2024 Election: Hinchey, Barrett win; Pulver edges out challenger

Town Board races close; Library support propositions pass

2024 Election: Hinchey, Barrett win; Pulver edges out challenger

Campaign signs adorned yards across Dutchess County, like this collection outside NBT Bank on Main Street in Millerton.

Photo by John Coston

MILLERTON — Democratic incumbents State Senator Michelle Hinchey and Assemblymember Didi Barrett won reelection on Tuesday, Nov. 5., according to unofficial results of the Dutchess County Board of Elections.

State Sen. Hinchey, D-41, outpaced Republican challenger Patrick Sheehan with 55% of the vote compared to Sheehan’s 44%. Assemblymember Barrett, D-106, defeated Republican challenger Stephan Krakower by 54% to 45%.

Dutchess County Comptroller A. Gregg Pulver, a Republican, edged out Democrat Dan Aymar-Blair in the race for County Comptroller with 50.1% of the vote, compared to Aymar-Blair’s 49.78%, or a difference of 475 votes.

Municipal elections were held in North East, Amenia, Millbrook and Stanford.

In North East, Republican Christopher L. Mayville, a current Town Board member, defeated Democrat Rachele Grieco Cole by a margin of 53% to 47%. The election was for an unexpired term on the Board.

In Amenia, Nicole Ahearn, a Republican, defeated Charlie Miller, a Democrat challenging her for her seat. Ahearn had 54.5% of the vote, compared to Miller's 44.6%

In Millbrook, Peter Doro was elected Mayor with 95% of the vote in an uncontested race. In a race for two seats as Millbrook Village Trustees, Democrat Julia Bucklin received 27% of the vote and Republican Elizabeth Molella Socci won 24.95%. Democrat Shannon Mawson trailed with 24.75%. Republican Kay Vanderlyn Ulrich won 23% of the vote.

In Stanford, Adrienne Zetterberg, a Republican, won election for an unexpired term on the Town Board by 50% to 49%, defeating Democrat Theodore Eagleson Secor.

Amenia voters also approved a proposal on the ballot to increase the town’s contribution to the operating budget of the Amenia Free Library by a 60% to 40% margin.

Similarly, voters in North East voted 72% to 28% to increase the level of support for the NorthEast-Millerton Libary in Millerton.

A third proposition, which was before voters in the Town of Washington to increase the contribution of the town to the Millbrook Library, also passed by a 56% to 44% vote.

A New York State proposal, called Prop One, also passed by a 57% to 43% margin in Dutchess County. The proposal protects against unequal treatment based on ethnicity, national origin, age, disability and sex.

All results are unofficial.

Latest News

Juneteenth and Mumbet’s legacy

Sheffield resident, singer Wanda Houston will play Mumbet in "1781" on June 19 at 7 p.m. at The Center on Main, Falls Village.

Jeffery Serratt

In August of 1781, after spending thirty years as an enslaved woman in the household of Colonel John Ashley in Sheffield, Massachusetts, Elizabeth Freeman, also known as Mumbet, was the first enslaved person to sue for her freedom in court. At the time of her trial there were 5,000 enslaved people in the state. MumBet’s legal victory set a precedent for the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts in 1790, the first in the nation. She took the name Elizabeth Freeman.

Local playwrights Lonnie Carter and Linda Rossi will tell her story in a staged reading of “1781” to celebrate Juneteenth, ay 7 p.m. at The Center on Main in Falls Village, Connecticut.Singer Wanda Houston will play MumBet, joined by actors Chantell McCulloch, Tarik Shah, Kim Canning, Sherie Berk, Howard Platt, Gloria Parker and Ruby Cameron Miller. Musical composer Donald Sosin added, “MumBet is an American hero whose story deserves to be known much more widely.”

Keep ReadingShow less
A sweet collaboration with students in Torrington

The new mural painted by students at Saint John Paul The Great Academy in Torrington, Connecticut.

Photo by Kristy Barto, owner of The Nutmeg Fudge Company

Thanks to a unique collaboration between The Nutmeg Fudge Company, local artist Gerald Incandela, and Saint John Paul The Great Academy in Torrington, Connecticut a mural — designed and painted entirely by students — now graces the interior of the fudge company.

The Nutmeg Fudge Company owner Kristy Barto was looking to brighten her party space with a mural that celebrated both old and new Torrington. She worked with school board member Susan Cook and Incandela to reach out to the Academy’s art teacher, Rachael Martinelli.

Keep ReadingShow less
In the company of artists

Curator Henry Klimowicz, left, with artists Brigitta Varadi and Amy Podmore at The Re Institute

Aida Laleian

For anyone who wants a deeper glimpse into how art comes about, an on-site artist talk is a rich experience worth the trip.On Saturday, June 14, Henry Klimowicz’s cavernous Re Institute — a vast, converted 1960’s barn north of Millerton — hosted Amy Podmore and Brigitta Varadi, who elucidated their process to a small but engaged crowd amid the installation of sculptures and two remarkable videos.

Though they were all there at different times, a common thread among Klimowicz, Podmore and Varadi is their experience of New Hampshire’s famed MacDowell Colony. The silence, the safety of being able to walk in the woods at night, and the camaraderie of other working artists are precious goads to hardworking creativity. For his part, for fifteen years, Klimowicz has promoted community among thousands of participating artists, in the hope that the pairs or groups he shows together will always be linked. “To be an artist,” he stressed, “is to be among other artists.”

Keep ReadingShow less