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Letter to the Editor - March 26, 2026
Millerton News
Mar 25, 2026
Deer bill, trains, twisters, affordable housing
Millerton News
Mar 25, 2026
The following excerpts from The Millerton News were compiled by Kathleen Spahn and Rhiannon Leo-Jameson of the North East-Millerton Library.
March 28, 1935
Dutchess County Deer Bill Becomes Law
Governor Lehman signed the now famous Dutchess County deer bill on Monday, making the bill law. The measure provides that deer may be killed with shotguns within the boundaries of the county at fixed seasons by sportsmen having special licenses. The probable season is the first two weeks in November. The exact date will be set by the Conservation Department. Deer are said to be abundant in the county.
New Crossing Device Approved
ALBANY - The Public Service Commission has approved an interesting device for the protection of the grade crossing of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad situated one-half mile north of Millerton in the Town of North East, Dutchess County.
When the interlocking device is installed New York Central trains will be permitted to proceed over the crossing if the signals indicate they may safely do so, and all New Haven trains will make stops.
Bird House Draws Much Attention
COPAKE FALLS, March 28 - The new bird house at the Hoheline residence on Main Street is attracting a great deal of attention by its size and beauty. It was built by Mr. Hoheline’s son-in-law and weight [sic] 70 pounds. The last word in a modern two-story house, it is divided into four apartments. The house is well lighted on all sides by many glazed windows and it has a spacious porch enclosed by a picket railing. The house is painted yellow with white trim.
March 25, 1976
Miraculously No One Was Hurt: Twister Rips Through Town
A wicked twister ripped through the Town of North East on Sunday, tearing up 100-foot trees, bursting sheds, bombarding houses, and knocking cars clear off the road, miraculously no one was hurt.
The winds picked up around 3 p.m. Florence Scasso was sitting on her porch at her house on a hilltop overlooking Route 22 south of Millerton. Suddenly she saw a “great big cloud just like a funnel” come down out of the sky and whip through a field on the east side of Route 22.
“Dust and stuff was flying through the air,” she said. She saw the tornado (“it was the oddest-looking thing”’) head toward Downey Road at North East Center when torrents of rain hit and “we could see nothing.”
March 29, 2001
County Tells North East About Lack Of Affordable Housing
NORTH EAST — Just by glancing through the classified advertisements in a local newspaper, one can discern that affordable housing is difficult to come by in this area.
That is the concern the North East Town Board addressed at a special meeting March 22.
The board met with Pat Sasserman, executive director of the Rural Preservation Company (RPC) of Dutchess County, and Anne Saylor, housing coordinator for the Dutchess County Department of Planning and Developing (DPD), and discussed the local housing shortage and possible solutions to the problem.
As a result of this discourse, the board decided to invite community members to help in developing a housing survey for residents. The goal of the survey is to pinpoint the specific housing needs of the community. Once known, fund-raising efforts can be focused to fulfill these needs.
Ms. Sasserman said the RPC’s mission is to help communities develop an array of housing.
“There is a need for many kinds of housing here in North East, including senior citizens and family residences,” said Ms. Sasserman.
MTA PromisesTo Stifle Idling Engines
WASSAIC - It may be a small consolation to the noses and ears of those who live near its new station here, but Metro-North said this week within 60 days it intends to reduce the number of trains that idle overnight at its Wassaic yard.
*We have been idling more trains than we expected we would,” Metro-North spokesman Marjorie Anders acknowledged this week.
Residents Peeved
The railroad’s need to idle more trains has irked nearby residents who have complained since last summer of a continuous rumble and a persistent smell of diesel exhaust, especially overnight and on weekends.
“The noise is the worst,” said Wassaic resident Carl Rennia, whose Old Route 22 home sits directly behind the station. “And we get the fumes when the wind blows the wrong way.”
Brad and Jean Rebillard, who live across the street from Mr. Rennia, say they have been frustrated at their inability to get answers from Metro-North.
“In reviewing the EIS [environmental impact statement], it looks to me like Metro-North is misleading the public by not following the plan,” Mr. Rebillard said earlier this week before the railroad told The Millerton News of its new plan.
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North East board blocks Irondale business expansion
Nathan Miller
Mar 25, 2026
The Irondale district, currently known as Highway Business District III, is comprised of just six parcels along Route 22 that are currently occupied by light industrial businesses.
Nathan Miller
MILLERTON — North East Town Board members on Friday voted to reject a proposed expansion of permitted businesses in the Irondale section of town, a small commercial district comprising just seven parcels along Route 22 north of Millerton.
The board voted 3-2 at its March 20 meeting to abandon the proposal that would have allowed restaurants, liquor stores, microbreweries, banks and bakeries in the district, following sharp criticism from the town’s Zoning Review Committee, residents and the Village of Millerton’s Board of Trustees.
The Irondale District — currently known as Highway Business District III — is located along Route 22 near the intersection with Irondale Road. Each of the seven parcels has been developed, with two containing residential homes rather than commercial uses.
The Board of Trustees submitted a letter stating the village’s opposition to the proposed expansion of use. Deputy Mayor Matt Hartzog read the letter, which said the village was against commercial planning that would divert attention away from the Route 44 corridor, and that adoption of the changes would hurt the working relationship between the village and the Town of North East.
“Over many years, the Village of Millerton has devoted substantial time, taxpayer resources, and planning efforts to infrastructure improvements in the Village Center,” the letter said. “Diverting commercial activity away from the Village and Town center risks undermining the economic foundation for these shared infrastructure investments and could complicate further inter-municipal cooperation.”
North East and Millerton residents largely sided with the Village of Millerton during the meeting, with only one North East resident and Town Board members Meg Winkler and Rachele Grieco Cole advocating for retaining the expanded uses.
North East resident Rob Cooper said he thought the Irondale District is the only other suitable place for business development in the town.
“Every storefront in the village, as far as I know, is occupied,” Cooper said. “If you wanted more business to come in, where else would you put it besides in the Irondale District?”
Town Councilwoman Meg Winkler has been one of the strongest supporters of permitting bakeries and other food service businesses in the district since the Town Board began considering the revamped town zoning law earlier this year. She said that just five parcels in the Irondale District are suitable for businesses, saying a few small businesses shouldn’t hurt the village.
“I don’t find those five properties a threat to the village, I think it complements it,” Winkler said. “This is not my own personal point of view. I’ve really gotten so many calls to discuss it, so I’m just bringing that other side to the table. And the comprehensive plan also says to expand uses in HB-III.”
The Town Board also expanded permitted uses in the western Boulevard District — comprising parcels between the Village of Millerton’s eastern border and the western bank of the Webatuck Creek. That expansion came after Cooper asked for business types such as accessory shed sales be permitted to bring his property on Route 44 to end his property’s nonconforming status. Cooper said at a February meeting that he rents a portion of his historic Mobil gas station property on Route 44 to a shed sale business operated by Millerton resident Stone Scasso, one of the few businesses that could use the property due to deed restrictions on the property dating back to its past as a full service gas station.
Board members voted unanimously to allow automotive mechanics not including body shops, and sales of outdoor play equipment and pre-fabricated sheds.
Following those actions, the Town Board voted to approve a negative declaration under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, meaning the board found the changes to the zoning law will have limited immediate impact on the environment and will not draft an Environmental Impact Statement.
The public hearing on the proposed new zoning law will continue at the Thursday, April 20, regular meeting of the Town Board. Board members expect to wrap up deliberation and approve the law following the public hearing.
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Flight simulator project takes first place at Webutuck STEAM Fair
Nathan Miller
Mar 25, 2026
Webutuck freshman Nolan Howard displays the first-place certificate he won for his flight simulator presentation at the Webutuck STEAM Fair on Saturday, March 21.
Nathan Miller
AMENIA — Webutuck freshman Nolan Howard took first place at Webutuck’s 12th annual STEAM Fair on Saturday, March 21, with his presentation on the science of flight simulators.
Howard brought his flight simulation gear to Webutuck’s middle school gymnasium, complete with joysticks and a monitor to demonstrate how the technology can aid in training pilots for real-world situations.
The annual STEAM Fair is a showcase of Webutuck students’ scientific experiments, collections or discoveries. Organizers said this year brought more than 70 student participants ranging in age from kindergarten to high school for the annual event.
More than 30 faculty volunteers and seven students helped judge the presentations. First-place participants in middle and high school have a chance to take their presentations to the Dutchess County Science Fair. Webutuck fifth grader Lilliana Nelson took home first place in the middle school division with her presentation exploring the effects of different types of salt on making ice cream. Nelson and Howard will now have the opportunity to take their presentations to the Dutchess County Science Fair on April 11 at Dutchess Community College.
Presentations at this year’s STEAM Fair included demonstrations of hydraulics and pneumatics, such as sixth-grader June Duncan’s hydraulic soda can crusher that she constructed out of plastic tubing, syringes and an empty plastic food container; an exploration of plant hydration science with freshman Sabin Kane’s test of Gatorade as a substitute for water in germinating radish seeds — which proved once and for all that plants do not crave electrolytes.
“Turns out that Gatorade is not good for the plants,” Kane said. “I did not think that would be the case. It’s mostly made out of water.”
Duncan’s hydraulic can crusher used the incompressible power of water to crush soda cans into almost-flat disks. She said she ran into trouble when cans wouldn’t immediately give, causing an important valve in the system to burst and forcing her to find another solution.
“It takes 50 or 60 pounds to crush the can,” Duncan said. “With dense cans, we kept blowing our check valve so it kept popping and breaking.”
Other presentations included classic chemical reactions such as mixing Coke and Mentos and baking soda volcanoes, explorations of homemade slime and a substance called oobleck — a non-Newtonian fluid that refuses to flow under pressure — and dioramas of different parts of the animal kingdom.
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Local ‘No Kings’ protests gain momentum ahead of March 28 nationwide day of action
Aly Morrissey
Mar 25, 2026
Amenia resident Kimberley Travis displays one of her handmade signs used in regular demonstrations at Fountain Square, at the intersection of Routes 22 and 44 in Amenia.
Aly Morrissey
AMENIA — Kim Travis has been flipped off, honked at, and even received death threats during her weekly “No Kings” protests in Fountain Square since last summer — reactions Travis says she’s willing to endure in order to fight for her First Amendment rights.
“I wasn’t going to let them stop me,” Travis said of an incident she said got so escalated she had to call the police. “I was there the next day, and I’ve been there ever since.”
Travis, a 68-year-old Amenia resident, began protesting alone several days a week at the busy intersection and has since helped build a small but growing local movement. Fountain Square will be one of several area gathering points as part of this weekend’s nationwide day of protest.
“It’s just so nice to have company now, because I was alone for so long,” Travis said, noting that she has spent a lifetime protesting since the Vietnam War.
Local organizers are preparing to participate in a coordinated “No Kings” demonstration on Saturday, March 28 — part of a national effort that organizers say could become the largest single-day peaceful protest in U.S. history. A previous demonstration in October drew an estimated 7 million participants, and organizers say the March rally could bring that number up to 12 million people.
The movement, which began in June 2025, has drawn millions across multiple national days of action and continues to take shape at the local level. In Dutchess County and northwest Connecticut, small but steady groups have kept up weekly demonstrations, gathering in Amenia’s Fountain Square and at the White Hart lawn in Salisbury, Connecticut. Organizers say those efforts have helped build momentum for the March rally, where they expect larger than usual crowds.
Organizers with the national No Kings Coalition say the phrase “No Kings” is more than a slogan and that more than 3,000 events are planned nationwide for March 28.
“Born in the streets, shouted by millions, carried on posters and chants, it echoes from city blocks to rural town squares, uniting people across this country to fight dictatorship together,” the coalition states on its website.
Inside Travis’s garage, dozens of brightly colored protest signs — some carefully lettered, others layered with glue and found materials — line the walls and lean in stacks. She has been making them steadily since last June, refining her process over time.
“It’s truly an art form,” she said, “You learn as you go, making signs.” Travis described the process as both a creative outlet and a coping mechanism.
Gregory Swinehart, a Millerton resident, said he joined the “No Kings” movement after driving by the gatherings in Amenia and Salisbury, despite having no prior history of protesting.
“Everything changed when President Trump was elected for a second term, and I became very concerned,” Swinehart said. “I was always empathetic toward protesters, but I never felt a personal reason to join — until now.”
Swinehart said he made signs, attended his first protest and kept showing up. He has since taken on a more active role, working to recruit friends and family and helping to promote the March 28 rally.
At any given demonstration, a mix of colorful signs reflects a wide range of concerns among participants.
“It’s like a kaleidoscope,” Swinehart said. “Different people see different things going wrong, and they each bring their own reason to protest.”
While Swinehart has realistic expectations about the outcome, he hopes the demonstrations will resonate over time.
“If people see us out there week after week — in the cold, in the rain — it might make them stop and ask questions,” he said.
Travis echoed that sentiment, noting the shift she has seen over time.
“Now I’d say 90 to 95 percent of the reactions are positive,” she said. “People honk, give a thumbs up, yell encouragement,” she said. “People say thank you and tell us to keep going.”
With a data-driven mindset, Swinehart pointed to the “3.5 percent rule,” a theory developed by Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth, which suggests that sustained participation by 3.5 percent of a population can lead to meaningful societal change.
“I keep that as my North Star,” Swinehart said.
Based on RSVP data from the “No Kings” website, organizers estimate that up to 12 million people could participate in demonstrations nationwide — a figure that would approach 3.5% of the U.S. population.
Regardless of the turnout, Swinehart said the sense of community is palpable at the protests.
“People who are concerned come together,” he said, adding that many participants see the demonstrations as a way to exercise their First Amendment rights and stand up for others in their communities.
For Travis, that sense of connection is what keeps her coming back.
“We’re out there together, expressing our rights,” she said. “We’ve got music playing, we’re blowing whistles, we’re dancing, we’re holding our signs. And we’re not going anywhere.”
Local demonstrations will be held at the White Hart lawn in Salisbury, Connecticut from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.; at Fountain Square in Amenia from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.; in Kent, Connecticut from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.; and at Lions Minipark in Rhinebeck from 10 a.m. to noon.
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Nursery expansion approved despite transparency concerns
Nathan Miller
Mar 25, 2026
MILLBROOK —The Village of Millbrook Planning Board on Monday conditionally approved plans for two new buildings at a nursery on Franklin Avenue at the intersection with Route 44, despite a resident’s concerns about limited public access to application materials ahead of the hearing.
The property operates as a preexisting, nonconforming use — meaning it does not meet current zoning but is allowed to continue.
The proposal calls for two new structures at the former Orangerie Garden and Home site, located at the intersection of Franklin Avenue and Route 44. According to the property owners, the buildings will be used for equipment storage and to display garden statuary. An existing greenhouse on the property will also be renovated, though its footprint will remain unchanged.
The approval is contingent on review by Dutchess County Planning & Development, as well as variances from the Village Zoning Board of Appeals. Applicants must also address comments from Planning Board consultant Pete Sander of Rennia Engineering, including providing additional site plan detail and clarifying parking requirement calculations.
Before the vote, Millbrook resident Elizabeth Logan-Baravalle raised concerns about the Planning Board’s procedures, saying the public notice for Monday night’s meeting did not clearly indicate that two public hearings would be held. She also said application materials were not publicly available in advance and that the Village Clerk had not received them when she visited Village Hall on Merritt Avenue earlier that afternoon.
“The only information I could find on the project before this afternoon was in the 12/8/25 board meeting minutes, which were difficult to decipher,” Logan-Baravalle said. “And there was no site plan attached that could be referenced.”
Logan-Baravalle also pointed to earlier discussions referenced in those minutes about a proposed food service component at the nursery — a use she said would not be permitted in the Residential Low-Density zoning district.
“If a willful disregard for Millbrook zoning occurs, then what meaning does our zoning have?” she said.
Nursery representatives said the food service proposal had been removed from the plans due to zoning restrictions. They added that the proposed structures would bring the site’s total building footprint to just under the allowable limit, meaning the expansion would likely mark the end of new construction on the property.
Logan-Baravalle asked the board to keep the public hearing open to allow residents more time to review the plans and provide comment. Planning Board Chair Frank Redl acknowledged the concern.
“You’re absolutely right,” Redl said. “And there’s something we have to look into. Your comment is well taken.”
However, the board declined to extend the hearing and proceeded with the conditional approval.
In other business, the Planning Board accepted an application to convert an existing home at 4 Merritt Ave. into a duplex-style multifamily residence. The application will now begin the formal Planning Board process, with site plan approval expected in the coming months.
The existing building — located behind and on the same parcel as Reardon-Briggs hardware store — would be demolished and replaced with a 39-by-36-foot two-story structure positioned closer to the street to create additional parking behind it.
The proposed duplex would sit approximately seven feet from a neighboring home to the east. Planning Board members cautioned the applicant to expect potential opposition from adjacent property owners.
Under Millbrook’s zoning code, properties in the high-density village business district are not subject to side yard setback requirements, allowing structures to be built up to the property line.
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