Millerton: $5 million water quality grant

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.”

Latest News

Revisiting ‘The Killing Fields’ with Sam Waterston

Sam Waterston

Jennifer Almquist

On June 7 at 3 p.m., the Triplex Cinema in Great Barrington will host a benefit screening of “The Killing Fields,” Roland Joffé’s 1984 drama about the Khmer Rouge and the two journalists, Cambodian Dith Pran and New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg, whose story carried the weight of a nation’s tragedy.

The film, which earned three Academy Awards and seven nominations — including one for Best Actor for Sam Waterston — will be followed by a rare conversation between Waterston and his longtime collaborator and acclaimed television and theater director Matthew Penn.

Keep ReadingShow less
The art of place: maps by Scott Reinhard

Scott Reinhard, graphic designer, cartographer, former Graphics Editor at the New York Times, took time out from setting up his show “Here, Here, Here, Here- Maps as Art” to explain his process of working.Here he explains one of the “Heres”, the Hunt Library’s location on earth (the orange dot below his hand).

obin Roraback

Map lovers know that as well as providing the vital functions of location and guidance, maps can also be works of art.With an exhibition titled “Here, Here, Here, Here — Maps as Art,” Scott Reinhard, graphic designer and cartographer, shows this to be true. The exhibition opens on June 7 at the David M. Hunt Library at 63 Main St., Falls Village, and will be the first solo exhibition for Reinhard.

Reinhard explained how he came to be a mapmaker. “Mapping as a part of my career was somewhat unexpected.I took an introduction to geographic information systems (GIS), the technological side of mapmaking, when I was in graduate school for graphic design at North Carolina State.GIS opened up a whole new world, new tools, and data as a medium to play with.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Love letters from Goshen

The marquee at Goshen Players for “A Goodnight Kiss.”

Cinzi Lavin

"A Goodnight Kiss,” premiering June 6 at Goshen Players Playhouse, is a dramatization of real Civil War-era love letters. Written by award-winning playwright Cinzi Lavin and directed by regional theater veteran Kathleen Kelly — both Litchfield County residents — it serves to reminds us that while wars are waged by nations, it is the people who live through them, their lives forever changed.

At the center of “A Goodnight Kiss” is the relationship between Sarah Jane “Jennie” Wadhams, a college student in New Britain, and Sergeant Major Frederick Lucas, a young soldier stationed in Alexandria. Lavin discovered the story of the letters by the couple in a 2002 book by Ernest B. Barker called “Fred and Jennie: A Civil War Story.” Lavin, who holds a certificate in applied history from the University of London and has performed at the White House, read all 90 letters the couple exchanged between 1863 and 1867. “It was like falling into another time,” she recalled. “You hear the dialect, the moral concerns, the humor. Jennie once said someone ‘must think she’s some pumpkins.’ I had to keep that.”

Keep ReadingShow less