Category Archives: News

Read the latest local news from Columbia County and surrounding areas.

Hudson Housing Authority nixes new construction plan

by JEANETTE WOLFBERG

HUDSON–“The project as presented is not going to be built,” Alan Weaver, Chair of the Hudson Housing Authority (HHA) Board of Commissioners, announced as he canceled the board’s July 10 meeting due to a lack of quorum.

He said the board would issue request for proposals (RFP) “to potential partners for a new project,” and that the new project is not yet definite enough to reveal.

The project as initially presented included two four-story residential units, with retail space across State Street from Bliss Tower. The new buildings together would have contained 73 income-restricted apartments, with the maximum income allowed in one new building higher than that allowed in Bliss. The HHA owns both the Bliss complex and the land on which the new buildings were planned. Read more…

Chatham hears zoning plan support from front-line officials

by EMILIA TEASDALE

CHATHAM–The Town Board held a regular meeting last week where they discussed Crellin Park and signed a lease agreement with the Village of Chatham to continue using the upstairs of the Tracy Memorial/Village Hall as the town courtroom and court offices.

The proposed new zoning law was also mentioned at the beginning of the July 18 meeting. Resident David Levow read a statement to the board about the July 8 question and answer meeting on the proposed law the board held at the Tri-Village Firehouse. In his statement he said, “I was troubled by the responses of the town planner to some of questions posed by the audience.” He said that he did not expect Town Planner Nan Stolzenburg to have every answer “at her fingertips” but he said, “some members of the audience seemed better prepared than she was.”

He asked the board to consider whether Ms. Stolzenburg has “outlived her usefulness” to the town. Read more…

Years of work bring old mills back to life

by KATE MOSTACCIO

Lumber was only one of the products produced at the water-driven mill in Claverack, It dates from the mid 1700s. Photo by Kate Mostaccio

CLAVERACK–Stephen Formel has owned two shipping companies. He now spends his winters aboard his boat, returning when the weather improves in the spring. And he’s spent the last 29 years working at restoring a historic water-powered mill on county Route 11.

The common thread: water.

Mr. Formel, a former Taconic Hills Board of Education member and one of 15 children, grew up in the Berkshires. He worked with his father in the family construction company in Puerto Rico before striking out on his own and starting a cargo shipping company. Read more…

Opera house plan aims to revive old home

by DIANE VALDEN

ANCRAM—The Stiehle house is a building on the edge in many ways.

The 250+year-old, two-story building is situated on the south side of Route 82, within inches of the highway, and just east of the firehouse at the County Route 7 crossroads. The highway is its front yard and its backyard is steep. The house also does not have an adequate septic system.

The place is not suitable for a full-time residence, but Ancram Opera House proprietors Jeff Mousseau and Paul Ricciardi believe the old place might be perfect as an administrative office and intern housing for the opera house. Read more…

Coach pitches plan for safer softball field

by JEANETTE WOLFBERG

HUDSON–Before building dugouts for the high school’s varsity softball field, the Hudson City School District (HCSD) should relocate the field, said Don Conte, coach for the high school’s girls varsity softball team in phone interviews late last month.

In its current location, the field has space for neither safe practicing nor comfortable game-watching, he said. In addition, it is “too close” to a drainage ditch. Increasing the field’s safety and functionality requires moving it, he said. And that can happen only before the installation of a new dugout makes the field’s position permanent. The field should get dugouts only after it’s established in a better location.

The district recently gave football and soccer a new field and now plans to give baseball new facilities. “They have to do it for softball too,” said Mr. Conte. “They can’t leave the girls behind.” Read more…