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BETHEL - After years of police blockades and big events that failed miserably, a summer concert may finally occur at the Woodstock site.
Earlier the week, a Gerry Foundation official said the group was looking into having a "family event" at the site this summer.
If it occurs, it will be the first sanctioned concert here since the original 1969 event.
"Maybe around the (August) anniversary," said Mike DiTullo, vice president of business and community development for the Gerry Foundation, the nonprofit group that now owns the site. "We just want to bring the site back to life in a carefully planned and deliberate manner."
DiTullo released no details about who might play, saying only it would depend on the availability of talent.
"We want to make sure this has a positive economic impact on the region this summer," said DiTullo. The Gerry Foundation was created last year by Alan Gerry, the former owner of Cablevision Industries, who purchased the site for his company, Granite Associates.
Last week, the Town of Bethel cleared the way for an organized event if sanctioned by the town. The town approved a law that gives immunity from the rigorous public-gathering law enacted after more than a quarter of a million music fans made their way to Bethel in August 1969.
The laws have made it difficult for local entrepeneur, Roy Howard, to stage his own annual concert on the Woodstock anniversary. Howard, who owns part of Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, is still dealing with legal troubles from an event that occurred last summer.
He had hoped to win a permit for another concert this summer. But Howard was just told by an engineer that approval would be nearly impossible on such short notice.
If Bethel gave the Gerry Foundation the OK, concert plans could sail through the processes that have stymied Howard - if the purpose of the show was to provide economic development.
"We've always been comfortable with the idea of a highly organized, well-funded, professionally run concert," said Bethel Supervisor Allan Scott, who first contacted the site owners in November to talk about a concert.
"If there's any activity out there that created economic activity for our town, we're going to support the hell out of that," Scott said. "We'll give preferential treatment to whoever it is if they're going to give that back to our community."
Others are not as comfortable with the Town Board exempting itself from its own laws.
"It's blatantly unconstitutional," said Abigail Storm, a founder of the group Woodstock Nation Foundation, which advocated free use of the site.
"It seems so conspiratorial," added Jeryl Abramson, Roy Howard's partner. "I don't believe that they're sanctioning this under color of law."
One year ago, Alan Gerry purchased the site and about 1,500 acres around it from former owner, June Gelish - a fact Storm still disputes. Gerry announced to a surprised Sullivan County he intended to build a major attraction at the site, something that would bring in tourism and tourist bucks to a depressed county.
The site is an hour from Saugerties farm where Woodstock '94 occurred. There has been talk of a large concert there in 1999.
In the past year, Gerry has been mostly silent on his plans. But on April 9, DiTullo gave a presentation to Mid-Hudson Pattern for Progress, a nonprofit planning group. During the presentation, he described a plan that could include a resort and hotel, a golf course, multiple theater venues, a Woodstock Music Hall of Fame, a themed hotel, an entertainment village, a festival area, and other attractions based on music.
Granite also has been in touch with John Scher, a New York City rock promoter.
"I've has a few very pleasant conversations with Darrell Supac (of Granite Associates)," he said recently. "He's given me the broadest of outlines of what they're doing. We're staying in touch."