COPAKE—If at first you don’t succeed, stall, stall again.

That seems to be Salvatore Cascino’s strategy for dealing with the Copake Planning Board’s request for information members need to help them decide if Mr. Cascino is really the farmer he claims to be.

Mr. Cascino’s right-hand man, David Wiener, appeared for the second time in two months at the Planning Board’s most recent meeting, representing his boss on two site plan reviews. One review seeks site plan approval for existing buildings, which Mr. Cascino has already built on his 300-acre property, some without permission, and the second review seeks approval for three more new structures that will yield 64,200 square feet of enclosed or semi-enclosed space—all to be used in Mr. Cascino’s “farm operation known as Copake Valley Farm,” according to a proposed operating plan submitted by Mr. Wiener in March. Read more…

VALATIE–The Village Board discussed changing the village code on maintaining sidewalks and who is responsible for repairing them at their March 12 board meeting. According to Mayor Diane Argyle, the current code says the responsibility for the repairing sidewalks lies with the property owner but she also said that property owners don’t own the sidewalks; the sidewalks are owned by the municipality.

Jenn Kolb, who owns a business on Main Street and is a former village trustee, asked what the village plans to do about the sidewalk in front of her property. A section of the sidewalk has sunk and for several months has had safety cones around it so that pedestrians won’t trip. Ms. Kolb said she told the village about the sunken sidewalk in the fall.

She also said that because of the sidewalk, water has been leaking into her basement and the basement wall has deteriorated from the water damage. Read more…

THE HUDSON ADOLESCENT OFFENDER FACILITY sits close to the city’s busy central business district. But, for the most part, except for its employees who live locally, residents don’t give it a second thought. The facility’s nearly 150-year-old brick buildings have a fascinating but often sad history that, until recently, has been hidden from contemporary notice.

Since 2012, the Prison Public Memory Project (PPMP) has worked with individuals and organizations inside and outside Columbia County to document, interpret and share the history of the prison in its backyard.

The prison opened in Hudson in 1877 as the House of Refuge for Women, the state’s first reformatory for women and, according to some historians, America’s first “gender-specific” women’s penal institution. Read more…