MILLERTON – At a glance, Millerton’s year was marked by striking contrasts. Moments of division were set against moments of community building. Major municipal milestones were followed by delays and missed deadlines. And years-long efforts to prepare for the future unfolded alongside planning efforts to celebrate the past.
A Feb. 3 fire shaped what would become a year of rebuilding and resilience for the Village of Millerton. The early-morning blaze destroyed the highway and water department building, incinerating the village’s police vehicles, snow-removal equipment and everything inside the building.
What followed was an impressive effort to replace critical infrastructure, secure emergency funding, file and manage insurance claims and reimagine long-term plans for the site. The loss ignited nearly a year of logistical challenges, but also revealed a supportive community of workers, volunteers and neighbors. Demolition of the building began on Oct. 27, and efforts to build two new structures will begin early this year, although an official construction timeline has not been released by the village.
Decaying equipment and infrastructure still greet those walking through the parking lot at the Millerton Square Plaza on Route 44 just east of the Village of MIllerton.Photo by Nathan Miller
One of the biggest questions on residents’ minds this year was the long-awaited return of a full-scale grocery store to Millerton. Early optimism followed the 2024 sale of the Millerton Square Plaza to Kim and Chris Choe, veteran grocers who own the Sharon Farm Market. After the Town of North East Planning Board approved their site plan earlier this spring, many hoped the new “Town Gourmet Market” would open in 2025. The owners even floated an October target.
But as fall came and went, the plaza’s parking lot remained cluttered with debris, and visible disrepair raised new questions about timing. During a recent visit to the couple’s newly opened New Haven store, Market 360, co-owner Kim Choe said extensive interior renovations have delayed progress and that no updated timeline is available. Still, Choe emphasized that the project is moving forward.
In May, a group of residents and neighbors concerned about national immigration enforcement urged the Village Board to adopt a local law prohibiting Millerton police from assisting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) without a judicial warrant. Their request was heard at a May 21 board meeting, but momentum surged ahead of a July 29 follow-up meeting that drew nearly triple the crowd. The discussion revealed a deeply divided community. Ultimately, trustees declined to pursue the proposal, and Millerton Police said they would fully cooperate with federal authorities, including ICE, even without a judicial warrant, while noting that the department does not collect immigration status information.
In spite of that decision, local advocates have continued to organize independently. Residents have sought “Know Your Rights” training and rapid-response preparation through regional organizations such as the Columbia County Sanctuary Movement and Vecinos Seguros 2, building informal networks to support neighbors who may be vulnerable. While the village chose not to adopt the new policy, these community-led efforts reflect a broader regional movement to ensure residents understand their rights and have support in an increasingly uncertain enforcement landscape.
Eddie Collins Memorial Park on Route 22. Construction on the proposed pool is set to begin in 2026.Photo by Nathan Miller
Millerton’s long-awaited pool at Eddie Collins Park saw both disappointment and progress this year. In July, Mayor Jenn Najdek announced that construction – originally scheduled to begin in spring 2025 – had been pushed to 2026 due to ongoing wetlands and septic-related reviews by county and state agencies. Residents and officials alike were disappointed that the pool will not be ready for the village’s upcoming 175th celebration in July. Trustees chose to delay construction until after the event, ensuring residents have a place to gather.
Even so, planning continues. Architects from LaBella Associates presented updated designs in December 2025, and trustees finalized several key decisions, including opting against a heated pool because of cost and choosing a fully equipped commercial kitchen for the pool house. With design details now refined and ready for county review, village officials say the project remains very much alive – just on a longer timeline than originally planned.
Zoning, often an overlooked topic, became one of the year’s most contentious issues, as the Town of North East moved toward a rewrite of its commercial zoning code for the first time since the 1970s. After four years of work by the volunteer Zoning Review Committee (ZRC) and nearly a year of Town Board review, officials released a 181-page draft in November outlining major updates intended to modernize the code. Officials stated that additional goals were to encourage new housing options, streamline approvals and support local business growth. A public hearing is set for Jan. 8, where residents will have an opportunity to weigh in.
In recent weeks, however, a group called “Save Millerton” has challenged the process, publishing information that alleges poor transparency, overly dense housing allowances and lax zoning enforcement. Town officials reject those claims, calling them misleading and emphasizing that the rewrite reflects years of public meetings, professional planning input and the goals laid out in the 2019 Comprehensive Plan.
Supervisor Chris Kennan said revisions may still follow the Jan. 8 hearing and stressed that the updated code is designed to encourage much-needed housing and welcome new and existing business development.
Even amid delay and division, Millerton continued to show up for one another. The community turned out in numbers for major events like the Oblong Books 50th Birthday Celebration, the Millerton News Street Fair and the Memorial Day Parade. And while zoning will continue to take center stage and shape Millerton’s future, planning is in full swing to honor its past with the 175th committee working alongside business owners and residents to create a birthday bash in July.
Jeremy Boviard, General Manager at the Moviehouse in Millerton.
Ask about a favorite film and he’ll happily explain the first time he saw it, how it was made and why it matters. One story leads to another. His enthusiasm is infectious. For Boviard, movies are far more than entertainment – they’re one of the best ways people connect.
That passion has made him the perfect steward of The Moviehouse in Millerton, where, as general manager, he has helped transform the nonprofit theater into a vibrant community gathering place.
“I like bringing people together to share something,” he said. “People come here to enjoy themselves, to learn about the world and themselves, and we’re here to facilitate and enhance that experience as much as possible.”
His path to The Moviehouse, however, wasn’t one he could have imagined.
Raised in Newton, Massachusetts, Boviard grew up immersed in musical theater and developed an early love of cinema. Some of his first memories involve movies. As a toddler, he insisted on watching “E.T.” before deciding the opening scenes were too scary. Today, it’s one of his all-time favorites. He also wore out a VHS recording of the television broadcast of “The Wizard of Oz,” commercials and all.
Cinema was a family affair. His mother, a preschool teacher, would even mail him Siskel and Ebert’s “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” movie reviews while he was away at summer camp, to keep him in the loop.
“I’ve always loved talking about movies,” he said.
After studying communications and media at Northeastern University, Boviard explored a variety of careers. Then, in 2016, his life took an unexpected turn.
He came to northwest Connecticut seeking treatment for alcoholism at Mountainside Treatment Center in Canaan, expecting to stay for only a month or two.
Instead, he found a new beginning.
Nearly a decade later, Boviard remains sober and speaks openly about the experience that changed his life.
“It’s a big part of my identity,” he said. “It’s more than not drinking or doing drugs; it’s about having integrity and being open to others.”
After completing treatment, he stayed in the area and joined the Mountainside staff, eventually becoming a client services lead during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The work was demanding, requiring compassion, flexibility and resilience.
“It helped me become — not the best version of myself, because I’m not perfect — but I feel stable and happy with my life in ways that 10 years ago I did not,” he said. “It’s the beginning of a lifelong journey.”
That same outlook shapes the way he approaches his work today.
When friends learned The Moviehouse was looking for a general manager after reopening in 2021, they immediately thought of Boviard. Running an independent movie theater had long been one of his dream jobs.
“It felt like a perfect fit,” he said, “and I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity that [Moviehouse Chair and Vice Chair] Chelsea Altman and David Maltby have given me.”
His days rarely look the same. He helps choose films, organizes special events, oversees fundraising and educational programs, manages staff schedules and payroll, orders supplies — and, if necessary, teaches new team members to change the soda fountain syrup, as he did in the middle of this interview: “There are plenty of moments where you’re doing a little bit of everything.”
He credits Assistant General Manager Tom Cloutier, Public Relations and Marketing Director Helen Seslowsky, and the rest of the team for creating a culture built on trust and teamwork.
“When I’m not here physically, I trust that the people who are here are handling everything well,” he said. “That’s a really good place to be.”
Jeremy Boviard and the team have expanded concessions at The Moviehouse.Annette Stover
Under Boviard’s leadership, The Moviehouse has expanded well beyond first-run films. Trivia nights, filmmaker discussions, live performances, after-school filmmaking programs and community partnerships have become part of its identity.
His goal is to offer something streaming services can’t.
“There’s something special about sharing a story in a room full of other people,” he said.
In an age when so much entertainment is experienced alone, Boviard believes the real magic of the movies is not confined to the screen. It’s found in the shared experience of watching together, lights dimming and a community discovering, for a couple of hours, that great stories are better when they’re shared.
That commitment extends beyond the theater. As co-chair of the Millerton Business Alliance, Boviard helps organize community events, including free holiday movie screenings and Festival of Lights activities.
He says he still finds himself struck by the quiet beauty of the region he unexpectedly came to call home.
Asked what advice he would give his younger self, Boviard doesn’t talk about career success or favorite films.
Instead, he offered a lesson earned through experience.
“Life’s full of surprises, and things often won’t play out how you expect,” he said. “If you put your best foot forward, stay even-keeled and remain as realistically optimistic as possible, life will lead to some unexpectedly wonderful places.”
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Presenters at the 2025 Berkshire Mushroom Festival.
On Aug. 22 and 23, Tam Integration, an online psychedelic community organization, and Lee, Massachusetts-based dispensary Sweetgrass Botanicals will bring together foragers, cultivators, scientists, artists, cooks and curious humans at Dewey Hall in Sheffield, Massachusetts, for a weekend devoted to the remarkable world of mushrooms.
Stamets’ books, including “Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World,” have helped inspire a broader fascination with the fungal kingdom, from the role of mycelium in forest ecosystems to the potential of mushrooms in medicine and environmental restoration. Similarly, Michael Pollan’s “How to Change Your Mind” introduced millions of readers to the history and revival of psychedelic research, including scientific investigations into psilocybin, the psychoactive compound found in certain mushrooms. Pollan’s reporting has helped illuminate a field that had moved from the counterculture into laboratories and serious conversations about consciousness and mental health.
This spirit fits the Berkshire festival, whose theme this year is “the mycelial web of nature, creativity, science and magic.” Over the course of the weekend, visitors can explore mushrooms from nearly every conceivable angle: guided walks and species identification, cultivation, cooking, crafts, spore-print art and conversations about medicinal and psychedelic fungi.
Among the presenters is Berkshire native John Wheeler, founder of the Berkshire Mycological Society, who has been foraging for more than 30 years and has identified roughly 1,100 mushroom species. He’ll lead a Sunday foraging workshop and join a panel on foraging and identification with Luke Sarrantonio, founder of Mycophilic. Sarrantonio, who grew up in Rosendale, has built a career around fungal education, cultivation and community projects, including the Catskills’ annual “For the Love of Fungi” mushroom and arts festival.
Daniel Shankin
The festival also goes deep into the increasingly visible world of psychedelic fungi. Daniel Shankin, founder of Tam Integration, is a psychedelic integration coach whose work focuses on helping people incorporate transformative psychedelic experiences into their lives.
“It’s so exciting to be able to bring in such wide-ranging talent,” said Shankin of the speakers and presenters at this year’s festival. “There are people that I’ve been friends with in this community for years that I haven’t gotten to work with in person because they live in Guatemala or the Netherlands or another part of the world, so this is so exciting.”
As the founder of an organization that works with the psychedelic portion of the fungi world, Shankin is also excited to bring the growing consciousness around this modality to more people and train more people to be guides. “Not everybody necessarily needs to do psychedelics,” said Shankin, “but I feel like everybody needs to be able to hold space for somebody who’s on psychedelics.”
Cassandra Purdy, founder of Sweetgrass Botanicals, has spent more than 30 years immersed in the world of plant medicine, shamanism and entheogens. Together with other presenters, they’ll explore psychedelic preparation and integration, spirituality, safety, ethics and the art of creating supportive spaces for psychedelic experiences.
And the weekend’s conversation about fungi extends well beyond psychedelics. Imani Turnbull-Brown, co-founder of the Entheogen Melanin Collective, brings a focus on ancestral healing, Black wellness and making the psychedelic conversation more accessible and inclusive. Other sessions explore soil and regeneration, functional and medicinal mushrooms, cultivation, mushroom-inspired art and the practical business of growing fungi.
“I think people are increasingly suspicious of Western medicine,” said Shankin. “They’re looking for ways to combat the effects of aging and pollution, the effects of toxins in their foods, and they’re interested in taking their health and well-being into their own hands. Learning about functional mushrooms and the healthy lifestyle that goes along with them can go a long way.”
The Berkshire Mushroom Festival offers a particularly enjoyable way to investigate these extraordinary organisms — and to consider whether fungi might even hold some answers to the human-made environmental challenges unfolding around us. As Stamets has put it, “I love a challenge and saving the Planet seems like a good one.” Come see what the fungi have to say for themselves.
The Berkshire Mushroom Festival takes place Aug. 22 and 23 at Dewey Hall, 91 Main St., Sheffield, Massachusetts. For more information and tickets, visit berkshiremushroom
.com
(From L to R) Jakob Kerr-Lucero (Jake), Charlotte Wise (Candy), Richie Crane (Joey), Brianna Vivace (Coco), and Vivian Burnham (Stage Manager) in rehearsal for Sharon Playhouse’s “Zombie Prom.”
Set in a candy-colored 1950s high school, “Zombie Prom” has everything a vintage teen musical could want: a sweet girl, a rebellious bad boy, a terrifyingly strict principal, rock ’n’ roll, big dance numbers and enough adolescent angst to power a small town. It also has a dead boyfriend who refuses to let the grave interfere with his love life.
The show is the second annual production of the Sharon Playhouse’s Launchpad Company, a pre-professional program for theater artists ages 15 to 20. This year’s young cast comes from communities on both sides of the Connecticut-New York border, including Alex Wilbur of Lakeville as Eddie Flagrante, Carlo Desy of Fairfield as Jonny, Abby Callaway of Woodbury as Toffee and Callie Audia of Dover Plains as Miss Delilah Strict.
Rehearsals for “Zombie Prom” at the Sharon Playhouse.Lynette Shy
The musical, with music by Dana P. Rowe, lyrics by John Dempsey and a book by Dempsey and Hugh M. Murphy, premiered Off-Broadway in 1996. Sharon’s production has a particularly fun connection to that original run: Director DJ Salisbury was a member of the original Off-Broadway company. He also returns to the Sharon Playhouse, where he directed “42nd Street” in 2011. Michelle Lemon choreographs, and Eric Thomas Johnson is music director.
Expect catchy songs, big personalities, teenage melodrama, zombie shenanigans and enough high camp to make death look like a pretty good time. But underneath all the hairspray and grave dirt, “Zombie Prom” is also a coming-of-age story about love, friendship, refusing to become somebody you’re not and never letting something as minor as death get between you and true love.
“Zombie Prom” runs Aug. 21 and 22 at 7 p.m. and Aug. 23 at 3 p.m. at the Sharon Playhouse, 49 Amenia Road, Sharon. Tickets at sharonplayhouse.org
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