Surveillance cameras, empty Town Board seat, Rail Trail etiquette

Brian Walsh and Flock

Based on comments by my neighbors in Pine Plains, including those who spoke at the February 19 Town Board meeting, I am not alone in my frustration over Supervisor Walsh’s refusal to answer questions about his interactions with Flock Safety. It seems to me that it is incumbent upon our Town Supervisor to explain his actions in a way that is understandable, and to address questions that his statement provoked.

Among those questions are: By what authority did he agree even to a limited trial of four cameras in our town? What made him tell Flock on February 5 that the camera installations were “going to get done” just days before he instructed them to halt all activity? In his statement at the meeting, Mr. Walsh said that he was referring to the County doing this deal. On what basis did he think that the County would agree to “get[ting it] done”? With whom in County government had he conferred about the cameras? And why did he refer to the population as being a “blue area, right now, unfortunately.”? What prompted him, a few days after the conversation about the deal “get[ting] done” to instruct Flock to cease all activity? Did Supervisor Walsh consult with Town Attorney Warren Replansky before authorizing Flock to install the four test cameras? Did he consult with the other Town Board members? Did he consult with Mr. Replansky or other Board members before he told Flock that it would “get done”? Will he agree to refrain, as Pine Plains resident Matthew Lebaron proposed, from signing or authorizing any such future agreements without “communications made to the public about these agreements, all [of which to] be given to us with good warning over multiple communication streams”?

Pine Plains resident Keary Hanan asked a more fundamental question: “[H]ow does this town board plan on restoring the trust of this community after this egregious breach of honesty and trust with its constituents?”

Michael Cooper, a Pine Plains Volunteer Fire Department colleague of Mr. Walsh, said that Mr. Walsh’s “words are being misrepresented, and I would encourage anyone who has problems with what he has to say to examine what he has in fact done.” Excellent point, but how on earth can we examine what Supervisor Walsh has done when he refuses to explain it in a way that makes sense or to answer questions?

Pine Plains residents deserve to be treated with more respect from the Town Supervisor than to passively receive a statement that raises more questions than it answers.

Amy Rothstein
Pine Plains

Déjà Vu ­— all over again: Miller should fill seat

In January 2024, Amenia’s Town Board needed to decide what to do about a seat made vacant by the election of one of its members to the job of Supervisor. In the past, the Board would vote for a citizen to take the seat until the next election. Many in the community thought it made sense to vote for Vicki Doyle. She had lost the election by just 10 votes and was a long serving, effective Councilwoman. She was the runner up and therefore the logical choice in terms of the voters’ preference. That selection was blocked by two members of the Board. Eventually, Nicole Ahearn was voted on to fill the seat. Very sadly, in February 2025, Paul Winters - who had joined the Board in 2024 - died of a heart attack. The fifth seat on the Board was again vacant. The members decided not to fill the position to avoid the contentious debate about how to fill the seat a year earlier. Now, Amenia again has a vacant seat. Rosanna Hamm was elected supervisor in November which leaves her seat as a Councilperson available.

In the 2/26/26 edition of the News it was reported “Board divided on filling vacant seat”. We are back where we were in 2024, except this time it’s Charlie Miller who lost by one vote. It makes absolutely no sense to me why the Board cannot come together and ask him to take the open seat until the Nov 2026 election winner is seated in Jan 2027. His service to the town is outstanding. He was instrumental in finally getting the construction of the highway garage started. Ask Megan Chamberlin. He also helped to untangle and fund the water district after years of mismanagement. He’s secured new revenue: $368,000+ in grants, $190,000+ in investment returns, $1.6 million for workforce housing, 2 NYS grants: $600,000 for the new Highway Garage Salt Shed and $2,731,995 for Water District Capital Improvements. He accomplished all this largely as a volunteer. I need to return to Vicki’s not being asked to take the vacant seat when she lost by just ten votes. That made no sense then and not selecting Charlie makes no sense now. There are certainly Amenia voters who were angered by Charlie’s placing a signed, stamped front sheet on an already approved budget proposal instead of having the town clerk do that herself. It is my understanding that he wasn’t trying to sneak something by the Board. The document had been approved. He recognized and apologized for what was in my mind a clerical mistake. The bigger mistake would be not to be mindful of his vote count and ALL that he’s done and will do for the community we all love.

Jim Wright
Warden, St Thomas
Interim Executive Director,
Food of Life Pantry
Amenia

How much spying should the County do?

In light of the recent events regarding the Flock surveillance company, our community needs to have a discussion about how much spying Dutchess County should be carrying out on its residents in the first place. The Advanced Real-Time Crime Intelligence Center, operated by a special office within the Sheriff’s Office, collects data from live cameras, license plate readers, officer body cams, and other surveillance tools distributed across the county. Politicians claim that they only use warrantless mass surveillance for legitimate law enforcement purposes, but if we’ve learned anything from the state of our country right now, we should have learned not to simply trust the things politicians say. We should also know by now that politicians have very little respect for our civil liberties, especially our right to privacy.

The real cause for concern is not that there are license plate readers on public streets, but that we have no idea how much data is being collected on us and who is able to access it. The Sheriff’s Office is coy about what makes up the intelligence center, but we do know that Flock is responsible for over 400 license plate readers and cameras just in Dutchess County according to the company’s own transparency portal. Outside of our county, Flock operates a network of tens of thousands of cameras across the country and has contracts not only with local governments, but state agencies and private security firms as well. Flock claims that they don’t have contracts with ICE and the federal government, but reporting from Jason Koebler and Joseph Fox at 404 Media concluded that data had been unwittingly accessed by third-party agencies with the stated reason as “ICE,” “Immigration,” or “ERO” (Enforcement and Removal Operations). This evidence heavily implies that the federal government uses connections with compliant local law enforcement agencies to gain side-door access to data generated by any Flock-connected organization.
The surveillance unit built by the county to spy on its citizens with the help of a vendor of questionable ethics was certainly not free and it makes the taxpayer wonder if they are getting a raw deal. Surely this multi-million dollar panopticon has yielded some results, though, right? No - Flock’s own website admits that the nearest major crime solved by their software is in New York City (citation 2) and since installation about a year and a half ago, Dutchess County police departments have only solved 3 hit-and-runs with the data (citation 1). Is it worth it to live under constant, expensive surveillance just to solve one more hit-and-run every six months?

Additional information

404 Media Link: www.404media.co/ice-taps-into-nationwide-ai-enable...

Transparency Portal (citation 1): transparency.flocksafety.com/dutchess-county-ny-so

This does include a state police hit-and run and a missing persons case from Florida, but it isn’t made clear why those are credited to the Dutchess County Sheriff.

Dutchess County Referral Portal (citation 2): refer.flocksafety.com/community/dutchess-county-community-connect

Robert Holmes
Beacon

Rail Trail care, signage needed on bridge

July 23, 2025, was a beautiful summer morning. I loaded my bicycle and headed for Harlem Valley Rail Trail. I was on one of the narrower wooden bridges when I heard someone say “On your left.”

I had never had a cyclist pass me from behind on the bridges before. I pulled my bike closer to the side of the bridge. I was out for a leisurely ride, but the gentleman that came up behind me was all business.

There were vines growing over the side of the bridge so I rode back toward the center of the bridge after he passed. Another cyclist, who did not announce himself, came up on me quickly. I pulled back to the right, and when I did my handlebar caught the fence.

I fell down.

The cyclists came back as I lay on the bridge, with the bike wrapped around my legs. They got the bike off me. I grabbed the fence and pulled myself up. My helmet still sat on my head. In shock, I stumbled around the bridge. My right arm was bleeding and my left leg was badly bruised. My neck hurt – like a really bad stiff neck. I called my husband and told him where to meet me.
Unable to walk, I rode my bike the last mile as the two cyclists followed me. My husband took me directly to the hospital. A CT scan showed I had broken my neck at C2, called the “Hangman’s Fracture.” I was transported to Hartford Hospital. The break appeared stable so I was put in a neck brace, told I was very lucky not to be dead or paralyzed, and that I needed to follow up with an orthopedic surgeon.

That began the longest six and a half months of my life. The neck brace was a 24/7 fixture. If I didn’t heal I’d need surgery to put rods and screws in my neck. The whole experience was traumatic and grueling.

By the grace of God, my 66 year old neck decided to heal eventually. My body will never be as it was before, and I lost over six months of life. I tell this story because my life was forever altered in a second by the behavior of others.

Many people use and enjoy the Rail Trail. If you see an elderly person on a leisurely ride, or a family with children, please take a moment to respect their right to do so without being placed in life-changing danger. I know that the cyclists who passed me did not want to harm me, but a moment’s impatience and disregard for me nearly cost me my life. I hope Dutchess County Parks will at least put signs up at the bridge approaches asking cyclists NOT to pass from behind. Sometimes we just need a little reminder to be considerate of others. Is it really so much to ask?

Rachel Lamb
Lakeville