Long-term town employees were recognized at the Town Board meeting on Thursday, June 12. Honorees pictured with Town Supervisor Leo Blackman, were Judy Carlson, Office Manager at the Town Garage, center, for her 35 years of service to the town and Megan Chamberlin, current Highway Superintendent, for 20 years.
AMENIA — Acknowledging the many years of service accumulated by town employees, the Town Board paused to honor that service at its meeting on Thursday, June 12.
“Thank you for making a difference,” said Town Supervisor Leo Blackman in recognizing Judy Carlson, Office Manager at the town garage, for her 35 years of service.
“Megan’s job is not an easy one,” Blackman said, honoring Megan Chamberlin, current Highway Superintendent who has served the town for 20 years.
Also among those honored was Town Clerk Dawn Marie Klingner for 20 years of service as Court Clerk.
Maureen Moore, Court Clerk, was also honored in absentia for her 20 years of town service.
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde (foreground), Paul Elie, and Marilynne Robinson sign books for attendees.
On Sunday, Sept. 28, at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, a full audience eagerly gathered to hear authors Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, Marilynne Robinson and moderator Paul Elie discuss what is happening in the United States.
The talk was part of the 2025 Words, Ideas, and Thinkers Literary Festival (WIT), presented by the Authors Guild.
Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild, introduced the panel, saying, “With the growing tyranny and attacks on democracy, what can we do? Budde and Robinson will give us reason to hope.”
The day after the inauguration on Jan. 21, Budde ascended to the pulpit at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., to ask the new president “to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.” She is bishop of the Diocese of Washington, D.C., and author of three books.
Marilynne Robinson, well known for her four-book Gilead series, is the recipient of many awards for her fiction and nonfiction, including a Pulitzer Prize.
Moderator Paul Elie, a regular contributor to The New Yorker and author of several books, has twice been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Elie began the talk by asking Budde what considerations she had when speaking to the current president.
Budde said she “worried about the consequences of speaking to a country that had been barreling toward division.” She wanted to “speak for those being dehumanized” and to offer “a gentle exhortation” on their behalf.
Elie asked Budde to define bravery and Robinson to define courage. Robinson said, “Courage celebrates all the other virtues.” Courage answers the question: “How generous can you be at your own cost?”
Budde answered, “At times in life, you may be called upon to do something you haven’t done before which involves a risk. At those times, we are invited to be brave.” She continued, “Courage is of the heart, when we become aware of that summons that beckons us.”
Elie commented, “Courage is a learned trait, but courage is not encouraged.”
Robinson said, “People need a meaningful measurement of courage and honesty on which to judge themselves.”
“People that should be traditional guardians of democracy continuously backpedaled. We need courage,” she continued. “We should be screaming in the streets about people starving who counted on us. We’ve made concessions until we feel there is nothing left to defend.”
Budde said, “Movement-building is critical.” She spoke of a “quiet network working to protect people” in Washington, D.C., including lawyers, people helping with food and those walking children to school when their parents are afraid to — fearful of being detained.
She advised, “I try to never violate the dignity of people who see the world differently. This is part of the solution. We have to overcome the reflex to see people in the worst possible way who oppose us.”
Elie asked, “How can we make more pointed recommendations for action? What can we do now?”
Budde said to ask ourselves, “What is being summoned from me now? What should I be doing? The next right thing will be revealed to us.”
Robinson said, “No one has power now except the people. There is no salvation now except democracy, and that is what I hope for.”
For more information, go to authorsguild.org
Rev. AJ Stack of the St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Amenia will be blessing pets on the church's front yard on Saturday, Oct. 4.
AMENIA — St. Thomas Episcopal Church will host its annual St. Francis animal blessing and pet adoption on Saturday, Oct. 4, from 10 a.m. to noon in Amenia. The celebration marks the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals and the environment.
Community members are invited to bring pets to be blessed by the Rev. AJ Stack. Furry, feathered and scaled friends should be leashed, caged or crated for safety. Those whose pets don’t travel well — or who want to honor deceased animals — may bring photos or ashes.
“Pet blessings have been an Episcopal tradition for many decades,” said Rev. Stack. “It’s a way to celebrate the beauty of creation and recognize the sacredness of all of creation.”
The drop-in event will also feature partner organizations like The Little Guild, The Animal Farm Foundation and Hope Rising Farm, with pets available for adoption throughout the morning.
The blessing will be held rain or shine on the church lawn and parking lot. St. Thomas Episcopal Church is located at 40 Leedsville Road, Amenia.
Stiltgrass
I’ve had my head down, picking stiltgrass strand by strand, bunch by bunch. It is too dry to use the burn torch, so the work needs to proceed by hand.And I may have already failed; the offending party has started to go to seed. and there is rain in the forecast (hooray, truly).
Without assembling a team in the next day or two, there will be enough of this invasive plant remaining that its seeds will spread back to areas it reached this year. My own private Sisyphus.
The three acres of marshy area that are host to this year’s stiltgrass invasion had largely been cleared of the “big five’” woody offenders: bittersweet, barberry, multiflora rose, privet and buckthorn.With help, I had reduced the area of phragmites by about a third and, although the coltsfoot has not yet been thwarted, plenty of native plants have grown into the area vacated by the woody invasives. It has given me hope of being able to “restore” the wetlands. I use quotes around the word, as true restoration is impossible to achieve: The ash trees that kept the tulip poplar, black willow and maples company will most likely never return. And who knows what else was here before the mayhem arrived, except for the swath of spring-blooming swamp cabbage, which could easily be many hundreds of years old.
So here I am, by myself, sifting through aster and goldenrod and native grasses, searching for the hairlike shoots of stiltgrass, bending down and using my fingers to find their source at the ground so that I can pluck them out with the root intact. I am aware that the activity is a bit obsessive, but overall this obsession with ridding invasives has created large, productive habitats for plants and animals — and has informed my writing and speaking.
The solitary work also begets obsessive thinking about the conundrum we face concerning the state of nature around us, and what we can do about it. I have mostly kept these thoughts to myself, fearing they may be counterproductive to my effort to inform and persuade people to get involved in saving native habitats on their land.
Here are my thoughts around stiltgrass.Even if I am able to get all the stiltgrass off our property, it still surrounds the three acres on our property where it has currently become an issue.It is on the roadside and in my neighbors’ yards and will easily reseed — by wind and on the feet of animals — the areas where hours were spent picking it, obviating this year’s work.That means, from now on, every year a large part of the summer season will be consumed by picking stiltgrass before it goes to seed.Not just by me, but also by the weekly gardening assistance I am so grateful to have.Which means that the normal cadence of maintenance — picking garlic mustard, narrowleaf bittercress and pulling young woody invasives — will be put aside.And that, of course, means that I will start to get a resurgence of invasives in those areas.
If I leave the stiltgrass alone, within a few years it will dominate the swamp and quickly spread into the woods.Which means that the work I’ve accomplished over the past 15 years will be for nothing.Over time, the stiltgrass infestation will smother seedlings and turn the naturally acidic soil alkaline — slowly, then quickly — killing off the trees and other native vegetation along with their ecosystem services: food, shelter, reproduction requirements for the native animals that rely on them.
Unlike humans, native animals do not have the adaptive capability to switch from eating, say, acorns to eating stiltgrass.Animals die.Biodiversity comes to a halt.Monocultures of invasive plants prevail.
Native habitats are comprised of ecosystems which, in their original state, were self-sustaining. The arrival of European settlers — and then Western-style development —disrupted these systems by introducing different species of plants and animals. So too did the European mindset that nature’s richness is at our disposal. Attempts to protect and “restore’”native habitats will be viable only as long as humans can maintain them. As with any man-made garden, it exists because it is both created and maintained.
There has been solace for me in knowing I have given years of effort and funds in service of plants and animals —a sort of reparations for the human destruction of the gift that nature provided.
And today, as I put the finishing touches on this essay, there are three people in the wetland picking stiltgrass.
I just can’t let it win. Yet.
AMENIA — Two current subdivision applications were discussed at the regular meeting of the Planning Board on Thursday, Sept. 25, both progressing toward public input phases but needing more clarity on environmental and visual impact.
Cascade Creek
Representing developer Hudson River Housing, a Poughkeepsie nonprofit, was Senior Planner Peter Sander of Rennia Engineering who provided a summary of the plans for the conservation subdivision along Cascade Road. A conservation subdivision allows for reduced lot sizes, Sander explained.
Plans call for 28 residential lots with two parcels allocated to provide underground utilities, including common wastewater treatment. Potable water supply would be sourced from on-site wells.
The conservation analysis was accepted by the Planning Board in June, Sander noted, adding that the area is surrounded by similarly-sized lots.
“We believe that the application is ready for action and scheduling of a public hearing,” Sander said.
“A voluminous amount of material has been submitted,” agreed Planning Board engineer John Andrews who said that the studies embedded within those materials appear to show no information that would lead to an adverse environmental impact.
Those materials include a traffic study, ecological study, discharge analysis, archeological assessment and an analysis showing conformity with the town’s comprehensive plan for development, Andrews said.
Board attorney Paul Van Cott noted, however, that before scheduling a public hearing, the board would still need to arrive at an environmental determination of whether there exists any significant adverse impact.
Board member Ken Topolsky said that he continues to have concerns about density, visual impact, and whether the housing would be defined as affordable housing or workforce housing. He also had concerns about impact on the nearby creek and the effect of stormwater runoff, as well as the effect on bog turtle migration.
Hearing the concerns, Sander asked the board to provide him with a written listing, feeling also that the concerns were answered by data contained within the materials already submitted.
“[HRH] is an organization that wants to benefit the community,” Sander said.
Continuing his concern about traffic and public safety, board member Walter Dietrich noted that 28 homes could produce 56 cars making daily trips. He also noted the absence of streetlights in the planning.
“How does that not impact?” Dietrich asked.
Agreeing with Dietrich, board member James Walsh noted the number of vehicular accidents in that area, close to Freshtown Plaza.
“Streetlights would make for more visual impact,” Sander noted, a topic that is already a “hot issue.”
Planning Board chairman Robert Boyles expressed concern on behalf of the fire company about the capacity of the planned hydrants, feeling that the water volume might be insufficient to extinguish a house fire.
By unanimous accord, the board agreed to discuss the application again at their Wednesday, Oct. 22, meeting, giving Sander time to extract and summarize the data from submitted documents in response to board concerns.
Keane Stud
Taking a step toward review of the visual impact of plans to subdivide Keane Stud acreage, the Planning Board learned that a “scope analysis” has now been submitted for their consideration.
Representing the Keane Stud developers was attorney Diana Kolev, Partner of DelBello Donnellan Weingarten Wise Wiederkehr, LLP, of White Plains. Since June, the developers have worked to define environmental and visual impacts of the proposed subdivision, advised by the board’s visual consultant George Janes.
Attorney Van Cott explained that the scope analysis needs to be “owned by the board” and he suggested a public meeting to introduce and review the information.
Accordingly, the board voted unanimously to publish the scope analysis on the town website and to schedule a review and discussion of the document at its next scheduled meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 8. Board member Nina Peek recused from the vote; board member Jamie Vitiello was absent.
