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We will not be silenced any longer.
06/04/2008
Erich Griesser
Letter to the Editor
A recent letter to the editor from Matt Frisch was so full of irony I had to respond.
He says that Partners for Progress is using fear tactics in our effort to support the
expansion of Belleayre Mt. Ski Center and the construction of the Belleayre Resort.
His group is called “Save the Mountain.” Just the name is a fear tactic because it makes
one think a mountain is in some danger. That is not the case. The New York City DEP,
the National Resource Defense Council, the Catskill Center for Conservation and
Development, and a whole bunch of other major watchdog environmental groups have
already agreed that this project can be done without endangering anyone.
They named the project a “mega-resort” and have compared it to behemoth resorts out
west in places like Vail, with thousands and thousands of rooms and thousands of acres.
Yet this little resort, by comparison to those they compare it to, won’t even begin to
approach that size even at its maximum build out. Sounds like a fear tactic to me.
Save the Mountain has published pictures where they pasted renderings of houses at the
top of the mountain and the added smoke billowing from smokestacks from them. There
will be no wood burning fireplaces in any of those units, no smokestacks or chimneys
like those are planned and they don’t even have the houses in the right place. The fear
tactics these people have used are just too numerous to mention.
The worst fear tactic they have used is more insidious. It is the way they publicly and
viciously attack – with personal slander and innuendo – anyone who comes out in favor
of the resort. It is the quiet threat – and actual carrying out – of boycotting business
owners who are willing to stand up and publicly support this project. I have heard from
many business people that vocal Save the Mountain members have stopped going into the
businesses of known project supporters.
For nearly a decade, project opponents have so intimidated everyone in the community
that people who do support the effort have been afraid to speak up. That is ending now.
We will not be silenced any longer. And it is that fact, that is now making people in the
Save the Mountain group, so fearful.
So fear not, Belleayre supporters. There are a lot of us out there and there is strength in
numbers. Join us. Sign the petition (www.supportthecompromise.com) Pick up a
bumper sticker or lawn sign. Write a letter to the editor or get involved some other way.
Erich Griesser
Alpine Road, Oliverea, NY 12410
Phone (845) 254-5026
Fax (845) 254-5016
http://www.thealpineinn.com/
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