Voters approve Pine Plains school budget with nearly $300K in cuts
Stissing Mountain High School in Pine Plains.
Photo by Graham Corrigan
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‘Workers over billionaires’ banner draws scrutiny from Amenia Town Board
Leila Hawken
Jun 23, 2026
A white banner reading “workers over billionaires” has become a part of regular weekly anti-Trump administration protests led by Amenia resident Kimberley Travis.
Photo Provided
AMENIA — A banner used during weekly political demonstrations in downtown Amenia has sparked debate over whether protesters can attach signs to town-owned lightpoles and other municipal property.
The issue came before the Town Board on Thursday, June 18, after protest organizer Kim Travis requested clarification on whether a banner reading “workers over billionaires” violates the town’s sign regulations.
Travis, who has organized regular anti-Trump demonstrations at Fountain Square since 2025, said Town Supervisor Rosanna Hamm contacted her before the meeting to say the banner was not permitted because it was secured to a town-owned light pole.
“Our temporary sign is exempt,” Travis told the board, arguing that the group removes the banner and other materials after each protest and does not damage public property. She said nylon rope is used to protect the painted surface of the lamp post.
Town Attorney Ian Lindars disagreed, saying town code prohibits attaching signs to municipal property. “I don’t agree with the interpretation of the code,” Lindars said, adding that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that lamp posts are not considered to be available for public use.
“You cannot tie signs to town property,” said Councilmember Nicole Ahearn.
Amenia’s Town Code regulates signs as part of the town’s zoning ordinance under chapter 121-39. Those regulations include a blanket ban on placing signs on “municipally owned property” without prior approval from the Town Board.
Hamm said her office did not receive formal complaints about the sign, but she had received phone calls and noticed complaints on FaceBook.
In response, Travis defended the sign and the weekly protest.
“We must all stand up,” Travis said, arguing that the protest is only for one hour.
Councilmember Walter Dietrich supported the usage of the banner, indicating that the protesters are not placing a permanent sign on the post.
Hamm recognized that the protesters nor the sign block the sidewalk or impede pedestrians. She indicated that she would like more time to consider the issue.
During public comment, resident Ken Topolsky spoke in support of allowing the banner, while resident Judy Moran said she was concerned about how sign regulations could be interpreted in the future if exceptions were made.
Lindars agreed that the board could delay a decision, and board members ultimately agreed to seek additional clarification on the sign regulations before taking any action.
“Nothing can be tied or attached to town property,” Ahearn reiterated.
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Thai tea shop moving forward after winning Board of Health approval
Nathan Miller
Jun 23, 2026
Kanchisar Jiradhanaiphat, left, and John Schildbach hope to open Muanjai Tea on Main Street in Millerton by late July.
Photo by Nathan Miller
MILLERTON — Owners of a Thai tea shop planned for Main Street expect to get started with interior renovations this week after receiving approval for septic system plans from health officials.
John Schildbach, who plans to open Muanjai Tea at 28 Main St. in July, said on Monday, June 22, that the shop is awaiting one final approval from the Dutchess County Board of Health on the interior space itself and expects to begin installing counters and seating immediately after.
Discussions with the Board of Health over septic capacity caused earlier delays. Schildbach originally planned to have seating for 20 people inside the shop, but health officials required him to scale back that plan. The shop’s septic system was approved with the condition that only 14 seats be installed inside the shop.
He said the build out will likely take at least three weeks longer, meaning the storefront is not expected to open prior to Millerton’s 175 celebration running from July 11 to July 19. But Schildbach is planning to operate a pop-up tent offering a limited variety of tea drinks during the celebration.
Schildbach also plans to distribute 25% discount coupons to shoppers that stop by the pop-up. Customers can then use those coupons once the shop opens to get a discount at the shop once it opens later in July.
“It’s a little bit of a discount for people who want to try us out,” Schildbach said.
Schildbach announced plans to open the tea shop with his wife, Kanchisar Jiradhanaiphat, in late April. The shop will occupy the storefront formerly occupied by Candy-Os on Main Street.
“This isn’t going to be a bubble tea shop,” Schildbach said in April, describing a menu that seeks to bring authentic Thai tea culture to Millerton.
Highlights will include nom yen — a pink milk tea made with sweetened condensed milk and flavored syrup — as well as coffee cham yen, a blend of coffee and tea. The menu will also feature Thai tea ice cream floats, lattes and matcha drinks.
But the pair don’t want to limit the menu to just desserts and sweets. Schildbach said they are aiming for a sophisticated — yet affordable — menu that offers an authentic, approachable take on Thai tea shops.
That desire for authenticity will be built into the space itself, Schildbach said. Plans for the tea shop include adding a wall to create a service window typical of Bangkok tea shops, accented with tile and wood details.
The goal is to fit in with Millerton’s current lineup of Main Street businesses, while providing a unique experience for locals and visitors alike.
“It’s going to be like you’re in a tea shop in Thailand,” Schildbach said.
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As EMS costs continue to rise, Dutchess County looks for answers
Graham Corrigan
Jun 23, 2026
Amid growing calls for action on emergency medical service contract costs, solutions are lagging as county officials explore options.
The county has allocated $4 million for EMS over the last two budgets, hoping to combat rising costs, a diminishing workforce, and declining numbers of volunteers. But six months into 2026, data reflecting results from the infusion has been hard to come by — and the problems persist.
At issue is the very status of emergency responders: unlike fire and police departments, there is no state mandate for a town to employ EMS responders. The cost of these services falls to the individual towns, and they’ve ballooned in recent years: North East, Amenia, and Dover split a $1.3 million contract, and Stanford pays $768,000 for its ambulance services. “This is a runaway train,” said county legislator Eric Alexander, who represents Amenia, Washington and a portion of Pleasant Valley. “So the first stop is to slow it down.”
“I was pleased when the county executive agreed that this needs to be a priority,” said Chris Drago, who represents northern Dutchess in the county legislature, “but this continues to be a Band-Aid solution.”
That’s due in part to a lack of competition. Empress EMS is the region’s primary EMS provider, and it just acquired Northern Dutchess Paramedics in late 2025. The company is the only provider of advanced life support services, commonly known as ALS, like ambulances. Basic life support, or BLS, which entails non-invasive life-saving techniques, can be administered by volunteers or first responders.
Even those BLS volunteers, however, are subject to the inherent challenges of providing timely support in rural areas such as north Dutchess. Round-the-clock coverage for an area that receives lower call volume gets expensive fast.
The high costs run parallel with Empress’ profit model. That hasn’t led to any complaints about their service, but as Rep. Drago put it, “I feel we need to take profit out of the equation of saving people’s lives.”
There are three primary ways the ambulance service makes money: billing patients and receiving reimbursements from insurance companies, taxpayer subsidies, and inter-facility transport. The latter involves moving patients to better-equipped facilities, usually in a non-emergency capacity.
In short, the more a patient uses an ambulance, the greater the profit. That’s led to northern Dutchess County to receive less attention than communities in the south — Empress ambulances tend to concentrate in the more populous southern towns, where call volume is higher. The vast majority of grants that fund fly cars, which are vehicles with basic medical equipment that allow for EMTs to provide some immediate triage care, awarded as part of the county’s EMS initiative, went to mid- and southern Dutchess towns.
But help may be on its way. Northwell Health is a healthcare provider that has been expanding north from its base in Long Island and New York City. It recently acquired Sharon Hospital in Connecticut, and has been speaking with lawmakers about providing supplemental ALS coverage to the area. At a March meeting in Milan, Northwell representatives made their pitch to town officials and emergency response leaders from northern Dutchess.
In the meantime, Northwell is implementing its own ALS program at Sharon Hospital. It involves employing hospital-based paramedics to provide a number of services. Instead of waiting for a call to come in, these paramedics will be an extra pair of hands in the emergency room and provide inter-facility transportation, in addition to their emergency response duties.
“We wanted to facilitate a dependable and effective movement of critical care patients,” said Matthew Cassavechia, Director of Emergency Services at Northwell. “We want to have a paramedic following these patients after they’ve been discharged, integrated into the larger continuum of care…it’s proven to be very effective in the general Sharon Hospital area.”
For now, Northwell hasn’t been integrated into the northern Dutchess emergency response pipeline. But that day may be fast approaching. “We’re eager for them to come online as an EMS provider in Dutchess County,” said Rep. Drago. “We could use their help.”
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Community celebrates Webutuck High School’s Class of 2026
Leila Hawken
Jun 23, 2026
The Webutuck High School Class of 2026 received diplomas at the 72nd annual Commencement ceremony, held on Saturday, June 20.
Photo By Leila Hawken
AMENIA — Fifty-one members of the Webutuck High School Class of 2026 received their diplomas during the school’s 72nd annual commencement ceremony Saturday, June 20.
Family members, friends, educators and classmates filled a large tent on the high school grounds to celebrate the graduates, who will pursue careers, military service and higher education in the months ahead.
“You’ve made it,” said Webutuck Superintendent Raymond Castellani during welcoming remarks to the graduates.
After 11 years of serving the Webutuck School District, Castellani began by announcing that he would be ending that service.
“I’ve witnessed extraordinary moments,” Castellani said. “Serving this district has been one of the greatest honors of my life.”
Castellani spoke of the future to be faced by graduates.
“Change will happen faster than ever before. Technologies will evolve,” Castellani told the seniors. “Kindness matters, integrity matters, character matters,” he said, citing those qualities as ones that will carry the graduates through their future lives.
“Success is measured by the difference you make in the lives of others,” Castellani said, urging graduates to view any failures as lessons.
High School Principal Matthew Pascale began his remarks in praise of Castellani’s leadership.
“You taught me how to lead,” Pascale said. “Working in education is a vocation, not a job.”
“You are standing at the starting line of what comes next,” Pascale told the graduating class. “Go out and make a difference,” he added, reminding the class that their success will be defined by how they treat others. Kindness and humility are key.
Pascale urged each graduate to save 10% of income. “Put it away,” he said. “Pay yourself first. It isn’t about greed, it’s about security.”
Elementary School Principal Amanda Coppola presented the commencement address, recalling that she began her Webutuck teaching career as a fifth grade science teacher.
“While I was teaching you, you were teaching me,” she told graduates.
“Life keeps evolving,” Coppola said. “Keep going. Keep growing.”
Class Salutatorian Zaina AbouEid presented the traditional speech to the graduates.Photo By Leila Hawken
Salutatorian Zaina AbouEid brought appreciative laughs from her audience as she recalled jokes often voiced by Principal Pascale, jokes that were familiar to the class.
Thanking the various constituencies within the school and her family, AbouEid went on to exhort classmates to overcome fears.
“Fear is never strong enough to hold us back,” she said.
Class Valedictorian Giana Kall delivered the traditional valedictory address to her fellow graduates.Photo By Leila Hawken
“Anything is possible,” said Valedictorian Giana Marie Kall, who said that her study of psychology has taught her that people really need to believe in themselves.
“Follow your heart. It’s OK not to be perfect,” Kall told graduates. “You are only in competition with yourself.”
Kall went on to express thanks to the school’s various constituents and her family.
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Largest class since 2014 graduates from Stissing Mountain High
Graham Corrigan
Jun 23, 2026
The Stissing Mountain High School Class of 2026 celebrates graduation as 82 seniors receive their diplomas.
Photo By Graham Corrigan
PINE PLAINS — The largest graduating class since 2014 — totalling 82 seniors — celebrated the end of high school on Saturday, June 20.
Seniors from Stissing Mountain High School had their graduation at the school on Church Street in Pine Plains. Cloudy weather threatened rain but didn’t follow through as classmates, friends and family gathered to recognize the graduates’ achievements.
Principal Cristopher Boyd, School Board President Amy Fredericks, and Superintendent Dr. Brian Timm delivered opening remarks to a crowded auditorium of friends, family, and congratulatory balloons.
Dr. Timm urged the students to seek out growth through creative tension in their next chapter, and to embrace challenges as opportunities to grow. He extolled the group’s determination, and encouraged them to remember Nelson Mandela’s words: “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
Then came the student speakers: Michelle Blackburn, Siena Millar, Salutatorian Violet Bliss, and Valedictorian Alyssa Fredericks shared messages of gratitude for the support they had received throughout their education, both from their family and community. “Pine Plains helped build the foundation we all stand on,” said Valedictorian Fredericks.
This was the last step for a class that has, in large part, been classmates since kindergarten. They were together one last time on Saturday, awash in purple robes and graduation caps for the occasion.
The class of 2026 will be spreading out next year. Popular college destinations include Dutchess Community College, the SUNY system, colleges in Boston, and the armed services. More than a quarter of graduates are starting full-time jobs after high school.
The school’s chorus performed twice during the graduation, singing the Pine Plains alma mater to introduce the student speakers, and Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” to play them off.
Finally, it was time: one by one the 82 seniors shuffled off the risers to shake hands with the administrators, receive their diploma, and make that long walk across the stage to the jubilant hoots of their family and friends. As they processed off the stage and into those waiting arms, one chapter ended and another began.
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Local firewood splitter remembers a life of back-breaking labor
Joe Brennan
Jun 23, 2026
Phil Carroll stands near a pile of cut firewood he prepared for sale across New York. The Amenia native has been cutting trees and splitting wood for fireplaces for decades.
Photo By Joe Brennan
AMENIA — It’s been said that wood, as it burns, tells its history.
Phil Carroll has split and sold countless cords of dry highly flammable firewood over the decades and has narrated a lot of the history of his hometown, Amenia.
Carroll’s story begins more than 80 years ago on the banks of what was once Lake Amenia. Right before Carroll was born in 1942, his brother drowned at that swimming spot at the end of Lake Amenia Road, where the dam used to be. Phil’s mother was furious years later when she caught Phil skating across the frozen lake one winter day.
“She already lost one son to that lake,” Carroll said.
But they didn’t move out of their neighborhood to escape bad memories. Even after the dam broke, draining the lake into swamps nearby and forever changing Amenia’s landscape, his family bought and traded the land, moved houses, improved them, stayed close and planted huge gardens, plowed them over and made their own little community of wood cutters. Everything today is impeccably cared for.
The wood cutting machines are clean but clearly well used. It is a place of steady purposeful work.
Before making his career as a firewood supplier, Carroll worked as a tractor-trailer driver cross country but didn’t like it.
“You can’t sleep in a truck and own a house,” Carroll said. “Anybody who does that I think is crazy. You’re paying for the house and you’re out there.”
Then he got the idea of selling bundles of wood he sourced from his own property and nearby forests. His family thought he was crazy. Nobody around here would pay for kiln-dried firewood so Phil started hauling four-foot lengths of wood south to Fishkill, Clark, and Wilkins, New York, eventually leading to connections to New York City.
He had cleared trees right across the lake, where developer John Lango carved out those homes on Broadway. It was a swamp then, part of the lake. Then he worked to clear the forests behind his house — by the Squabble Hole, where the old ore mine flooded and made a perfect swimming hole. Phil couldn’t swim much, but the town boys dove off a rope halfway up Squabble Mountain.
He focused on distributing his wood Manhattan’s East Side first because storefront owners would pay and he could double park his truck at less risk of $600 tickets. In 1988, walking block to block, store to store, the small bodega owners saved him, and supermarket chain D’Agostinos took half a truckload but couldn’t put a real wood pile in the basement or else risk burning down the borough.
“I used to buy 80 to 90 thousand dollars of wood a year, just for New York,” Carroll said. “I’ve cut that down to 35 thousand now.”
While visiting New York all those decades ago, Carroll fostered an appreciation for dancing at Korean nightclubs. A full day’s worth of driving and delivering firewood would end with a high-energy fete dancing until the clubs closed at 3 a.m. Then Carroll would drive home.
Over the years, Carroll has recruited most of his family to join in on the business, including his son, Phil Carroll Jr.
Phil Jr. turned to the forest at 5 years old to work with his father. His job was marking logs with a 19 inch stick his father gave him, that had been measured and carved out for him as a template. Phil gave Phil Jr. a small hatchet, and not a Davy Crockett rubber blade, a real sharp edge and he marked off each section with a chopped notch as his father came behind him and tore through the felled tree with his chainsaw.
The assembly line begins at the simple splitter. It’s been sitting out in the split log walls around the driveway. These mostly go to the campgrounds like Copake. The air-dried local pieces take a year to cure and do not burn as good as his top-of-the-line stuff. J and J Lumber in Dover Plains bakes 19-inch lengths of various hardwood for a day and a half until its water content is bone dry.
These he splits over and over again so most of the bundle’s individual pieces are small and light enough to be picked up by anyone. The other pieces are even smaller, making for ready kindling although the whole pile will erupt in perfect flame, dry as tumbleweed.
Just look at the design of his signature product: the firewood bundle. It’s got his name on top, easy to read, so the buyer knows he’s getting the real deal from the master. The clear plastic is shrink wrapped so you can see that the wood and bark is clean and dry and free of bugs.
Phil, who still works selling firewood, takes pride in his product, he’s been known to throw a bundle across the workshop, “Who the hell made that!”
And Phil’s tireless, always figuring. As he looks out over his backyard, he’s still thinking ahead. “Next year I’m going to get a guy I know to blow up that other side of the hill,” Carroll said dryly. “I’d have twice as much flat land up here.”
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