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As a resident of the Town of Duanesburg, I'm sorry it took you almost one full week to bother to comment.  This is a clear example of Duanesburg's standing in the county.  Unimportant, and easily missed.

(hanging my head in shame)  

Been a little tied up lately.  Still no excuse for not commenting earlier.  I'll try to do better.

I understand that we all need to remember our own neck of the woods, but I must commend Zim, as he's been doing a heck of a lot of work trying to keep things running through the entire county.

Again, thanks Zim for your work, and yes, a little slap on the wrist for not paying attention to your own backyard, especially when you know the boss comes in here and looks around.  

Rene, we're concerned about what's happening all around the area as it eventually may affect us. Just look how the city of Schdy affects the surrounding areas by sending their non law abiding citizens into our areas to rob, burn, and destroy our property. It's refreshing to see your town doing to well, it's a beacon in the night that Schdy County Council could learn a lot from on how to run a government the right way.

Any nice houses for sale over there???? Although to out run the county's reach into our pockets I would have to exit to Saratoga or Albany counties.....what is wrong with Schenectady??? That is what happens when Mofia rules and there is only one 'bully' on the block.....we sat around commending GE and got stuck.....

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As a resident of the Town of Duanesburg, I'm sorry it took you almost one full week to bother to comment.  This is a clear example of Duanesburg's standing in the county.  Unimportant, and easily missed.

Sometimes this is a blessing Rene. The less people know about the inner workings of Duanesburg, the less interference from the outside. Duanesburg still has charm and class. It seems private and  untouched by the BS that goes around the rest of these towns. I hope it stays that way.

I know exactly what you are saying Bumble....I just want to be Supervisor of D'burg, I have never been involved in so much BS in the eight years that I've been on the Town Board and Supervisor then in the last five months.  I frequently tell residents to be careful what you ask for because it comes at a price.
And by the way Z........I still love ya!!!!! Keep up the good work   I know how busy you have been.

Oh man.  Another 2 days have passed since Rene's most recent post and I am just now replying.  I am in "deep yogurt".  

As Rene states, I have been busy as have many of you in informing the public about the upcoming election and the choices that they will be asked to make.  I encourage all to get involved and support your favorite candidates.  Above all ... VOTE.  It's our right and our responsibility.

In my discussions with my neighbors, I have sensed that the public is more informed about what is occurring in our county than many of our elected representatives would like to think.  The voters have awakened, at least those who reside in Duanesburg.  A Change is Coming ... and I think that it will be for the better.

And, Rene, everyone with whom I have spoken loves you.  Wish that I had your effect on folks!

No you're not Z, in trouble that is.  Maybe I was cranky last week,  I hadn't had ANY feedback from anyone on the budget, I still haven't except for you guys.  Oh well, thats ok.  I am really happy to know you are hearing from informed residents in town.  While out campaigning last week, I spoke with a substantial number who simply did not know what has been going on in the county.  Good, bad, or indifferent.  I was out today for a little while and did have some people ask me about the SCCC music dept. moving to Proctors, and many asked about the sex offender legislation.  I was glad they did.  I hope no one ever makes the mistake of underestimating D'burg residents.

PS  Whats not to love?

Good for you Rene! Glad to hear that some residents are asking and you are telling them what is going on. They are truly lucky to have an informed  representative that truly does represent the people that elected you. Good job Rene, really!

That's a good thing. They are blessed to have an involved and informed supervisor(is that what your title is?). I hope they keep it up and stay informed. Like you all were talking about folks going to the legislature meetings to show them--yes, you are being watched and yes, we do vote......and sometimes the best thing a servant leader can do is just 'wake up' the masses.....

Keep it up Rene....

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DUANESBURG
Developer starting over on application
BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter
Reach Gazette reporter Justin Mason at 395-3113 or jmason@dailygazette.net.

   With an agreement finally reached on environmental testing for the controversial Atateka subdivision, a lawyer representing the developers added a twist: He withdrew the project proposal.
   Donald Zee, an attorney representing Ken Meyer and Paul Di-Cocco of Atateka Development LLC, pulled preliminary sketch plans of the development during a special Planning Board meeting last month. Initial plans called for a 31-unit cluster development off Turnbull Road just west of Delanson.
   The development’s cluster arrangement would have needed town variances. Instead, the developers intend to submit a similar plan using conventional style of development, which would utilize larger lot sizes that conform to the local code.
   “Essentially, they’re coming in and starting all over,” said Planning Board Chairwoman Sandra Scott, “It took everyone by surprise.”
   Zee said the abrupt change was made to streamline the application. With fewer approvals needed, he said the development will likely move through the planning process much quicker. And after nearly a year of wrangling on the plan, he said his clients are eager to move the project along.
   “Obviously, [their comments] told me there would potentially be a lot of dialogue and a lot more discussion,” he said. “My client couldn’t afford that.”
   The change in design came just moments after town officials agreed on a more rigid testing protocol for the development, to ensure none of the building lots are contaminated from a former chemical dump on the property. Suspected contamination on the property stalled the project.
   The property became the subject of a joint state Department of Environmental Conservation and state Department of Health probe in March 1984, after more than 140 corroded barrels were found buried in a pair of marshy pits. Among the items uncovered in the dump site were burlap bags, test tubes and the barrels, which originally contained phenolic resins.
   Nearby residents indicated a local farmer had accepted money from Schenectady Chemical Inc. to dispose of the barrels sometime during the 1950s. Even though the property was given a clean bill of health by the DEC during the 1980s, town officials wanted the property scrutinized under current environmental standards.
   Zee said new plans for development would be submitted to the town in time to get the project on the agenda for the planning board’s October meeting,
   “We’re starting from square one here,” Scott said.  

  
  
    

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Skyline Drive home burns
BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter
Reach Gazette reporter Justin Mason at 395-3113 or jmason@dailygazette.net

   Fire ripped through a Skyline Drive residence Monday afternoon, gutting the structure and leaving a family of four homeless.
   The single story residence near the Hillman Road intersection was all but destroyed by the fire, which started near the center of the home and broke through the roof. Delanson Fire Chief Kevin Morrison said fire was reported around 2:35 p.m. and it had already spread substantially when the first crews arrived.
   “It was ripping when we got here,” he said. “It had a good while to get going.”
   County Fire Coordinator John Nuzback said the homeowners first spotted flames in a living area of the home and called the fire in. He said afternoon wind gusts helped spread the flames after the building’s windows popped from the heat.
   The blaze consumed nearly everything on the fi rst floor and garage, leaving charred debris. The home’s roof was destroyed and a finished basement area in the rear was damaged heavily.
   Nuzback said the homeowners had insurance, but he did not release their identities. He said the couple’s two children were at school when the fire broke out.
   More than four dozen fi refighters were on the scene from seven regional volunteer companies, including Delanson, Mariaville, Quaker Springs, Burtonsville, Potterkill, Duanesburg and Esperance. Nuzback said the cause is now under investigation.
   “It got going pretty good pretty quickly,” he said.  

  
  
  

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LANDMARKS
200-year-old Quaker meeting house is just plain appealing
BY BILL BUELL Gazette Reporter

   DUANESBURG
   There’s nothing ornate or extravagant about the Quaker meeting house on Route 7 in the western regions of Schenectady County. It is much like the sect it serves — plain and simple with very few trappings.
   “The architecture tells you everything you need to know about the Quakers,” said Art Willis, a Quaker himself and historian for the town of Duanesburg, wherein lies the 200-year-old building. “It’s white and gray, very simple and plain, with no embellishment or accoutrements, and that speaks volumes about the Quaker faith. They believe in complete directness, honesty, plainness, with no guile or personality. You’re not supposed to draw attention to yourself.”
   The Quakers, after buying the land from the family of James Duane, began building the house in 1807, probably began using it in 1809, and finished the structure in 1813.
   “The Quakers began coming to this area from Dutchess County in some numbers in 1780 with Duane’s encouragement,” said Willis. “They were sober and very hard-working, and eventually, by the 1830s, there were about 200 families, almost all of them Quakers, living in this immediate area.”
   The immediate area is the hamlet of Quaker Street, and the first meeting house, a log cabin, was built sometime soon after 1780 across the street and just east of where the current building is. It was a Quaker by the name of Job Briggs who paid the Duane family 32 pounds for the two acres of land that became the site of the current meeting house. The building cost close to 550 pounds to build.
   “Job Briggs served as the agent for the Quakers, and at the time they used pounds instead of dollars because Alexander Hamilton’s new system hadn’t really taken hold yet,” said Willis, referring to the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. “But the Quakers were great builders, and they used hand-hewn timbers, each of them from a fulllength tree. It was to be 48 feet by 32 by 20 feet, and about the only change they made was eliminating the gallery right after the Civil War to put in a second floor. It’s the same simple white, wooden benches, although some of them today have cushions.”
NUMBER CONCERNS
   There are no longer 200 families attending the weekly Sunday meeting, and these days the building is only open from Easter to Thanksgiving.
   “We have electric baseboard heat, but it costs a lot to heat the place. So we usually meet at someone’s house during the winter,” said Dorothy Garner, a Cobleskill resident who moved to the Schoharie Valley from New Jersey with her husband, Carroll, and their four children back in 1956. “We do wonder about what’s going to happen, because a lot of us are getting older and there just aren’t that many of us. We have a monthly meeting for business and that will be the topic. Do we have enough people?”
   Although the meeting house was well attended earlier this month to help celebrate the building’s 200th anniversary, the number of people regularly attending on Sunday sometimes doesn’t reach double figures.
   “You have your ups and downs, but if it gets down to just three or four of us, you have to wonder what to do,” said Garner. “We do have a new family with some children that might rescue us. Hopefully, we’ll have enough people next spring to open the building up again.”
DRIVING BY FOR YEARS
   As recently as 50 years ago, when Garner moved to the area, the Quaker Street meeting was quite well attended.
   “When we moved to Cobleskill, we inquired about the place and told them that we had four young children, and we felt like they really didn’t want us. So we drove to Schenectady,” said Garner. “At that time, there were a number of old ladies there and upstairs they had these spinning wheels and all these Quaker bonnets. It was like a museum. They had a lot of people, and I guess they didn’t want a lot of children running around the building.”
   Garner and her husband drove to Schenectady for 12 years, driving right past the Quaker Street meeting house, before things changed.
   “When my children grew and my daughter was of age, she wanted to be married in the Quaker Street meeting house,” said Garner. “They went through all the Quaker wedding arrangements and were married there, and, soon after, my husband and I started going there. I guess all those old ladies had died and they gave away all the historical items they had. We turned the second floor into our Sunday school room.”
KEEPING BUILDING SOUND
   Although the meeting house is in good shape, it has required some maintenance over the years. The group most recently paid for a new sewer system, and a few years ago Jim Yauchler, chief of the Quaker Street Volunteer Fire Department, helped repair the floor and the ceiling.
   “They built it with a crawl space under the floor, and a while back I had to crawl under there because there was a pretty serious sag,” said Yauchler. “But we resupported the bearing beam and now it’s not a problem. Generally, the building is in pretty good shape. It’s very structurally sound, and the slate roof is holding up pretty well, considering the age of the building.”
   Yauchler says he’s amazed at the construction skill that went into building the meeting house 200 years ago.
   “It’s an unusual structure in that upstairs they don’t have support beams,” he said. “The post-andbeam construction holds everything together. So it’s an example of that magnificent old-style construction they would do years ago. It’s beautiful. It’s almost like a lost art.”
   Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Quaker Street Meeting House also has two 18th century wrought-iron stoves no longer in use. There is a small cemetery to the west of the meeting house and a blue and yellow historical marker stands out by Route 7, giving visitors a brief history of the building.
SPECIAL PLACE
   “Our blue and yellow sign was broken, but we managed to paint it and get it back up this past summer,” said Garner. “I was born a Quaker — so I’d like to keep the building active. We think it’s a very special place.”
   New members, however, are hard to come by.
   “Quakers don’t proselytize. So their membership tends not to have any great increases,” said Willis, whose great-grandfather Mark Dare left the church to join the Civil War. “They’re pacifists. They believe that each person contains God in them. So to shoot someone is to shoot God.
   “Looking at that building now, it’s a great old building. But to the Quakers, it’s the people inside the building that come first,” he said. “That’s what the architecture tells you. It’s the people that are important.”



A view of the original Quaker benches inside the Quaker Street Meeting House. The cushions are a modern addition

One of the original wood-burning stoves used to heat the Quaker Street Meeting House is on display. In the last few years, the wood stoves were replaced with conventional electric heating.

ANA N. ZANGRONIZ/GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER Dorothy Garner, current clerk for the Quaker Street Meeting House, stands inside the main floor of the house.

By the pictures, this looks almost identical to the church that is at the corner of Rt. 20 and Duanesburg Churches Road, or at least similar construction.

I know the one you mean. But isn't it bigger than this one? We need a Duanesburgian to fill us in. Rene? Brad?