The Amenia Historical Society presented Certificates of Appreciation at its annual meeting on Sunday, Oct. 20 to representatives of the Amenia Fire Company and Wassaic Fire Company. Town Historian Betsy Strauss presented the certificates to Robert Boyles, Jr., Captain of the Wassaic Fire Company, at left, and Andy Murphy, Captain of the Amenia Fire Company.
AMENIA — The commitment of members of the two local fire companies is measured not only in decades but in generations, and that dedication was honored by the Amenia Historical Society at its annual meeting on Sunday, Oct. 20, held at the Town Hall.
Following a presentation and display of historic images and artifacts reflecting the history of the two organizations, representatives of the fire companies of District 1 and District 2 accepted certificates of appreciation given by current society president Carol Lee.
The Amenia Fire Company, District 1, has been serving the community since its founding in 1895. Andy Murphy, Captain of the Amenia Fire Company, chronicled the history as he recalled the earliest apparatus, the company membership, the buildings and some of the historic local fires, along with the celebrations, parades and community fundraising events.
Captain Murphy, a long-term member himself, recounted that his father, James, had served the Amenia Fire Company for 50 years and his mother, Charlotte, was a charter member of the Auxiliary.
He said that the historical society has a treasure trove of historical documents and memorabilia collected over the years. That information was assembled into a book published in 1995 detailing the Fire Company’s history, but not much history has been assembled and recorded since then.
“It all began in 1895,” Murphy said, when there had been a fire in Millerton and a realization dawned that Amenia should have its own fire company.
Early records kept in the old firehouse were destroyed in 1941 by a devastating fire, and today, the only records remaining came from the homes of members and residents who had items that were not kept at the firehouse.
The earliest piece of equipment in Amenia was a length of 1,000 feet of hose donated by the local water company, along with nozzles, to be used in conjunction with the existing hydrants, Murphy said. About 20 people met at Taylor Hall, the old movie theatre in village center, to form Amenia Hose Company No. 1.
Later they would meet at a local clothing store near the post office. By 1898, they had acquired a two-wheel hose cart. By 1899, they had their first firehouse and a fire wagon to go with the hose cart. The company then moved to its present site on Mechanic Street.
The relationship between the town and the fire company began around 1900, Murphy explained, whereby the town would own the firehouse building and the fire company would pay rent to the town. A “new” firehouse was built on the site in 1948 and still stands today.
Ambulance service had its beginnings in 1950 with the purchase of the first vehicle to be named “Lulubell.” Formation of a Women’s Auxiliary came along in 1953.
Barn fires were the most usual types of fire calls, Murphy said.
But especially dangerous and disastrous were the 1974 fires that destroyed the movie theater and the Delavergne Farms Hotel in the town center, Murphy noted.
“We are pretty well-equipped today,” Murphy said, “but most of our trucks are going out driver-only.”
“People are not volunteering,” Murphy explained, adding that the company has only three or four young people.
“Back in the 1970s, people could not wait to join the fire company,” Murphy recalled.
Reviewing the chronology of the Wassaic Fire Company, former Chief Bob Bergfels indicated that the fire company was organized in 1931, building its first firehouse in 1937, with the present firehouse coming along in 1966. The Ladies’ Auxiliary began its service in 1955, and the Rescue Squad in 1977.
Seeking to clarify a point of confusion for residents, Murphy explained the difference between the two Fire Districts and the two Fire Companies. Fire Districts, he said, are governed by five local commissioners who sit on a Fire District Board. They develop the annual budget and function as the entity in charge of the equipment purchase and repair. The Fire District is in charge, Murphy said.
The Fire Company, he explained, is a separate organization headed by the Fire Chief. The Fire Company goes to the fires. Proceeds from the regularly scheduled pancake breakfasts go to the Fire Company to cover operational expenses.
Residents of Silo Ridge and Amenia Fire and Ambulance volunteers posed with a big check in front of the volunteer ambulance Sunday morning, Nov. 17.
AMENIA — Jamie Vitiello presented a check for $50,000 to the Amenia Volunteer Ambulance Corps Sunday morning, Nov. 17, during the Amenia Fire Company’s pancake breakfast at the fire house.
Vitiello said he heard about the ambulance corps’ need for a life-saving device called the Lund University Cardiopulmonary Assist System device, or LUCAS device for short. The LUCAS device assists emergency responders in applying chest compressions. The mechanical device can be situated around a person’s chest in the case of cardiac arrest and used to provide compressions that are more consistent and generally safer than a human providing CPR.
“I sent out a text in the morning and then went to Town Hall,” Vitiello said. “By the time I had gotten to Town Hall we had raised $25,000. By the end of the day we had raised the whole $50,000.”
The LUCAS device cost just over $20,000 to purchase. Vitiello said the remainder of the $50,000 donation will go to the Ambulance Corps fund to support regular costs like ambulance maintenance.
The donation was made in the name of Silo Ridge residents in association with the Amenia-Wassaic Community Organization.
MILLERTON — In what Mayor Jennifer Najdek has described as “a huge bump for us,” New York State has awarded Millerton an Intermunicipal Water Infrastructure Grant (IMG) to fund various projects which continuously monitor and improve local water quality. The size of the grant is a generous $5,082,099, an amount which cannot be exceeded.
The official acceptance of the grant, which is application-based, came together fairly quickly as officials had only one week to decide. With the knowledge looming that grant requests may be bypassed or allocated to other communities without a decision being reached, Millerton leadership aligned after careful consideration at a special meeting held last week, signing off on Nov. 8. With the grant now secured, Najdek is optimistic Millerton can now move forward on pending wastewater concerns like water treatment and stormwater projects, saying “This project has great potential to happen now.”
One downside regarding the grant, however, is the impact the award will have on additional grants. As the mayor explains it, this grant differs from others in that it must be combined with other grants and the amount may eventually be reduced, contingent on the awarding of additional grants or projects running under budget.
Najdek also pointed out the downsides of future wastewater projects, citing potential impacts on the implementation of new businesses on Main Street, but it’s a hurdle to leap when — and if — the time comes. Her focus is firm on the benefits of the grant and the projects which may result from the award. She was quick to quell concerns of residents outside the district who have voiced taxation concerns connected to wastewater projects, pointing out they will not be impacted. “This is important,” said Najdek. “It’s about slow, sustainable growth … and it’ll maintain the character of the village.”
Dan Aymar-Blair
MILLERTON — Democrat Dan Aymar-Blair defeated Republican A. Gregg Pulver in the race for County Comptroller, according to unofficial results of the Dutchess County Board of Elections after a count of affidavit and absentee ballots.
As of Friday, Nov. 15, Aymar-Blair was ahead of Gregg Pulver by 850 votes. Aymar-Blair declared victory on Friday.
“I am humbled and honored by the trust Dutchess County residents have placed in me. This victory affirms that taxpayers want a watchdog who will make sure the county’s budget is working for them,” he said in a statement published on the Dutchess County Democratic Committee’s website.
Aymar-Blair, who has experience in municipal finance, currently oversees business operations at New York City’s public school’s special education program, and is serving a third term on the Beacon City Council. He is expected to assume his new post in January, completing the term of former Comptroller Robin Lois. Aymar-Blair would run for reelection in 2025.
Pulver was appointed Comptroller in November 2023 by then County Executive William F.X. O’Neill following the resignation of Lois. Prior to his appointment by O’Neill, Pulver was Chairman of the Dutchess County Legislature. Pulver, a third-generation farmer from Pine Plains, had served several two-year terms as a County legislator and also had served as a local school board member and town supervisor.
“I want to thank all those who supported our campaign over the last 10 months,” Pulver said in a statement on Monday, Nov. 18. “This was an absurdly close race and it’s clear that the work our office has done bringing true fiscal stewardship to the County was a strong message.”
The Board of Elections is scheduled to certify the 2024 elections on Nov. 30.
MILLERTON — The Town of North East discussed the next steps for the Zoning Review Committee during its board meeting on Thursday, Nov. 14.
Edith Greenwood, committee chair and vice chair of the North East Zoning Board of Appeals, joined the Town Board meeting to share what the committee has completed in the last four years.
“The review is a result of the Comprehensive Plan … which was adopted in 2019, and the logical planning progression is a visioning document of where you want your town to go,” Greenwood said. “And the next step is to incorporate those concepts, those goals in your code.”
The Zoning Review committee has spent a large portion of its time redoing the zoning for the Town of North East’s commercial district. This part of the town stretches from Route 44 to the Connecticut border and mostly consists of commercial buildings.
“We retained a consultant who has been the town planner for probably ten years and is very knowledgeable about our situation,” Greenwood said. “We grappled with where to start, and we decided that it made sense to start with commercial.”
According to Greenwood, the most significant change to the code is moving the special permitting process from the Zoning Board of Appeals to the Planning Board. This will prevent applicants from having to go back and forth between different boards.
“There are two other sections which we have had to address because of the complexity of codes and the way it overlaps,” said Greenwood, “but we have not taken a substantive view of the residential, or what we call Land Conservancy, our wetlands issue … We have not made any changes to the outer boundaries of any of the three sections we looked at. We’ve reconfigured the Boulevard District. It currently has six sections. It’s gone down to three sections.”
The committee’s plans show that an applicant requires a special permit and site plan approval, which will allow a municipality an extra level of protection.
“What we are handing over to you today does include some aspects of the residential and the land conservation, but they’re far from flush and where we needed to just pull this together and make sense of the zoning document,” Greenwood said, “There should be a part B to this process, we’re definitely more than halfway through, maybe we are even 60%, but there is more work to be done to complete this code, especially on the housing.”
“What I would really like to point out to people is that this is a committee of volunteers who have met on 90 occasions to go through the zoning of the Boulevard District,” Town Supervisor Chris Kennan said. “That’s a lot of hours of people’s personal time spent trying to make this town better.”
The board reviewed the Town of North East’s budget and announced a new negotiation with Northern Dutchess Paramedics.
Previously, the town had a five-year contract with NDP for Emergency Medical Services (EMS) alongside the towns of Dover and Amenia. The Town of North East paid NDP 2% more each year during the contract.
NDP has recently pitched a new contract with North East that would cost $646,300, increasing its budget by 71%. According to Kennan, with that budget, town residents outside of the Village of Millerton would see an increase in their tax rate by 1.16%.
“That contract ends at the end of December, so we have been negotiating with Northern Dutchess Paramedics over their proposed increase,” said Kennan, “The increase that they had proposed, we’ve written about, we’ve talked about at previous meetings, was really overwhelmingly intolerable for the town. It was a huge, huge increase.”
North East also looked into a different contractor, Empress, who services the western and southwestern parts of the county. However, their proposal was “wildly” more expensive than NDP’s first offer. Now, the town has met with NDP and reached a new contract price of $511,558, a reduction of $134,742.
“The reasons for their increase are that they were locked into a contract for five years, which each year had a 2% increase and going through the period of COVID,” Kennan said. “Everyone knows we have seen inflation in all kinds of different items, in labor costs, particularly in materials, especially medical costs, the cost of an ambulance itself has gone up dramatically, so they were basically struggling to deliver the service to the town for these past few years.”
The town board will hold a special meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 19, at 5:30 p.m. to finalize and adopt the revised budget.
Pro-housing pledge
The Town Board members signed a pro-housing pledge, stating that they were aware of the lack of housing for New York state residents and that income levels negatively affected future economic viability.
“The housing crisis has negative effects at regional and local levels, and whereas we believe that every community must do their parts to contribute to housing growth and benefit from positive impacts a healthy housing market brings to the community,” Town Clerk Tilly Strauss said, reading from the pledge.
Supervisor Kennan said he has met with the management of the Millerton Gun Club to discuss the town’s concerns and to limit the club’s shooting hours.
“I have met with the management of the gun club on multiple occasions and expressed our desire to have them think about not having shooting on Sunday and not having shooting permitted after five o’clock or sundown during the day to give people the opportunity to enjoy their evenings without gunfire,” Kennan said.
The town has received a speed reduction request on Route 22 from Chuck Road to the Village of Millerton line. The request asks the town to reduce the speed limit from 55 to 45 miles per hour.
“Chuck Road to the Village of Millerton has seen increased traffic and dangerous intersections,” Strauss said. “The highway superintendent and the town board have determined that the current speed limit of 55 miles per hour on this portion of Route 22 is too high, resulting in hazardous and dangerous conditions.”
