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Deadline is Monday (June 23)
Although other home-energy assistance programs offered by New York State have closed for 2024-25, the application for cooling assistance such as an air conditioner or fan is still open, although the deadline is Monday (June 23).
Eligible adults who are over the age of 60 and meet income requirements can receive up to $800 per household for the purchase and installation of an window or portable air conditioner or a fan, or $1,000 for an existing wall-sleeve unit.
You may be eligible if:
Your household's gross monthly income is at or below the current income guidelines for your household size as posted in the table at otda.ny.gov/programs/heap (e.g., for a family of four, the maximum monthly gross income is $6,390) or
You receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, Temporary Assistance (TA) or
Code A Supplemental Security Income (SSI Living Alone), or
You received a regular benefit greater than $21 in the program year or received a regular benefit equal to $21 during the program year and reside in government subsidized housing with heat included in your rent, and
Your household contains at least one individual with a documented medical condition that is exacerbated by extreme heat, or
Your household contains a vulnerable member based on their age (60 years or older, or under age 6) which meet all other component eligibility criteria, and
A member of your household is a U.S. citizen or qualified non-citizen, and
You do not have a working air conditioner, or the air conditioner you have is five years old or older, and
You did not receive a HEAP-funded air conditioner within the past five years.
To learn more, Dutchess County residents can call the Department of Social Services at 845-838-4800 and Putnam County residents can call the Department of Social Services at 845-808-1500. For information about other home-energy assistance programs, see otda.ny.gov/programs/heap. -
City says it was not notified or involved
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers carried out a raid at a residence on North Elm Street on Friday (June 20) morning, according to a statement issued by Mayor Lee Kyriacou.
City officials said they do not know who was detained, the nature of the charges or whether a judicial warrant was presented.
"I want to make clear that at no time leading up to this incident did city staff, including our Police Department, have any notice of or involvement in ICE operations," Kyriacou said. "As a city, we remain committed to our safe, inclusive community policy, to preserving rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and to avoiding any policies which engender fear among law-abiding families."
The mayor said his office had been informed about the raid by residents. He said Police Chief Tom Figlia confirmed with the Federal Bureau of Investigation that an ICE operation had occurred.
Kyriacou said the city did not know the location of the person who was detained but that Figlia was "actively seeking further information."
The City Council in 2017 adopted a resolution declaring Beacon "a safe and welcoming place" where all residents should feel comfortable interacting with police and other municipal officials.
The resolution avoided using the phrase sanctuary city, a designation that had been targeted by the administration of President Donald Trump, but said that city employees and officials would not "stop, question, interrogate, investigate or arrest an individual based solely on actual or suspected immigration or citizenship status" or "inquire about the immigration status of an individual, including a crime victim, a witness, or a person who calls or approaches the police seeking assistance, unless necessary to investigate criminal activity by that individual."
Mayor's Statement
Earlier today, my office was informed by several residents of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation in the City of Beacon.
I want to make clear that at no time leading up to this incident did city staff, including our Police Department, have any notice of or involvement in ICE operations. As a city, we remain committed to our safe, inclusive community policy, to preserving rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, and to avoiding any policies which engender fear among law-abiding families.
Our city's police chief was able to confirm with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, after the fact, that an ICE operation occurred in Beacon earlier this morning. At this time, the city has no information as to the identity of the individual who was arrested or detained, the nature of the charges, or whether a judicial warrant was presented or not. The City of Beacon also has no information as to the current location of the person who was arrested or detained. Our Police Department is actively seeking further information regarding the situation at this time.
Lee Kyriacou, Mayor, City of Beacon
Regardless, the city, along with Dutchess and Putnam counties, was included last month on a list of jurisdictions the federal Department of Homeland Security accused of "obstructing" the Trump administration's effort to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. The list was removed from government websites within days.
In response, Kyriacou read this statement at the beginning of the council's June 2 meeting: "It is absolutely not the case that the city is deliberately obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration laws. While the city has yet to receive any formal communication from the federal government, we remain confident the city is abiding by all applicable state and federal laws and judicial orders. Our city and our Police Department remain committed to protecting public safety, and any statements to the contrary are misleading and inaccurate." -
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Wet weather spoils plans, but heat is on the way
Today (June 20) is the first day of summer, but if you feel like you've been stuck inside more often than not during the last seven soggy weeks of spring, it's because you probably have.
Jesse Stacken, a weather monitor who is part of the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network (CoCoRaHS), has recorded rainfall at his Beacon home 31 out of 50 days since the beginning of May. He's seen measurable precipitation 14 of the last 15 weekends, dating to March 16.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 3.72 inches of rain is normal for May in Beacon. Stacken measured 10.29 inches, "so we doubled it and then some," he said. Normal rainfall for June is 4.47 inches; Stacken's gauge had seen 3.54 inches through Thursday, including a Wednesday downpour that dumped nearly an inch in 45 minutes.
In Philipstown, CoCoRaHS monitors Joe Hirsch and Heidi Wendel have measured 24.12 inches of precipitation from Jan. 1 through Thursday, including 8.66 inches in May and 3.23 in June. During the same year-to-date period last year, the Nelsonville residents had seen 26.78 inches, with 4.33 inches falling in May 2024 and 1 inch in June through the 19th.
The rain has flooded fields and set production back at Common Ground Farm in Wappingers Falls. In addition to losing about 200 feet of kale - a third of what had been planted - and tomatoes to flooding, Rhys Bethke, Common Ground's farm manager, said it was difficult this spring using a tractor on wet, compacted soil.
"If you can't get the fields prepared in time, you don't have crops in time," Bethke said. Fungal and bacterial infections have also been more common because they thrive in wet conditions.
Foot traffic, particularly on the weekends, has been down on Main Street in Cold Spring, said Fran Farnorotto, the owner of The Gift Hut. "There are a lot of things that are impacting sales," she said, "weather being one of the issues."
Ben Noll, a meteorologist who grew up in Orange County and now lives in New Zealand, tracks weather for The Washington Post. He noted via email this week that rainfall in the Hudson Valley has been close to average in 2025.
January through April saw below-average precipitation, but May was the "big, wet standout." June could end up having above-average rainfall, as well, he said.
And while it's felt cool lately, temperatures in April, May and June were slightly warmer than the long-term (1991 to 2020) average. But because the climate is changing quickly, Noll said, people have grown accustomed to above-average temperatures. When conditions are more "old normal" than "new normal," it may feel cooler than it really is.
"The polar vortex, which is responsible for keeping cold air locked up in the Arctic, has been more disturbed than normal this year, allowing strands of cold air to surge southward in the central and eastern United States with greater regularity," Noll said, adding that the same pattern led temperatures to reach near 80 degrees in Iceland in May, a record for that country. "That pattern is finished now and we're about to see a big, warmer and more humid change in our weather."
Indeed, we are. Temperatures are expected to reach 98 degrees on Monday and Tuesday. Rombout Middle School in Beacon will dismiss students at 11:15 a.m. both days; the district's four elementary schools will dismiss at 12:10 p.m. The Regents week schedule at Beacon High School, which is air-conditioned, is unchanged.
Here's why extreme heat is coming. The jet stream is about to be pushed north of the U.S., Noll said, creating a "heat dome" effect. "This essentially lumps our weather into the same basket as Florida, Texas and the rest of the South," he said.
Noll's outlook for the rest of summer is hot and humid, especially at night, "because of extremely warm ocean temperatures in the western Atlantic and Gulf." He predicts that downpours will never be far away, although "I expect there to be plenty ... -
Project raises concerns about flooding
A proposal by the Hoving Home in Garrison to relocate a section of Philips Brook is projected to reduce flooding along Snake Hill Road but is raising concerns that it will aggravate overflows on Avery Road and raise water levels downstream.
Sondra Shah, a water resources engineer with Inter-Fluve, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Beth Greco, Hoving's president and CEO, on June 10 introduced an application for a wetlands permit to the Philipstown Conservation Board.
Shah said that, using a $1 million state grant, the Garrison treatment program for women plans to remove a 10-foot-high dam built to create a swimming pond and shift 800 feet of the brook flowing across its property between Avery and Walter Hoving roads north.
Despite multiple repairs, the dam and the stone walls constraining the brook as it heads west to Constitution Marsh have suffered extensive damage from storms, which are occurring more often, said Shah. Water released by the dam's failure could damage downstream properties, making the structure a risk to public safety, she said.
"There's leakage through the dam, failure of the masonry and the reservoir is filled with invasives like knotweed and phragmites," said Shah.
Along with the dam, some sections of the stone wall will be removed, as will one of the footbridges crossing the brook and one of its three weirs. Dirt excavated for the new channel will fill 300 feet of the brook's existing pathway and the two remaining weirs.
Inter-Fluve has applied to the Army Corps of Engineers to release some of the sediment impounded by the dam downstream.
The new channel will be wider and shallower than the existing one. Boulders will be placed along its bed to create "step pools" - areas of deeper water whose goal is to slow the water's flow and reduce erosion of the banks. The pools also provide "resting stops" for fish and oxygen-rich water during periods of turbulence, said Shah.
Inter-Fluve, which is also seeking a permit from the state Department of Environmental Conservation, will cover the new bank with native plants. In addition, said Shah, the reconstruction will avoid two areas of "archeological sensitivity" identified in consultation with the State Historic Preservation Office, which considers the property eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.
According to Inter-Fluve, modeling shows that the project will reduce flooding on Snake Hill Road without increasing the risk of flooding downstream of the site. "Rivers are supposed to flood, and that's typical, but this [existing] channel with the stone walls is highly undersized," Shah said.
While flooding along Snake Hill Road is projected to lessen, the configuration will send "additional flow" to a culvert on the Avery side of Hoving's property, according to project documents. It will also raise the brook's elevation downstream by 1 inch during a 10-year storm and 2 inches during a 100-year storm, according to Shah.
To address Avery Road, Hoving has received $200,000 to redesign a town-owned culvert and is planning to apply for another grant to underwrite its reconstruction, said Greco, adding that Hoving is "not going to flood our downstream neighbors. We won't do the project. We'll figure out something else, if we can't."
Andy Galler, who chairs the Conservation Board, requested that Inter-Luve create additional modeling to show how the reconfigured brook will affect residents living below Avery Road - "probably across Route 9D."
Two Avery Road residents, Marianne Sullivan and her husband, James Hoch, also expressed concerns. In addition to more flooding on their street, Sullivan worried that releasing the sediment impounded by the dam would harm trout downstream. Hoch said that heavier flooding on Avery could damage the septic fields of its residents.
Hoch said that he felt "comforted" while reading the project documents before the meeting, but "now I'm a little worried, because I see this as movi... -
Cold Spring fan hooked for decades
The blockbuster Jaws was released 50 years ago today (June 20), and although Cold Spring resident Courtney Clark wasn't born until a decade later, it didn't stop her from becoming a megafan of the ocean thriller.
"I've watched it at least 100 times," she says.
Based on a novel by Peter Benchley and directed by Stephen Spielberg, Jaws is set in the fictional New England island community of Amity, where a great white appears at peak tourist season, terrorizing residents and visitors. After the predator has claimed three victims, Police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), marine biologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and shark hunter Capt. Quint (Robert Shaw) head out in the fishing boat Orca to confront the menace. The hunt does not go well.
Clark first watched Jaws when she was 10, in Pleasantville, when her family rented the video. "My mom finally decided I was old enough," she recalls. "I was scared, but I didn't appreciate all the nuances I've come to love about the film."
Within a year, Clark saw it again, in a friend's darker, scarier basement. By her mid-teens, she was hooked, watching it about three times a year. That habit continues four decades later. "I watch it as much as my husband Dan will tolerate," she says with a laugh.
Clark says her favorite line in the 124-minute film is when Quint, aboard Orca, offers a toast to Hooper and Brody: "Here's to swimming with bow-legged women."
She can recite much of the movie's dialogue from memory, except for Quint's "Indianapolis" speech. In the monologue, one of the movie's most gripping scenes, Quint recounts in grizzly detail the story of the USS Indianapolis, which was torpedoed by the Japanese near the Philippines in July 1945 during World War II and sank in 12 minutes. Only 316 of 890 sailors survived in the shark-infested waters.
Clark feels the movie, which cost $9 million (about $54 million today) to make and grossed $478 million worldwide ($2.9 billion), stands the test of time, even after half a century. "It's always as exciting as the first time I watched it," she says. "Even though I know every scene and what's coming, it's still shocking. I still find details I hadn't noticed before.
"I love its style, the '70s, the outfits; it's a little slice of life of that time," she says. "It's so perfectly made; every shot is like a work of art."
Her favorite scene is when the shark attacks young Alex Kintner in a rubber raft near the beach. "The camera pans, you see people walking by, and it keeps going back and forth between Brody's face and the water. The feel of that scene is amazing."
Her scariest scene: When they find fisherman Ben Gardner's boat, badly damaged by the shark. Hooper goes into the water, and Gardner's head pops out from a hole in the side of the boat.
Her favorite character: "Brody, Quint and Hooper are all incredible, but I relate most to Hooper; I appreciate that he's a marine biologist."
Events behind the scenes also captured Clark's imagination. "The making of Jaws is as iconic as the film," she said, adding that The Jaws Log, by Carl Gottlieb, the film's screenwriter, details what went on during filming, most of which was on Martha's Vineyard. Clark finds it especially amusing that producers toyed with trying to train a shark to play the central character, rather than building a mechanical double.
Gottlieb's book describes how residents coped with a movie crew disrupting life on the island and how the filmmakers dealt with a fake shark that rarely functioned as planned.
Ironically, those difficulties may have contributed to the movie's success. There were so many problems with the shark, nicknamed "Bruce" after Spielberg's lawyer, that it appears on screen for only four minutes. "The fact that they had such limited footage makes it much more suspenseful when you actually see the shark," Clark says.
Unlike many critics and fans, she enjoyed all three sequels: Jaws 2, Jaws 3 and Jaws: The Revenge, with Michael... -
Editor's note: Beacon was created in 1913 from Matteawan and Fishkill Landing.
150 Years Ago (June 1875)
A Matteawan judge fined three drunken young men from Newburgh $25 [about $730 today] for throwing coal at pedestrians.
According to the Matteawan correspondent for The Cold Spring Recorder: "This village is a very peculiar place and most miserably governed. Our people support over 60 gin mills - most of which are running full blast on the Sabbath."
A Fishkill Landing resident was selling his trotting stallion, Nicotine.
The body of a female newborn was found in the back of the ladies' waiting room at the Fishkill Landing train depot.
John Falconer, of the Seamless Clothing Co. in Matteawan, was building a second factory to make Brussels-style patterned carpets.
Commodore Thomas Ramsdell installed a buoy between Low Point and the Fishkill Landing dock to mark a sandbar where vessels often went aground.
Three Matteawan boys were brought before Justice Schenck for playing ball in the street. One was fined $1 [$30] and the others were dismissed.
A Fishkill Landing trustee obtained arrest warrants for three men accused of racing their horses on Sunday, in violation of village ordinance.
A bull and three cows died on a farm near Fishkill from an unknown disease. Before dying, the animals threw back their heads and walked in circles for 12 to 14 hours.
Smith Van Buren, a Fishkill Landing resident who was the son of former President Martin Van Buren, was confined to the Hudson River Hospital for the Insane in Poughkeepsie with dementia. [Van Buren died the following year, at age 59, and is buried at St. Luke's Church.]
George Peattie, while drunk, came into Drewen's barbershop in Fishkill Landing and attacked James Gogswell as he sat in the chair.
Zebulon Phillips, 80, a farmer near Fishkill, was killed when he fell off his roof, which he was repairing.
125 Years Ago (June 1900)
James W.F. Ruttenber, editor of the Newburgh Sunday Telegram, was found guilty of publishing an obscene newspaper based on gossip printed in his Feb. 4 issue. The jury deliberated for less than 10 minutes. Ruttenber had been indicted in Dutchess County because the Telegram was distributed in Fishkill Landing and Matteawan. The judge sentenced the editor to 15 days in jail and a $15 fine [$575].
The offending paragraphs, by an unnamed Fishkill and Matteawan correspondent, included a report that "a Landing girl sent word to a young man in town that he could see her disrobe for 10 cents. Of course, the young man was unnerved by so sudden and cheap an offer. Still, there is no telling what she will do next if he doesn't accept her proposition. Take her up, George, before she changes her mind." He also wrote: "Poker as it is played on Cedar Street does not always require a pocket full of money. I am told that the females in the house are sometimes put up as an equivalent."
Clarence Chatham Cook (below) died at his home at Fishkill Landing at age 72. The Harvard graduate gained fame in 1863 with critical articles on American art in the New York Tribune. "He treated most of the work of American artists with merciless sarcasm and injured his influence by his extreme verdicts," according to one obituary. Cook later caused a stir when he suggested that many of the statues from Cyprus in the newly opened Metropolitan Museum of Art were fakes. He created an art periodical, The Studio, and in 1878 published a book, The House Beautiful: Essays on Beds and Tables, Stools and Candlesticks.
Two brickyards at Dutchess Junction employed about 100 Black men who migrated each year from Virginia and North Carolina. They ate in squads of 25, with one man appointed to cook in a camp kettle. Many brought their fiddles and banjos from the South.
The residents of Fishkill Landing voted to install sewers.
James Greene, of Fishkill Landing, was admitted to West Point as an alternate after a candidate from Kingston failed the entrance exam. He was the son of Maj. Henry A. Greene, w... -
Fishkill wants water, sewer and smaller units
New York State is reworking its development plans for the former Downstate Correctional Facility just outside of Beacon, including a 15 percent reduction in housing at the 80-acre site, after negotiations with the Town of Fishkill.
Supervisor Ozzy Albra said in an email to residents on May 30 that he and other officials have met with Empire State Development and Conifer Realty twice since the state awarded development rights to the Rochester firm. The result of those meetings, he said, is that the mixed-use development will have about 1,100 housing units, 200 fewer than first reported.
The town is also pushing for municipal benefits such as the extension of water and sewer facilities to the site, Albra said.
The state development agency announced in June 2024 that Conifer, which has offices in New York, New Jersey and Maryland, had been selected to convert the former maximum-security prison into a residential campus with community space.
The project was said to support Gov. Kathy Hochul's campaign to build 15,000 housing units to address a statewide shortage, as well as recommendations made by the Prison Redevelopment Commission, an advisory panel the governor created to consider repurposing closed prisons. The first phase of construction in 2026 was to include 375 housing units, with at least 20 percent set aside for households earning less than 80 percent of the area's annual median income ($97,056).
Albra at the time called the idea a "bad deal for the taxpayers" that, if built as proposed, would overwhelm Fishkill.
A Conifer representative this week confirmed the reduction in housing units. Muammar Hermanstyne, its vice president of development, said in an email that Conifer had signed a contract with New York State "giving us site control." If a preliminary proposal is approved, he said, Conifer could bring an application to the Fishkill Planning Board as early as this fall.
Hermanstyne did not respond when asked who would need to approve the preliminary proposal, writing only that Conifer looks forward "to providing more details as we continue working with the community and local officials."
An Empire State Development representative seemed to contradict part of Hermanstyne's statement, calling Conifer the project's "conditional designee." The company is finalizing a development plan with Empire State and the Town of Fishkill, "at which point a binding development agreement can be executed," the spokesperson said. Until them, the state's request for proposals at the site "will continue to be an open procurement."
Hermanstyne said Conifer has agreed to limit construction to 2½-story buildings because the nearest fire department, in Glenham, does not have a ladder truck.
In a statement released last year, the Glenham Fire District, which for years served Downstate prison through a contract with New York State, said its boundaries would need to be expanded to include the redeveloped site. The department relied on tanker trucks because the surrounding homes use wells for their water, while Beacon provided water and sewer service at the prison.
Until Conifer and the state "figure out proper fire coverage," the project "isn't going to go anywhere," Albra said on June 3.
In addition to asking New York State to extend municipal water and sewer service to the site, the supervisor said he will advocate specialized housing, such as for seniors or veterans, and smaller units, to keep from overwhelming Glenham Elementary, which is part of the Beacon City School District.
In a letter to Hochul last July, the Beacon school board said its four elementary schools, including Glenham, are "already at or near capacity." While the district lost 675 students between the 2012-13 and 2023-24 academic years, according to state data, recent initiatives to reduce class sizes would suffer from a sudden influx of students, officials said.
Citing Hochul's support of walkable communities, Fishkill al... -
Philipstown organization gets a triple boost
Seamus Carroll and his wife, Marie Wieck, began shopping at Foodtown in Cold Spring when it opened in 2003 following a fire that had destroyed the previous supermarket at the location, the Grand Union.
Like other customers, they started accumulating 10 points in Foodtown loyalty awards for every dollar spent. The points could be redeemed for grocery gift cards.
Three months ago, the couple became the first Foodtown customers to reach 1 million points, according to the store manager, Mike Wilson.
Carroll said they decided to push for 1 million in 2008, when they hit 100,000. "It became a family joke," he said, noting he would scold his daughters if they cashed in points to get discounts at the checkout. "I told them we were saving for 1 million; they laughed at that."
When they hit the mark earlier this year, Carroll sent a photo of the receipt to his daughters, who live in England and China, respectively. They responded with smiley faces, he said.
This week, Carroll and Wieck donated their points to the Philipstown Food Pantry, which operates on Saturday mornings at the First Presbyterian Church in Cold Spring. The pantry redeemed the points for $1,150 in Foodtown gift cards. The supermarket donated another $350 in cards for an even $1,500.
"We thought this would be a way to leverage the gift cards, prompting others to donate," Carroll said. "It's a reminder that you can give points to the food pantry [at the customer service desk]; I'm sure people forget this option."
The food pantry will receive another unexpected gift on Saturday (June 14) when Donna Anderson delivers a $1,017 donation from Philipstown Senior Citizens of Putnam County, which disbanded at the end of 2024.
Food Insecurity Widespread
Even amid wealth, many people struggle to make ends meet. An annual report by the United Way known as ALICE (for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) "is an alarm bell for what we see every Saturday" at the Philipstown Food Pantry, said Kiko Lattu, its coordinator. In May, the pantry provided food and other necessities to an average of 71 households each week.
The United Way argues that the federal poverty level does not accurately reflect the number of people struggling financially to meet basic needs. Using census and other federal data, it calculated for its latest report, released in May, that 38 percent of Cold Spring/Philipstown and 35 percent of Garrison households don't earn enough to cover the costs of essentials such as housing, food, transportation, health care, child care and a basic phone plan.
"Even more troubling, 51 percent of seniors and about two-thirds of single-parent households in Putnam County are likely struggling," Lattu said.
In Putnam County, the United Way calculated that a single adult needs at least $54,180 annually to meet basic needs, or $135,660 for a family of two adults with two children in child care.
In Beacon, the United Way calculated that 42 percent of the city's 8,367 households struggle to meet a basic survival budget for Dutchess County of $40,296 for a single adult with $114,996 for a family of two adults and two children in child care. By contrast, the federal poverty level is $14,580 for an individual and $30,000 for a family of four.
Anderson, who served as president for the final two years, said the club was formed in 1974 and at one time had more than 100 members. But by last year, the remaining members voted to dissolve the club and donate its fund balance to the pantry because many seniors suffer from food insecurity.
Anderson was a vocal advocate for establishing a county senior center at the redeveloped Butterfield Hospital site. After the Philipstown Friendship Center opened there in 2018, she said the need for a seniors' group diminished.
On June 1, a Nelsonville family - Karen and Ryan Peters and their daughters, Callie and Sadie - set up a table outside Foodtown to solicit donations for the pantry. In less than three ho... -
Plans for environmental education complex in doubt
An ambitious plan to transform an abandoned paperclip factory at Dennings Point in Beacon into an environmental education complex is in doubt because Clarkson University has left the site.
A representative from the state parks department, which partnered with the university because it owns the land, confirmed last week that Clarkson, which operated the Beacon Institute of Rivers and Estuaries (BIRE) at the site, "elected to leave the facilities" in October.
Clarkson had operated its BIRE Water Ecology Center in a renovated, 19th-century brickworks building and started transforming the factory into the Beatrice G. Donofrio Environmental Education Complex. A representative from Clarkson said that the university "concluded the multi-year research we were doing at Beacon and decided to withdraw from the site." Clarkson said BIRE will continue to provide programming to K-12 schools.
The Water Ecology Center, which hosted lectures and classes, has sustainable features such as a green roof, natural ventilation and composting toilets. It received LEED Gold certification as an adaptive project.
State parks said it has not determined what it will do with the two buildings, although it does plan to update the HVAC in the Water Ecology Center. The agency is also responsible for the repaved walkways, new benches and informational kiosks installed last fall.
Clarkson announced its intention in May 2020 to transform the paperclip factory into the Donofrio complex. The exterior shell was completed in 2021, the same year that BIRE moved from its offices at 199 Main St. in Beacon into the Water Ecology Center.
In 2022, state parks announced it would make a $3.2 million investment in the site; a representative from Parks said on Friday (June 13) that because the project did not move forward, those funds were reallocated. However, state parks has since completed a $1.2 million project to improve the steel structure and add solar panels to the roof.
When the project was announced in 2020, Michael Walsh, then the president of BIRE, said the former factory was in good shape. "The majority of the building is salvageable," he said. "The concrete floor meets 100-year flood standards, and the structural seal is sound." -
Fields questions about Social Security, military parade
Rep. Mike Lawler, whose district includes Philipstown, held a town hall on June 8 at Mahopac High School, the third in a series of four he has promised constituents.
After being introduced by Kevin Byrne, the Putnam County executive, Lawler spent two hours fielding questions about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which passed the U.S. House, 215-214, with Lawler's support and is being amended by the Senate.
In addition to tax cuts and an increase to the cap on deductions for state and local taxes, the legislation contains changes to programs like Medicaid and food stamps that are expected to lead to a loss of benefits for some enrollees. Lawler also fielded questions about Social Security, cuts to foreign aid and the estimated $45 million price tag for a military parade being held in Washington, D.C., on Saturday (June 14), which is President Donald Trump's birthday.
Below are some of Lawler's statements and a review of statistics he cited.
"We [New York] spend 83 percent more on Medicaid than the average of the other 49 states."
According to data from KFF (formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation), Medicaid spending in New York totaled just under $98 billion in 2023, second only to California. The spending was 83.77 percent more than the average for the other 49 states.
However, the average does not account for each state's population. Wyoming, for example, has 588,000 residents, compared to 20 million in New York. It also means using costs in states that, unlike New York, opted out of a provision in the Affordable Care Act to expand Medicaid so that more people qualify; the federal government pays 90 percent of the additional cost.
Alternative methods to measure Medicaid spending among the states include per-capita or per-enrollee. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, New York ranked fourth in per-capita Medicaid spending in 2022 ($11,203), behind North Dakota, Minnesota and Pennsylvania. The national average was $8,919. New York placed third among states in Medicaid spending per enrollee in 2021 ($9,688), according to KFF. Virginia and Minnesota had the highest per-enrollee spending.
"If [the Tax Cut and Jobs Act] expired, it would have been about a $4,000 increase in taxes on the average family in our district."
The Tax Cut and Jobs Act, passed in 2017 during the first Trump administration, expires this year. If it is not extended by Congress, taxes will increase in the 17th Congressional District, on average, by $3,530, according to the Tax Foundation, a think tank founded in 1937 that analyzes tax policy.
Drilling down to specific income levels with a calculator created by the Tax Foundation (dub.sh/tax-calculator), annual taxes would increase by $933 for a single person without dependents who earns $50,000 annually, and by $2,622 for an individual earning $100,000.
Taxes would increase by $5,091 annually for a married couple with two children and a household income of $150,000; the same couple earning $250,000 would owe $9,320 more. Those scenarios omit 401(k) contributions and other deductions, but the calculator can adjust for those, as well as other household sizes.
"There are over 3 million people in this country who are able-bodied adults, without dependents, who refuse to work."
Lawler is referring to Medicaid coverage. A provision in the House's version of the One Big Beautiful Bill requires that able-bodied recipients between ages 19 and 64 who don't have dependents work at least 80 hours monthly or be participating in a "qualifying activity," such as job training.
The work requirement would increase the ranks of the uninsured by 4.8 million people by 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Although the CBO did not specify why people would lose coverage, Republicans have equated the figure with people who chose not to work.
According to the KFF, 64 percent of the 26.1 million adults between ages 19 and 64 receiving Medic... -
Philipstown also approves zoning for solar
Philipstown is planning to bill the Garrison Landing Water District's nine users for the first time in over a decade and require them to reimburse the town for some of the $2 million it has spent buying water and digging a new well.
The Town Board has scheduled a public hearing for June 24 on a proposal to borrow $500,000 for the Garrison Landing Water District, whose residents and businesses are receiving water from the new well drilled and connected at town expense when the existing wells failed.
Philipstown also purchased water for the district and repaired leaks in its system to the extent that it has "basically repaired every single water line in Garrison Landing at this point," Supervisor John Van Tassel said when the board met on June 5.
Now it is looking to recoup some of those expenses through the bonding, which will be repaid by water district users. "We will stretch the bond payments out for as long as we can to make it easier for them, but they will ultimately be responsible for paying back a good portion of this," Van Tassel added on Wednesday (June 11).
Part of the proposed borrowing will fund meters. The existing meters have not worked in 15 years, said Van Tassel. The town did not have money for the meters, he said, and had been mistakenly told that state law prohibited billing users more than the $20,000 annually they've been paying collectively since the town acquired the system in 1998.
"We will come up with a flat rate for residential use, we're going to come up with a flat rate for commercial use, and then there will be a rate per gallon for the water usage," said Van Tassel at the June 5 meeting. "Everybody will pay their fair share for water."
A state audit released in May calculated that Philipstown spent $2.4 million between 2018 and 2023 to fill Garrison Landing's water needs, shrinking its general-fund balance from $1 million to $53,137. Annual expenses for the district rose during the same period from about $85,000 to $975,000, "the most significant factor of the town's financial decline," the audit said.
Solar guidelines
The Town Board on June 5 approved zoning for private and commercial solar systems. Under the guidelines, property owners who want to install roof- or ground-mounted systems for personal use can do so if they follow the regulatory process required for accessory structures, such as garages.
The zoning limits the height of panels on pitched roofs to 8 inches, flat roofs to 2 feet or the height of parapets, and ground-mounted solar systems to 12 feet. Panels must have anti-reflective coating and ground-mounted systems cannot be larger than 5,000 square feet and must be shielded from neighbors.
Commercial solar farms are allowed everywhere except the Ridgeline Protection District and only in the Scenic Overlay District with a special permit. The guidelines specify that solar farms, "to the greatest extent possible," be installed on industrial properties; Superfund sites that have undergone environmental cleanup; mining sites; abandoned parcels; landfills; parking lots; and the roofs of commercial buildings.
In addition, companies building community solar projects, which allow residents to buy shares of the electricity they generate, must target Philipstown residents for subscriptions, particularly low- and moderate-income households. Requests for variances can be made to the Zoning Board of Appeals.
Solar farms capable of generating up to 5 megawatts of electricity need 7-foot-high fencing with a self-locking gate to secure the mechanical equipment. Systems over 1 megawatt need a plan for decommissioning, removal and site restoration. -
Concert will benefit Beacon exchange program
Ten years ago, singer and actor Kelly Ellenwood lost her voice after contracting whooping cough, an ironic twist because for four years she played the part of an opera prima donna who began singing like a frog in The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway.
To help regain the vocalizing, in 2016 she joined Stephen Clair (guitar) and Kathleen Bosman (violin, viola) to perform songs by German American composer Kurt Weill and French chanteuse Edith Piaf. On June 22, at 6 p.m., the Saint Rita trio (supported by Nate Allen and Brad Hubbard) will perform a program called Lost & Found at the Howland Cultural Center in Beacon featuring deep cuts and popular songs from the pair's repertoire.
The show is a benefit for Beacon High School's German American Partnership Program, established in 2022 with support from the German founders of the Beacon-based software firm Docuware. It brings foreign students to Beacon in October. On June 28, to complete the annual exchange, 18 Beacon teens and two teachers leave for Munich.
Ellenwood, known for getting things done around town, got the call and implemented the nuts and bolts with the Parent Teacher Student Organization. This year, with help from the U.S. State Department and the Goethe Institute in Manhattan, the school district took over responsibility for its administration.
Growing up in Nebraska, Ellenwood studied in Finland as an exchange student and aimed to be a diplomat, but the arts beckoned. There is no German language program at Beacon High School, she says, but "last year, a bunch of students, led by Skylar Clair, started a German study group and some of the kids are going this year, so this is changing lives."
Rita, "patron saint of the impossible," says Ellenwood, is also the name of a new 100-seat music venue at the KuBe Art Center that she and her family plan to open with trombonist Dick Griffin on July 19 in the former high school's band room. Relevant to the concert, Piaf is said to have asked friends "to pray for Saint Rita, patron saint of lost causes" before her death from liver cancer in 1963 at age 47.
The June 22 show will include Piaf's most popular song, "La Vie En Rose," which sold 1 million discs in the U.S. when released as a single in 1947. After Mack David translated the lyrics into English in 1950, eight artists charted with it, including Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong.
Weill fused pop and classical music and collaborated with Ogden Nash, Bertolt Brecht and Ira Gershwin, among others. His hits include "Mack the Knife," "Bilbao Song" and "Alabama Song" (covered as "Whisky Bar" on the first album by The Doors). "We do a down-and-dirty version" of the latter, says Ellenwood, which is saying something because the song is about "prostitutes looking for the next trick - sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll - in 1930."
The Howland Cultural Center is located at 477 Main St. in Beacon. Tickets are $20 at dub.sh/saint-rita-show. -
Garrison filmmakers examine the question
The team behind Ironbound Films leans into its religious roots.
"We met at a Jewish sleepaway camp as kids - it's such a part of our identity," says Jeremy Newberger, one of three director/producers at the documentary film and commercial video office located at Garrison's Landing. "Part of the crisis du jour is that the far right and the far left are united in their hatred of Jews. We were taught to embrace our Judaism and love for Israel."
Ironbound's most recent film, released this year, is Fiddler on the Moon, about Jewish astronauts. According to their cheeky marketing copy, which Newberger says was inspired by Mel Brooks' Spaceballs, the film "finally answers the question that has plagued scientists, theologians and comedians for millennia: Will Judaism survive in space?"
Many cities, small and large, host Jewish film festivals; over the summer, the crew will screen the 30-minute documentary in Dayton, Ohio; Toronto; Rochester; Berkshire, Massachusetts; and Tampa. They also screen films for Jewish organizations, camps and foundations.
At first, the trio, which includes Seth Kramer and Daniel Miller, tackled secular topics like climate change (The Anthropologist), talk show host Morton Downey Jr. (Evocateur) and dying languages (The Linguist), but a friend who worked for Major League Baseball suggested they cover the Israeli national baseball team, made up mostly of American Jews.
Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel led to a second film about the club's experience at the 2021 Olympics, Israel Swings for Gold. After completing Yung Punx, a doc about a band of 8- to 12-year-olds who headlined at the Warped Tour, Ironbound produced Blind Spot, an examination of antisemitism on college campuses.
"We're all in our 50s, and there comes a time when you realize that you got away from your faith," says Newberger. "Doing the baseball film got us reconnected to the values and religion we grew up with. It hit us. We identified."
Ironbound has filmed on nearly every continent (including on the Pacific Ocean island of Kiribati). Funding comes from business clients, angel investors and grants from the National Science Foundation.
Now in production is a documentary about David "Mickey" Marcus, the only person buried at West Point who fought for a foreign country. David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, handpicked Marcus to establish the nascent nation's army in 1948 during the war for independence. Killed by friendly fire, Marcus was the last fatality of the conflict before the United Nations implemented a truce between Israel and its neighbors.
"When you think you've heard it all, you come across Mickey Marcus, who is an incredible but little-known figure," says Kramer. "On its own, the story is a winner: Before he went to Israel, he helped put mobster Lucky Luciano away, drafted surrender papers for Italy used for all the other Axis powers and helped define the term war crime for the Nuremberg trials."
The film will investigate why Marcus' name recognition is limited and how the 1966 Hollywood biopic, Cast a Giant Shadow, starring Kirk Douglas, John Wayne and Frank Sinatra, flopped at the box office.
For more information, see ironboundfilms.com. -
Tour guide continues Seaman saga
Robin Lucas does her homework to enhance her Beacon walking tours, which center on ghosts.
Her tales reveal horrors that took place at the Matteawan State Hospital, ostensibly for insane criminals, and belie the notion that the facility offered "moral treatment," in vogue through the 1950s, with a gentle experience for patients in a stress-free, routine environment.
Building on her first video, The Abraham Seaman Tragedy, Lucas returns with two sequels that feature a cadre of then-famous inmates. Part 3 intimates that Nellie Seaman, committed in 1907 without trial for allegedly shooting her husband, exacted revenge in 1913 by conjuring a storm to torment her enemies.
Lucas also released a video about the city's Omnibus War in 1876, which features characters from the Seaman saga and chronicles a period of "mob law" and "roisterous" drunks as two horse-drawn carriage companies competed for business. The videos include revealing photos, zippy narratives and contemporary newspaper accounts.
"I want people to hit the stop button and read a little, although what appeared in print muddies the water because a lot of it was hearsay and twisted into a point of view," she says. "The facts were there to be manipulated."
A prevalent theme in the Seaman series is the railroading of women into the Matteawan hospital to "shut them up and put them away," says Lucas.
In 1908, Jennie Blunt wounded lawyer Charles Sanford in Brooklyn for drugging and raping her, she said. A New York Times headline read: "Shot at His Desk by a Crazy Woman." The authorities declared her insane and she ended up at Matteawan.
"There were all these accusations of wealthy men committing sexual crimes and getting away with it," says Lucas. "Just like the Jeffrey Epstein and Diddy cases, so far, no list has ever been made public."
Though Matteawan guards sometimes abused their power, the job could be dangerous: In 1906, killer Lizzie Halliday (known as "the worst woman in the world") stabbed nurse Nellie Wicks 200 times with a pair of scissors.
Inmate Dora Schram, who served alongside Seaman and was released in 1911, claimed that the "actively unkind" nurses acted like "savages," which led patients to "hit back whenever possible," making everyone in the prison "all crazy together."
For Lucas, who contends that her historic home in Beacon is haunted, the videos augment her walking tours, "otherwise we would be standing outside for four hours," she says.
"In my ghost tour, you have to suspend some disbelief, but I found facts surrounding all of this, put it together and laid it out, like, 'Look what happened, what do you think?' "
For more information on Beacon Walking Tours, see beaconwalkingtours.com or call 845-440-5300. Lucas' videos are posted at youtube.com/@BWT7773. -
250 Years Ago (June 1775)
British troops in New York City were evacuated to transports anchored in the harbor. A small group of Sons of Liberty confiscated five wagonloads of royal weapons.
Maj. Gen. Philip Schuyler of New York and George Washington, the newly appointed commander of the army, left Philadelphia for New York City. Addressing fears of military rule, Washington reassured the New York Provincial Congress that, after the establishment of liberty, he would return to private life.
On June 26, Washington and Schuyler crossed King's Bridge into Westchester County. The next day, slowed by well-wishers, they made it only as far as New Rochelle, where Schuyler headed to Albany and Washington toward Boston.
150 Years Ago (June 1875)
John Cox, the flagman at Garrison's station, was suspicious of banks and paper money. On a Thursday night, while John was at work, five masked men pushed through the door and bound Mrs. Cox and the couple's two sons, ages 14 and 20. After ransacking the house, they left with a box of silver and gold coins valued at $1,100 [about $32,000 today]. Two tramps at the station were arrested after the Cox family said they resembled the suspects - one with a dark complexion, an ugly face and a bad eye and another who was "more honest-looking."
Signor Sebastian, a circus performer, broke his leg at a Friday performance in Cold Spring when he was thrown from a horse while riding bareback seated in a chair. He was taken to the Pacific Hotel and, a few days later, returned by train to his home in New York City. A few weeks later, a baggage-car fire on a sidetrack in Connecticut destroyed all the troupe's baggage and musical instruments.
Shortly after midnight, Thomas McAndrew, the watchman at the lower railroad switches, heard a noise and found two men standing at a broken door on a freight car on the sidetrack. When the larger man put his hand into his pocket and threatened to shoot, McAndrew dropped him with a shot to the neck. The man - who said his name was McKinseynally - was taken to Town Hall, where Dr. Murdock removed the bullet.
Three people held solid-silver life passes for the Hudson River Railroad: John Jervis, the first chief engineer, his wife and Gouverneur Kemble of Cold Spring, the founder of West Point Foundry and an early supporter of the railroad.
Commodore Foote and his sister, Eliza, "celebrated Lilliputians," performed at Town Hall. The Indiana natives claimed to be the smallest people in the world and were as well-known in their time as Tom Thumb.
A six-horse team delivered a 7,530-pound load of bedplate to Sunk Mine for its steam-powered machines.
The Methodist Episcopal Church held its annual Strawberry, Ice Cream and Floral Festival.
The Recorder noted that a new state law made it illegal, punishable with a fine of up to $10 [$290], to mutilate shade trees near schools, churches, public buildings or highways. "It is well known that people from the farming districts are the principal offenders," the editor wrote. "They come into town to do some business and seek a comfortable shade for their teams. All right, so far; but how about the shade next year if the horses girdle the trees while standing thereat?"
A reader complained to The Recorder that people were taking water by the barrel from the Main Street pumps to irrigate their strawberries and gardens.
After the first baseball game of the season on Vinegar Hill between a club from West Point and the Kellogg team (which the latter won, 22-19), the Newburgh Telegraph said the Army boys lost only because of the "considerable partiality shown by the umpire who, of course, proved to be a resident of Cold Spring." The Recorder retorted that the visitors lost because they did not score enough runs.
On a Tuesday at noon, while Isaiah Jaycox of the Highlands was driving at a good speed down Main Street seated atop a cord of wood, a front wheel on his wagon fell off as he passed High Street. Passersby lifted the corner of the wagon with... -
Accuse president of meddling with scholarships
Nearly all the members of a board overseeing the prestigious Fulbright scholarships resigned Wednesday (June 11) in protest of what they call the Trump administration's meddling with the selection of award recipients for the international exchange program.
A Philipstown resident, Sophia Ptacek, earlier this year lost her Fulbright fellowship to spend nine months working on industrial decarbonization and air pollution reduction for a Colombian government ministry. "I'm holding on to hope that it could still happen," said Ptacek, who grew up in Garrison and Cold Spring and attended the Poughkeepsie Day School. "But I am in limbo. It's sad."
Ptacek last year completed a dual master's program at Yale University in environmental management and public health. She also was selected for a Fulbright Public Policy Fellowship, part of a U.S. State Department international exchange and education program suspended by the White House in February.
Ptacek wanted to help reduce air pollution in Colombia. "There's quite a lot of manufacturing and heavy industry, and as a result, a lot of air pollution that has public health impacts for communities near these plants," she said.
The Fulbright board resignations were first reported by The New York Times. A statement published online by members said the administration usurped the board's authority by denying awards to "a substantial number of people" who already had been chosen to study and teach in the U.S. and abroad. Another 1,200 foreign award recipients who were already approved to come to the U.S. are undergoing an unauthorized review process that could lead to their rejection, the board members said.
"To continue to serve after the administration has consistently ignored the board's request that they follow the law would risk legitimizing actions we believe are unlawful and damage the integrity of this storied program and America's credibility abroad," the statement reads.
Congress established the Fulbright program nearly 80 years ago to promote international exchange and American diplomacy. The highly selective program awards about 9,000 scholarships annually in the U.S. and in more than 160 other countries to students, scholars, and professionals in a range of fields.
All but one of the 12 board members resigned, according to Carmen Estrada-Schaye, who is the only remaining board member. "I was appointed by the president of the United States and I intend to fill out my term," Estrada-Schaye said.
Award recipients are selected in a yearlong process by the State Department and other countries' embassies. The board has had final approval. The recipients who had their awards canceled are in fields including biology, engineering, agriculture, music, medical sciences, and history, the board members said.
All the board members who resigned were selected under former President Joe Biden. The State Department, which runs the scholarship program, said they were partisan political appointees.
"It's ridiculous to believe that these members would continue to have final say over the application process, especially when it comes to determining academic suitability and alignment with President Trump's Executive Orders," the department said. "The claim that the Fulbright Hayes Act affords exclusive and final say over Fulbright Applications to the Fulbright board is false. This is nothing but a political stunt attempting to undermine President Trump." -
Individual visited Mahopac tavern while contagious
The Putnam County Department of Health issued a health alert on Wednesday (June 4) for an exposure to measles on May 28 at Arturo's Tavern in Mahopac.
Anyone who visited the location between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. on that day should call the Health Department at 845-808-1390 and ask to speak to a nurse. Symptoms include a high fever, cough, runny nose, red/watery eyes and a rash. Symptoms may start 7 to 14 days after contact with the virus. Measles is caused by a highly contagious airborne virus that spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs.
The Health Department said the individual is no longer contagious but that it wants to locate anyone who may have encountered the person while contagious to avoid its spread. The individual contracted the illness while abroad, Public Health Director Rian Rodriguez said in a statement.
"An infected person can spread measles from four days before to four days after the rash appears," he said. "Fortunately, the positive individual was only in one local establishment while considered contagious. Measles is not a foodborne illness although the virus can live for up to two hours in airspace after an infected person leaves the area."
New York now has 13 confirmed cases: six in New York City and seven elsewhere, including Putnam. There were 1,088 confirmed cases in the U.S. as of May 30, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including 738 across 35 counties in Texas. Two elementary school students in West Texas and an adult in New Mexico have died. Each was unvaccinated.
Other states with outbreaks - which the CDC defines as three or more related cases - include Colorado, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. There are also outbreaks in Ontario, Canada (1,888 cases since October), Alberta, Canada (628 cases) and the Mexican state of Chihuahua (1,693 cases and three deaths).
At the same time, according to a Johns Hopkins University study published on Monday (June 2), childhood vaccination rates against measles fell in the years after the pandemic in 78 percent of 2,066 U.S. counties in 33 states with available data. The study compared average kindergarten rates from the 2017-20 school years to averages from 2022-24. Where data wasn't available, the researchers used a comparable rate. New York State requires students to be vaccinated.
The Associated Press contributed reporting. -
Kevin McConville was seeking second term
Putnam County Sheriff Kevin McConville is ending his campaign for a second term because of health issues, the Sheriff's Office said on Thursday (June 5).
A Republican, McConville was elected in 2021, defeating incumbent Sheriff Robert Langley Jr. with 57 percent of the vote.
The sheriff, who lives in Philipstown, had filed to run in November on the Republican and Conservative party lines for another 4-year term. He began his career in law enforcement as a Cold Spring police officer and rose to become chief of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority police force. He ran unsuccessfully for Putnam sheriff in 2009 as a Democrat and in 2013 as a Republican.
Andres Gil, who chairs the Putnam County Republican Committee, said on Thursday that he learned of the decision the day before and that it left him "heartbroken." In a letter sent to the committee members, he said McConville and his family were the primary concern.
"We are grateful for his leadership, his accomplishments and, most importantly, his friendship," Gil wrote. "Anyone who has ever met Sheriff McConville knows that he is truly a remarkable human being who will give you the shirt off his back when in need."
In terms of a replacement, the Republican Committee's leaders are "exploring all available options as we are identifying and reviewing the process to substitute a qualified Republican candidate" for the November ballot, said Gil. "It is going to take us a little bit of time to make sure that we are dotting our i's and crossing our t's," he said.
McConville is scheduled to receive the Conservative of the Year Award on Thursday (June 12) from the Putnam County Conservative Party, which did not immediately respond to an email about its plans, if any, for a new candidate for its ballot line.
There is no Democratic candidate, but Larry Burke, a Cold Spring police officer and formerly the officer-in-charge, is running as an independent on the Serve & Protect party line.
A general objection to his nominating petition was filed on May 30 with the Putnam County Board of Elections by Cindy Trimble, a member of the Philipstown Republican Committee. But no specific objections were filed by a June 5 deadline.
Burke, 59, has worked in law enforcement for 37 years, including 26 years with the New York City Police Department. He joined the Cold Spring department in 2013 and served as officer-in-charge for seven years, until 2024. Burke has also been a volunteer firefighter with the North Highlands Fire Co. for 12 years. -
Council considers next five years of capital projects
Beacon's five-year schedule of capital projects, presented to the City Council on May 27, includes more than $6.5 million in equipment and infrastructure upgrades planned for 2026.
The city updates a five-year plan annually; it includes projects scheduled for the coming year, along with conceptual blueprints for the four subsequent years. Council members must approve capital spending for the coming year by the end of July. A public hearing on the 2026 plan is scheduled for June 16.
The most visible project will likely be the renovation and greening of the southwest corner of Memorial Park, estimated to cost $400,000. The city plans to resurface the basketball courts, install pickleball courts, construct a softball batting cage and renovate the bathroom at that end of the park for public use.
The adjacent skateboard park has been repaved and will have new skating elements and an "art wall" installed. Phase 2 of that work, including new lighting, is expected to cost $57,500. The parking lot in front of the skate park will be reconfigured, with tree cover added, and numerous trees will be planted in that corner of the park.
Further improvements being considered for Memorial Park, if budget allows, include exercise stations and tennis courts. In addition, the city could contract with a food truck to cater to teenagers and young adults.
"We've heard over and over again that they're not always welcome in a lot of the restaurants, and they can't afford the local places," said City Administrator Chris White. "People say they don't have a place to go, and the thought is that might be a place to go."
Earlier this year, the city was tentatively awarded a $3 million federal grant to rehabilitate Beekman Street. If the funding comes through - confirmation is expected this month - the city plans to spend $245,000 next year on design and engineering. Later, in addition to repaving, crews would repair sidewalks, crosswalks and curbs and add sidewalks where there are gaps. A bike lane would be added on the uphill side of Beekman.
The most expensive project planned for next year is the $1.6 million construction of a water storage tank on Mount Beacon. Other high-dollar expenditures include a vacuum truck for the Water Department ($670,000), the ongoing milling and paving of streets and installation of Americans with Disabilities Act-accessible curb ramps citywide ($500,000), replacement of a sanitary sewer pump station near Monell Place ($400,000) and a street sweeper for the Highway Department ($340,000).
The city anticipates using about $1.73 million of its savings on the 2026 projects, which, if approved by the council, would leave a combined fund balance between the general, water and sewer funds of more than $15 million. State and federal aid is expected to contribute $1 million, while $200,000 from a recreation fund that developers pay into will be applied to the Memorial Park improvements. The city would borrow the rest, $3.59 million, through bonds.
Notable expenditures in subsequent years include nearly $3.5 million to complete the Beekman Street project in 2028 and $1.6 million in upgrades to Seeger Riverfront Park in 2027, although timing there will depend on whether a transit-oriented development at the Metro-North station proceeds, White said. Replacement of aeration tanks at the wastewater treatment plant is expected to cost $2.6 million in 2028.
As in the 2024 plan, the five-year schedule pushes a $5.25 million community center to its last year, now 2030. White cautioned that for it and other long-term projects, such as splash pads at Riverfront and Memorial parks and a new municipal pool, "we're not sure how they fit right now, or, frankly, how we afford them."
Realistically, he said, a community center could cost up to $15 million and, Mayor Lee Kyriacou added, that's only if the city upgrades the Recreation Department building at 23 West Center St. "This is $10 million ... -
Women organize film, theater fest in Garrison
Inside the dynamic duo at the helm of Theatre Revolution, "I'm the brawn and she's the brain," says Nora Matz about her collaborator, Gabrielle Fox.
After a beat, Matz quips: "Well, I'm also half the brain."
"True, but I am zero percentage brawn," Fox replies.
The team writes and produces plays and films but also presents what's become an annual weekend festival of work by women artists. Glass Ceiling Breakers begins tonight (June 6) at the Philipstown Depot Theatre in Garrison and continues Saturday and Sunday.
"This is a good way to elevate female voices and those of other marginalized groups, especially in theater and film, where we're still not well-represented," says Matz, who lives in Garrison.
The two created Theatre Revolution in 2016 to oppose Trump administration policies, says Matz, so it's fitting that members of the Beacon Rising Choir, which gelled after the Woman's March in Washington in 2017, will close out the weekend with a performance.
All the plays and most of the festival's movies are written by people who identify as female. The bare minimum criteria for film submissions is two women in the key roles of writer, editor, producer, director or cinematographer.
Five short plays, which run about an hour back-to-back, will be presented each day, but only tonight's performances will be followed by a discussion with the playwrights. Four live in Westchester County and one in Rockland.
Writers produce their own vignettes, supplying props and set pieces. Fox is presenting "Artistic Integrity," which she says lasers in on "a generational clash of playwrights about the future of human creativity."
Four film blocks of about 75 minutes each will showcase a total of 24 shorts culled from 200 worldwide submissions, followed by Q&As with the filmmakers. Three blocks will screen on Saturday and one on Sunday, followed by a closing-night mingle and the Best of Fest Awards.
On Saturday at 3 p.m., the Depot Theatre will host a free panel discussion, "A Conversation with Women in the Business," featuring director C. Fitz (a Los Angeles resident best known for her documentary Jewel's Catch One) and filmmaker Annetta Marion, whose two most recent short films are Welcome to Theatre and The History of Carol, about censorship in education.
Theatre Revolution tries to select pieces that give voice to other marginalized groups, but "there are misconceptions," says Matz. Attendees at past festivals sometimes got confused when film and play topics veered from women's liberation or strident politics.
"The festival showcases women's talent; it's not necessarily about feminist topics," says Matz. "We have horror, drama, comedy and the whole spectrum of life, like all other plays and films."
The Philipstown Depot Theatre is located at 10 Garrison's Landing. Tickets are $17 for each film block and $27 for the short-play performances. See depottheater.org. - Visa fler
