Providing a solution

Last week ground was broken on a $5.3 million project to create a new health care center in North Canaan that will serve all Northwest Corner residents with a range of services, including primary care and behavioral health services. In a Page One story this week, our reporter Riley Klein notes that besides individual therapy, there will be group therapy, medication management, women’s health and child and adolescent behavioral services.

The new facility, to be located across from the Stop & Shop and which is expected to completed in the fall of 2023, will provide this care regardless of ability to pay. It will be the third one for the Community Health and Wellness Center in Torrington, a Federally Qualified Healthcare Center (FQHC). As such, it receives federal money to provide medical care to areas in need where such care is scarce and without regard to insurance status or financial means. The center’s two other facilities are in Torrington and Winsted.

Starting last May, the same Community Health and Wellness Center in Torrington started a mobile-clinic service covering the towns in the Northwest Corner with a regular weekly schedule of visits. The mobile clinics were hailed as a breakthrough that made it possible to get healthcare without traveling. In the case of West Cornwall, a visit to the mobile clinic marked the first time in three decades that residents could get medical care in their own town. On one visit, two clients were seen as new patients. Others received COVID shots, a typical need back then.

Some experts see such innovation as a significant element in future delivery of medical care to people.

The North Canaan project, funded by a bond contract of $3 million from Gov. Ned Lamont’s office and a $1.3 million grant from the Foundation for Community Health, and supported by State Rep. Maria Horn (D-64), has been years in the making. Joanne Borduas at the Community Health and Wellness Center and Nancy Heaton at the Foundation for Community Health have spearheaded the effort, recognizing a need and delivering a solution.

Latest News

Stanford home market sees nine sales in July and August

Built in 1820, 1168 Bangall Amenia Road sold for $875,000 on July 31 with the transfer recorded in August. It has a Millbrook post office and is located in the Webutuck school district.

Christine Bates

STANFORD — The Town of Stanford with nine transfers in two months reached a median price in August of $573,000 for single family homes, still below Stanford’s all-time median high in August 2024 of $640,000.

At the beginning of October there is a large inventory of single-family homes listed for sale with only six of the 18 homes listed for below the median price of $573,000 and seven above $1 million.

Keep ReadingShow less
Dutchess County Sheriff’s Report
Village of Millerton offices on Route 22
John Coston

Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office Harlem Valley area activity reportSept. 18 to Sept. 30.

Sept. 23 — Deputies responded to 1542 State Route 292 in the Town of Pawling for the report of a suspicious vehicle at that location. Investigation resulted in the arrest of Sebastian Quiroga, age 26, for aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle in the third degree. Quiroga to appear in the Town of Pawling court at a later date.

Keep ReadingShow less
Out on the trail
Nathan Miller

Hunt club members and friends gathered near Pugsley Hill at the historic Wethersfield Estate and Gardens in Amenia for the opening meet of the 2025-2026 Millbrook Hunt Club season on Saturday, Oct. 4. Foxhunters took off from Wethersfield’s hilltop gardens just after 8 a.m. for a hunting jaunt around Amenia’s countryside.

Millbrook Library dedicates pollinator pathway garden

Joining in the fun at the dedication of the new pollinator pathway garden at The Millbrook Library on Saturday, Oct. 4, local expert gardener Maryanne Snow Pitts provides information about a planting to Lorraine Mirabella of Poughkeepsie.

Leila Hawken

MILLBROOK — Participating in a patchwork of libraries that have planted pollinator pathway gardens to attract insects and birds to their native plantings was one of the accomplishments being celebrated at the dedication of a new pollinator garden at the Millbrook Library on Saturday, Oct. 4.

“A lot of work went into it,” said Emma Sweeney, past President of the Millbrook Garden Club, who started the local library’s initiative two years ago.

Keep ReadingShow less