A marker appears on South Main Street beside the Pine Plains Fire Department. Four pink markers appeared across Pine Plains on Tuesday, Feb. 3 tied to a company that sells surveillance equipment.
This article was originally published in The New Pine Plains Herald on Friday, Feb. 6, and is republished here with permission.
PINE PLAINS — Four unexplained pink markers appeared across Pine Plains on Tuesday, Feb. 3, unsettling residents and town officials and raising questions about whether surveillance equipment was being installed without local authorization. The markings — pink spray paint and wooden stakes placed on both public and private property — were later linked to Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based company that sells automated license-plate reader systems to police departments nationwide, prompting concern about who, if anyone, had approved the work and what kind of surveillance could follow.
One of the first people to notice the markings was Jeanine Sisco, a member of the Pine Plains Town Board, who on Tuesday spotted what appeared to be routine roadside work taking place across the street from her home near Patchin Mills, just north of the town center.
“I noticed a car and a traffic cone,” Sisco said. “They were spraying pink paint and driving stakes into the ground.”
At first, she said, it did not seem unusual. “I didn’t think anything of it, because there’s been a lot of stuff going on with wiring with Central Hudson,” she said.
But her husband, Keith, walked outside to ask what was happening.
“The individual said that he was with Flock Safety, and he was marking places where these devices would be installed,” Sisco said. The devices, Keith was told, were pole-mounted, solar-powered, license-plate reader cameras.
“They said they were actually installing one on my property,” Sisco recalled. “My husband said, ‘I have no knowledge of this, and this is private property.’”
By the end of the day, Flock Safety had marked three other locations near the center of Pine Plains — one adjacent to the firehouse sign on South Main Street, a second at 2991 Church St. across from St. Anthony’s Catholic Church, and a third along Route 83 in front of Heeler Farms.
Michael Carone, the owner of Heeler Farms, told the Herald that as of Thursday afternoon he was unaware of the marker and of any plans to install surveillance technology in front of his farm.
Paris Lewbel, a public relations manager for Flock Safety, said: “We don’t install on private property unless we have a contract with that property owner. If it’s a city, it would be on the city right-of-way. That’s where we would have permits or permission to be able to install those.”
As calls and messages began circulating among residents, local officials said they were trying to answer a basic question: Who, exactly, had authorized the work?
“I don’t exactly know what’s going on,” Town Supervisor Brian Walsh said on Wednesday. “I’m in the process of getting to the bottom of it.”
While Walsh said the Town of Pine Plains has no contract with Flock, he acknowledged being aware of discussions between the company and the Pine Plains Police Department months earlier, before the markings appeared.
“This whole thing started when Sgt. Beliveau was here,” Walsh said.
“We are not in contract with anybody right now.”
Walsh said the last communication he had with Flock Safety was in June.
“It was originally proposed to me as a free six-month trial,” Walsh said. “Sgt. Beliveau was heading this whole thing up. And then he obviously retired and left and moved away.”
Sgt. Michael Beliveau, a 27-year law enforcement veteran, retired from the Pine Plains Police Department following a surgery last year. The Town Board approved his resignation in July.
“I’m not in charge. I’m a sergeant. I was a contact,” Beliveau told The Herald on Friday. “I was not the one who signed the paperwork.”
Beliveau said the approval to engage with Flock came from outside of the police department. “It has to,” he said.
“We don’t have the ability, as police officers, or sergeants, or first and second in charge of the department, to make any — and I can’t emphasize enough — any decisions in that police department without running it by our bosses,” Beliveau said.
If the company installed automated license-plate reader systems at its marked locations, all vehicular traffic entering and exiting the central business district of Pine Plains could potentially be recorded. Patrick Grego / DataWrapper
On Thursday, Walsh said he had been in touch with Flock Safety. He said no Flock Safety equipment had been or would be installed.
“There are no Flock cameras going up in the town of Pine Plains,” Walsh said. “The markup was a mistake.”
Flock Safety sells surveillance cameras, drones, and automated license-plate reader systems to police departments, governments, homeowners associations, and businesses nationwide. In 2025 it was valued at $7.5 billion. Its systems typically consist of pole-mounted, solar-powered cameras that capture images of passing vehicles, convert license plates into digital data, and upload that information over cellular networks to a cloud platform. In addition to plate numbers, the system can search by what the company calls “vehicle fingerprints” — including vehicle make, model, or color — even when a plate is obscured or missing.
When asked if the Pine Plains Police Department or Town of Pine Plains had entered into an agreement with Flock Safety, Lewbel said, “I mean, it looks, you know, in my high-level thing … it looks like there was some sort of deal done. I just don’t know what it was. It’s not uncommon for Flock to work with cities and potentially have a small trial program for a city to try it out and see if it works for them.”
Walsh said he could not speak for Dutchess County or for any future plans involving county roads, including Route 83, where one of the surveillance markers appeared.
“I can’t answer for the county. I can’t answer for the future with the county,” Walsh said. “I believe there’s been discussions with the DA and the sheriff’s office on something about their crime prevention program about putting cameras up, but the town of Pine Plains is not putting cameras up.”
Two other members of the Town Board, Trevor Roush and Kevin Walsh, were unaware of any trial or plan to install surveillance cameras until contacted by the Herald. A third, Murphy Birdsall, said she had only learned about Flock from Keith Sisco.
“My immediate reaction was ICE,” Birdsall said. “Given the times, that was my reaction.”
“I sure as hell don’t want those things in Pine Plains,” Kevin Walsh said. “Even on private property, I have a problem with it because the way that it’s connected and it allows the police to use a level of surveillance that they’re not normally authorized without warrants.”
A sales representative from Flock Safety told the Herald that whoever owns the equipment is ultimately responsible for sharing, or not sharing, the data collected and stored in its cloud system.
However, a Feb. 3 report from the San Francisco Chronicle revealed that data collected from Flock Safety devices owned by the Mountain View Police Department in California was accessed by four federal agencies without the permission of the department.
“We both agreed that nothing like this will happen or will go forward in our town,” Sisco said after speaking with Brian Walsh. “Nothing like this could ever be approved unless it came before the Town Board, and unless it was something that the community was completely aware of and in support of.”
A speed enforcement camera in New York City.
Speed cameras remain a tough sell across northwest Connecticut — and are still absent from local roads in neighboring Dutchess County.
Town leaders across northwest Connecticut are moving cautiously on speed cameras, despite a state law passed in 2023 that allows municipalities to install them. In contrast, no towns or villages in Dutchess County currently operate local automated speed-camera programs, even as New York City has relied on the technology for years.
In both states, officials say speeding remains a concern on local roads — particularly on through roads and in residential areas — but questions about cost, enforcement and public support have slowed momentum outside large cities.
For border communities in northeast Dutchess County, where traffic crosses state lines daily, the Connecticut debate hits close to home.
Supporters of speed cameras argue the technology can slow traffic and improve safety, particularly in communities with limited police coverage. Critics worry cameras could turn small towns into “speed traps,” and raise concerns about surveillance.
That caution mirrors the picture statewide in Connecticut. Since the law took effect, only 11 of the state’s 169 municipalities have implemented speed cameras.
In New York, automated speed cameras are widespread in New York City, where hundreds operate year-round in school zones under authority granted by the state Legislature.
However, unlike Connecticut’s opt-in law, New York requires separate legislative approval at the state level for each municipality to install local speed cameras. That authority has not been granted to towns or villages in Dutchess County.
Limited authorization has been extended by the state legislature to a small number of municipalities, including White Plains, Kingston, Schenectady and Albany.
As a result, automated enforcement in Dutchess County is currently limited to state-run work-zone speed cameras — temporary devices installed by the New York State Department of Transportation in active highway construction or maintenance areas that ticket drivers who exceed posted speed limits.
Washington is the only town in western Connecticut to adopt speed cameras so far, and officials there say the program is already changing driver behavior.
“Speeds are coming down,” said Washington First Selectman Jim Brinton, noting cameras were installed in May 2025. “We had tried everything — speed bumps, education. This is the only option that’s showing positive results.”
Elsewhere in the region, the response has been far more skeptical.
In Kent, voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposed speed-camera ordinance by a 391–100 margin in January 2025.
“I’m concerned about the atmosphere cameras create,” resident Lianna Gantt said during a public hearing. “Are we turning our town into a speed trap?”
Interviews with first selectmen in North Canaan, Falls Village, Sharon and Kent — along with responses from officials in Salisbury and Cornwall — show a shared concern about speeding but hesitancy to move forward with cameras.
Connecticut’s process for implementing speed cameras is extensive. Towns must adopt a local ordinance, present a traffic enforcement plan at a public hearing and secure voter approval at a town meeting or referendum. Any approved plan must then be reviewed by the Connecticut Department of Transportation.
Towns must also install camera equipment and complete a mandatory public awareness period of at least 30 days before issuing citations.
After that warning phase, drivers may be fined $50 for a first violation and $75 for subsequent offenses if they exceed the speed limit by more than 10 miles per hour. Camera systems are operated by third-party vendors, which provide images of alleged violations for municipal review.
Each violation must be approved by a qualified municipal employee, contracted agent or law enforcement officer before a citation is mailed — a requirement many small towns say strains limited staff, particularly those without resident state troopers.
With Kent having voted down the program, Sharon appears furthest along in northwest Connecticut in considering speed cameras.
First Selectman Casey Flanagan said the town began studying the option after a traffic analysis found widespread speeding on several local roads.
The study, conducted by Dacra Tech, examined six locations, including Route 41 southbound, Rhymus Road, Calkinstown Road and Williams Road.
“When they averaged it out, it came to almost 33,000 citable events a month on just six roads,” Flanagan said. “Some of these numbers are quite staggering.”
Sharon does not have a resident state trooper, meaning review of potential violations would likely fall to town staff.
“We need to figure out who is going to review the pictures and determine whether a citation gets mailed out,” Flanagan said, noting that the town is still studying the concept. “That could be me, or we could hire someone.”
While vendors have told town officials that citation volumes typically decline as driver behavior changes, Flanagan said Sharon is not rushing a decision.
“There really isn’t a clock on me right now,” he said.
North Canaan is expanding its use of digital speed feedback signs rather than pursuing cameras.
“No one has been asking for it,” First Selectman Jesse Bunce said.
The town is installing additional speed feedback signs along Route 44 and Sand Road through the state-supported Connecticut Speed Management Program, which also provides detailed speed data.
“Once we have that data, we can evaluate what to do next,” Bunce said.
Falls Village tested a temporary speed-monitoring camera about 18 months ago but ultimately pulled back.
“We found out the speed was not as great as we thought it was,” First Selectman David Barger said. “It was more perception than reality.”
Barger said the town relies on speed feedback signs and remains cautious about cameras, citing cost estimates of $26,000 to $28,000 per two-way unit and the lack of staff to review violations.
“The only reason we would want speed cameras is for safety,” he said. “It would not be a revenue generator.”
Salisbury and Cornwall also have no immediate plans to pursue speed cameras, though Salisbury First Selectman Curtis Rand has said he is not opposed to “a mechanical way of lowering speed.”
Washington approved a speed-camera ordinance unanimously in December 2024 and began issuing citations in May after years of resident complaints.
Since then, the town has issued 13,748 citations totaling about $696,000 in fines, with roughly $525,000 collected as of late January, according to Brinton.
A town constable reviews images in-house, a process that now takes about 10 hours a week.
“It was pretty overwhelming at first,” Brinton said. “The volume initially caused a lot of struggles.”
Brinton stopped short of recommending cameras for every community but said Washington’s experience shows the technology can work when tailored to local conditions.
“Every town is different,” he said. “But it has worked for us.”
There are artists who make objects, and then there are artists who alter the way we move through the world. Tim Prentice belonged to the latter. The kinetic sculptor, architect and longtime Cornwall resident died in November 2025 at age 95, leaving a legacy of what he called “toys for the wind,” work that did not simply occupy space but activated it, inviting viewers to slow down, look longer and feel more deeply the invisible forces that shape daily life.
Prentice received a master’s degree from the Yale School of Art and Architecture in 1960, where he studied with German-born American artist and educator Josef Albers, taking his course once as an undergraduate and again in graduate school.In “The Air Made Visible,” a 2024 short film by the Vision & Art Project produced by the American Macular Degeneration Fund, a nonprofit organization that documents artists working with vision loss, Prentice spoke of his admiration for Albers’ discipline and his ability to strip away everything but color. He recalled thinking, “If I could do that same thing with motion, I’d have a chance of finding a new form.”
What Prentice found through decades of exploration and play was a kind of formlessness in which what remains is not absence, but motion. To stand before one of his sculptures is to witness a quiet choreography where metal breathes, shadows shift and time softens.
After Yale, Prentice co-founded the architectural firm Prentice & Chan in 1965. The firm designed affordable housing projects in New York City, work largely led by partner Lo-Yi Chan. Prentice also designed custom single-family homes and continued to develop sculptural ideas alongside his architectural practice. After leaving the firm in 1975 and eventually relocating full time to Cornwall, he undertook a range of local architectural projects while increasingly devoting himself to sculpture.
Prentice began producing larger-scale sculptural commissions in the 1970s, during a period of national expansion in public art funding tied to new building projects. His first major commission came in 1976 from AT&T, helping launch a career that would bring his kinetic installations to corporate, institutional and public spaces across the United States and abroad. While his work follows in the lineage of Alexander Calder and George Rickey, critic Grace Glueck observed that its “gently assertive character is very much his own.”
In Cornwall, Prentice established a studio devoted to designing and fabricating kinetic sculpture, where he continued working for decades. He had many assistants over the years including local artists David Bean, Ellen Moon and Richard Griggs. David Colbert worked with Prentice for many years, assisting with fabrication, installation and project development and in 2012, Prentice established Prentice Colbert Inc., helping ensure that fabrication and development of large-scale commissions could continue beyond his lifetime.
Colbert said Prentice could be imperious, but came to understand that he valued thoughtful critique over agreement. “That evolved into a free and easy give-and-take, along with some fierce arguments,” he said. “Our relationship was always developing, right through to the end.”
In the mid-1990s, Prentice was diagnosed with macular degeneration, a condition that gradually narrowed his field of vision. Rather than turning away from the visual world, he leaned further into it, focusing on movement, light and peripheral perception — on what could be felt as much as seen. The Vision & Art Project film documents this period of his life and the ways he adapted his creative process.
Even in his final years, Prentice continued experimenting. In the summer of 2025, he created a series of drawings titled “Memory Trees,” produced from recollection as his eyesight declined. The series sold out at the Rose Algrant show that August, offering a poignant example of an artist adapting and creating throughout their lifetime.
“He was interested in whimsy,” said Nora Prentice of her dad. “But he also worked seven days a week,” she said. “He’d come in for dinner and then go right back out.” His studio was known for its atmosphere of curiosity and play, with music often drifting through the workspace as sculptures moved overhead in careful, measured rhythms. His work reminds viewers how profoundly small movements shape perception, and how change itself may be the only constant.
In his poem “Among School Children,” William Butler Yeats asks, “How can we know the dancer from the dance?” Prentice offered his own answer. “I’m not making the dance,” he said. “The wind is making the dance.”
As Nora reflected, “I think that’s how he would want to be remembered: for making the wind visible.”
Hyalite Builders is leading the structural rehabilitation of The Stissing Center in Pine Plains.
For homeowners overwhelmed by juggling designers, architects and contractors, a new Salisbury-based collaboration is offering a one-team approach from concept to construction. Casa Marcelo Interior Design Studio, based in Salisbury, has joined forces with Charles Matz Architect, led by Charles Matz, AIA RIBA, and Hyalite Builders, led by Matt Soleau. The alliance introduces an integrated design-build model that aims to streamline the sometimes-fragmented process of home renovation and new construction.
“The whole thing is based on integrated services,” said Marcelo, founder of Casa Marcelo. “Normally when clients come to us, they are coming to us for design. But there’s also some architecture and construction that needs to happen eventually. So, I thought, why don’t we just partner with people that we know we can work well with together?”
Traditionally, homeowners hire designers, architects and contractors separately, a process that can lead to miscommunication, budget overruns and design revisions once construction begins. The new partnership seeks to address those challenges by creating a unified team that collaborates from the earliest planning stages through project completion.
“We can explore possibilities,” Marcelo said. “Let’s say the client is not sure which direction they want to go. They can nip that in the bud early on — instead of having three separate meetings with three separate people, you’re having one collaborative meeting.”
The partnership also reflects an expanded view of design, moving beyond surface aesthetics to include structural, environmental and performance considerations. Marcelo said her earlier work in New York City shaped that perspective.
“I had a 10-year career in New York City designing townhouses and penthouses, thinking about everything holistically,” she said. “When I got here and started my own business, I felt like I was being pigeonholed into only the decorative part of design. With the weight of an architect on our team now, it has really helped us close those deals with full home renovations, ground up builds and additions.”
The team emphasizes what it describes as high-performance design, incorporating modern building science, energy efficiency and improved air quality alongside aesthetic goals.
“If you’re still living inside 40-year-old technology and building techniques, we haven’t really handed off the best product we could,” said Soleau. “The goal is to not only to reach that level of aesthetic design but to improve the envelope, improve the living environment within a home and bring homes up to elevated standards of high-performance building.”
This integrated approach has proven particularly useful for renovation projects, where modern materials and systems can be thoughtfully incorporated into older structures. The firms also prioritize durability and long-term functionality, often incorporating antiques, vintage elements and high-quality materials designed to support clients’ lifestyles.
“I’m very big on investing in pieces that are going to be quality and last you the test of time,” Marcelo said. “Not just designing for a five- to 10-year run, but really designing for the long haul.”
The collaboration is already underway on several projects, including a major renovation in Sharon that involves rebuilding a 1990s modular home to maximize views while upgrading structural and performance systems. The firms are also exploring advanced visualization technology that would allow clients to experience projects through virtual reality before construction begins.
“For me, as somebody who wants to take the project all the way from beginning to end and make the process as effortless as possible for my client, it’s easier to do that with collaboration and a team than to do it alone,” Soleau said. “Most clients, especially second-home owners, want a team that can lead the project from concept through completion; aligning design, budget, and construction.”
On Feb. 19, the three firms will officially launch the initiative at an invitation-only event at The Stissing Center in Pine Plains, where Hyalite Builders is leading the structural rehabilitation of the historic building. A limited number of “hard hat tour” reservations will be available by request, providing rare, behind-the-scenes access while work is actively underway. Those interested in attending may contact event organizer Lauren Fritscher of Berkshire Muse at hello@berkshiremuse.com.
