Get your New Paltz town board application in by June 13

New Paltz town council members are, once again, looking for someone to fill the seat vacated by Dan Torres last August. After months of interviews and closed-door discussions, Amanda Gotto was appointed in April to keep that seat warm until the end of the year — but Gotto soon resigned out of a belief that a sitting council member would not be eligible to apply for the role of interim supervisor, when Neil Bettez took a state job in the beginning of May. Gotto was finally tapped to fill in for Bettez nearly a month later, and at the June 6 meeting — with the new interim supervisor at the helm — work turned to getting another replacement for Torres. Two residents were interviewed, but council members opted to keep accepting letters of interest until June 13, with the hope of making a decision a week later, during the June 20 public meeting. 

Interviewed on June 6 were Izzy Defino and Ray Lunati. Another individual who had expressed interest, Ruth Anderson Fialkow, was not present at the appointed time, and could not be interviewed. Defino is a member of the climate-smart task force, with a background in design, marketing and customer service. Lunati is a retired business owner who has served previously as an alternate member of the planning board and as a member of the village fire company, and unsuccessfully ran for town board twice. 

Both were asked questions about their understanding of the role, and their ability to commit the time needed to do it well. Anyone interested in submitting a letter of interest to assistant@townofnewpaltz.org may gain insight into the role by watching the video of the board meeting. It appears that the amount of time that town council members spend reviewing and approving vouchers for payment cannot easily be overestimated. Baer boost tabled

Alex Baer claims to have resigned as the New Paltz deputy supervisor in part because of the pay. The position is usually just a slight pay bump for a town council member, one that comes with a title and little responsibility. Neil Bettez decided to give the job to Baer, who was not on the board. Baer’s responsibilities shot up when Bettez left, and based on the number of hours Baer reports to have worked, the hourly rate was less than three dollars. 

Soon after Baer resigned, council member Julie Seyfert-Lillis disputed the idea that there was no political will to pay Baer a rate comparable to the supervisor’s salary. At the June 6 meeting, after spending time in executive session, council members opted not to vote on authorizing payment of Baer at the higher rate for work performed from May 6 through May 23.

Community center rate increases not yet set in stone

When Joanna Dempsey was hired as the Town of new Paltz’s recreation director, it was known that Dempsey would have to deal with the question of increasing fees for using the community center. A push to double the hourly space rental for paid classes was clapped back by center regulars while the search for a new director was ongoing, and council members wanted that new director to have a hand in reviewing the proposal. 

Dempsey came back to report during the June 6 meeting, and brought a compromise offer: instead of hiking the hourly rate from $15 to $30, instead increase it to $20 an hour. Amy Rivera, who provides weekly zumba classes at the center, was appreciative of the gesture, but frames these and other classes as a community service. At a price point of $12 per person, a class can end up costing the instructor money at a higher rate if attendance is low in a given week; Rivera believes that charging more would reduce attendance still more, and suggested that perhaps current instructors could be allowed to continue at the old rate. 

Fee-based services, such as requiring payment to get into the pool and to attend classes at the community center, are seen by many local leaders in the region as being preferable to funding programs through taxes, reasoning that those who do not participate should not pay. That’s in contrast to the philosophy for funding education, which is based on the assumption that the presence of the programming benefits everyone in the community. 

Dempsey will refine the proposal and return on June 20 to revisit this issue.

Juneteenth jubilee in New Paltz

The fourth annual Juneteenth jubilee celebration of triumph and history and learning about Juneteenth with the New Paltz community will take place on Wednesday, June  19. It will begin at 10  a.m. with a one-hour  commemoration ceremony at the New Paltz Rural Cemetery. It will be followed by a community drum procession at the Margaret Wade-Lewis Center for Black History & Culture, located at 5 Broadhead Avenue. This all-day extravaganza will continue until 4 p.m. on the lawn at Historic Huguenot Street and will include lunch, story-telling, musical performances and tours to help honor and remember the formerly enslaved Africans that were integral to the Village of New Paltz’s history. A movie, to be determined, will be screened at Elting Memorial Library at 7:30 that night. 

Students from the Ulster BOCES Center for Innovative Teaching & Learning (CITL) at Port Ewen have been participating in a series of educational activities as part of a collaboration with the Witness Stones Project — a non-profit educational initiative whose mission is to restore the history and honor the humanity of the enslaved individuals who helped build our communities — and Historic Huguenot Street in New Paltz. Together they have commemorated the lives of Anthony and Susanna, two individuals who were enslaved at Huguenot Street in the 1600s. 

The project will culminate during the Juneteenth public celebration at Historic Huguenot Street on June 19, where students will present their work and pay tribute to Anthony and Susanna. During the ceremony, two memorial stones will be dedicated on Huguenot Street, marking the first time such a project has been undertaken at this historic site.

The project began in January when Lindsay Dalton, school programs manager at Historic Huguenot Street, approached CITL teacher Jessica Pedro after a successful field trip to Historic Huguenot Street. Enlisting the help of CITL reading specialist Catherine Pine, they initiated the curriculum, integrating activities designed to educate students about Anthony and Susanna’s lives and the broader context of slavery in the Northeast. This immersive learning experience included vocabulary lessons, video discussions on dehumanization, and creative assignments where students crafted poems, songs and historical fiction to reconstruct and honor the stories of Anthony and Susanna.

At the Juneteenth ceremony, selected students will present their narratives, contributing to a broader community recognition of these historical figures. Students’ work will also be displayed on a bulletin board at Elting Library in New Paltz for a month following the ceremony.

More information about the New Paltz Juneteenth celebration can be found on the Dr. Margaret Wade-Lewis Black History Cultural Center Facebook page or visiting their website at mwlcenter.org.