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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCayugaDeer section 2.pdf Cayuga Heights Deer Management Plan DENS:Community Response Stuart Stein(p. 15- 19)-Page 15 To: Cayuga Heights Mayor Kate Supron and Village Board of Trustees From: Stuart Stein Cornell University Emeritus Professor of City and Regional Planning Date: December 15, 2010 Re: Cayuga Heights Deer Management Plan Draft Environmental Impact Statement In my professional opinion, the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for Cayuga Heights Deer Management Plan does not adequately address several significant potential negative impacts that may well occur if the proposed program is carried out. I will lay out these issues in this memo and request that they be addressed in a Supplemental DEIS. Those issues are directly related to the following: Impairment of the character or quality of important aesthetic resources or of existing community or neighborhood character as required under Section 617.7(c)(1)(v) of NYS SEQR Regulations). These impacts relate to: 1. The definition and character of the community and neighborhoods that are likely to be impacted by the proposed action; 2. Important impacts to the larger community, including potential damage to some of the characteristics that attract tourism and motivate relocation to the area; 3. The impact on relations with neighboring municipalities in the Ithaca urban area; and 4. The SEQR requirement to examine and evaluate alternative means of solving the problem to which the proposed program is addressed. My credentials in addressing these issues are as follows: I am a Professor Emeritus of City and Regional Planning at Cornell, having taught subjects relating to community development, land use and urban design for 31 years. I hold professional degrees in both City Planning and in Architecture from MIT. I am a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners, an honor given to only three professional urban planners in Upstate New York (north of New York City). I was an elected official in County and City government for 21 years, including the Chairmanship of the County Legislature and Ithaca City Council. I have been appointed to and served as a member or chair of many local and state government committees including: Chair of the Ithaca-Tompkins County Transportation Council; Chair of the City of Ithaca Planning Board; Chair of the New York State Board for Historic Preservation; Chair of the Tompkins County Strategic Tourism Plamung Board; and various others. 1 Cayuga Heights Deer Management Plan DEIS:Community Response Stuart Stein(p. 15-19)-Page 16 I was a citizen member of the committee appointed by City and Town governments to explore inter-municipal cooperation and potential consolidation of services between the City and Town of Ithaca (of which Cayuga Heights is a part). I have been a full-time resident of the Ithaca community for the past 48 years, including some years as a resident of Cayuga Heights. Impairment of Communit Character Basic to an evaluation of"impairment' is the understanding of the meaning and definition of "community." Apparently, the DEIS consultants and the Village Board define the community very narrowly, as that area lying within the legal boundaries defining the Village of Cayuga Heights. However, in the urban planning field there are alternative definitions of community that are much broader in scope, and much more appropriate to the situation being discussed. Urban (and suburban) communities are seen as a part of a much larger "settlement organism," one that exists with strong interdependent relations to its neighbors. Cayuga Heights as a municipality is a component of the larger Town of Ithaca, which in turn is part of the larger still Ithaca urban or metropolitan area. People live in the Village, but travel to work at Cornell or elsewhere outside of the Village, shop downtown, and the children go to school in various locations around the area. Fundamentally, the Village is inseparably integrated into the Ithaca community. This is expressed in such basic ways as residents of the Village having an Ithaca, and not a Cayuga Heights mailing address, and the fact that such commonly-used businesses as grocery stores, movie theaters and auto repair shops used by residents of the Village are all located in the other municipalities that make up the larger Ithaca community. Consequently, elected officials in Cayuga Heights are obligated to consider the impact of their actions not just on the proportionally small population and area of the Village, but on Ithaca as a whole, a community that encompasses contiguous municipalities that share a common landscape, cultural values, economic and environmental interests. Indeed, this concept is embedded in a number of federal and state laws, regulations and grant programs. State and local governments have long recognized this broader definition of community and have fostered inter-municipal cooperation. In some cases inter-municipal cooperation is required in order to qualify for public grants-in-aid. One example is the Ithaca-Tompkins County Transportation Commission, which, by Federal and State law defines our community (for grant purposes) as the Ithaca Urban area, which includes the City and Town of Ithaca (including Cayuga Heights), Cornell and several small contiguous built-up parts of Dryden and Lansing. Many other public programs also emphasize the concept of the larger community in programs dealing with youth and recreation services, water supply, public and fire safety, libraries, assessment, etc. Clearly, many of today's problems facing local municipalities transcend legal borders and, therefore, must be addressed on a broader basis. These shared concerns require public officials and citizens within an urbanized area to work together, and when they 2 Cayuga Heights Deer Management Plan DENS:Community Response Stuart Stein(p. 15-19)-Page 17 do so, they form a shared culture. That certainly is the case in the Ithaca urban area, and if Cayuga Heights acts without due consideration of its neighbors, this has the potential to damage that common culture. To maintain the vibrancy of our community, the trustees of Cayuga Heights, though leading the smallest of all of Ithaca's contiguous municipalities, must still be responsible for the impact of their decisions on the character of the community as a whole. Likewise, residents of neighboring Ithaca municipalities should not be expected to remain silent if Village officials propose a plan that could damage them or the character of the larger community. In professional planning terms, and clearly in the minds of many residents who live beyond those invisible municipal boundary lines that define Cayuga Heights, the Ithaca community as a whole would be negatively impacted by the deer-killing program being proposed by Cayuga Heights. This explains why people residing both inside and outside of the Village have come forward to offer criticism of the DEIS, and why, over the last two years, large numbers of people from other Ithaca municipalities have attended numerous public meetings to express their concerns on the deer issue. Some live within a few blocks of the village boundary, and have spoken of how this proposal will impact their lives negatively, either through the killing of animals they care about, or through negative changes in the character of the Ithaca community this plan will cause. Therefore, it is reasonable that they have come to meetings to be heard. And they have every right to participate, even though several Cayuga Heights residents have at times rudely addressed those not residing in the Village as "outsiders," "invaders" and "outside agitators," and even told them to "get out." More significantly, Village officials have expressed the idea that only input from residents of Cayuga Heights is of consequence in their decision making process. The DEIS itself also completely fails to address or assess potentially significant impacts on the wider Ithaca community. In my professional opinion, this calls the validity of its conclusions into question. The bonds of community are fragile, and when they are frayed or even broken, the impact on the well-being of the whole can be serious. That is a risk that is inherent in this proposal and the process that produced it, and it speaks to a potentially serious impact that is not addressed by the DEIS. There are troubling signs of increasing isolation of the village from its neighbors, including acrimonious public remarks directed at non-residents at public meetings on the deer issue, harsh and sarcastic comments made in letters to the editor in the local papers and on online forums. It is obvious that the effects of past Village actions on this issue, plus the impending possibility of the proposed deer-killing project moving forward, is having a cumulative negative effect on the broader community character and well-being, fomenting a kind of inter-municipal resentment that is not characteristic of Ithaca. The widespread perception that this killing plan is being implemented without consideration of its effect on the community as a whole, and with indifference to the effect it will have in isolating Cayuga Heights from the other Ithaca municipalities, is exacerbating the damage being done, damage that will very likely grow if the killing program is actually implemented. However, it may still be possible to avoid the worst of this damage if clear actions are taken by the Village trustees that have the effect of acknowledging their responsibility to consider the impact on the wider community, and if less drastic approaches than a mass deer-killing program, which exist, are taken to address deer-human conflict in 3 Cayuga Heights Deer Management Plan DENS:Community Response Stuart Stein(p. 15-19)-Page 18 Cayuga Heights. The simple and cost-effective mechanism of allowing residents in Cayuga Heights to have access to the same practical fencing options available to residents of the neighboring Town of Ithaca, which has no equivalent deer controversy, is just one example. The DEIS does not seriously consider non-lethal alternatives with less severe negative impacts than the proposed killing plan, and therefore fails to satisfy the very clear requirements of state environmental law. External Impacts on the Larger Community I submitted a letter on October 28, 2009, as part of the earlier EIS process review, pointing out the impact that the deer-killing program may have on county tourism. I stated in that letter that such a concern needed to be addressed. However, the DEIS does not appear to have given any attention to the concerns identified in my letter. Since I am quite knowledgeable about tourism both as a professional planner, Cornell professor and former county public official, it is my opinion the trustees of Cayuga Heights are obligated to consider this issue with the potential to affect many. I am again requesting that the consultants and the Village Board address this issue. I want to be clear that, in regard to tourism, I am speaking only for myself, and am not speaking for the tourism board, for my department at Cornell, nor for the County legislature. Nevertheless, I do believe that my many years of experience in the field of tourism give me status to address the issue of econormc development and community character of which tourism is a contributor. I have a concern that the proposed deer-killing program may have a detrimental effect on characteristics of the community that make it a tourist destination. Tourism development is a recognized component of the county's broader economic development program, which, in turn, is focused on building the tax base and increasing jobs. There is some evidence that the County is seen as a special place, one that is progressive and enlightened, and that this attracts a group of tourists who will spend money here. Ithaca (including Cayuga Heights) consistently shows up on national surveys as a top place to visit and to live. Most recently, we were ranked number one in the country for "well-being." Several years ago the Utne Reader magazine rated the Ithaca area as the "most enlightened" community in the US. Our SPCA is seen nationally as a leader in the "no-kill" shelter movement for animals. We are recognized nationally as one of the centers of the healthy food movement with a vibrant farmers market, an innovative natural foods Co-op, and Moosewood restaurant known far and wide. EcoVillage, in the Town of Ithaca, is a leader in advanced community-building. Ithaca-Hours is known throughout the western world as a creative means of supporting local economic development and keeping money in the community. And we have excellent cutting- edge theaters, museums, arts and music. These, and more local "attractions", create an image of our community as a special place to which many people throughout the country respond. It is an image that is part of what brings them here as tourists. Moreover, it is an image that many who live here embrace with pride, and one that they have come to love. In my professional opinion, those who choose to reside in this community, and those who choose it as a tourist destination, are more likely than average to share a constellation of values that would include such things as inter- municipal unity, nonviolent approaches to conflict resolution, and respect for animals and the natural world. 4 Cayuga Heights Deer Management Plan DEIS:Community Response Stuart Stein(p. 15- 19)-Page 19 A 2010 report analyzing the County tourism program (Profile of Visitors to Tompkins County), prepared by Chmura Economics & Analytics for the Strategic Tourism Planning Board, stated that visitors ranked "the feel of the area—the ambiance, diversity, the peacefulness," as what they enjoyed the most, or found most memorable, about visiting here. In fact, the area's "peaceful ambience" is one of several aspects identified as being likely to bring tourists back for repeat visits, according to the County tourism program staff(http://www.visitithaca.com/press/41.html). A program that entails the annual mass killing of deer in neighborhood backyards to protect garden plantings, in a municipality of Ithaca that refuses to let its own citizens use practical deer fencing, has the potential to detract from those qualities of the larger community that define its core values for many who choose to visit, as well as many who may choose to move here. Thousands around the country and the world have signed a petition against the Cayuga Heights deer-killing program. Local, regional and national media have highlighted the deer-killing controversy. Further, as more information is emerging about the lack of scientific validity behind the justifications for this program, additional unwanted attention is likely, due to the irony of this happening in the bedroom community of an Ivy League University. In 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2010, Ithaca was ranked in the top 100 places to live by Relocate America. In 2001, Mothering Magazine named it one of "25 Terrific Places to Bring up a Family." The growing appeal of this community for retirement, relocation, or raising children could be damaged by the fact that the deer-killing plan calls for not just a one- time bait and kill effort, but a multi-year program that could potentially be performed annually over a 5-10 year period, or possibly longer. Each year that the killing is performed, old wounds will be reopened, leading to an even greater rift than we're already seeing in relations between people in the village itself, and between residents of the village and residents of the wider Ithaca community. Since there are already people residing in Cayuga Heights who are saying they find the plan so morally repugnant that they will move away if it is implemented, it's possible many people might shy away from coming to our county for the very same reason, because they may see us as a community that uses violent means to solve our problems—not the progressive or enlightened place it once was thought to be. If this image of our larger community should become widespread, the broader Ithaca community and county, not just Cayuga Heights, could be impacted negatively in the long-term. This potential significant impact of the program on our community culture and its attractiveness as a place to live has not been considered in the DEIS, and I believe it should be. While the program's negative impact on the tourist program may be difficult to pin down statistically (like many aspects of any tourism program), it should be recognized that such an impact is quite plausible, and therefore should be given further detailed study before the Village goes ahead with its program. Conclusion It is my professional judgment that the DEIS fails to adequately evaluate the potentially significant impacts outlined in this memo, not just on Cayuga Heights, but on the Ithaca community as a whole, and that these flaws need to be addressed before a responsible decision is made about the proposed program. 5 Cayuga Heights Deer Management Plan DEIS:Community Response Dominick La Capra.PhD(p. 20-27)-Page 20 December 10, 2010 Comments on the Cayuga Heights Deer Management Plan (DEIS) Much of my research and teaching has been devoted to the issue of violent, traumatic events and experiences, both in my thirteen individually authored books, my two edited or co-edited volumes, and numerous articles. (References are available through Google.) I would make specific mention of four books in this respect: Representing the Holocaust: History, Theory, Trauma (Cornell U.P., 1994); History and Memory after Auschwitz (Cornell U.P., 1998); Writing History, Writing Trauma (Johns Hopkins U.P., 2001); and History and Its Limits: Human, Animal, Violence (Cornell U.P., 2009). These studies have made me particularly alert to the at times unacknowledged consequences of violent or traumatizing behavior, both on individuals and on communities. I am writing today both from the standpoint of my professional expertise on this subject matter and as a concerned citizen who is opposed for many reasons to the controversial deer killing plan now being proposed by the mayor and current board of trustees of Cayuga Heights to "cull" a large percentage of the deer in the village and to sterilize a relatively small number of others that would come to form, for a time, a sort of ambulatory zoo. In the state-required environmental review process (SEAR) the trustees of the village were required to consider whether or not their proposed action would have a significant negative impact on the aesthetic, agricultural, archaeological, historic, or other natural or cultural resources; or community or neighborhood character." They were also required to weigh the significance of negative impacts on human health, including mental health. In their evaluation of the culling/killing plan, the trustees do not provide cogent and specific reasons why it is needed, and they summarily determine that the impact with respect to the factors enumerated above would not be significant. I could not more strongly disagree. ORIGINS OF THE DEER KILLING PLAN The current proposals had their origins in the frustration of a number of gardeners (and others concerned with protecting their landscaping) that began in the late '90s. In 2002-2003, after years of study and gauging public opinion, a deer sterilization program was implemented, with some signs of success, but was replaced by a contraceptive vaccine that failed, and was later found to be defective. The Cornell researcher carrying out the program thereafter terminated it. By 2007, proposals were put forth to loosen the tight restrictions on fencing 1 Cayuga Heights Deer Management Plan DENS:Community Response Dominick LaCapra,PhD(p. 20-27)-Page 21 height and placement that were put in place decades ago to maintain open, "park-like" character of the Village, a characteristic that largely slipped away over the years through the effects of increasing development. In 2008, following the introduction of proposals to allow more and higher fencing to keep out the deer, the mayor was challenged in a three-way election in which he was defeated by only 1 vote. Within a few months of taking office, the new mayor and several new trustees announced their intention to implement a plan to kill many of the deer in the village, based on claims that the deer posed an imminent threat to public safety and therefore could be killed by village police on the order of the trustees without public input. When this came to light, and the claims of imminent danger were challenged as being unsubstantiated, citizens demanded more transparency, leading to the withdrawal of this pre-emptive killing plan, and the initiation of a more public process. However, the Deer Remediation Advisory Committee (DRAC) that was put in charge of this process was the same one that had conceived of the initial plan behind closed doors and was still admittedly biased in favor of a kill program. This bias was never corrected by adding sufficient additional committee members to represent the true diversity of opinion in the village. As this committee began to hold public meetings, the dismissive approach taken with respect to proposed information about safe, practical and cost effective alternatives to a killing program contributed to a climate of cynicism and acrimony. This ushered in a new era of controversy in a community previously known for being open and trusting and, with respect to the Village government, quite apolitical. Since protecting gardens and landscaping may not seem to rise to the level of seriousness required for such an extreme course of action as a backyard mass slaughter program, the largely discredited argument based on the deer posing an imminent threat to public safety was expanded and reformulated multiple times as one justification after another was put forth and then disputed from the fall of 2008 to the following spring, during which the DRAC committee held meetings and public forums. The various justifications, nearly all of which have been called into question on the basis of the trustees failing to substantiate them with verifiable Cayuga Heights-specific data or convincing scientific rationales, have included the idea that the population of our local herd is rising to a level that threatens the well being of the local ecosystem; that the deer are devastating biodiversity; that deer-vehicle collisions pose a substantial risk of life-threatening injury to village drivers; that deer are causing an alarming increase in the rate of Lyme disease infection; that deer are growing more aggressive and now are 2 Cayuga Heights Deer Management Plan DE/s'Community Response Dominick LaCapra. PhD(p. 20-27)-Page 22 attacking companion animals and perhaps soon will be attacking humans; that deer feces are vectors for disease and are causing a significant level of water pollution.' Often absent from the presentation of these dramatic justifications for a mass killing program is the far more prosaic one those familiar with the community believe has provided the principal motivation for the trustees who advocate most strongly for mass killing of deer: that deer need to be killed because they are eating flowers, shrubs and garden vegetables. This idea is most often accompanied by a significant subtext: the kinds of fences that successfully address these problems in other municipalities are simply unacceptable in Cayuga Heights. IMPACT ON COMMUNITY AND NEIGHBORHOOD CHARACTER A blatant effect of the killing plan has to be taken with the utmost seriousness: it adversely changes the character of the community in undeniably significant ways. It is already provoking tension among neighbors and pitting them against one another in a fashion that is far from neighborly. This tension and even animosity can only grow if the plan is implemented. We have here a major cost in the social environment and well-being of the community. Neighbors who formerly made a point of greeting one another or even stopping for a chat may now not even notice one another or pass by with a perfunctory greeting. I live only a few houses from the mayor, Kate Supron, and she herself remarked to me that our encounters, when they occur, do not have the quality of cordiality or neighborliness, even when there is no manifest sign of the hostility that one may nonetheless, at some level and however subconsciously, feel. The basic point is that a deep-seated controversy poisons the atmosphere of a community and permeates its daily life. When something like this occurs, the only option is to table the issue that is causing the divisiveness and animosity, and in the case of "culling" there is no pressing community need that warrants moving forward with a plan to annually carry out the mass slaughter of deer in our neighborhood backyards. There has been no recent poll of residents although the current mayor was reported in the press as stating that 75% of residents support the culling/killing plan -- a number which seems to have no basis in recent elections (where her margin of victory against a last-minute write-in protest candidate was much slimmer) or in any other indicators so far as I have been able to determine. 3 Cayuga Heights Deer Management Plan DEIS:Community Response Dominick La Capra, PhD(p. 20-27)-Page 23 There has also been no estimation of the actual number of deer in the village based on a scientifically credible field study since 2006. And to my knowledge, there has never been a similarly credible study carried out to assess the impact of deer on biodiversity in the village. These inconvenient truths notwithstanding, references to the purported scale of the deer population and the scope of their impact on the environment at times give the mistaken impression that Cayuga Heights resembles stereotypes of the streets of old Calcutta. The various impressionistic if not biased statements about the condition in Cayuga Heights, which seem to be accepted as fact by the mayor and at least some of the current board, but which seem fantastical to many of us, do not provide a solid basis on which to establish a lethal program. This is one more instance of a deleterious change in the structure and practice of governance which is undermining trust in the community. Our longstanding tradition of rational discussion and fact-based public policy is eroding before our eyes. Costs— The fact that there are a number of people who are strongly opposed and extremely upset by the proposed killing program is amply demonstrated by the comments in public meetings and the media. For many critics of the killing plan, the primary issues concern values and the effects of the plan on the village of Cayuga Heights as well as on Ithaca as a whole. But another negative impact both in itself and in its implications for alternative uses of funds is the very high cost of the plan — upwards of a million dollars in a rough estimate that can only err in the direction of being too low, perhaps much too low. At a time when taxes are increasing at all levels of local government and important programs which support the families and children of the region are being cut, this use of tax dollars seems not only nonsensical but offensively out of touch with the current economic realities. Many in the community believe these funds could well be put to other uses, and the village government could return to concentrating on issues that are not so inherently divisive and more supportive of the community as a whole. Not all residents of Cayuga Heights are well off economically, and the overly conservative estimate of a 5% increase in taxes would cause hardship to some residents who may be struggling to pay their bills. Some who can afford the increase might leave because of the nature of the plan itself. Some critics of the plan who have devoted much time and energy to the betterment of the community (for example, Karen Kaufmann and Sandip Tiwari) have indicated in public an intention to move out of the village if the plan is implemented. Others of us, for the first time, find ourselves uncomfortable and ashamed to be in a community that we have, until now, considered one of the most idyllic, 4 Cayuga Heights Deer Management Plan DEIS:Community Response Dominick La Capra, PhD(p. 20-27)-Page 24 beautifully natural, open and relaxed that we have knowm it should be obvious that a plan that may drive away some of the most civic-minded and hard-working members of a community clearly does significant damage to that community and undermines the character for which it has been noted. As many commentators have observed, the program is short-sighted since it applies to a community that has no way of preventing deer from other areas entering it to replace the deer that are to be killed. Cayuga Heights is not a bounded ecosystem like the Galapagos Islands. It is surrounded by municipalities and open land that have significant (larger) deer populations. Even some advocates of the kill program admit that any annual killing operation will have at best short-term effects and would have to be repeated endlessly into an indefinite future, with mounting costs as well as mounting acrimony. Indeed, residents from communities in other states who have tried such solutions have written to the local paper to testify that this has been the experience in their communities. These points indicate the inflexible, perhaps dogmatic nature of a commitment to a project that seems destined to fail, to divide the community, and to cost much money in the process. Impact of Introducing Systematic Culling/Killing— A statement made by a woman resident at a public meeting, apparently in defense of the killing of deer, remains in my mind, for it actually served to demonstrate the danger and misguided nature of such action. She said, in response to her child's question about how one could possibly bring oneself to kill animals like deer, that she answered: one can kill and cry at the same time. What she apparently did not realize is that the crying and related responses can continue much longer than the killing, even when the killing is done at a self- protective distance by hired hands. Children may well experience very negative effects with respect to their sense of what a parent or authority figure feels willing and able to do. We may simply be too self-centered in our dealings with animals with whom we should see ourselves as sharing a world. But anthropocentrism itself may prove to be not a hard enough shield to safeguard oneself and, even more so, one's vulnerable loved ones from the lasting effects of violent and callous behavior. I think the child asked the right question, but the parent's response to it did not meet its demands. Indeed, if the "culling" program is implemented, it is difficult to estimate the impact of dead or dying deer on vulnerable witnesses, notably children, and it is utterly unrealistic to think that any such program will not be fallible and allow for injured deer to be 5 Cayuga Heights Deer Management Plan DEIS:Community Response Dominick La Capra, PhD(p. 20-27)-Page 25 seen, heard, or even encountered by unwitting passers-by. (Apparently, the plan is for the killing actions to take place in undisclosed places at unannounced times, which might also harm unknowing passers-by.) Even frangible bullets would be dangerous in a highly populated area. And the net-and-bolt option, which is apparently and rather incredibly being seriously considered, would result in utterly panicked deer in nets being assaulted with captive-bolt guns that are difficult enough to manage with accuracy in a slaughterhouse where the animal is fixed securely in place. (A trustee actually told one of us at the Dec. 6 public hearing that someone would be on either side holding a deer about to be shot, as if this procedure could be in the least effective with a large animal that is panicked and struggling for its life!) One could adduce other reasons why it is highly contestable and even facile to conclude that there would not be significant impact on a community or neighborhood from such activities, and the restrictions and policing that would be necessary to contain risk as well as the likelihood of protesters are an added cost of the plan that is very difficult to estimate in both financial and human terms. A related point is that the introduction and normalization of systematized mass killing itself is likely to produce a significant and manifestly negative change in the character of a community. In this case it also raises a question about a community's structure of governance. It is well known that a portion of the community find the proposed plan both morally objectionable and extremely upsetting, even potentially traumatic, but elected officials are choosing to go forward with little apparent consideration of visible and vocal opposition. This itself is a very important change in the character of the community in terms of its culture of governance. Only a few short years ago, the mayor and the trustees would not implement a plan that had blatantly divisive effects and that contravened the basic values of a significant portion of the community. To "blow off" that portion of the residents both marks a failure of practical wisdom and means that a community threatens no longer to be a community but instead becomes a house divided against itself in which one group temporarily holding power rides roughshod over another group in a matter of major significance. Distrust and Division — Besides the general effect of prevalent suspicion and mistrust, one impact on critics of the plan is disillusionment and the sense that there is no real democratic exchange, respect for the views of others, and a willingness to compromise on issues that are for some very basic. The mayor and trustees periodically allow residents to put forth very short "sound bites" of public comment at meetings and then proceed without willingness to seriously engage with the possibility of other solutions. Indeed, when another effort was made this fall to bring forward 6 Cayuga Heights Deer Management Plan DEIS:Community Response Dominick La Capra.PhD(p. 20-27)-Page 26 a change in the fencing regulations that would address gardeners' concerns, one of the village trustees opposed it explicitly because he felt that if it passed the support for the deer-killing proposal would dissolve. Another trustee, who later obtained a variance for her own non-compliant fence, gave what I found to be utterly incoherent reasons why a more flexible fencing policy should not be democratically made available to the entire community. In the case of certain board members and supporters of the killing plan, a sense of malaise may be one reason for the euphemisms to which they apparently feel constrained to resort. Such euphemisms cover reality in a rose-colored veil and block the recognition of what one is actually doing. Culling is killing. The plan is not a "remediation"" proposal unless one believes there was some golden age to which the village can now magically return. (What calls for remediation at this point are damaged relations between neighbors.) Netting and bolting are not "normal livestock slaughter procedures for euthanizing deer"," since animals in slaughterhouses are not caught in nets, raised up with other animals flailing wildly about, and shot at with bolts when not securely fixed in place. "Euthanizing" is entirely inappropriate for the kinds of action envisioned, and references to a decisive "solution" are both jarring in their historical resonances and misleading in their contemporary import. The only viable "solution" is to come up with ideas that do not set neighbors against one another and create an atmosphere of hostility and mistrust, including mistrust of those one is supposed to see as one's trustees. History provides many examples, some of them very recent, of the adverse political and social effects of resorting to misleading language and even of framing as facts what are mere surmises or even departures from the truth. The lack of hard data and clear outcomes in this plan, indeed its seemingly inevitable failure as well as its exorbitant cost, cannot diminish suspicion or create good will. This is especially the case when there are obvious, less costly, and viable alternatives to the plan, one of them being flexibility with respect to the fencing policy that allows those who want to protect certain plants or areas to be able to do so. Mayor Supron and some of the trustees have attempted to denigrate the significance of opposition or protest in the community through a vague generality about the inevitability of oppositional voices, as if a backyard mass slaughter program were on the same level as any other "controversial"" project, for example, painting one's mailbox a bizarre or off-beat color. But as the effect of the mere proposal of this program on our community has demonstrated, the life or death of other beings may well touch on basic values that affect one's relations with neighbors and the overall character of the community in profoundly significant ways. 7 Cayuga Heights Deer Management Plan DENS:Community Response Dominick La Capra,PhD(p. 20-27)-Page 27 Sincerely, Dominick LaCapra Co-signed by Jane Pedersen Cayuga Heights Cayuga Heights Bowmar Professor and Prof. of History Cornell University Cayuga Heights Deer Management Plan DEIS Executive Summary, page 1-2 Cayuga Heights Deer Management Plan DEIS Existing Conditions, page 3-6 As reported in an article in The lthacalournal of December 3, 2010, page 3A, based predominantly on material provided by Mayor Kate Supron and also stated in the DEIS, Appendix H 'v Cayuga Heights Deer Management Plan DEIS, Executive summary: page 1-5 8 Cayuga Heights Deer Management Plan DEIS:Community Response Charlene Temple, LCSW. (p.28-29)Page-28 12/15/10 Board of Trustees Village of Cayuga Heights, NY Re: Comments on Deer Management Plan Draft Environmental Impact Statement Dear Trustees, My name is Charlene Temple, and I live or in Ithaca. I am writing today as a concerned citizen who has resided in this community for over forty years, and in my professional capacity as a psychotherapist, to offer my assessment of the Cayuga Heights Deer Management Plan Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). My comments below are informed by my academic training(Syracuse University, MSW 1987) and my clinical experience, as well as by observations I've made at numerous public meetings on the Cayuga Heights deer issue. During my 23 year career, I have worked in hospitals, hospices, Ithaca's Family and Children's Service Clinic, and in private practice. I also have special training in Critical Incident Stress Debriefing, in all these medical and counseling contexts, I have acquired extensive experience treating people who have been traumatized in various ways, from chronic and severe physical abuse, sexual abuse, violence, and experience with traumatic events such as rape, military service, divorce, etc. Whether someone is age three, thirteen, thirty-five, or seventy five years old,the symptoms are often almost identical. In my professional opinion, psychological trauma will be a likely occurrence for a number of people in this community if the deer killing plan put forth in the DEIS is implemented. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Adjustment Disorder with Mixed Anxiety and Depressed Mood, or Anxiety or Dysthymia are some of the conditions that may be caused or worsened as a direct result of the carrying out of a mass deer killing program in Cayuga Heights neighborhoods. Some of those likely to be affected are those who enjoy the individual deer that habitually visit their yards, those who have watched does raise their fawns, or observed the relationships between herd mates over time, and those who have developed a sense of personal connection with one or more of these animals. Such individuals will almost certainly experience deep sadness, possibly even devastation, when the deer they have come to appreciate are systematically killed. Another vulnerable population are individuals who have a strong emotional identification with animals, or even a philosophical commitment to respect animals, of whom there are many in our local community. Families who have cultivated in their children a love of nature and wildlife are also at risk. Should such individuals have the misfortune of seeing/hearing deer being killed by shooting, or witnessing deer scrambling with terror and panic under a heavy net, or seeing/hearing deer being Cayuga Heights Deer Management Plan DEIS:Community Response Charlene Temple. LCSW (p.28-29)Page-29 slaughtered by persons using a bolt gun, the trauma experienced could be deep-seated. If people are driving, and witness a wounded, bleeding deer fleeing into the road or collapsing on the ground in view of the roadway, the gruesome image could be indelible and highly disturbing. For those with pre-existing trauma, the knowledge alone that a mass killing of animals is being performed could act as a trigger. In all of these scenarios, which are so disturbingly graphic, what could the effects of such trauma look like from a clinical perspective? Potential symptoms could be: recurring and intrusive distressing recollections and dreams; acting or feeling as if the trauma were being relived; psychological reactivity to an external cue that resembles an aspect of the traumatic event; avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma; difficulty falling or staying asleep; hyper-vigilance; social withdrawal; work inhibition, etc. These clinical symptoms are described in detail in the DSM-IV, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders written by members of the American Psychiatric Association. Such possible negative impacts on the mental health of individuals and the community are extremely significant, and in my opinion, quite likely to affect not just residents of Cayuga Heights, but residents in the wider Ithaca community. Yet, based on the contents of the DEIS, the trustees of Cayuga Heights appear to have failed to consider these impacts. They also appear to have failed to have adequately considered alternative approaches to reducing deer-human impact that have a far lower potential to cause harm. In addition to my concerns as a professional, I also want to take this opportunity to express, as a concerned citizen, my unqualified moral opposition to the plan to kill deer in the Village of Cayuga Heights. I am opposed to shooting the deer, and also the latest plan:the use of"net and bolt" killing. I have attended many meetings and done my own research as well. There are reasonable solutions, such as modernizing the Village's outdated and inflexible fencing ordinance that can directly help gardeners protect their plants from deer. This solution will not cause any trauma to anyone, and will preserve the peaceful character of our community. On the other hand, the killing "solution" will most definitely cause trauma to individuals and bring shame on our community as a whole. I hope that the trustees of Cayuga Heights would not knowingly introduce trauma into our community when there is a choice not to. The deer killing program will exact too high a price. It is imperative that we continue exploring non-lethal alternatives and work together to find a better solution. Sincerely, Charlene Temple, M5W, LCSW