute. His body was found next to a house with a damaged roof, police said. Sloan Carafello of Schenectady, who was observing during the flight, followed an instructor, student and videographer out the door, wearing no skydiving gear, officials said. Police said they did not suspect foul play.
DUANESBURG Man leaps from plane, dies City man didn’t wear parachute BY JESSICA HARDING Gazette Reporter
A Schenectady man died Saturday after he jumped from a skydiving plane without a parachute and struck the roof of a town residence. State police said Sloan Carafello, 29, of State Street, was aboard a small plane operated by the Duanesburg Skydiving Club along with an instructor, two skydivers and pilot Bob Rawlins. “It wasn’t an accident,” said Rawlins, also a Duanesburg Skydiving Club director. “He committed suicide.” State police are continuing their investigation but said they don’t suspect foul play at this time. Rawlins said he was flying the single-engine plane at about 10,000 feet shortly before 2 p.m. with the instructor, a student, a videographer and Carafello inside. Rawlins said Carafello had called a week ago requesting to fly to take aerial photographs for a class project. Carafello was not an acquaintance of the jumping party, Rawlins said. Carafello followed the skydiving group with his camera as they dove from the plane, said Rawlins, who was positioned to close the plane’s door following the scheduled jump. “I didn’t even get a chance to latch the door and he flew right by me,” Rawlins said. Carafello struck a corner of a house roof on Duanesburg Road near the airfield where the skydiving club is located. State police said emergency dispatchers received calls from the Duanesburg Skydiving Club and a neighbor of the house who claimed to have witnessed the impact. Rawlins said the skydiving club has been in business for 37 years and it is not unusual to have observers as passengers on board during skydiving. Passengers are typically seatbelted and Carafello was checked to ensure that that was the case before takeoff, Rawlins said. “He was taking a ride, like so many others have, and, I don’t know,” Rawlins said. “At least he killed himself and didn’t take anyone else with him.” The incident occurs nearly 10 years to the day after experienced skydiver Terrance Bishop died when his parachute caught a gust of wind and collapsed while he was landing at the Duanesburg airport. Bishop had been practicing with the club’s skydiving performance team.
Michael, you are correct Town Hall is just west of the Duanesburg intersection on Route #20. You will go under a railroad bridge, D'burg Highway Dept. will be on your left immediately following and just after the Highway Dept. is our little Town Hall. Please introduce yourself, I will look forward to meeting you.
Feds say Skydiving Club owner lacks right license BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter
DUANESBURG — Federal authorities investigating a bizarre sky-diving suicide said the pilot of the plane lacked the credentials to be flying commercially on the day of the incident. Chad Gilbert, a Federal Aviation Administration operations unit supervisor in Latham, said Duanesburg Skydiving Club owner Bob Rawlins owned a private pilot’s license, but not the type needed to operate a commercial enterprise. “Flying for compensation or hire requires a commercial pilot’s license,” he said Monday. “It’s a little more work and some people don’t want to do it.” The agency began investigating Duanesburg Skydiving after the death of Sloan Carafello, 29, of Schenectady, who leapt without a parachute out of the single-engine Cessna that Rawlins’ was piloting. The man plummeted nearly 10,000 feet onto the roof of a Duanesburg Road residence. The videographer who jumped from the plane before Carafello, captured the man’s fall in his camera’s frame as he was attempting to get another shot of the plane. The video apparently shows Carafello taking pictures of himself with a camera while free-falling. Attempts to contact Rawlins at his Duanesburg business were unsuccessful Monday evening. Gilbert said Rawlins’ business had other pilots with the proper commercial certification. He said Rawlins, who has been licensed to fly privately for many years, also appears to lack the proper medical physical needed to operate the flights.
DUANESBURG — A public hearing is set tonight for comment on the town's proposed ordinance regulating wind turbine developments. If adopted, the law would make Duanesburg the first municipality in the county to set standards for wind power projects. The hearing is set for 7 p.m. at Town Hall during the board's regular meeting. Board members first considered the law while they were reviewing the town's comprehensive plan last year. Board members crafted the ordinance to offer easy-to-understand guidelines for smaller, residential-use wind turbines, while offering performance standards for the type of large wind-farm projects pitched elsewhere around upstate New York. Though there has been no commercial interest expressed in building a wind farm in Duanesburg, several residents have inquired about building their own towers. The towns of Princetown and Rotterdam are developing a similar ordinance, while the village of Scotia recently discussed drawing up a law governing wind developments.
DUANESBURG Town passes wind turbine law New regulation sets ‘minimal thresholds’ BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter
Duanesburg officials have adopted Schenectady County’s first ordinance regulating wind turbines. The Town Board Thursday passed the local law unanimously, following a public hearing attended by more than three dozen residents. Those speaking voiced little opposition to the law, which sets performance standards for both home and commercial wind turbine projects. Duanesburg isn’t in an area likely to attract large commercial wind farm developments, explained Todd Mathes, the town’s zoning and planning board attorney who helped draft the law. But by establishing the ordinance, he said, the Planning Board would have a basic set of guidelines to work through smaller residential projects, which are more likely to crop up. “We’re setting minimal thresholds,” he said. Any development generating more than 100 kilowatts in an hour is considered a large project and subject to more stringent regulations. Mathes said small wind projects are more likely to generate around 10 kilowatts of electricity in an hour. Large developments must be located at least 1,500 feet away from residences and a minimum of 500 feet away from public roads or off-site property boundaries. In contrast, small wind turbines and measurement towers would need to be located at a distance 1 1 /2 times their height. The ordinance sets a maximum height of 500 feet for large projects, with the tip of the rotor being located no lower than 30 feet from the ground. Small energy projects are limited to a 200-foot maximum height, with their blades reaching no lower than 15 feet from the ground. The law establishes a $100 fee for small projects. Large projects would pay a fee equivalent to $500 per megawatt of “proposed nameplate capacity” of a project. Some residents at the hearing suggested the new law might become onerous for homeowners trying to put up a small wind tower. Others questioned if the law was necessary because of standards set forth by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which imposes guidelines in towns lacking an ordinance. Supervisor Rene Merrihew said the town wanted to be proactive in establishing its own guidelines tailored to the needs of the community. Without the law, she said the process of regulating the towers could become difficult. “In absence of the law, they could be placed anywhere,” she said. Town officials also pointed to the relative ease of the small wind tower application process. The state Environmental Quality Review form is only one page long and the process for getting a tower approved could be as short as two meetings with the planning board. “We made it as easy as possible,” Merrihew said. The wind turbine ordinance is the first of three being considered this year. Both the towns of Rotterdam and Princetown are reviewing similar laws. The county’s first large commercial wind tower is expected to be proposed during the Rotterdam Planning Board meeting next week. General Electric officials are scheduled to pitch plans for a 300-foot tower that would generate 1.5 megawatts and would be used to power the company’s Renewables Global Headquarters. In Duanesburg, board members first considered drafting the law while they were reviewing the town’s comprehensive plan last year. Since that time, Merrihew said she’s been approached by several residents indicating interest in building small towers for their homes. “Over the past year or so, I’ve had probably a dozen people who have expressed interest in constructing one for personal use,” she said.
DUANESBURG Board OKs $12K to Rotterdam for REMS coverage BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter
Town officials have agreed to pay $12,232 to the Rotterdam Emergency Medical Service for the coverage they provided while the Duanesburg Volunteer Ambulance Corps was going through tumult this year. Members of the Town Board approved the allocation during their meeting Thursday. Board member Martin White said providing the funding was proper, given the mutual aid service REMS provided the town while Duanesburg's company was experiencing a membership crisis. "It's the right thing to do for them to offset their costs," he said. The REMS funding comes on top of three $10,000 payments the town agreed to pay DVAC over the next three months. Town officials agreed to fund Duanesburg after the ambulance company made recent strides toward improving its membership. In February, town officials asked the state police dispatchers in Princetown to stop sending DVAC ambulances to emergencies after the company experienced missed calls and slow response times. The company attributed these problems to a lack of volunteers. The town later amended this request to allow DVAC crews eight minutes to reach their station and be en route to an emergency before REMS would be dispatched. The town also requested duty rosters from the company, so that REMS could be automatically sent during times when Duanesburg crews were unavailable. Last month, members of the DVAC Board of Trustees declared more than dozen members inactive including Bruce Smith, the former captain many had faulted for the company's membership woes. The response was nearly two dozen new volunteers. But Tammy Nunez, a former crew chief with DVAC, disagreed. She said the ambulance company's woes had continued and worried the town might not have enough EMTs on hand to contend with next week's Harley Rendezvous, which is expected to draw nearly 6,000 bikers. "It's a public safety issue," said Nunez, who was among the former DVAC members declared inactive. "They don't have weekend coverage." The board agreed DVAC still has holes in its roster. However, members were optimistic about the ambulance company's ability to mend. Town Supervisor Rene Merrihew said the company had recently enrolled four new emergency medical technicians that are awaiting certification. She said the company is also exploring a mutual aid agreement with the Mariaville Volunteer Fire Department.
Probe of pilot echoes prior one Sky-diving club owner was sanctioned in 1997
By CATHY WOODRUFF, Staff writer First published: Saturday, June 14, 2008
The pilot who witnessed a passenger in his sky-diving plane deliberately jump to his death on Saturday previously had his flying certification suspended for carrying paying passengers without a commercial pilot's license.
As a result of the June 7 incident, the Federal Aviation Administration again is investigating whether pilot Bob Rawlins had the proper credentials to carry passengers for lessons and jumps with his Duanesburg Skydiving Club. "Without a commercial license, he is in violation of federal regulations to take people up to sky dive for hire," said Chad Gilbert, an operations unit supervisor for the FAA in Latham. FAA officials say they do not believe the status of Rawlins' pilot credentials contributed to the suicide of Sloan Carafello, 29, but they suggested he not fly paying passengers during the probe. Rawlins' private pilot's license was suspended for 45 days in 1997 after the National Transportation Safety Board rejected his appeal of a finding that he carried paying passengers without a commercial license. In that case Rawlins had argued that the club was not an enterprise for profit, and that he received no compensation for the flight. The board noted, however, that a passenger paid $200 to the club for parachute jumping lessons. A call placed to Rawlins' club on Friday seeking comment was not returned. Gilbert said FAA investigators generally have 60 days to complete their investigation.
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