Residents complain about hunting, target practice
The town, in response, is reviewing its access policy for Sleightsburgh Park and checking security camera footage.
ESOPUS, N.Y. » The town is reviewing the access policy for Sleightsburgh Park and checking security camera footage in the wake of complaints that the property along the Rondout Creek is being used for target practice and hunting.
Esopus Supervisor Shannon Harris said the Sleightsburgh Residents Association has asked for hunting to be prohibited based on incidents of damage to nearby private property.
“They are very much all up in arms over a recent ... series of incidents having to do with hunting and close calls with bullets,” Harris said.
Details of the incidents were not i mmediately available, but Harris said police and residents have asked to see surveillance videos to determine who might have been involved.
“When we put in public cameras in our park and the Town Hall, we didn’t want employees ... to be spying on each other,” the supervisor said. “So we prohibited playback information on the videos. But since we got the [cameras] installed, we’ve received a number of requests by residents and the police, who are looking to track down information to solve a petty crime or a traffic accident, and are wondering if our camera happened to pick up any valuable information.”
Harris said the town is expected to develop procedures for screening requests to access surveillance video.
“We’re going to create a little form to give to people ... to be very cautious about who we hand it out to,” she said.
The Sleightsburgh Residents Association wrote in an email to the Town Board that the use of firearms in the park can be dangerous to people as far away as the opposite side of the Rondout Creek, in Downtown Kingston.