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Residents oppose Bosque project at first public hearing
By Melanie Lekocevic
Capital Region Independent Media
DURHAM — The first of two public hearings on the Bosque residential subdivi- sion and site plan application drew a crowd of residents opposed to the project.
at the first of two public hearings about the project.
The hearing was held at the former Durham Elementary School and will be followed by a second public hearing at the same location Dec. 11.
“The purpose of this hearing is to give all of you a chance to be heard, for you to speak to the board about your concerns, both positives and negatives,” Town Supervisor Shawn Marriott said to open the hearing. “The board, attorney, engineers
and all of the parties will listen and take notes. There will be no comments or answers from the board. We are here to listen
to you.”
Issues raised during the hearing would be addressed at a later date, Marriott added.
Representatives from the Bosque development were given time at the beginning of the hearing to present details of the project.
“The applicant is proposing to develop a 13-lot residential subdivision for 12 single-family lots,” the developer’s attorney, Taylor Palmer, said. “The approximately 95-acre property is divided into two existing tax lots. The collective property has frontage on Cornwallville Road and Strong Road.”
The developer looked to mitigate impacts on the surrounding community, Palmer said.
“The Bosque project is designed to reduce the impacts on land to ensure a rural aesthetic and the Bosque community
is consciously modeled around creativity, exploration and a deeper connection to nature. The proposal has an emphasis on
sustainable, natural building materials,” Palmer added.
Principal engineer Darrin Elsom from Kaaterskill Associates said the project seeks to retain a significant portion of land
as wooded.
“Approximately 75% of the acreage is going to remain as wooded, and of the 95 acres, something like 71 acres are woods
that we will leave in its existing condition,” Elsom said. “The houses are generally not going to be visible from the road.”
All but one local resident speaking at the public hearing was opposed to the project.
Resident Dan Clifton said maintaining the character of the community — including its rural nature — is one of his key
reasons for opposing the development. He spoke of the town board’s decision to find that the project will not have a significant
impact on the environment as part of the mandated state Environmental Assessment Form conducted Aug. 31 and Oct. 5.
“I don’t believe that anyone can seriously say that the Bosque project will not have a moderate to large impact,” Clifton said.
“The visual character — it is the difference between the rural character which we have now and a suburban character.”
The style of the homes is also an issue, he added.
“This would develop 12 houses plus a barn residence, and nowhere else in the entire hamlet of Cornwallville is there a development of this scale, much less in the historic district,” Clifton said. “They are planning for 12 contemporary houses — two building styles, just two in a community where no two houses are the same.”
Resident Christine Nelson also raised questions about the construction style, along with the impact on wetlands and nighttime
light pollution.
“I am opposed to the development,” Nelson said. “The unique nature of our community, why I chose to live there — this does
impact the historical nature with a subdivision of two house (styles), all looking the same. How will that comply with the historical nature, especially with contemporary houses?”
Speaker Margaret Doherty submitted to the board a petition opposing the proposal signed by 271 local residents.
“These signatures represent the concerns of area residents with regard to the significant negative impacts the Bosque major
housing development will impose on our land and on the land — the wells, traffic, wildlife, noise, odor and light, aesthetic and historic value and resources, and the character of Cornwallville and the Durham community as a whole,” Doherty said. “Many of these Durham residents have written letters in great detail explaining the concerns about this potentially disastrous construction project and the impact it will have on our community.”
Neighboring property owner Walter Grote fears water runoff generated by the development onto properties downhill,
and questioned the feasibility of the developer’s business model, marketing pricey homes to “like-minded multimillionaires”
who “have this heartfelt desire to live in a farm community.”
“Quite frankly, I don’t think the whole thing makes sense,” Grote said. “Multimillionaires are not going to be forced to pick
from two styles of houses. They say they will modify the insides and that is great, but two styles?”
Resident Elizabeth Winslow called on the town board to change its stance on the project, specifically the negative declaration on the Environmental Assessment Form.
“The board declared that the subdivision would have no impact on our hamlet’s environment, noise, traffic, forest or character. I find this irresponsible to say the least,” Winslow said. “I implore the town to reconsider the negative assessment and evaluate potential impacts more deeply while we still can because once we put a road in and start pouring foundation, then it’s over.”
Patrick Ciccone, chairman of the town’s Historic Preservation Commission, said the project would be the largest of its kind in
the town’s history.
“The Bosque development is the first subdivision of this size ever proposed in Cornwallville — no housing development of
this scale of identical homes has ever been built in Cornwallville’s nearly 250 years of existence,” Ciccone said.
Resident Jim Stone was the only speaker to come out in favor of the project.
“We’ve got somebody who is proposing to bring in something that will significantly help this town. Are there problems with
it? Yes, but there is a reason why both Cornwallville and Durham are dying, and it’s because of us — because we won’t allow
change,” Stone said. “Places that don’t allow change, they die.”
The second public hearing on the proposed project will be held Dec. 11 at 6 p.m. at the BOCES Educational Building — the former Durham Elementary School — at 4099 Route 145, Durham.
Veteran recalls Pearl Harbor service on attack’s 80th anniversary
a young Coast Guardsman. He went
to the recruiter’s office to enlist the
day after the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor.
By Joanne E. McFadden
For Capital Region Independent Media
GREENVILLE — Stanley Maltzman of Greenville remembers being in the kitchen of his parents’ New York City home paint-
ing when news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor came over the radio.
At 7:55 a.m. on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese launched 353 aircraft from four aircraft carriers with bombs targeted
for American ships, aircraft and military bases on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. In addition, 61 ships of the Japanese fleet sup-
ported the surprise attack.
“My mother came out of the kitchen crying because she figured I was going to go,” Maltzman said.
Like many other young men around the nation, Maltzman did indeed want to enlist. He chose the United States Coast Guard because there was a neighbor who was in that service.
“He used to come home every other weekend, and he would tell us these stories,” Maltzman said. “As a kid, we would eat them
up.”
On Dec. 8, Maltzman went to the Coast Guard recruiter to sign up. When he did not hear anything after two weeks, he went
back.
barges at Los Negros Island in the Admiralty Island Group. Centaurus took
part in the Bismarch Archipelago Operation from April 5-9, 1944.
Meanwhile, Oahu’s civilian and military population was reeling from the devastating attack that killed 2,403 U.S. personnel, including 68 civilians, and wounded 1,178 others. The bombing destroyed or damaged 19 vessels, including eight battleships. Fortunately for the Americans, the Navy’s aircraft carriers assigned to the U.S. Pacific Fleet were out at sea on maneuvers.
When the Coast Guard called Maltzman up for service in March 1942, he packed a bag and said goodbye to his parents.
“My father took me down to the trolley car and took me down to Third Avenue somewhere, and then I took the subway down-
town,” he said.
Following boot camp at Manhattan Beach, the Coast Guard assigned Maltzman to Hoffman Island Signal School, where he
learned visual communications, including blinker lights and signal flags. He did that job in Groton, Connecticut, signaling
submarines as they returned to base, and he petitioned the Coast Guard to assign him to sea duty.
year.
It took six requests before Maltzman was assigned to the original crew of the USS Centaurus (AKA-17), an Andromeda
Class attack cargo ship commissioned on Oct. 21, 1943, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. An original crewmember of any vessel is
called a “plank owner.”
After the ship’s commanding officer, Captain George Evans McCabe, trained his brand-new crew, the ship made its way south
to the Panama Canal. The journey to the Asiatic-Pacific Theater had its difficult moments.
“We had a pilot that came aboard to direct us,” Maltzman said. “He almost ran us aground crossing the equator. The captain
threw him away and took over.”
“We got into the Pacific Ocean,” Maltzman said. “We didn’t know what we were doing and where we were going yet. We had a hell of an ocean ride.”
Centaurus made its way to Pearl Harbor where the military was still repairing the damage to its ships and aircraft.
“It was kind of a thrill to be at Pearl Harbor and see all the ships,” Maltzman told interviewers from the Veterans Oral
History Project. “They were still getting mud and stuff out of the battle wagons [battleships], the few that they raised, and smoke was coming out and oil was coming up from below the Arizona. It was kind of sad in a way, but yet it showed a determination the way that people were attacking rebuilding the ships. It was a wonderful sight.”
Of the eight battleships anchored at Pearl Harbor on the morning of the attack, the Navy was able to repair six, while two,
the USS Arizona (BB-39) and USS Oklahoma (BB-37) were damaged beyond repair. The battleships were Japan’s main tar-
gets.
The USS Centaurus did not remain long at Pearl Harbor. From Hawaii, it sailed west to take part in the invasion of Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands at the end of January 1944. Maltzman, then a Signalman 1/C, with a crew of six others, would take
a position on the ship’s flying bridge near the smokestack using signal flags and blinking lights to communicate with other ships.
“It was the highest part of the ship,” Maltzman said. “It was kind of nice to be up so high.”
As an attack cargo ship, Centaurus had 12 landing barges aboard. As the U.S. Pacific Fleet made its way from island to island, capturing them from the Japanese, Centaurus’ crew loaded soldiers and Marines, along with equipment and supplies,
into its landing barges and delivered them to the islands, including the Admiralty Islands, Guam, New Guinea, Peleliu, and
Okinawa Gunto, among others.
“We would land in the nearby vicinity of the island and lower the landing barges,” he said. “Then the marines or soldiers
would climb overboard on rope and go down and aboard the landing barge.”
Three or four of Centaurus’ crew members would then deliver them to the island. In total, Centaurus participated in six campaigns and received six battle stars for its World War II service.
“I was lucky my ship never got hit,” Maltzman said.
Maltzman has a keen memory of the Battle of Okinawa, which took place from April 1 to June 14, 1945.
“All the guys went ashore and everything, and it was very quiet because the Japanese had gone up over the mountain, away
from the beach,” he said. “They had quite a fight. We were on duty 24 hours to watch for invasions, the battles of the planes
coming in to get us. That’s when we shot down two Japanese kamikaze planes.”
When all was quiet, Maltzman’s shipmates put him in the bosun’s chair and lowered him over the side of the ship to document the events.
“It was quite a thrill. They all knew I was an artist or trying to be an artist, so they got me to paint the Jap flags on the side of
the ship,” he said.
Maltzman carried his sketch book and pencils with him during his service.
“I wanted to be an artist, and I was drawing things — invasions and so forth,” Maltzman said.
At some point during its wartime service, the crew nicknamed the ship “Centaurus-Maru.”
“All the Japanese ships were called something ‘maru,'” Maltzman said.
Japanese sailors often attached the suffix “-maru,” which signifies “something beloved,” to its vessels.
When Centaurus took over a hundred Japanese prisoners of war aboard to transport them back to Pearl Harbor, Maltzman
got permission to sketch one of the prisoners.
“He signed my sketchbook,” Maltzman said. “He liked it, except that I made the eyes a little too slanty.”
He remembers that the prisoners liked being aboard the Centaurus. “They were very happy with us, the Japanese,” Maltzman said. “We would allow them to come topside, on the main deck upstairs. They bathed every day. They washed with ocean
water. It was nice in a way.”
Maltzman left Centaurus when it arrived back at Pearl Harbor after the U.S. victory in Okinawa, but he wishes he could
have remained on board. The ship continued to Japan for occupation duty and then went on to serve in China.
“I would have been tickled pink to go to China and draw pictures,” he said. “I’m sorry I missed it.”
Through ship reunions, Maltzman kept in touch with shipmates and got to know those he did not know well during his
time in the Coast Guard.
The American Legion Post 291 will be holding a Pearl Harbor Remembrance Ceremony at 6 p.m. on Dec. 7 at its building at
54 Maple Ave., Greenville. The public is invited to attend.
I wanted to write about the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor because it was the 50th anniversary that gave
me my start in journalism.
I had always been interested in military history, and I took the opportunity of the 50th anniversary of World War II to interview veterans and write their stories. I began with several Naval Academy graduates who had been in Pearl Harbor during the time of the attack, articles which appeared in Hawaii Navy News and another newspaper, The Flagship.
I listened as these former naval officers described what had happened for them that morning. Walter Stencil was officer of the deck on the battleship USS Tennessee (BB-43) when the attack hit.
“The whole harbor was on fire,” he said. “Viewing that ship which was directly astern with her back broken, jack-knived, her foremast canted forward with men hanging over the railings of the various levels, dead at their posts, was a sobering sight.”
The ship to which he referred was the USS Arizona (BB-39). Moored inboard of the USS West Virginia (BB-48) on “Battleship Row,” the Tennessee could not leave the dock, as West Virginia had taken torpedo hits and sunk. One of Stencil’s classmates, LTJG H.B. Stark, recalled how he could hear his shipmates, trapped below in the sunken ship, pounding on the hull to let their shipmates know they were alive. The sounds ceased before the crew could effect a rescue.
Stencil recalled his classmate, Herold Harveson, who had been serving on the USS Utah (BB-31) at the time of the attack. Harveson was one of 58 crewmembers who died when the ship sunk in 12 minutes time. He remains entombed there. I found his name on the memorial plaque at Honolulu’s Punchbowl Cemetery. The destroyer escort USS Harveson (DE-316), which saw distinguished service in World War II, is named for him. The United States built 563 destroyer escorts during the war. One, USS Slater (DE-766), remains a museum ship in Albany.
Others who were off-base recall as shipmates rushed to pick them up so they could head to Pearl Harbor to be greeted by a horrific scene. Ralph Benson was stationed aboard the USS Shaw (DD-373), which was in dry dock when the attack occurred. The Navy assigned Benson to the somber task of identifying the dead.
“It was a sight I’ll never forget,” he said. “Some just looked like they had gone to sleep, and others, you could tell, had
been in terrible explosions.”
Lawrence Julihn was aboard the submarine USS Thresher (SS-200), which was returning from sea when the attack
occurred. Mistaking it for an enemy sub, U.S. Army bombers attacked the vessel when it attempted to surface. After finally making it safely into the then-chaotic port, Julihn learned from a friend who had been on board a destroyer that the ship
had attempted unsuccessfully to fire a torpedo at Thresher, having mistaken it for a Japanese submarine.
These first stories of my journalism career fostered a healthy respect for what had happened at Pearl Harbor and the subsequent U.S. war effort in all theaters, and I had the privilege of recording and preserving first-person accounts of
that day.
The day after the 50th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, my father, a Navy veteran who was in Pearl Harbor many
times during his own service, baptized my daughter on board my husband’s ship, USS Cushing (DD-985), using the ship’s
bell as a baptismal fount. The backdrop for this ceremony was the USS Missouri (BB-63), the ship on which Japanese Foreign
Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu, representing the Emperor of Japan, signed the instrument of surrender.
To this day, ships that sail past the USS Arizona Memorial still render honors to the fallen. “Attention” sounds, and all
hands come topside to man the rails of the ship, saluting as they pass the memorial.
