What’s happening

This week’s newspaper is filled with information that is vital for anyone who calls eastern Dutchess County home. Our reporters have been out on the scene writing up accounts of meetings, reporting on projects that are planned in coming days and those that are farther out. They also have been attending events that the residents have enjoyed in these last few weeks of summer, and writing about them. Our reporters tell the stories in words and pictures that fill our pages every week. It is the living history of our villages and towns.

We also realize, too, that we live in a world in which the average person checks their phone every 12 minutes. The result of all of our personalized searches can be that we become interested in a certain set of things. Getting a reader’s attention has to be worth their time. We strive to make the newspaper worth your time and we’re committed to the belief that it’s vital for residents of the village, the town of North East and the surrounding towns to know about the happenings in their backyards.

Last Thursday, the Eddie Collins Memorial Park Revitalization Committee presented plans for phase two of Millerton’s community park. (See story here.) Phase one was completed in 2022. The next phase, which includes plans for a swimming pool that was favored by residents in a 2016 survey, has a scheduled completion date of 2025. The timing of the project depends on the work on a planned sewer system that will extend to the park.

Both these projects — phase two of the park and the village wastewater project — are on the front burner of civic interest. They will determine much about the quality of life in the community. This summer the Webutuck Little League returned to play on the field at the park. At last Thursday’s meeting, the attendees listened as the speakers discussed the pool plans, and the air was filled with the attending sounds of basketball players on the new Eddie Collins courts and children in the refurbished playground.

Plans are afoot to bring a Dollar General store to Millerton that would include a produce section and parking for 40 cars. It would be located just east of the Talk of the Town Deli on Route 44. That would be big news for a town without a grocery store.

News can come in small bites, too. A stretch of sidewalk on Maple Avenue is slated for construction. A summer concert series wraps up in Amenia.  Pine Plains volunteers build a new trail on Stissing Mountain from Thompson Pond to the fire tower.  These are just a few of the stories in this week’s edition. Our reporters are on the lookout for what’s happening, what’s coming and writing about it for our readers.

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.

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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.

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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.

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