By John Mason

For Hudson-Catskill Newspapers

Published: Sunday, April 25, 2010

HILLSDALE - Area residents have a new park and will soon have a new library right across the street from it. Trouble is, that street is Route 22, where cars come whipping by at 55 mph, with a dotted line that means passing is A-OK.

So the town board resolved Tuesday to write the regional office of the state Department of Transportation, requesting that the speed limit be lowered to 40 mph and the dotted line be eliminated in the area of the Roeliff Jansen Park and the soon-to-be Roe-Jan Library.

Councilman Christian Kerstens told the board that safety concerns had been expressed by park steering committee members and other residents, and there have already been "a couple of near misses." Supervisor Art Baer said Councilman August Sena had spoken with the DOT's Lance MacMillan, who agreed to come out to the site.

Town resident George Atwood told the board that the speed limit was 40 mph when the Roe-Jan School was active.

Kerstens said the matter is of some urgency, since the town's summer camp will be conducted at the park. Forty applications were received for the park in the first week.

"It's definitely a desired program, and important to both children and parents," he said. The library is due to open later this year.

Baer added that the new dog park, adjacent to the town park on the south, will be opening June 15.

Baer said he would touch base with Copake town officials about their sending a letter as well. The park is located within Copake's borders, belonging to the state of New York and managed by the town of Hillsdale.

Atwood said there are also dotted lines in the Route 22 commercial area that includes the Stewart's, and "it should be solid all the way through."

Kerstens said the steering committee members are divided on the color of the barns - some want them to stay blue-gray, others want them to be barn-red. Whichever is decided on, the painting will be done soon, he said. Park cleanup days are set for April 24 and May 1, and Kite Day is May 8.

Also Monday, board members were taken by surprise to see that the Highway Department had made $6,200 worth of improvements to the ball park behind town hall. The town crew used clay from Sheffield Pottery.

"Who instructed him?" asked Baer, referring to Highway Superintendent Richard Briggs. "We don't have the money."

"Doesn't that come under the parks and recreation budget?" asked Town Clerk Julie Kane.

Baer said it did, and that the money would come out of that budget, but that such expenditures need to be authorized by the town board, not by park employees. He said he and Councilman Carmen Barbato would talk with Highway Superintendent Richard Briggs about proper procedures.

By Jamie Larson

Published: Saturday, April 24, 2010

The town of Copake won a comparatively small victory Thursday, in the ongoing multi-layered legal battle between the town and Salvatore Cascino, when the businessman was ordered to pay nearly $22,000 to the town in restitution of incurred legal fees.

Cascino, owner of a Bronx, New York-based waste hauling company, Bronx County Recycling L.L.C., also owns farmland on Route 7A in Copake where he has been accused of polluting the property with waste by the town as well as by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

Cascino is also being sued for alleged illegal dumping in other municipalities by Attorney General Cuomo, including Dover Plains and Clermont.

On June 20, 2009, Columbia County Supreme Court Judge Jonathan Nichols found Cascino to be in criminal and civil contempt of a 2006 restraining order banning him from depositing fill or undertaking any new construction projects at his Copake Valley Farm L.L.C. facility in the town.

As part of the sentence in the contempt case handed down by Nichols, which included a suspended 30-day jail sentence and a $250 fine, Cascino was ordered to pay restitution to the town for the legal expenses it had incurred during the case.

Town attorneys from the firm of Rapport, Meyers, Whitbeck, Shaw and Rodenhausen alleged that the legal costs for the town added up to $21,609.97.

Cascino contested the amount but Judge Nichols' decision Thursday found the amount owed to be accurate and ordered it to be paid back to the town in full.

Nichols' overall ruling on the contempt charges was appealed by Cascino in the New York State Court of Appeals in Albany on March 23, 2010, and a decision on the matter is expected in May, according to Copake lead attorney Victor Meyers.

Cascino's attorney Dennis Schlenker said that his client has 30 days to decide whether to appeal Nichols' finding on the amount but that payment of any fee is tied to the appellate decision on the overall contempt case anyway, so the matter is far from decided.

"We are contemplating our legal options," Schlenker said Friday. "As to the criminal case, I have no comment at this time. I don't try cases in the press."

The town of Copake has spent many more thousands of dollars in legal fees suing and being sued by Cascino. While town officials are aware that the ruling Thursday may not result in money coming their way any time in the near future they voiced gratitude for Nichols ruling in their favor.

"That's great news," Copake Supervisor Reggie Crowley said of the decision. "I'll believe it when I see the check in my hand. It's good to see Mr. Cascino held accountable for some of the things that he has done."

Town Board Member Robert Sacks was also pleased. "It is a step in the right direction and Copake is thankful," he said. "I don't know how that man can sleep at night with all the things he is accused of."

Written by DEBORA GILBERT         

The Columbia Paper

MILLBROOK--Fed up with the state of New York's "dysfunction, corruption, and partisanship," Didi Barrett, a Millbrook resident who describes herself as a citizen, not a politician, has announced her candidacy for state Senate representing the 41st District.

The district covers all of Columbia County and much of Dutchess County. It is currently represented by Republican Steve Saland, who has not yet officially announced his bid for reelection but is expected to do so soon. Ms. Barrett has the support of Democratic Party leaders in both counties and no one in the GOP has expressed an interest in challenging Mr. Saland in a primary, a situation that suggests these are the candidates likely to appear on the November ballot.

"Things have gotten so bad, we need to look at the whole thing and restructure the whole system," said Ms. Barrett in a recent phone conversation. She said that during the 30 years Senator Saland has represented the district, taxes have increased and the state government has become increasingly more dysfunctional.

Passionate about education, she points out that students are not enjoying the educational advantages that their older siblings had just a few years ago.

In a speech delivered in front of the Hudson Court House April 7, she spoke about problems faced by New York residents ranging from unemployment and high property taxes tied to school budgets, to "billions in deficits and debt," racked up by "legislators playing by their own rules, while mortgaging our children's future."

If elected, Ms. Barrett, 59, will bring to the job over 20 year experience as a leader and board member in the non-profit sector, as a former candidate for office in her town of Washington, as a wife, mother and, earlier in her career, as an editor and journalist whose articles ran in the New York Times, Boston Globe, and Us magazine.

She sees economic opportunity for the district in renewable energy, cultural tourism and agriculture, but believes our present tax structure needs to be changed to be more supportive of families, seniors and small businesses, and she wants to promote a jobs program with enforced incentives keep jobs in our communities.

Ms. Barrett founded, organized, and helped launch a number of local non-profits, including the Millbrook Education Foundation, the Dutchess Girls Collaborative, the North East Dutchess Fund for the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, Girls Inc. in New York City, and has worked with the New York Woman's Foundation and Dutchess County Democratic Committee. She served on the financial committees for the campaigns of Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.

Ms. Barrett and her husband, David, an attorney with the New York City firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner, are the parents of two college age children who are pursuing their educations in the Boston area.

The candidate began a "listening tour" before she decided to run for office. She plans to continue the tour, meeting with voters at the private homes throughout the district.

Christopher Matthews, a wine and spirits writer and educator, divides his time between Manhattan and Red Hook, Dutchess County. He has been the wine and spirits columnist for New York Law Journal Magazine since 2004, and has written about food and drink for Epicurious.com and the Culinary Institute of America. A member of the Wine Media Guild of New York, he has judged at the Hudson Valley Wine Competition, and has a keen appreciation for local (spirituous) beverages. He reports:
 
In a clear boost to local tourism and our region's artisanal food and beverage scene, six partners-four wineries, a brewery and a distillery-have joined forces to establish the Hudson-Berkshire Beverage Trail (HBBT). It will formally launch on April 10th with a Pasta and Sauce event, featuring beverage flights paired with pasta dishes at each stop along the trail. 
 
Spanning three counties and two states, the HBBT has two main axes: one running south from Rensselaer County, southeast of Albany, down through Columbia County to Germantown, near Hudson; the other heading east from Chatham into Berkshire County, ending in New Marlborough, MA. Discussions with the Department of Transportation and the New York State Agriculture and Markets Department on road signage for the trail are underway.
 
The founding partners include: Brookview Station Winery (top photo),Castleton-on-Hudson, NY, a bemedaled producer of fruit wines, cider and baked goods; Harvest Spirits,Valatie, NY, a micro-distillery that produces "Core," an award-winning vodka made from local apples; Chatham Brewing (right), Chatham, NY, an all-natural "nano-brewer" of craft beers; Hudson-Chatham Winery, Ghent, NY, a producer of small batch wines from local and regional grapes, as well as cheeses and desserts;  Tousey Winery, whose Germantown-based owner, beekeeper-farmer Ray Tousey is a mainstay at local farmers' markets with his displays of bees, honey, small fruits and wines; Furnace Brook Winery, located at Hilltop Orchards, a scenic 100-year old farm in Richmond, MA; and Les Trois Emme Vineyard and Winery (below), nestled in New Marlborough, MA, east of Great Barrington.
 
It's no secret that tourists flock to wine trails. New York State alone has eleven existing wine trails across its five major wine regions, including two in the Hudson Valley, the Dutchess and Shawangunk Wine Trails. Until now only one of the NY trails, the Lake Erie Wine Trail, has been interstate, encompassing New York and Pennsylvania wineries. And heretofore, there has only been one multiple beverage trail in New York, the Cooperstown Beverage Trail, anchored by Brewery Ommegang, the acclaimed Belgium-style ale producer. The HBBT's innovation: it's New York's first ever interstate beverage trail, featuring wine, beer, spirits and cider.
 
HBBT co-founders Carlo De Vito (Hudson-Chatham Winery, left) and Sue Goold (Brookview Station Winery) came to the wine trail idea around the same time. Both were aware of how important such trails are for small wineries.  Both had considered the number of new local wineries slated to come on line soon.  And both understood that the region's prime location between New York City, Albany and Boston was a huge asset. Columbia-County-based DeVito had been exploring joining an existing trail, such as Dutchess, while Goold, whose vineyard is one county north in Renssalaer, had been aiming to create a new one for the area, incorporating the successful Harvest Spirits distillery and Chatham Brewing as well.  Once each heard of the other's plan, they decided to combine efforts. But DeVito pushed the beverage trail concept a step further, extending it to the Berkshires, because he and Furnace Brook Winery were already sending each other customers. In fact, said De Vito, "the Upper Hudson Valley and the Berkshires are inextricably linked. In the summer, we have customers in the summer who are coming out of Tanglewood and the Berkshires all the time. And it's nothing for folks up here to go out to dinner in Pittsfield or Great Barrington."
 
During the research phase for the trail, Carlo DeVito and his wife, Dominique, visited the Cooperstown Beverage Trail. Impressed, they used Cooperstown as a model for the HBBT. But Hudson-Berkshire plans to go its own, ambitious way, "We really want to form a trail that calls on the culinary firepower of the region," DeVito says. "We have a number of around here, and ," said De Vito.  Accordingly, associate and friend-of-trail memberships are available to local farms, creameries and CSAs, such as Twin Maple Farm, "a pampered cow creamery" that has already signed on as a "friend" of the HBBT.
 
"We feel like this can become the ultimate culinary destination in the northeast," DeVito says. Here! Here! -Christopher Matthews
   
 

Copake Chronicle Editor's Note: I have no idea if this is a real old card or not, but I couldn't resist sending out to our readers.

 

   

       Painter and art educator Jeffrey L. Neumann is now accepting students and announcing the opening of his new studio and gallery on the corner of Anthony and Coldwater Streets in the center of Hillsdale, NY.  Courses will be offered in drawing, watercolor painting, and oil painting.

       Working in both oils and watercolors, Neumann has been painting for over 30 years, however making art and teaching art has only recently become his full-time occupation. Prior to making a purposeful career change, Neumann enjoyed a 25 year career in the art materials industry. He was U.S. Product Manager for Arches Papers and the developer of the brand's first specialty paper for digital fine art printmaking.

       "I decided that the best way for me to make a direct positive difference in people's lives is through teaching," says Neumann, who is a MA Certified educator and holds a Masters Degree in Visual Arts Education. With five solo exhibitions, awards, commissions, and work represented in numerous private, corporate and public collections, Neumann draws upon his broad experience to offer private lessons to students of all levels.

         The artist is represented by Hanback Gallery, Millerton, NY, Art Exchange Gallery, Santa Fe, NM and JLI Prints, Taos, NM. The gallery at Neumann Fine Art will feature an eclectic collection of work from various periods in Neumann's artistic career. To register for classes or for more information visit: www.neumannfineart.com or call 413-246-5776.

Our Lady of Hope

8074 State Route 22

Copake Falls, N.Y.

Rev. Joseph A. Falletta, Pastor