Folder 0874

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

Mr. Gitter, 65, moved here from Boston in 1971 to be with his guru, Rudrananda, known locally as Rudy, who ran an ashram here. Mr. Gitter still follows Rudy's teachings and maintains a small outdoor shrine to the guru's memory. From the silo at Catskill Corners, a painted pair of Buddha eyes stare out at the mountains.

But Mr. Gitter's spiritual talk conceals a ruthless businessman, said Peter DiModica, an opponent of the project who runs an antiques shop. Opponents have accused the developer of getting town and county officials to help him gain control of one hamlet's water supply to use for his resort.

Mr. Gitter dismisses those accusations as a ploy to kill his '.. project, which he calls "a civic-minded effort to do good. I have been painted into a posture of villainy," he said during an interview at the Emerson Inn, a $7 million venture that is his largest successful project so far.

He conceded that the $300 million Belleayre resort would be a quantum leap for him, and said he might sell the project to a larger company with more experience in resort management.

The project's goal, he said, is simply to restore the area's tourist economy — "to get people sitting around the kitchen table in Long Island or New Jersey to say, 'Let's go to the Catskills.'

Mr. Gitter said his critics exaggerate the resort's environmental impact and ignore the glaring need for jobs in a town where he says "every single child who graduates from the regional high school gets a diploma and a bus ticket."

The state owns most of the land in Shandaken as part of the Catskill Park, and New York City has been buying land for several years in an effort to protect the city's watershed, shrinking the amount of taxable land and forcing residents to shoulder an ever-higher portion of the tax burden.

"The fact is that more people favor this project than oppose it, and it's going to be good for the area," said Robert Linge, the owner of the Cold Spring Lodge here. He added that 170 business owners in Shandaken and neighboring towns signed a petition supporting the resort proposal last year.

The resort would create 350 full- time jobs, Mr. Gitter said. It would contribute about $80 million a year to the local economy and add about $100 million to the tax base, said Eric Griesser, the town assessor and a supporter.

Opponents counter that most of the new jobs would be low-paying and seasonal, and that the increase in the tax base would not compensate for the added services and roads the town would have to supply. Above all, they say, the project is totally out of character with the region's unspoiled mountain scenery.

"He's offering a theme-park vision that threatens our most precious resource — virgin wilderness," said Adam Nagy, co-chairman of the Catskills Heritage Alliance, formed in 1999 to oppose the resort.

But for many here, a bigger concern is Mr. Gitter's purchase and management of the water system that serves the hamlet of Pine Hill, within the Town of Shandaken. He bought the system in March 2000, just as the town appeared close to a deal to buy it from a private owner and shortly after state officials informed his lawyers that the availability of drinkable water would be a crucial element in the resort's environmental review.

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NYC-WTC 000138207