KINDERHOOK–Pat Grattan’s first brush with local politics came at the age of 16, when he was working in the Kinderhook pharmacy with a clerk named Earl Devoe, who was also the town supervisor.
“People used to come into the store and complain to Earl about their grievances, and that was my introduction to Kinderhook politics,” Mr. Grattan says. Read more…
TAGHKANIC–Judge Jonathan Nichols agreed this week to meet with attorneys involved in the ongoing challenge to absentee ballots cast in the November 3 election in an attempt to finally resolve the contest.
The conference, which was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon December 30 at the Hudson Elks Lodge on Harry Howard Avenue, was to be open to the public and is only the latest skirmish in an on-going dispute fueled by the county Republican Committee’s effort to disqualify people who own second homes in the county from voting here. Read more…
STOCKPORT—Residents here are working to help bring three new recreational trails to the town.
The Stockport Trails Committee, formed in July to facilitate the creation of recreational trails in the town, is collaborating with similar committees in the Towns of Kinderhook and Stuyvesant and the Columbia Land Conservancy to examine the feasibility of an inter-municipal trail from the Town of Kinderhook along the Kinderhook Creek to Stuyvesant Falls and south to Chittenden Falls in Stockport.
“Through the cooperative efforts of trails committees in Kinderhook, Stuyvesant and Stockport we together recently received a Greenway Conservancy grant for a feasibility study of the inter-municipal trail” said Stockport Trails Committee chairman Ronald Rich in a recent email. “We are very excited about the possibility of a multi-use recreational trail connecting the three towns.”
ANCRAM–The Columbia Land Conservancy (CLC) in partnership with the town has closed on a deal to ensure 113 acres of Chaseholm Farm will forever remain in agriculture.
A grant from the state Department of Agriculture Farmland Protection program funded the purchase of an agricultural easement to be held by CLC, permanently protecting the working dairy farm.
Chaseholm is a 340-acre dairy farm spanning the Columbia/Dutchess county line.
Despite quick response, wind fans flames that destroy livelihoods
COPAKE–Fourth generation dairy farmers Nancy and Paul Miller, sister and brother, lost not only their livelihood, but their way of life when fire consumed the main dairy barn and about half their herd at Snook Hill Farm, 257 Empire Road, the afternoon of Thursday, December 17.
Fifty-two dairy animals were killed. Some farm machinery and three buildings were destroyed by the fast-moving, wind-whipped blaze.