Foraging around in Falls Village
Andy Dobos led a group on a successful search for edible wild plants at Great Mountain Forest.
Patrick L. Sullivan
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MILLERTON — In the short time that Rev. Dr. Anna Crews Camphouse has called Sharon, Connecticut, “home,” she has taken on an abundance of leadership roles in the area in hopes to grow and connect the community and people of faith.
Camphouse has been in pastoral ministry for almost 25 years. “Up until here, I’ve done a lot of things,” she said. Now, she leads four Methodist churches in the area.
After learning that the Lakeville United Methodist Church was without a pastor, Camphouse told to the district superintendent that she was interested and open to consideration for appointment. It was then that she was asked to take on Lakeville, along with the Sharon church.
Six months later, a year and a half ago, Camphouse got the call that Millerton had lost their pastor. In the first two years of her appointment, Camphouse took to running three local churches.
The next year, this past December, Camphouse was called to the Canaan United Methodist Church, as their pastor was retiring. Along with her current placements at the four churches, Camphouse is also “the convener of the Ministerial Association for the whole northwest corner,” she said.
Camphouse succeeds in carrying the impressive responsibility of four churches through a mix of organization and devotion. “There’s the technicality of how you do worship services, that’s more the science,” Camphouse said. “Then there is the art of it, which is ‘where is God calling me in this moment and how do I empower all of these people to be the best they can be, to serve God in the community?’”
With a staggered and rotating schedule, Camphouse said, “I just try to get to as many things as I can as soon as I can.” She also hopes to build a strong and cooperative parish model. “There are certain things that only I can do as the pastor, but there’s other things that a lot of people can do, and so I’m trying to make it more manageable in that way.”
“For somebody who hasn’t been here very long, I’ve somehow gotten super connected and involved. I think that is both the joy and the challenge of small towns. When you come into them, you have an option to be involved or not be involved,” Camphouse said. Her main goal and calling is to “connect communities, whether they are my churches or people of faith in general, toward being heaven bringers,” she said, hoping to spread the qualities of love, peace, grace, gentleness, and patience.
Growing up in a rural community in Alabama and living in other similar settings, Camphouse has noticed differences in the rural life of her new home. “This is a place that is rural, but it has resources, education and creativity. It has a mix of people who are interesting and curious and have incredible backgrounds,” she said. “People have been really willing to engage with me, I’ve had really positive experiences.”
“Apple pies are fabulous here. They’re the best things ever,” Camphouse added to the list of positives.
She has also been keeping an eye out for attendance patterns in each of her churches. “I think slowly the word is getting out as I connect with people, and more people are coming in to visit or to try out different things,” she said. The church aims to envision ways to interact and strengthen community engagement.
“When people walk into my church, I want them to feel the unconditional love of God,” Camphouse emphasized. “That is my goal. When they leave, I want them to feel uplifted and empowered to do things to make a positive difference in the world around them.”
Camphouse is excited and hopeful, as the Methodist church is becoming more inclusive and eager to love, which she says will strengthen the Methodist movement as a whole. “We have been on a journey of learning how to love better and consequently becoming more inclusive of who gets to come to the table officially. Some of us have thought everybody belonged at the table in the first place.”
“I want to make it clear that everybody is welcome at our church,” she declared.
Camphouse urges the community as a whole to “be as spiritually whole and vibrant with as much goodness, love and joy as possible,” and to “come out of fear and into faith and empowerment.”
“We need every person to remember who they are and shine. That is my point,” Camphouse said. “And if you want to do that with us, you are more than welcome. But if not, know that we are praying for you and that we will come alongside you as we do good works together.”
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Photo by Nathan Miller
Central Hudson has filed with the New York State Public Service Commission for a three-year rate increase to deliver electricity and in May 2025 the PSC Staff and Central Hudson reached an agreement which has been passed along to the commissioners for their approval as the final step in the “rate case.”
The complex pages-long proposal does not involve the actual cost of producing electricity, but the expense of the infrastructure to deliver it including maintaining the electricity grid, reading electric meters, billing customers, etc.
The projected increases over the next three years will increase the Basic Service Charge, a flat amount regardless of the amount of electricity used, by 21% from $21.50 currently to $26 in year three.
The Delivery Service Charge, which is the largest part of the delivery portion of the bill, is scheduled to increase 17% over the three-year period. On what Central Hudson deems average usage of 630 kilowatt-hours per month this would add approximately $8.00 to the average bill in year one — that’s before the cost of energy and other miscellaneous charges.
In a typical month these delivery charges make up over 50% of the total bill with the remainder calculated based on the market rate of the actual energy that Central Hudson or other companies may provide.
Central Hudson’s “Net Metering” plan for homes with solar panels still charges the Basic service charge and a Customer Benefit charge even if no electricity is consumed with no credit for extra energy pumped back into the grid.
Current basic service charges for Central Hudson customers compared to NYSEG, which supplies electricity to customers in the lower Hudson Valley including Amenia, are now 13% higher and delivery charges are 31% greater than NYSEG’s before the rate increase.
No one knows when or how the seven commissioners who are appointed by the governor will rule but public comment remains open until the end of the July. Anyone can post their views publicly and read other comments on the website maintained by the PSC: documents.dps.ny.gov/public/MatterManagement/CaseMaster.aspx?MatterCaseNo=24-E-0461.
Or you could write to your county legislator, State Senator Michelle Hinchey, Congressman Pat Ryan or Sue Serino, Dutchess County Executive. In a May press release Serino called the proposed rate increases, “Unfair, unbalanced, and out of step with reality.” Congressman Pat Ryan has called the increases “adding insult to injury.”
Opposition briefs filed with the PSC focus on affordability with nearly 16% of Central Hudson’s 315,000 residential customers already behind on utility payments — significantly higher than Con Edison or NYSEG customers according to Sarahana Shrestha, who represents Kingston in the New York State Assembly. Annual 4% salary increases for nonunion and management executives are also facing criticism.
The return on equity that Central Hudson anticipates to be 9% in order to preserve its bond rating has also been raised as a concern in public comments.
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Webutuck’s Spanish for Educators program provided teachers at the district with weekly Spanish lessons intended to improve communication between teachers and students.
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AMENIA — The Webutuck Central School District will continue to offer the Spanish for Educators program, which instructs teachers on basic principles of the Spanish language, during the 2025–2026 school year, citing the program’s success during the last term.
Webutuck offered the optional class of ten weekly sessions to faculty members beginning in February as part of an effort to address communication issues between faculty and the high percentage of students with a limited command of the English language.
According to Lauren Marquis, Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Technology at Webutuck, around 22% of Webutuck students possess a knowledge of English insufficient to learn effectively in an English-speaking classroom.
The goal of the program is not to train faculty to lead specialized classes entirely in Spanish, but rather to make existing classes taught in English more accessible to Spanish-speaking students. “We are not a bilingual school — the primary language that we utilize is English,” Marquis said.
The Spanish for Educators program is intended to complement existing measures, such as translation devices and bilingual visuals, intended to make classes learnable for Spanish speakers, while still catering to the district’s majority English-speaking population, Marquis said.
Students at Webutuck may not speak English fluently, but they are not necessarily proficient in Spanish, either. “We have a large Guatemalan population who speak K’iche’ as their first language; Spanish is technically their second language and English may be their third,” further complicating the ability of teachers to provide accessible instruction to all students, Marquis said.
In spite of the inherent challenges of being a firmly English-speaking school with a population of students not proficient in the language, the Spanish for Educators program facilitated basic dialogue in the classroom and helped build relationships between students and teachers, Marquis said.
“We had some students in the last session come in to speak Spanish with our faculty which was a really valuable experience for our staff; they formed great bonds with their students,” being able to communicate in the same language, Marquis said.
The ability to engage more easily with their students was the aspect of the program which faculty found to be the most meaningful. “We had 18 staff members who participated in the course … The providers said that the participants were very enthusiastic, they were committed and they were taking risks in learning the language of our students,” Marquis said.
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