PINE PLAINS — Rising to the challenge of producing an unforgettable night of talent from a distance, The Stissing Center successfully entertained the community with the Summer Variety Show virtual benefit on Saturday night, Aug. 29.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Brian Keeler, executive director of The Stissing Center (TSC), said they originally planned an entire series of events to be held inside before TSC was forced to close in response to the pandemic. After examining their options, he said it became clear that “going virtual and videoing performances inside the building was the way to go.”
Between The Chair Series and the Live! From The Stissing Center! series, Keeler said the performing arts center decided to forge a path forward that ultimately led to Saturday’s show.
“It soon became clear that the variety show format was the best way to present some of the talent that was supposed to appear at The Stissing Center,” he said, “and it was also a way to engage our board and the local community.”
Yet the TSC team had much to accomplish before it could get the variety show on the road, from gathering video footage of performances from across the country and filming inside the center in the midst of the pandemic to handling the editing, sound, lighting and other production details. By Saturday night, TSC invited viewers to witness a show that featured more than a dozen performances from artists across the U.S., from music and vocals to dances and spoken word presentations.
Starting at 5 p.m., the show was live-streamed to its website at www.thestissingcenter.org/variety2020. Playing host to the summer variety show, Emmy Award-winning actress Margo Martindale (“Justified,” “The Good Fight”) was delighted to welcome everyone to the show.
“This has been a difficult time for everyone, and The Stissing Center is no exception,” Martindale said. “However, they’ve changed course by going virtual.”
Kicking off the night with a spellbinding rendition of “My Favorite Things,” jazz harpist Edmar Castañeda and jazz harmonica artist Grégoire Maret transported their music as contralto Andrea Tierra provided the vocals. No matter their artistry, the performers held their audiences’ attention throughout the course of the night, delighting them with their talent.
“We were very proud of the amazing talent that appeared,” Keeler said. “We will be asking these people to come back to Pine Plains and perform for the public once we are allowed to open. It should be something that we all can look forward to.”
Between the performances, the show streamed well-wishes spoken by various board members and community members — all of whom spoke highly about TSC’s mission to positively impact the community “by partnering with arts, individuals and organizations to create meaningful programs, events and opportunities as a center for diversity, culture and civic life in a small town.”
All donations received from the Summer Variety Show will be matched dollar for dollar. The show itself can be viewed online at www.thestissingcenter.org/variety2020.
MILLERTON — The North East Town Board held a special workshop meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 4, to finalize a years-long review of its commercial district zoning code — a process that has spanned 100 meetings over four years.
Town officials had hoped the meeting would mark the completion of the most complex phase of the overhaul — approving a final draft of zoning edits to be sent to the Dutchess County Department of Planning and Development for review before scheduling a public hearing.
But the process was delayed after Town Attorney Warren Replansky, who joined the meeting via Zoom, raised procedural questions about whether the document before the board was a “preliminary draft” or a final version.
Replansky said that although the zoning document itself is largely complete and not expected to undergo major revisions, the accompanying local law still needs to be reformatted before it can “pass muster” with the county and the state. The update is primarily technical — ensuring the law is structured correctly for formal adoption and filing — but it delayed the board from scheduling a public hearing.
Regardless, the Board voted unanimously to adopt a resolution authorizing the Town Supervisor to forward a copy of the proposed zoning amendments to the Dutchess County Department of Planning and Development and the town’s Planning Board for “preliminary review” prior to the commencement of the formal local law adoption process.
The board also approved a motion to allow Town Clerk Tilly Strauss to send copies of the Zoning Code amendments to the Zoning Board of Appeals, Conservation Advisory Committee, Village of Millerton, Town of Amenia, Town of Ancram, Town of Pine Plains, Town of Stanford and Town of Salisbury, Connecticut.
In the meantime, the town’s legal counsel will work to finalize the local law’s formatting to comply with official filing requirements. If acceptable, the town may schedule the official public hearing at this week’s board meeting, to be held on Thursday, Nov. 13.
“This is an important waypoint in the work that we have done to rezone the commercial portion of the town,” said Supervisor Kennan at the special meeting before giving credit to those involved in the lengthy process and its 100 meetings. “I just want everyone to wrap their heads around that,” said Kennan. “That’s a lot of volunteer time. That’s a lot of work that went into this.”
Without making any promises, Kennan expressed his hope that the process can be completed before the end of the year, prior to the conclusion of Councilman Ralph Fedele’s term, allowing him to cast a vote to approve the zoning changes after dedicating significant time to the effort.
Town officials said they hope the County review process will not drag on as they have already reviewed an earlier draft. The document is currently 181 pages long.
In addition to the zoning discussion, the Board approved two additional resolutions.
The first authorized a grant application to the Hudson River Valley Greenway for $30,000 to hire planning consultant Nan Stolzenburg, who will guide the residential and agricultural zoning review expected to begin in early 2026.
The second resolution approved a contract with LAN Engineering for the new Town Hall renovation project. The firm will handle both the engineering and architectural work, including updates to ensure bathrooms are ADA-compliant and interior modifications. The town previously rejected a $940,000 renovation bid from another architect earlier this year. “I believe that we’re going to be able to get this done for a lot less,” said Kennan, adding that while the new proposal is “not inexpensive,” it’s a comprehensive and complete plan to move the project forward.
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.”
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.
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.”
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.
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.
