Greenville – The Shawangunk Ridge in this part of the world takes its name from the town it overlooks. The locals call it simply Greenville Mountain.
It’s visible from most of the Town of Greenville, part of the landscape, a sentinel watching over a place that now confronts profound change.
For the past 80 years, Vivian Kagan has also been a witness to the transformation. Through it all, like the mountain, she has been a fixture.
She knows the town and its history as intimately as every crease that lines her face.
The feisty lady is an integral part of local lore and no event in the town is complete without Kagan’s frail figure.
Small wonder she is often called “Miss Greenville.”
Sitting at her cozy ranch-style home on a recent Sunday afternoon, Kagan laughed off the title. It is the town and its welfare she is more interested in, she said.
Blue eyes brimming with memories, she talked of how she’s watched Greenville change over the years.
She’s seen the electric lights come on and push the dark corners farther away.
She’s seen more and more cars swish down the narrow rural roads, drawn by the beauty of her beloved mountain town.
She’s seen the swelling ranks of people moving in.
What used to be a farming town of 800 people 80 years ago is now a rapidly growing bedroom community of New York City, with a population of 3,800.
And, she says, leaning forward earnestly, these days she worries.
Will the town manage to retain its pristine natural beauty, or will it be eaten up by suburban sprawl? Can there be a balance between the two?
Always among the first to speak out, to protest moves she believes might hurt Greenville and its residents, Kagan never gives up without a fight.
“In some ways Greenville has regressed rather than progressed,” she said. “Consider more people, more houses in a town that has rural roads, no water or sewer lines and no police forces ... We don’t have the resources to support such growth.”
Naturally, such outspokenness elicits mixed reactions.
To some, Kagan is a crank, opposed to any change, even if it’s for the better.
To others, like Town Board member Leo McCarey, she is a “terrific person” who is the “heart and soul of Greenville.”
“I don’t think Vivian wants to be liked by everybody. She is not a people pleaser,” said her neighbor, Christine Dewhurst, who calls Kagan her “Greenville grandmother.”
“It’s a testament to her character that people here have such strong opinions about her.”
Resident and fellow activist Dawn Hulse Sierra calls Kagan a “go-getter” who cares enough about Greenville to attend every Town Board meeting.
Kagan has been on most of the committees ever formed in Greenville – and that’s no exaggeration.
Even during the four decades she commuted to New York City to her job as a designer, her trademark red hair was a beacon at Town Hall.
She was a member of the Town Board for four years, ending in 1984. She spent 30 years on the Planning Board and 25 on the town’s parkland board. The latter board is overseeing the construction of Greenville Town Park, which was once going to be called Vivian Kagan Park.
She resigned from the parkland board last year after she got into an argument with town Supervisor George “Red” Hossan.
“... The animosity between Red and myself will most likely interfere with the development of the park,” Kagan said in her resignation letter.
She also asked the board not to name the park after her.
But that’s all in the past. Kagan’s latest battle is against proposed developments on Greenville Mountain.
Over the past three years, there have been proposals to build a business park, 1,500 town houses and 2,200 condominiums on a privately owned property on the ridge.
Kagan is a member of Save the Ridge, a local group that is trying to persuade the state to buy the property in question and turn it into a state park.
“It is not that I don’t want development,” she said, “but I think it has to be done with tremendous care and consideration for the environment.”
She said uncontrolled growth in the area will lead to acute water shortage and will overcrowd the Minisink Valley School District.
Kagan admits she doesn’t have answers to all the problems, but she believes “it’s important to be involved in the local government.”
That’s a lesson she learned ages ago in a lamp-lit farmhouse listening to the town justice of the peace discuss politics with his buddies. He was her father.
It’s the same lesson she wants to pass on to the residents of Greenville: Be like the mountain, watch over your town.
