Fifty Years Ago 6

The Edgewood Lake project had strong backing from the community. The Town of Rockland Town Board, the Livingston Manor Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary Club and the local teachers’ association all strenuously supported the project. Likewise did Donald Battey, publisher of the Livingston Manor Times. By use of his weekly newspaper, Battey was perhaps the loudest and most visible supporter of the project, along with being the harshest critic of those in opposition, as demonstrated by the front page editorial of August 12. Playing the tax-relief card, the publisher attempted to provoke the membership of the then-active local taxpayers association into action. Being fervent vocal opponents to tax increase in any form, the taxpayers’ association had been successful in voting down both school budgets and school building propositions in recent years.

With an escalating battle brewing on the shores of Edgewood Lakes, another major project was on the town’s agenda; an application by the New York State Urban Development Corporation for a one-hundred-unit apartment complex on Jacktown hill, creating low-income housing within the village. There were mixed feelings amongst the Manor citizenry. Again, the tax-relief card drew support for the project, however, the effect on the village’s sanitary waste facilities by the sudden influx of one hundred housing units, a system which already has had problems since being put into operation in 1969, was unknown.