North East inches closer to public hearing on years-long commercial zoning overhaul
North East Town Hall
Maud Doyle
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The Dutchess County Real-Time Crime Center, which came online over the course of the past year, is being hailed as a first-of-its-kind collaboration between county, state and local law enforcement agencies, District Attorney Anthony Parisi told The News on Friday, Nov. 6.
Real-time crime centers are emerging nationwide as powerful surveillance tools. They link networks of government, business and privately owned security cameras into centralized systems accessible to police. These centers often employ artificial intelligence technologies such as facial recognition, license plate scanning and video analysis that can compress hours of footage into minutes of usable data.
Dutchess County’s new center — officially called the Analysis & Real-Time Crime Intelligence Center, or ARTCIC — brings those capabilities under one roof for use by the Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office, New York State Police and local departments.
“This is really one of the first collaborations of all agencies into a single project, a single real-time crime center,” Parisi said.
Among the vendors supplying equipment and software is Flock Safety, a rapidly growing company that produces license plate readers and AI-driven video systems designed to detect suspicious activity and alert law enforcement.
Parisi said the cameras process video on site, using artificial intelligence to identify possible threats such as a firearm on school grounds or a crime in progress. Alerts are sent directly to the center’s analysts, who review the footage and dispatch officers as needed.
Flock’s software platform, FlockOS, serves as the backbone of the Dutchess system, connecting camera feeds from across the county and processing that video in real time, generating data that law enforcement can search to track people and vehicles across wide areas.
According to the company’s website, FlockOS is now used by thousands of law enforcement and public safety agencies nationwide. Its widespread adoption, however, has drawn criticism from privacy advocates.
Use of the products has come under scrutiny amid concerns about data security and allegations that unrelated agencies — including federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement and police departments in other states — have been able to access local law enforcement data without warrants, and in some cases potentially violating state privacy laws.
In May 2025, the tech outlet 404 Media reported that Flock data stored by local law enforcement had been accessed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents through informal “side door” requests. The report also cited a Texas case in which police allegedly searched the national Flock database to track a woman who had an abortion, noting that officers recorded the reason as “had an abortion, search for female.”
Following that report, several police departments in Washington State suspended use of Flock’s system. The company responded in June, saying it had restricted access to databases in Washington, Illinois, California and Virginia to comply with local data privacy laws. Flock also disputed the reporting, stating its audits found “not a single credible case of law enforcement using the system to locate vulnerable women seeking healthcare.” The company said the Texas case involved a missing person investigation, not a criminal probe.
Parisi stressed that Dutchess County’s data remains under local control.
“We own our data and we control our data,” he said. “No one can have access to our data outside of the people we give access to.”
The News has submitted public records requests for Flock search data to both the Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office and the District Attorney’s Office, which have not yet been fulfilled.
Parisi said crime prevention was a major motivation for creating the center, describing it as a tool to help law enforcement act proactively rather than reactively. He added that transparency and public engagement are priorities for his office, and said a public-facing transparency portal is planned.
Those initiatives have yet to materialize. As of early November, the Dutchess County government website contains no mention of the real-time crime center, its policies or community outreach programs. The only public statement remains a November 2024 announcement of grant funding to establish the center.
The District Attorney’s independent website, dutchessda.org, uses the CRIMEWATCH platform to share information online. The site includes a link under “ARTCIC – Analysis & Real-Time Crime Intelligence Center” that redirects visitors to a Flock Safety-maintained page, where residents and businesses can register private security cameras to the county network.
Parisi has discussed the center with The Daily Catch in Red Hook, New York, but no other area media outlets have reported on the center since the county received the grants last year. Local stakeholders told The News that they had little to no knowledge of the Real-Time Crime Center.
Parisi admitted his office has had some trouble drumming up community interest in the program.
“I think I was somewhat naive in how much interest I thought the community would have in being a part of those types of projects,” he said. “There really hasn’t been the interest that I thought there would be.”
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Meredith Rollins is the local writer behind Malcolm Gladwell’s Pushkin Industries podcast “Medal of Honor: Stories of Courage.” The series highlights recipients of the nation’s highest military award for bravery, sharing their extraordinary acts of valor and sacrifice. Season two was released this summer and Rollins reveales that a third season is on its way.
Photo by Aly Morrissey
SHARON, Conn. — After 20 years as a magazine editor with executive roles at publishing giants like Condé Nast and Hearst, Meredith Rollins never imagined she would become the creative force behind a military history podcast. But today, she spends her days writing about some of the most heroic veterans in United States history for “Medal of Honor: Stories of Courage,” a podcast produced by Malcolm Gladwell’s company, Pushkin Industries.
From her early days in book publishing to two decades in magazines and later a global content strategist for Weight Watchers, Rollins has built a long and varied career in storytelling.
“I’ve learned a lot with each career shift, but the higher I went up the masthead, the less it was about writing and editing,” said Rollins. “I missed the creative process.”
While the podcast isn’t her first writing project, it marks her first foray into audio storytelling.
“During the pandemic I used to listen to mostly true crime podcasts when I was doing the laundry, driving my kids somewhere or working in the garden,” she said. Now Rollins gets to write one, and approaches each episode with awe and a reporter’s curiosity.
After 30 years of friendship with Malcolm Gladwell, the pair decided to collaborate on a project that would combine their shared journalism roots with stories that celebrate bravery and courage.
“Malcolm approached me about a project, and he was looking for a subject that he believed would really bring people together in this fractured political time we’re going through,” said Rollins.
Enter “Medal of Honor.”
The podcast’s namesake is the highest U.S. military decoration for valor, awarded for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty.” Each episode brings to life the story of a Medal of Honor recipient — often with the cinematic pacing and emotional resonance of a feature film.
“Medal of Honor” released its second season this summer, and production on a third season is underway. While Season One was narrated by Gladwell himself, Season Two introduced a new voice with firsthand experience. J.R. Martinez is a former U.S. Army soldier, author, motivational speaker and winner of Dancing with the Stars Season 13.
Writing for two very different narrators, Rollins said, has been both a challenge and a joy.
“As we’ve gotten to know each other and gotten deeper into this project together, I can almost predict how J.R. will react to certain moments,” she said. “He brings so much heart and humanity to the stories.”
Both her father and father-in-law served as Marines, but Rollins said military history was never top of mind until Gladwell pitched her the idea.
“The deeper you get into a subject you don’t know about, the more excited you get about it,” she said. “It’s been a way for me to learn about the incredible sacrifice woven into our country’s history.”
Rollins approaches each episode of “Medal of Honor” by looking first at the act of sacrifice itself, which she describes as “a moment that often happens in a flash.”
She dives deep into research, gathering biographical details from their upbringing and motivations to the circumstances that led them into combat. She then recreates the atmosphere of the conflict, setting the scene with vivid historical detail.
“These men would tell you they were just average guys,” said Rollins. “And if you believe that, then you have to believe we’re all capable of that same bravery or selflessness. It has really shown me the incredible courage we all have, and our ability to do right in the world.”
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The Amenia Zoning Board of Appeals voted on Nov. 3 on a resolution allowing area variances for duplexes that were recently constructed at 8 and 14 Powder House Road.
Photo by Leila Hawken
AMENIA — By a vote of 4-1, the Amenia Zoning Board of Appeals approved applications for undersized lot variances for newly constructed duplexes at 8 and 14 Powder House Road.
Following months of consideration, the ZBA took the action at a special meeting on Monday, Nov. 3.An earlier application, withdrawn in 2024, had envisioned multi-family homes, but the current applications had reduced the plans to two-family homes.
The single negative vote was cast by ZBA member Craig Meili.
ZBA attorney Robert Stout reviewed the drafted resolutions that would formalize the approval, indicating that the lots are served by town water, but not sewer. The lot sizes were found to be similar to those of neighboring properties across the road.
Discussion before the vote largely sought clarification of the site map.
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The Amenia Fire Company on Mechanic Street in Amenia.
Photo by John Coston
AMENIA — The Amenia Fire Company will hold its monthly Pancake Breakfast at the Firehouse on Mechanic Street on Sunday, Nov. 16, from 7:30 to 11 a.m.
The meal is all you can eat with a menu of pancakes, French toast, eggs and omelettes, home fries, bacon, sausage and beverages. You can eat in or take out.
The firehouse is located at 36 Mechanic St., Amenia. Adult plates are $12, Seniors/Under 12 are $11.
For information call 845-373-8352
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