The past week saw announcements and a sentence that illuminate the changes that are coming to our area, where Ulster, Sullivan and Orange Counties meet.

Resorts World, which will operate the currently-in-construction Montreign Casino in Monticello, has begun setting up its third card dealer school, this time in Ellenville.

Legoland New York received approval from the Goshen Town Board.

Kenneth Nakdimen, one of the developers behind the controversial Chestnut Ridge Townhomes project in Bloomingburg, was sentenced to six months in prison and 400 hours of community service for his role in an effort to corrupt a village election.

Take items one and two; two huge international businesses, Empire Resorts and Lego Group, both of which are essentially in the business of adding value to small pieces of plastic, have embarked on ventures that promise to bring a lot of jobs here. Now, Legoland New York is still a couple of months from getting final planning board approvals, but having the town board give the nod is a very positive sign. Legoland New York will need about 500 full-time employees, about 300 part-timers, plus another 500 seasonal workers. Meanwhile, the Montreign Casino is hiring 600 card dealers and another 800 workers in hospitality and food services.

Those are in addition to Amy's Kitchen, another large-scale firm, that is building its own plant near Goshen and will hire about 700 workers. And yes, there are other major ventures in the works, but until they're announced, we won't mention them.

Having thousands of new jobs will stimulate the local economy, from the real estate market to retail at every level. And perhaps, offer our youngsters a way to start lives here, where they grew up.

Take item three. The long-running battle over Chestnut Ridge in Bloomingburg is moving into another phase, but the fundamental issues revealed there remain. First, in a tiny village without much of a tax base, wily developers managed to extract planning permission for a relatively gigantic "cluster" development. To add 396 homes to a village of 400 people was to completely change the political dynamic of that village. But, wait, there was more. The developers, in secret messages to business interests, claimed that eventually they would construct thousands of such homes. At their trial, they dismissed those messages as blue sky dreaming, but the judge didn't buy that. And nor should we. Anything like that, a kind of 21st century Catskills Levittown, would change the electoral dynamic of Sullivan County itself. And this would be so, because the developers planned for these homes to be sold to Hasidic Jews, who tend to form a voting bloc. Also, Chestnut Ridge should be seen as one end of a problem that is growing more intense: the competition for affordable housing. Chestnut Ridge will not be the last attempt to satisfy that demand. If it can be met legally, with proper permits in place, then so be it, all Americans should have the right to find a home that suits them. The lesson of Chestnut Ridge, however, cuts two ways. Developers need to obey the laws, and communities in our area need to be aware of such things as zoning, and how their planning boards operate. When we fail to turn up for local elections, then we weaken our institutions and as has been shown, weak planning can be manipulated.

That's the good and the bad, now the ugly. Every settled community resists change. Way of the world, see Babylonian views on Kassites, Edomites and Amorites, arriving with their flocks to the ancient city. We are no different. The challenge we face is accepting that some development is both essential and inevitable. Our area has been in an economic funk for some time. New businesses and new jobs are the only answer to that problem. The NIMBY response, while understandable, is no solution. Saying you want no new building whatsoever in your town is asking for economic decline. New building is needed, but under planning control, and planning control comes from town boards elected by us. The difficult issue is where NIMBY shades into ethnic or racial prejudice. There's a long history of discrimination along those lines in this country, and it has always been ugly. So, we must walk the fine line, establishing reasonable rules to govern new development, avoiding discrimination and still retaining the rural character of our region, which remains its greatest asset and biggest draw.