Above: The Catskill Mountain Railroad's Kingston City Shuttle. Photo from the Catskill Mountain Railroad website.
An ongoing battle between rail and trail supporters intensified this week, when the chair of Ulster County's Railroad Advisory Committee (RAC) resigned in protest of "closed door meetings" held by the county to discuss the future of the railroad corridor.
At issue -- and a source of much political contention in the region over the last few months -- is county executive Mike Hein's proposed Catskill Mountain Rail Trail. If carried out, the rail trail project would scrap county-owned railroad tracks on the eastern end of the Catskill Mountain Railroad's line on the old Ulster & Delaware corridor, and convert the tracks from Kingston to Boiceville into a walking trail connected to the Walkway Over The Hudson and other local rail trails. Under the plan, the western active segment of the Catskill Mountain Railroad between Mount Tremper to Boiceville would continue to operate, but a short stretch of trail on the Kingston end would be shut down, and the removal of the tracks on the eastern end would put an end to any hope of one day restoring the railroad between Boiceville and Kingston.
Since it was unveiled in Hein's budget plan last October, the trail plan has been a flashpoint for controversy. The Catskill Mountain Railroad and its supporters oppose the plan, and accuse Hein and trail supporters of bullying the volunteer-run railroad. Trail supporters say the railroad has failed to live up to its economic promise or the terms of its lease of the county-owned tracks, and maintain that a walking and biking trail would be a bigger boost to the region's economy than the tourist train.
In an open letter dated Monday, June 10, RAC chair Mike Berardi -- a former Ulster County legislator -- announced his resignation from the committee, accusing Hein of plotting to undermine the Catskill Mountain Railroad in closed-door executive sessions. Berardi writes:
After hearing from Legislator Harris that the UC Legislature was planning to meet with the County Attorney and the Executive Branch at a closed door meeting to discuss the UCRR corridor, and after much thought, I decided that this closed meeting was just a veiled attempt to discredit the CMRR rather than communicate with them in good faith. I had relied upon the Ulster County Legislature, my former colleagues, to see through the special interest groups and tainted UC employees who were working full time to tarnish what so many volunteers had accomplished. I still remain hopeful that this will not play out with the demise of the CMRR, but I would rather not be a part of a process that seems to be playing out behind closed doors.
A day later, the Freeman reports, county legislator Wayne Harris also resigned from the committee.
Legislative majority leader Kenneth Ronk told the Freeman that Hein had requested to meet with Republican legislators in executive session to discuss legal issues with the railroad's lease, and planned to hold a similar meeting with Democrats. Ronk defended the meetings:
“The executive session is to talk about things that would be legally improper to discuss in public,” said Ronk, R-Wallkill. “I wouldn’t be involved in anything nefarious or anything to discredit the railroad.”
Meanwhile, Ulster County comptroller Elliot Auerbach has weighed in on the side of the walking trail. In a news release issued Monday, Auerbach's office wrote that the Catskill Mountain Railroad has not lived up to the county's economic expectations, and that a multi-use rail trail would be a better economic bet for the region:
The original intent of the County’s purchase of the railway was for it to act as a revenue driver. The lease to CMRR was meant to put the redevelopment of the railway in the hands of a private entity which would obtain funding and act as the catalyst for creating that revenue. Simply put, “there has not been substantial progress on the redevelopment, and the revenue generated which drives the lease payment to the County has underperformed.” Auerbach observes, “the prospects for improvement in either category are extremely remote in the present funding climate.” According to the County Planning Department, the County has been paid about $38,000 since the inception of the lease, weighed against a taxpayer investment in the property of about $5 million. And, Auerbach adds, the fact that the railway isn’t fully functional actually limits the public enjoyment of the property, whereas the Executive’s proposal “will open that segment of the railway to significantly greater numbers of people from the region and the world, and significantly more likely to generate revenue for the County."
