Letters to the Editor: Thursday, May 8, 2025

Kent Hollow cont.

The Amenia Town Board’s agreement to a resolution that would allow the Kent Hollow company of Connecticut to mine gravel on a site on South Amenia Road is both an environmental catastrophe and a moral disgrace.

Since Kent Hollow submitted an application in February 2017 to resume an operation they had abandoned in the 1980s, the Amenia Zoning Board of Appeals and the Town Board to their immense credit had steadfastly denied the company on the grounds that resumption of gravel mining would violate the town’s current zoning laws. Beginning with Supervisor William Flood, the Board resisted Kent Hollow’s increasing coercion, particularly its lawsuits against the Town of Amenia and those individual members of the ZBA and Town Board whom they regarded as unsympathetic to their demands.

Both Boards rejected the spurious foundation on which Kent Hollow’s application rested: although its permit expired in 1989, the company asserted that it had been extracting small amounts of rock at the site for nearly thirty years and should, therefore, be grandfathered back into full-time operation. In support of this dubious claim, Kent Hollow presented a chaotic binder of incoherent receipts and notations allegedly demonstrating this activity. The Boards saw through this duplicity: local residents whose property borders the mine site stated publicly that they witnessed no mining activity at the location for many years, and aerial photographs of the mining area revealed that it had been virtually untouched for decades.

But Kent Hollow’s persistence is equal to its rapacity, and after eight years of threats and coercion they recently persuaded the three eligible voting members of the Board to sign a resolution that, pending a DEC approval, will allow the company to mine 33 acres in a residential area along the Webatuck Creek from dawn to late afternoon for five days a week for 25 years, ensuring air and noise pollution on South Amenia Road (and beyond) and drastically reducing property values.

In carving out a special zoning exemption for Kent Hollow, the compliant Board members not only betrayed their constituents but established a dangerous precedent. Although the settlement stipulates that the Board is making an exception for Kent Hollow, they have effectively ensured that any other powerful entity with unlimited resources can and will use legal and economic coercion to negotiate similar exemptions. The idea that the Town is somehow indemnifying itself with such language is laughable. Nor does the resolution contain any explanation of how Kent Hollow will be held to the terms of the agreement. Based on the company’s consistent prevarication, the absence of oversight is confounding.

Beyond the damage the Board’s decision will inflict on the pristine fields, waterways and hills between South Amenia Road and Rattlesnake Ridge, the circumstances under which the April 24 vote was conducted are so troubling as to appear suspicious.
Instead of holding the vote at a regularly scheduled Thursday Board meeting, the three voting members (Ahern, Rebillard, Hamm) met on a Thursday between regularly scheduled meetings when local residents would not normally look for an agenda to be posted.

Rosanna Hamm announced the meeting on the morning it took place, with a link to the Town’s notoriously unreliable website. Given the unexpected date and the narrow time frame, residents who have packed previous Kent Hollow meetings and signed protest petitions remained unaware and absent.

In short, there was no public commentary before the vote was taken. No less troubling was the composition of the Board votingmembership: with the recent death of Paul Winters and the forced recusal of Supervisor Leo Blackman, the agreement (requiring an 80% supermajority) was signed by only three recently elected individuals, none of whom could be expected to understand the long, tortuous history involving Kent Hollow.

Nor is it clear whether the voting members were aware that as of August 2023 the New York State Office of Historical Preservation officially designated an area that includes the abandoned mining site as the Webatuck Agricultural Valley Historic District. Surely this ought to matter! While we understand keenly the financial pressure exerted by the company’s constant lawsuits, we believe that the Town of Amenia has far more to lose by endangering its environment, zoning laws, and reputation through their concession than it would by continuing to incur the expense of principled resistance. At our request, Supervisor Blackman has made a provision for public comment on the Kent Hollow resolution at the Board meeting on May 15. We urge all local residents of Wassaic and Amenia who care about the integrity of our environment, our laws, and our history to attend this meeting and speak out.

Philip Sicker
Diane Zahler
Wassaic

Appreciation for Aymar-Blair

I am writing to thank Dan Aymar-Blair, the Dutchess County Comptroller, for maintaining a keen focus on the County’s fiscal needs and resources rather than straying into political battles that would divert his attention from the audit and fiscal distribution issues that are his responsibility as County Comptroller. The County’s fiscal health is of particular concern in light of the federal spending cuts that seem inevitable.

The Comptroller’s opponent in the coming fall’s election ­— Will Truitt, the current County Legislative Chair — sorely lacks Aymar-Blair’s extensive experience in fiscal affairs. It is not surprising that Mr. Truitt attempts to cast the Comptroller’s job more as a policy-setting role and less as one requiring expertise in conducting audits and weeding out waste and corruption. But as Aymar-Blair has stated, “politics does not play a role [in the Comptroller’s job]….You could make the role partisan if you want, [but] auditors do apolitical work ….” (The Millerton News, 3/6/25, p. A3).

In further service of the County’s residents, Comptroller Aymar-Blair is working on making the County’s fiscal situation more transparent than it has been by increasing the number of audits and creating a glossary of terms to help us all understand his office’s work. (The Millerton News, 3/6/25, p. A3).

Truitt’s lack of knowledge about the Comptroller’s proper role was demonstrated by his request that Aymar-Blair analyze the Governor’s budget. The Dutchess County Charter, however, makes clear that the County Comptroller’s job is to focus on the County’s, not the State’s, finances. (Dutchess County Charter, section 20.02). Aymar-Blair responded to Truitt’s request to analyze the Governor’s budget by pointing out that the County Charter describes the Comptroller’s job as “to monitor county funds, audit spending, and protect taxpayer dollars….” “I do not produce policy, commentary, or political analysis of state and federal budget proposals…” (Mid-Hudson News, 4/14/25).

Aymar-Blair’s approach to his responsibilities is a breath of fresh air: much needed serious work in an area requiring expertise and focus on the County’s fiscal health at a time when federal funding is under threat of large cuts, rather than attending to personal or partisan political concerns. Thank you, Dan!

Amy Rothstein
Pine Plains