So, here we are, on May 28, three days left in the month, and no big announcement by the Tappan Zee Bridge/Interstate 287 Project Team on its “preferred alternative” plans for the 30-mile corridor that stretches from Suffern to Port Chester. The Department of Transportation-led team had planned to announce its favored mass transit component for the highway overhaul by the end of May. That would be Saturday. That announcement would include what was planned for the Tappan Zee Bridge, from replacing it to adding on to it to building it a buddy-bridge to rehabbing it. Big stuff.

But we won’t hear this month.

I checked on the status of the big announcement with Yvette Hines, deputy director of outreach and community development for the New York State Department of Transportation (or as she said, “DOT spokesman is fine”). She said a few weeks, or the next several weeks. That would mean June? Hines talked about all the variables, including updated financial forecasting and reviewing the impact of the Access to the Region’s Core, or ARC tunnel, that will bring NJTransit trains directly to the West Side.

She also pointed to the hundreds of comments that the Project Team received before the March 31 public comment period closed. Hines said the comments were intricate, with many ideas and angles included in most of the submissions. “We have a sophisticated stakeholder base,” she said. “If someone takes the time to write a 10-page comment,” she noted, that needs to get attention. Each comment, she said, “we consider and address.”

So, we’ll hear all about it in June—after all, the month has four full weeks and two days. Guess I should add a voiceover to our video editorial, “The Road Ahead,” that discusses the plans for the TZ/I-287 corridor and the region’s future transportation needs. Or, just pretend you hear “some time in June” rather than “in late May.”

Sen. Thomas Morahan, R-New City, announced that Penny Jennings, the founder of Adults Caring For Teens, Inc., has been named a 2008 New York State “Woman of Distinction.”

Jennings, a Pomona resident who runs her ACT Inc. mentoring program from the Nyack Center, deserves that and other accolades. She has taken an idea—to help at-risk teens find their way through mentoring—and created an effective agency that not only provides older teens much-needed mentors, but runs Girls Circle and Boys Council programs in the county.

Mentoring programs, like ACT and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Rockland County, provide real connections, and roadmaps for young people trying to figure out life, often when they face all kinds of hurdles.

Jennings became interested in mentoring as she earned her master’s in social policy. She’s now pursuing a Ph.D. in Law and Policy and Northeastern University as she continues to run ACT and expand its programs. Every time I see Penny, I hear about more ideas, more kids she’s trying to find just the right mentor for, and her concern that there’s more need that isn’t being filled. Her commitment, her drive, her optimism is impressive. Rockland families (and residents of the entire Lower Hudson Valley) are lucky they have someone like Penny Jennings so committed to helping young people meet their potential.

Here’s a little insight into what makes Penny Jennings so special. Here’s a quote from a December 2007 Editorial Board interview, in which she explains that mentoring is a gift for all participants:

“A farmer, when they sow a seed and then they see a harvest, what joy … For every hour, minute spent with a child, (mentors) can see the improvements . . . the reward is you see the fruits of your labor.”

The county Legislature tonight is discussing whether to institute “flow control” that would have all garbage carters, including private carters, use county-owned facilities. This has become an option after a recent U.S. Supreme Court case, United Haulers Association vs. Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Management Authority. The court ruled that municipalities could indeed institute flow control, and require private trash companies to use municipal facilities, even if it cost more than taking the trash elsewhere.

One local lawyer who filed a “friend of the court” brief in support of flow control was Michael Diederich of Stony Point. In fact, he submitted two briefs on the case on behalf of the Rockland Coalition for Democracy and Freedom, the Rockland County Conservation Association and the Federation of New York Solid Waste Associations.

For Rockland, though, he’s not convinced it’s needed. He wrote a letter on the issue, but it arrived too late for publication. Diederich, who is in the Army Reserves, is now in Honduras, so he can’t speak at tonight’s Legislature meeting ( 8 p.m., Allison-Parris Office Building, New Hempstead Road, New City). Here’s his letter on the issue:

“Flow control” directs solid waste to designated facilities. we all generate trash, and so we all pay for its disposal.  Flow control is one tool for disposal. It is a tool which can be very beneficial tool, or it can be abusive .  Historically, flow control has been used to finance large waste mangement facilities, such as state-of-the art landfills or waste to energy incinerators.    It is NOT needed merely for ensuring compliance with recycling laws.  The health department or Authority can perform that job.

Mike Diederich, Jr.

When the Federal Aviation Administration announced last month that it would impose flight caps during peak hours at Newark Liberty Airport, a debate broke out about whether the caps would ease air traffic over Rockland or exacerbate it, especially with an impending airspace redesign.

Quiet Rockland saw the caps as good for Rockland. The group opposes a redesign of Northeast corridor airspace that will send hundreds of arriving Newark flights over areas of Ramapo and Orangetown. In their view, the caps would weaken the FAA’s argument for the redesign, Tom Sullivan of Quiet Rockland maintained.

County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef didn’t link the two. He also is trying to get the airspace redesign plan squashed. But, he saw the flight caps as spreading out the planes overhead, and maybe even adding flights.

Today, Department of Transportation Secretary Mary Peters issued a press release on several FAA recommendations to keep air travel on track (major problem at JFK and Newark, and delays there back up the rest of the nation’s airports). Here’s an interesting statement:

“The Secretary … noted that the Department today posted the final order to temporarily cap flights at Newark Liberty Airport at an average of 83 scheduled flights per hour at the airport from June 1 until October 2009. However, she noted that while the measure will spread flight schedules more evenly throughout the day, it still will allow for an additional 30 operations per day than what was offered at the airport last summer.”

So, yeah, more flights will be fitted in. The question becomes, will this ability to shoehorn in flights mean that the Northeast redesign will be ditched as unnecessary?

Considering another part of Peters’ announcement discussed the “auctioning”  of a percentage of take-off and landing slots as a component of the caps, it looks like the FAA and DOT doesn’t see the caps as a sole action to solve the airspace crunch.

From today’s press release: “In order to ensure that airport caps do not become an economic drain on the region and the rest of the country, we need a way to keep aviation competition alive in the free market capital of the world,” Secretary Peters said. “This new proposal will do much to make flying to New York attractive.”

As for the idea of auctioning off slots, it’s gotten  panned from the airline industry and politicians. Sen. Charles Schumer called the idea “an untested scheme” that is “nothing short of insanity,”  according to MarketWatch in this article.

Today’s article about North Rockland High School seniors riding bicycles to school grabbed some attention. And the focus wasn’t on the topic of the environment and rising gas prices. Several contacted the paper to note that none of the teens in the photographs were wearing protective headgear. That’s right—not a bicycle helmet to be seen.  Check out the video coverage.

New York state law mandates that all people on bicycles – age notwithstanding – wear a helmet.  Rockland’s had that law since 1992. Other schools plan similar biking days by students who are miffed that they finally get to drive to campus, but now can’t afford gas. When they do get the chance to drive, they have to wear their seatbelts. Now that they will be biking, they should wear their helmets.

Now, we have three seats for East Ramapo school district, with only one seat challenged. That’s because two candidates—both incumbents—have dropped out over the last two days. Dr. David Resnick and Steven Rosenstock notified the East Ramapo district clerk that they have withdrawn as school board candidates.

Sigh. Resnick’s seat had two challengers, Aron Weider and Steven White. Rosenstock’s seat had one, Moshe Hopstein. So now East Ramapo School Board President Nathan Rothschild is unchallenged; Hopstein is unchallenged; Weider and White face off.

Three seats, two uncontested. What a disservice to voters.

WE, of course, love to get letters—more specifically, letters to the editor so we can publish and share different views with Rockland readers.

Some letter-writers only contribute once. There’s some burning issue in their town, or a news story that has stirred some strong feelings, and they write. And we love it. (even more when they don’t agree with us, I think.)

And we have our pros. The letter-writers who drop us a line (for publication) every 30 days (the required waiting period for being published again). Sometimes, they even send us their opinions in between, aware that they won’t get published, but they just want to share. And they cc us when they write to other publications, or to their local leaders.

There are quite a few I’ve “inherited” from Art Gunther. (I suspect a few were wary of me and Art had to let them know I was OK, though he’s too much of a gentleman to talk behind anyone’s back.) They warmed up to the new editor and new process, and others have joined in. We are grateful for all of them.

I want to express this gratitude, and wish I had done it more often. This weekend, I read the obituary for one of our longtime consistent letter-writers, Anthony C. Zacharakis of Tappan. Anthony wrote a lot, and he wrote mostly about Orangetown politics, but also about transportation, safety issues and other topics. He also would send ideas along, and cc the Editorial Board on letters he sent to Orangetown Town Hall. His writing style was somewhat clipped, and went right to the point. I share with you part of one of his Community Views, this one from December 2001, on traffic safety in Orangetown:

“Referrals, study, meetings, sinecures, paper shuffling and manufactured activity scandalize Orangetown, i.e., the “Route 303 Sustainable Study,” the Rockland Psychiatric Center study, the Pearl River revitalization plan, master plan upgrade, etc.

The people of Orangetown, the silent, overwhelmed, intimidated, rate-paying multitude, elect the supervisor and Town Board to keep the town safe, secure, well-serviced, clean and green.

The Town Board squanders town resources.

The Town Board should rid Route 303 of the “seven stops of shame.”

It is time to resolve, budget, appropriate, act or step down. ”

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer was at Stewart Airport this morning to announce more funding for a study on how to link the Orange County airport to Metro-North Railroad’s Port Jervis line. The study will begin June 2, rather than in a year or so. Creating a rail link at Stewart would mean Manhattanites could jump on a train and get to Stewart once the Access to the Region’s Core project gets done. (the ARC tunnel will allow those “west-of-Hudson” rail lines to go directly to Manhattan’s West Side, so there’s no more changing trains in Secaucus.) Schumer’s been a big proponent for the ARC project, and a rail link to Stewart would certainly up ARC’s value.

So, here’s the question: Does this enhance or diminish the a commuter rail option for the Tappan Zee Bridge/Interstate 287 Project? The TZB/I-287 Project Team is due to announce this month what kind of public transportation option is planned for the 30-mile I-287 corridor between Suffern and Port Chester. That will also determine if the Tappan Zee Bridge would be rebuilt, expanded or replaced.

ARC has already caused the TZB/I-287 Project Team to take another look at forecasts for ridership of any public transportation system (options include commuter rail, bus rapid transit and some mixes along the corridor). Would a direct ride to Stewart on the Port Jervis line mean that there would be more or less demand for an east-west rail line across the Lower Hudson Valley?

Here’s one thought:  The TZ corridor project would already link whatever public transport method to the Port Jervis line. So, if that’s going to provide a one-seat ride to Stewart from Tarrytown, White Plains and Port Chester, that’s a real plus for the commuter rail option. Sure, a rapid bus to the train will get riders there, too, but that “one-seat ride” mantra is a powerful one.

Maybe what ARC takes away this rail link to Stewart will bring back. Nah, it couldn’t be that easy.

I really do enjoy meeting all the candidates running for school board. You have to admire people willing to serve in a volunteer position that draws a lot of (often negative) attention. Let’s face it, most every public school parent has had a run-in with the district about some education or playground or transportation issue (I have, for all three, at some point). And let’s face it, just about every homeowner has reviewed their property tax bill and shaken the “Receiver of Taxes” stamped receipt and spoken unkind words (I have.) And guess who gets the heat for all that? That’s right, the school board trustee.

So, I meet the people who come with interesting ideas and energy to do the work, and I just have to be grateful that the Editorial Board (and much more importantly, the voters!) have choices.

That said, we are still trying to track down candidates who haven’t returned their candidate questionnaires and didn’t show up for Endorsement hearings.  OK, people. You are running for a public service position. You gotta come to the phone, at least! We do try to get information from all candidates, but if it’s difficult to reach someone who we knew got the message, well that’s a reflection on their ability to function in a role that serves the public.

A shoutout to Clarkstown, which had all six candidates show up, within shifts, for an endorsement hearing. Everyone in Pearl River showed, and got their paperwork in. Nyack had seven out of eight attend (and email questionnaires) and all had something to contribute—that was a rewarding conversation.

Gotta go make another round of phone calls. Grumble. Sigh.

Dr. Michael F. Kelly was the orthodontist for a generation of Suffern kids. Before his death April 29 at 71, Kelly treated the children of his first patients and watched his own children catch his passion for his profession.

Between 1998 and 2004, his daughters Kathleen and Christine and son, Michael W., not only joined his practice on Route 59 in Montebello. They all changed careers to do so.

Kathleen started out a writer, but became disaffected with publishing’s corporate culture.

Christine worked in advertising and later for a headhunter for the ad business and Michael tired of selling Heineken Beer.

Just as they had all attended Suffern high School, they all completed dental training at the University of Pennsylvania Dental School.

A couple of years back, Kathleen Kelly joked that her arrival in the office made things complicated. “People would call and ask for Dr. Kelly,” she said. Finding out that the calls were often for her father, she said she would tell him, “They want the original recipe.”

Actually, the recipe in the Kelly office, whether in Montebello or later a second in Pearl River, remained pretty much the same.

Whether it was Dr. Kelly, Dr. Kelly, Dr. Kelly or Dr. Kelly, young patients were put at ease, sometime even getting amused by mom—Mary Ann Kelly—who did puppet shows while working the front desk.

The Kelly children said they never felt pressure to go into orthodontics. They just saw how much their father loved his work and loved learning. He even corresponded with Michael’s seventh-grade Latin teacher—in Latin.

Even as he eased out of a full load at the practice, Kelly still made visits to Harvard, where he was a long-time faculty member, helping to prepare other young orthodontists. Highly regarded in his field, he remained a resource for this colleagues and his children.