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Rosendale (CDP), New York
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=== Disincorporation === {| class="toccolours" style="float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; font-size: 85%; background:#c6dbf7; color:black; width:30em; max-width: 40%;" cellspacing="5" | style="text-align: left;" | "This village is not a heritage ... it is a luxury we can no longer afford." |- | style="text-align: left;" | βMayor Raivo Puusemp, 1976<ref name="warp" /> |- | style="text-align: left;" | "In ''Rosendale, A Public Work'', the attempt was made to superimpose a formal concept upon an essentially directionless political microsystem and to affect that system permanently by doing so..." |- | style="text-align: left;" | βRaivo Puusemp, 1980{{sfn|Purves|2004|p=117}} |} {| class="toccolours" style="float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 2em; font-size: 85%; background:#c6dbf7; color:black; width:30em; max-width: 40%;" cellspacing="5" | style="text-align: left;" |"The genre was the village and its survival problems. The frame was concentrated in a geographical place ... The public, more properly the participants, were the townspeople, Mayor Puusemp, county officials, lawyers, representatives of the federal government, and the publishers and readers of area newspapers. The purpose, like that I have suggested for such art, was therapeutic: to cure a local illness and allow village life ... to go on more constructively." |- | style="text-align: left;" | β[[Allan Kaprow]], 2003{{sfn|Kaprow|2003|p=211}} |} When [[Raivo Puusemp]], a [[conceptual art]]ist and art instructor at [[Ulster County Community College|SUNY Ulster]],{{sfn|Kaprow|2003|p=209}} became mayor of Rosendale, the village was plagued by an "overbearing tax structure and problems with its municipal utilities".{{sfn|Purves|2004|p=117}} Though [[Unincorporated area|disincorporation]] was already known as a possible solution to the village's crises,{{sfn|Kaprow|2003|p=210}} it had been an "emotionally charged issue" and no action had been taken. By this time Rosendale "could [no longer] govern itself".{{sfn|Kaprow|2003|p=209}} The village and town governments had often been at odds; the town was governed by [[Republican Party (United States)|Republicans]], while the village was increasingly under [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] control. This friction manifested in several ways. Town and village officials would frequently disrupt each other's meetings, and the town ordered its [[snowplow|snow plows]] to raise their blades while passing through the village; the village subsequently bought its own plow and banned the town's plow from entering village limits.<ref name="leisure">{{Cite journal |title=Goodbye Rosendale? A Village the Town Won't Miss |first=Charles |last=Bermpohl |date=1976-02-08 |page=9 |journal=Mid-Hudson Leisure}}</ref> During his campaign, Puusemp did not mention disincorporation or how it related to art,{{sfn|Purves|2004|p=118}} though he had already decided two months before the election that the only solution to the village's problems was disincorporation.{{sfn|Purves|2004|p=117}} Beginning in 1969, Puusemp "developed an interest in group dynamics and social and political processes". In some of his early artworks (termed "influence pieces"), Puusemp would manipulate subjects into unknowingly executing his ideas while believing that they, the subjects, had come up with said ideas on their own. He entered politics to combine "influence and concept ... compatibly".<ref>{{Cite press release |url=http://www.centrepompidou.fr/PDF/BenKinmont-ENG.pdf |title=On becoming something else |date=2009-10-06 |access-date=2011-03-01 |first=Ben |last=Kinmont |publisher=[[Centre Georges Pompidou]] |pages=3β4 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110720210819/http://www.centrepompidou.fr/PDF/BenKinmont-ENG.pdf |archive-date=2011-07-20 }}</ref> Viewing the "project [as] an artwork in the form of a political problem",{{sfn|Kaprow|2003|p=209}} Puusemp convinced the people of Rosendale to disincorporate by publicly comparing the village's finances to what would be "need[ed] to maintain a viable town".{{sfn|Purves|2004|p=117}} The village's board of trustees strongly favored dissolution and "forced three separate votes before [reaching] a 179 to 87 majority to abolish the village".{{sfn|Benjamin|Nathan|2001|p=165}} A public [[referendum]] on the dissolution was held on March 16, 1976,<ref name="leisure" /> which passed in a 2β1 landslide.<ref name="gov-dissolve" /> Puusemp resigned as mayor on October 1, and moved to [[Utah]] with his family.<ref name="village-dies" /> He vowed never to run for office again.<ref name="warp" /> During his tenure in office, and in the aftermath of his resignation, Puusemp received widespread popular support.{{sfn|Kaprow|2003|p=210}} Marc Phelan, a village trustee and associate of Puusemp,{{sfn|Kaprow|2003|p=209}} became mayor following Puusemp's departure.{{sfn|Kaprow|2003|p=210}} He was reelected the following March with 141 votes, beating three other candidates to become the village's last mayor.<ref>{{Cite news |title=On the light side |newspaper=[[Merced Sun-Star]] |publisher=[[The McClatchy Company]] |location=Merced, CA |date=1977-03-17 |access-date=2011-11-18 |page=3 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=PjBcAAAAIBAJ&pg=4308%2C2013875}}</ref> Rosendale became unincorporated on January 1, 1977,<ref name="village-dies" /> though the village government did not disband until the end of 1977;<ref name="gov-dissolve" /> the village completely ceased to exist "at the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31, 1977".<ref>{{Cite news |url=http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20001006/NEWS/310069985 |title=Municipal schizophrenia reigns |newspaper=[[Times Herald-Record]] |location=Middletown, NY |date=2000-10-06 |access-date=2011-03-08 |first=Jeremiah |last=Horrigan}}</ref> Ironically, the state and federal government provided funding for new sewage and water systems following the disincorporation, mitigating the primary reasons residents had voted to dissolve.<ref name="gov-dissolve" /> Puusemp documented the dissolution by collecting "press clippings, council meeting minutes, and public documents"{{sfn|Purves|2004|p=118}} and publishing them after his friend, performance artist [[Paul McCarthy]], urged him to do so.{{sfn|Kaprow|2003|pp=210β211}} Both the book and the dissolution of Rosendale Village itself can be considered different facets of the same artistic work.{{sfn|Purves|2004|p=118}} The [[1980 United States census|1980 census]] listed Rosendale Village as a [[census-designated place]] (CDP).<ref name="1980-census">{{Cite book |title=1980 Census of Population |volume=1 |page=34-34 |access-date=2011-02-21 |year=1980 |publisher=[[United States Census Bureau]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PpUXAAAAYAAJ}}</ref> The former village is also considered a [[Hamlet (New York)|hamlet]], an unofficial term which refers to a named but unincorporated place in New York.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.dos.state.ny.us/lg/publications/Local_Government_Handbook.pdf |title=Local Government Handbook - Village Government: Dissolution |year=2009 |edition=6th |publisher=[[New York State Department of State]] |pages=67, 72β73 |access-date=2011-03-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101225225115/http://www.dos.state.ny.us/lg/publications/Local_Government_Handbook.pdf |archive-date=2010-12-25 }}</ref> Rosendale Village is the largest [[voting bloc]] in the town of Rosendale,<ref name="gov-dissolve" /> and of all former villages in the [[Hudson Valley]], Rosendale was the last to dissolve.<ref>{{Cite news |title=More towns and villages consider merging their services |url=http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090719/NEWS/307199960 |newspaper=[[Times Herald-Record]] |location=Middletown, NY |date=2009-07-19 |access-date=2011-03-08 |first=Meghan E. |last=Murphy}}</ref>
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