government

Pulver enters race for District 19 legislative seat

Pulver enters race for District 19 legislative seat
Lifelong Pine Plains resident Tonya Pulver is testing the political waters by announcing her candidacy for Dutchess County District 19 legislator. She is seeking the seat her husband, Gregg Pulver, lost in 2023 to current incumbent Chris Drago.
Photo provided

PINE PLAINS — Inspired by her husband’s decade-long stint in the Dutchess County legislature, Republican Tonya Pulver has declared her candidacy for his former seat in District 19, which serves North East, Millerton, and Pine Plains — among other areas.

“I guess politics is all I have ever known,” said Pulver, who cited the civic accomplishments of her mother, a former longtime Pine Plains town board member, and her husband, Gregg, now the assistant county executive of Dutchess, as her impetus for entering the political arena. “I am all about helping wherever I can,” Pulver said. “I have decided to run for District 19 legislature because I have a lot to offer and I feel the constituents of this district deserve to have a choice.”

Pulver, a lifelong Pine Plains resident, is a graduate of Dutchess Community College and Marist College, where she earned a master’s degree in school psychology. She has been employed by the Millbrook Central School District since 1999, and is currently the school psychologist at Alden Place Elementary School.

While she is a first-time candidate for public office, her résumé includes community-based activities such as serving on the board of the Center for the Prevention of Child Abuse, volunteering with a Siberian Husky rescue organization, acting as the director of the Free to be Me camp — a sleep-away camp for children affected by Tourette’s Syndrome — and current membership in the Pine Plains Lions Club.

Pulver’s opponent is Democratic incumbent Chris Drago, who defeated Gregg Pulver in the District 19 race in 2023. Drago is currently running for reelection and has expressed concerns on divided loyalties, should Tonya Pulver succeed in being elected. “The county legislature is meant to provide oversight of the county executive’s office,” said Drago in a March 12 email to supporters. “We need independent voices, not conflicts of interest waiting to happen.”

government

Latest News

Juneteenth and Mumbet’s legacy

Juneteenth and Mumbet’s legacy

Sheffield resident, singer Wanda Houston will play Mumbet in "1781" on June 19 at 7 p.m. at The Center on Main, Falls Village.

Jeffery Serratt

In August of 1781, after spending thirty years as an enslaved woman in the household of Colonel John Ashley in Sheffield, Massachusetts, Elizabeth Freeman, also known as Mumbet, was the first enslaved person to sue for her freedom in court. At the time of her trial there were 5,000 enslaved people in the state. MumBet’s legal victory set a precedent for the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts in 1790, the first in the nation. She took the name Elizabeth Freeman.

Local playwrights Lonnie Carter and Linda Rossi will tell her story in a staged reading of “1781” to celebrate Juneteenth, ay 7 p.m. at The Center on Main in Falls Village, Connecticut.Singer Wanda Houston will play MumBet, joined by actors Chantell McCulloch, Tarik Shah, Kim Canning, Sherie Berk, Howard Platt, Gloria Parker and Ruby Cameron Miller. Musical composer Donald Sosin added, “MumBet is an American hero whose story deserves to be known much more widely.”

Keep ReadingShow less
history

A sweet collaboration with students in Torrington

A sweet collaboration with students in Torrington

The new mural painted by students at Saint John Paul The Great Academy in Torrington, Connecticut.

Photo by Kristy Barto, owner of The Nutmeg Fudge Company

Thanks to a unique collaboration between The Nutmeg Fudge Company, local artist Gerald Incandela, and Saint John Paul The Great Academy in Torrington, Connecticut a mural — designed and painted entirely by students — now graces the interior of the fudge company.

The Nutmeg Fudge Company owner Kristy Barto was looking to brighten her party space with a mural that celebrated both old and new Torrington. She worked with school board member Susan Cook and Incandela to reach out to the Academy’s art teacher, Rachael Martinelli.

Keep ReadingShow less
community

In the company of artists

In the company of artists

Curator Henry Klimowicz, left, with artists Brigitta Varadi and Amy Podmore at The Re Institute

Aida Laleian

For anyone who wants a deeper glimpse into how art comes about, an on-site artist talk is a rich experience worth the trip.On Saturday, June 14, Henry Klimowicz’s cavernous Re Institute — a vast, converted 1960’s barn north of Millerton — hosted Amy Podmore and Brigitta Varadi, who elucidated their process to a small but engaged crowd amid the installation of sculptures and two remarkable videos.

Though they were all there at different times, a common thread among Klimowicz, Podmore and Varadi is their experience of New Hampshire’s famed MacDowell Colony. The silence, the safety of being able to walk in the woods at night, and the camaraderie of other working artists are precious goads to hardworking creativity. For his part, for fifteen years, Klimowicz has promoted community among thousands of participating artists, in the hope that the pairs or groups he shows together will always be linked. “To be an artist,” he stressed, “is to be among other artists.”

Keep ReadingShow less
exhibit