Above: Sunset over a Middleburgh field. Photo by Flickr user A Man Called ACME; shared in the Watershed Post's Flickr group pool.
Happy Columbus Day Weekend, Catskills. There's plenty to do this weekend around the mountains: Fiddlers in Roxbury, old-timey machines and crafts at Hanford Mills, the massive O+ Festival in Kingston, lots of hikes scheduled for the last few days of Lark in the Park, and more.
The federal government may be shut down, but at the local level, things are mostly chugging along as usual. The Catskill Watershed Corporation has a new president, Stamford supervisor Mike Triolo. Colchester town meetings continue to erupt in drama. Delaware County is looking into passing a bed tax on local hotel stays. Ulster County is pressuring towns to cut their budgets, after promising to take over more of towns' Safety Net costs in the upcoming year.
Even for Monticello, this week's emergency village board meeting was off the charts in the drama department. The meeting was held to discuss the village's botched demolition of the asbestos-laced Monticello justice court, which resulted in the arrest of six workers by state environmental police. Hat tip to the Sullivan County Democrat for a truly astounding account of the meeting, which includes this gem:
As the meeting drew to a close [village trustee Rochelle] Massey complained about media coverage of the mayor [Gordon Jenkins], who is her boyfriend. She yelled at a reporter, “Don’t take a picture of me!”
“This is a public meeting,” offered another journalist, to which Massey responded, “Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha,” while she mimed a puppet with her hand.
The meeting then completely broke down and Jenkins and Massey stormed out of the meeting room.
First Ozzie the K-9, now Romeo the horse: The Delaware County Sheriff's Office is employing a lot of four-footed officers lately.
Sign of the times: The town of Rosendale is selling its town hall, figuring that it will be cheaper to run the town government out of the shuttered Rosendale Elementary School.
Re-routed: A bunch of Kingston school buses, which had to adjust their routes abruptly on Thursday after the county declared the Wynkoop Bridge in Hurley unsafe to carry anything heavier than a passenger car.
On hold: Plans for the new Green Wolf Brewing Company in downtown Middleburgh, which can't move forward until feds at the shut-down Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau approve the brewery's paperwork.
Looking to cash in on New York State's new tax-free zones for businesses near SUNY campuses: Butternuts Beer and Ale, whose owners are doing their damnedest to purchase the old Guilford Mills plant in Cobleskill by October 18.
Beyond the call of duty: The owner of the River Run B&B in Fleischmanns recently earned a glowing review on TripAdvisor after rescuing a couple of stranded tourists who got lost in the woods.
"Reforms" to the way New York State pays early childhood intervention specialists in the last year are forcing many of them out of the business, according to a recent report from the Daily Mail.
A math error made by a BOCES employee in computing the taxes for the Hunter-Tannersville Central School District had Lexington residents paying less than their fair share of school taxes last year. This year, officials explained at a recent meeting, the district is compensating by hiking taxes on Lexington property owners by an average of 14 percent.
She'll be comin' round the mountain when she comes: Arkville's Delaware and Ulster Railroad sent a train up to Highmount last week, for the first time in over a decade. The railroad is hoping to expand service into Pine Hill, if they can convince Ulster County to let them.
Opening soon: Cairo's new Hannaford, slated to open October 19.
Opening sooner: Wawarsing's new Wal-Mart, slated to open October 16.
Already lit: The golden arches in Coxsackie, where local officials are pretty jazzed about the town's new McDonald's.
Arrested after a long investigation: Three Delaware County residents, for allegedly robbing a couple of local drug dealers at gunpoint last year. The arrests in Delaware County follow closely on the heels of a year-long Greene County drug investigation that yielded nine arrests.
Kingston police are looking for the gunman in a shooting last night that put a 20-year-old man in the Albany Medical Center.
Today's the last day to register to vote in the November general election. If you get to the post office before it closes, you can still mail in a registration form postmarked October 11.
About that general election: There's a chance a much-anticipated referendum on casino gambling won't be on it, thanks to a last-minute makeover on the language of the resolution by Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state Legislature, who apparently thought the just-the-facts wording handed down by the state Attorney General was too boring. Lawyer Eric Snyder has filed a lawsuit to block the referendum, arguing that the referendum's glowing promises of jobs and tax breaks are an illegal attempt to sway voters.
The Watershed Post is working on a Release Protocol for the NewsShed, our sporadically-erupting roundup of news, weather and hot bloggy goodness from around the Catskills. Got a tip for the NewsShed? Let us know at editor@watershedpost.com.
