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Route 82 repaving set for 2026
Nov 05, 2025
New York State Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Route 82 will be repaved next year between Route 44 in Millbrook and Sisters Hill Road in Pine Plains.
The repaving is part of the state Department of Transportation’s $34.8 billion five-year capital improvement plan including state-maintained highways across New York.
Route 82 will get new pavement between Poole Hill Road and Woods Drive in the Town of Ancram.
Route 22 will also be resurfaced between Route 23 and County Route 21 in the Town of Hillsdale and from Route 20 to the Rensselaer County line in the Town of New Lebanon.
Hochul’s announcement centered on an additional $800 million in state funding that was secured as part of the 2026 budgeting process to bolster the DOT’s resources in the final two years of the 2022-2027 capital improvement campaign.
Three-quarters of that new money — a total of over $600 million — will pay for 180 repaving projects in 2026 alone, totalling over 2,150 lane miles to be repaved next year.
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STANFORD — The Town Board adopted the 2026 preliminary budget on Tuesday, Oct. 21, after no one attended the public hearing.
“As there’s no one here in the room, I make a motion to close the public hearing on the 2026 preliminary budget,” Stanford Town Supervisor Wendy Burton said immediately after the public hearing was opened.
She then provided a brief recap of some statistics, saying salaries account for 30% of the highway fund budget and that health costs rose 15%.
“Please remember the town is responsible for the general fund, the highway fund and the ambulance fund,” Burton said. “Library, fire and Bangall light district taxes are simply pass-throughs that the town does not control.”
The total budget for the town increased slightly from $4,570,690 in 2025 to $4,828,200.
That’s a roughly 5.6% increase in the town’s overall budget compared to 2025.
But a combination of savings and a large reduction in the ambulance fund contributed to a decrease in the amount of tax revenue the town must collect from $2,552,057 to $2,247,477 — a nearly 12% decrease.
Salaries for Town Board members and the Town Supervisor stayed the same, but the supervisor’s bookkeeper and legislative aide will see small pay bumps.
The bookkeeper is getting a $1,344 raise, bringing the position’s salary to $46,155. The legislative aide is getting an $840 raise, with a new total salary of $28,847.
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A sneak peek at one of the panels planned for the Harlem Valley Rail Trail’s new outdoor classroom, which features geological information about the region. The project is expected to be installed in time for Millerton’s 175th anniversary next summer.
Illustration Provided
MILLERTON — More than eight months before construction is set to begin, several colorful, museum-quality panels that will be installed along the Harlem Valley Rail Trail as part of its new 27-panel outdoor classroom were previewed this week.
The immersive learning space, expected to be completed this summer, will feature vibrant, educational displays exploring water ecology, natural and social history, birds, insects and other elements of the local landscape. Designed to engage visitors of all ages, the outdoor classroom aims to transform a stretch of trail near Millerton into an inviting place for discovery and reflection.
The project has been more than a decade in the making. The original concept came from Dick Hermans, a member of the HVRTA Board of Directors, who envisioned the bridge over Webatuck Creek near Millerton as a center for education and gathering. Hermans also serves on the board for the Lakeville Journal and Millerton News.
“I hope people who’ve never been on the trail before stop and think, ‘Oh, that’s pretty cool — I didn’t know that,’” said Hermans. “Those mountains you see off in the distance are the Taconics, and they actually stretch all the way into Vermont. Most people don’t realize it’s one of the oldest mountain ranges in the country — once more than 10,000 feet tall.”
According to one of the panels on geology, “The Taconic Mountains are the result of a very slow yet powerful collision between what is now North America and a series of volcanic islands about 460 million years ago.”
Hermans said that history is what gives the area its rich soil and distinctive terrain. Even after all these years, he said, he has learned a lot working on the project, especially about the region’s geology.
The 27 panels will make up five different educational stations that will be set slightly off the trail for safety but easily accessible to anyone who wants to stop and learn.
With designs now complete, the HVRTA will conduct a final round of edits before having the signs manufactured. Through a combination of grants and community fundraising, the organization partnered with Dutchess County Parks and the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation to ensure signage meets all state standards. One requirement calls for the text to be written at roughly an eighth-grade reading level to keep the material accessible to visitors.
“It’s called a classroom, but it’s not a course,” said Hermans. “It’s something to intrigue people – to make them stop and think, ‘I wonder what that tree is,’ or ‘what happens underground?’ We’re very excited about it.”
The panels will mark the latest milestone in a project nearly four decades in the making. The long-running effort has so far preserved 26 miles of scenic trail, with approximately 20 additional miles to go from Hillsdale to Chatham.
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Filmmaker Philip Milano of Dover Plains holds the Scotch U-matic cassette containing his original 1970s documentary about Millerton and the Harlem Valley Transportation Association. The film sat in his attic for nearly 50 years before being digitized.
Photo by Aly Morrissey
MILLERTON – While the Harlem Valley Rail Trail Association continues to pave the way for preserving the region’s historic railroad corridor, Board Chair and longtime local business owner Dick Hermans was reminded recently of how much the region has changed since its railroad days.
That reminder came in the form of a resurfaced documentary film that had been tucked away in an attic in Dover Plains for more than 40 years. The film’s subject was the Harlem Valley Transportation Association – a grassroots group that fought to retain passenger and freight rail service between New York City and Chatham, New York in the 1960s and 1970s. Hermans recalls being an early member after founder Lettie Gay Carson “handed over the organization’s checkbook” before retiring.
Opening his laptop, Hermans played the video – grainy but clear, with crisp audio. A young woman stood in the corner of a bookshop, speaking passionately into a handheld microphone about the loss of rail service and its impact on rural businesses, farms and residents.
“It brings in the whole question of rural powerlessness,” the woman said, warning that locals would soon become “highway hostages,” forced to drive gas-guzzling cars. She asked, “Do the small towns of America have a right to have their needs voiced? Have a right to say how decisions are made? We’ll fight 'til the very end to prevent these lines from being ripped up.”
With a smile, Hermans recognized the speaker instantly. “That’s my former partner, Holly Nelson, in our original Oblong store,’ he said.
Then located in the 750-square foot space most recently occupied by Demitasse, Oblong Books and Records was founded by Hermans, who also serves on the board of the Lakeville Journal and Millerton News, and Nelson in 1975. The film serves as a time capsule of the region’s transportation struggles and provides a rare glimpse into Millerton in the 1970s.
B-roll footage shows the former Saperstein’s building – now Westerlind – and its famed railroad mural, along with shots of the old Sharon and Millerton stations.
The late Frank Perotti, who served as the supervisor of North East for more than a decade, also appears, speaking about how the loss of freight service affected his dairy farm. Standing in front of the barn of Lone Pine Farm, Perotti said, “We’ve depended on the railroad for our freight coming in here. We see the loss in the economy since we’ve lost the service to the railroad.”
The filmmaker behind the 28-minute documentary is Philip Milano, a longtime Dover Plains resident who made the project while studying at New York University.
“It took me about a month to make,” Milano told The News. “I played all the music myself, lined up the interviews and edited it.” His dedication even left him with battle scars. He strapped his camera to a hand car, “the kind Buster Keaton used,” he noted, and pumped it by hand from Copake to Sharon to capture a moving shot. “By the time I got back, I had blisters all over my hands.” He said with a grin, “But I got the shot.”
Milano was recently contacted by a former Copake Falls resident who wanted to view the film for research. Skeptical that the old Scotch U-matic cassette – a bulky, professional-grade videotape used in the 1970s – would still play, Milano agreed to ship the only existing copy of his movie out west. To his surprise, it was successfully digitized in Las Vegas.
He remembers making the documentary “vividly.” Though it began as a school project, it went on to air on cable television, which was only available in Manhattan at the time. Milano watched the premiere from his aunt’s city apartment, surrounded by friends and bottles of wine. “This must be what the Beatles felt like the first time they heard one of their songs on the radio,” he remembers thinking.
The film was also screened at The Moviehouse in Millerton for a one-night showing that drew many of its local participants.
Though Milano didn’t pursue filmmaking after NYU, he stayed rooted in the area, opening and running Milano’s Restaurant in Pine Plains for 14 years. The establishment, now Back Bar Beer Garden, still operates today.
Nearly 50 years later, Milano says he is content with how history unfolded. “If the trains had stayed, this whole area would look completely different,” he said. “In a way, I’m glad it didn’t happen because I still like bouncing along these scenic back roads. It’s one of the prettiest parts of New York.”
While Hermans and others once fought to keep the railroad from being torn up, it’s not far-fetched to think that its demise – and the halt of further development – may have helped preserve the rural character and charm of the Harlem Valley, best seen today from the rail trail that follows the old line.
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