For the past 10 years that he has been in office, the Town Supervisor, Allan Scott, has done everything in his power as Town Administrator to prevent the free assembly of people who gather at the Woodstock site in Bethel, NY, for the sake of peace, love and music. The Town and County have "teamed up" over the years to stop the gathering. According to Supervisor Scott and the County Legislators that represent Bethel, they have been waiting "for the right person or organization to come along". The county, which boasts itself as a tourist area, has done everything in its power to prevent tourists from getting to the site during the festival weekend. This in spite of the poor economic situation of the town and county and the financial benefit experienced from the tourism that occurs as a result of the influx of people.

The Town and County have issued false statements in the press accusing the peaceful assemblers of committing crimes here that were never substantiated. They have stated openly that they "don't want those type of people here". The people that come here are, for the most part, working people and taxpayers. These prejudicial statements by those in government, representing all of us, cannot be tolerated.

A vicious attack has been staged against the free assembly since 1992. Town equipment such as snow plows surrounded the site in 1992 to prevent people from gathering there. In 1993 twenty tons of chicken manure was dumped on the site, which contaminated the air and ground water and ran off into a nearby pond. That action turned out to involve a fraud in which funds from the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation were misused by one of their managers who is no longer with the MS Foundation. Public roads have been blocked by State Police, including state highway 17B. In 1997 when the County Attorney informed the District Attorney that the actions of the State Police under his direction were illegal, the County Attorney was arrested at the site later the same afternoon. Twelve other people were arrested that year for trespassing on the site in spite of the fact that the ownership of the site is questionable since the transfer of the site from one party to another had been enjoined in Brooklyn Surrogates Court (NY) in 1991 by the widow of the previous owner of the property. The list of indignities is almost endless.

In 1996 the site was secretly transferred to an LLC by Alan Gerry, a wealthy individual, who encouraged the closing of the site to tourism while the town and county advertised the Woodstock Site through brochures, radio advertising and posters. A ditch was dug around his alleged private property with town equipment at the taxpayers' expense. When thousands of people showed up expecting to go to the site as usual they were turned away by the State Police. My husband, Roy Howard, and I own a part of the Woodstock property, that being Max Yasgur's house. Max Yasgur was the farmer who allowed the use of part of his property for the original festival.

We invited everyone to our 103 acre farm for the first time. With two days to prepare we had an estimated 6,000 people over without one negative incident. Since then a spontaneous gathering has occurred on our Yasgur Road site every anniversary. Each year the town has maliciously prosecuted us for hosting the festival. Each time we have won the case. However, the legal fees have been steep.

While the town was prosecuting us for violations that did not even apply to us in 1998, they began changing the law for Alan Gerry. Mr. Gerry paid for the changes to the law and for all liability, legal and operating expenses, including salaries, for the members of the town board and the town supervisor under the guise of The Bethel Local Development Corporation. Mr. Gerry was obviously the person that they had been waiting for for thirty years.

We are now suing the Town, County and Allan Scott individually for violations of our civil rights in Federal Court. It has become apparent that the cause for attempting to stop the assembly were for reasons of greed. The laws that applied to us were changed to benefit one individual exclusively.

As a result, in 1998, when the law was changed to benefit Mr. Gerry, we were permanently enjoined from ever hosting a festival again without a permit, which they will not issue to us. The requirements for the permit are so restrictive that in 28 years no one has ever been issued a permit. Mr. Gerry could not even comply, so he was exempted from the law that applied to everyone else.

We are now hosting a Political Rally for which no permit is required. I am a candidate for the office of Town Supervisor, running against Allan Scott. I am running as a Wanna Party candidate (cause we wanna party and they won't let us). There is no other candidate running against Mr. Scott this year as there was none during the last election.

So, if you are as tired as the rest of us for paying taxes to "lawmakers" who abuse their power and our money, please join The Party for the party on August 13, 14 & 15, 1999.

Jeryl Abramson
Wanna Party Candidate For Supervisor
Town of Bethel, NY