The views and opinions expressed in our letters section are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Hudson Valley One. Submit a letter to the editor at deb@hudsonvalleyone.com.
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Hudson Valley One welcomes letters from its readers. Letters should be fewer than 300 words and submitted by noon on Monday. Our policy is to print as many letters to the editor as possible. As with all print publications, available space is determined by ads sold. If there is insufficient space in a given issue, letters will be approved based on established content standards. Points of View will also run at our discretion.
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Help repair our fractured world
I will be facilitating a free reading and discussion series at the Woodstock Library on “Muslim Journeys” starting Tuesday, November 12 from 6 to 8 p.m., continuing for six Tuesdays in all, with the last session on December 17. We will be exploring memoirs and novels that provide insight into a vast array of contemporary Muslim lives. Each work will hopefully illustrate how the humanities promote understanding and mutual respect for people with diverse stories, cultures and perspectives within the U.S. and abroad.
Also, being that I am not of the Muslim faith myself, I especially look forward to welcoming those who practice it, were born into it or are familiar with its wealth and variety; but I am hopeful that all of us who are curious about this deeply misrepresented and too-often-stereotyped and vilified religion, take part — especially now, in this troubled time!
For more information and to sign up, go to the Woodstock Library’s website calendar where you can find the book list, dates, etc. You can also contact me at MHaber8643@aol.com.
As Muslims say, “Inshallah” — let’s build upon this exchange, to help repair our fractured world!
Martin Haber
Woodstock
Thank you from The Well
When we realized that The Well Thrift Store in Saugerties was going to have to move, we were confident that the community would help and support us. We were overwhelmed by the amount of support and assistance we received from the community.
I do not want to start naming names because I will forget to include someone and that is not my intent. Our thanks go out to many persons. Volunteers worked tirelessly to pack and organize everything. The volunteers removed the racks and shelving from the walls. The move crew that showed up with trucks, equipment and people power. The moving team was organized by members of the Kiwanis Club and the food pantry team. Many community organizations, churches and individuals contributed money to defray the costs involved in preparing our new location.
Overall, Saugerties proved once again that they care about their community and the people in it. We reopened the doors at our new location at 257 Main Street in Saugerties on November 2. We look forward to celebrating our 50th anniversary next year and continuing to support the community for another 50 years.
Jane Bird, Chairperson
The Well Advisory Board
Saugerties Area Council of Churches
An example of collaboration between the city and property owners
I want to thank Rokosz Most and HV1 for “Canopy Emergency,” the recent article about the demolition of the city-owned Pike Plan canopy formerly attached to our building.
In the article, it was mentioned that a 300-foot section of the canopy was taken down. This is not correct. The canopy formerly attached to the front façade of our building measured only 25 to 30 feet in length.
As the article mentioned, this demolition, which occurs ahead of the city’s proposed plan to demolish the entirety of the Pike Plan, was not planned. Both before and after demolition, we met with Mayor Noble to discuss the project and the path to returning the façade of our building to a condition that reasonably approximates its appearance prior to the city’s construction of the Pike Plan almost 50 years ago. We explained the importance of doing this in a timely manner in advance of any wholesale demolition of the Pike Plan as the canopy attached to our building was removed ahead of that proposed project. What we came away with was a clear understanding of the city’s intent to work with the Hudson Valley LGBTQ+ Community Center to make this happen.
Our building was purchased by our community as a place of gathering, support and refuge. It is a symbol of the pride, strength and resourcefulness of our community. Having had the opportunity to meet with the mayor, I know that he understands and appreciates this. Should the rest of the Pike Plan be demolished as proposed, we hope that our demolition and restoration can serve as an example of collaboration between the city and property owners.
Richard Heyl de Ortiz, Executive Director
Hudson Valley LGBTQ+ Community Center
Kingston
An addendum
In anticipation of the responses to my letter of last week, I thought to add an addendum.
If we are going to talk about genocide, we should consider what Hamas/Hezbollah/Houthis/Iran plan for Israel. GENOCIDE! The plans and declared intentions of these groups is precisely and openly exactly that!
Given the opportunity, these enemies of Israel would rape, murder, destroy every man, woman and child they could get control of! This is not hyperbole, this is openly stated intention!
Should Israel take this seriously? Hamas’s plan was, if possible, to continue the October 7 invasion into the heart of Israel and continue the rape and murder they carried out in the south. Hezbollah, in solidarity with Hamas began rocket attacks on northern Israel on October 8, before Israel had begun their counter attack! All the while, rockets from Iran’s proxies in Yemen and Iraq are striking Israel to be followed by many from Iran itself.
These terrorists embed their fighters and rocket launchers in or near civilians — their schools, apartment buildings, mosques, hospitals — so that Israel will earn the condemnation of the international community as well as Palestinian sympathizers and anti-Israel and anti-Jewish elements in the U.S.
This is not to minimize the horror that Gazans and Lebanese are suffering but to provide a larger picture of what is going on. We don’t want a repeat of WWII with the carnage of London, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Dresden, Leningrad, Nagasaki, Hiroshima… to occur again!
We do want an end to this current carnage, protection of Israel from its enemies, and peaceful Palestinian states in Gaza and the West Bank so that the “land of milk and honey” can thrive. Is this too naive? I hope not.
Meyer Rothberg
Saugerties
Answer please
Why is McKenna going forward with the Phinney Design Group’s estimated $25-million cost for the town’s recreational campus in Andy Lee Field when Robert Young, an architect who has practiced in Woodstock since 1972, already has a plan in place that has an estimated cost of $10-million?
Howard Harris
Woodstock
Good for the land and good for the people
Marty Martin’s characterization of Beautiful Saugerties (HV1, 10/30/24) as “angry” is erroneous and uninformed. Beautiful Saugerties is not angry but deeply concerned about the massive overdevelopment proposed by the current owners of Winston Farm in their application for rezoning. What Beautiful Saugerties strongly supports is the preservation of as much of the property, intact, as possible, under the terms of the current or any future zoning.
The Winston Farm ecosystem is too valuable to the local environment and, in its small way, to the much larger, global picture of the health of the entire planet as well. Our literal survival as a community, a civilization, and possibly as a species depends on minimizing, preferably ending, the destruction of nature, on which human survival depends, in the name of the false promises of economic growth. And in fact, Saugerties’ Comprehensive Plan (a legally binding document) requires that 73% of the property remain as open space no matter what else is built there. Beautiful Saugerties is working to ensure that adherence to that plan results in undisturbed woodland, wetland, meadow, habitat and water supply, and beyond that, that any development that occurs be done with the lightest possible footprint and the greenest available technology.
Mr. Martin’s suggestion that we “sit down with the owners” in hopes of finding a “happy common ground” is a good but belated one. Indeed, representatives of Beautiful Saugerties have already met with the owners to propose alternatives to the kind of over-development they envision, all of which were good-humoredly dismissed, while the true motive of maximizing return on investment was clearly stated. We would embrace a series of true community conversations (not presentations intended to persuade) where residents with open minds could talk about future design, where no one was holding fast to a pre-determined point of view, where visionary possibilities could emerge that were “good for the land and good for the people.” (And what is good for the land is also good for the people.)
Janet Moss
Susan Murphy
Bill Barr
Margarita Asiain
For Citizens for a Beautiful Saugerties
NPHS girls soccer: First sectional title in 20 years!
Congratulations team! New Paltz High School girls soccer has earned the Section 9 championship! They will advance to play Section 1’s Rye City School District, the defending Class A state champs, on Thursday, November 7th at Nyack High School.
As local government officials, we often mention how the City of Rye, formerly the Village of Rye, was part of the Town of Rye until it received its charter as a city in 1942. Rye was the last city formed in NYS, 82 years ago. The Town of Rye, which surrounds but does not include the city of Rye, also encompasses the Village of Port Chester and part of the Village of Mamaroneck.
When I was a baby mayor, about ten years ago, I imagined that a combined town and village of New Paltz might work more effectively as a city. Compared to cities, towns and villages are asked to do a great deal with less financial support (e.g., limited sales tax, less federal aid). This is especially true in New Paltz, as we are a destination for a multitude of reasons, bearing significant hosting responsibilities. Our community offers access to 1) the Mid-Hudson’s only public residential university; 2) hundreds of acres of public and private protected open space; and 3) both bike and pedestrian sections of the Empire State Trail.
But the state stopped creating cities with Rye and it’s clear that counties and cities will continue to oppose adding new cities, primarily to maintain a limited number of parties in sales tax distribution negotiations. NYS law does not entitle villages and towns to participate in sales tax negotiations.
New York State (4%) and Ulster County (4%) sales tax rates combine to produce a total rate of 8% in our county. Pursuant to Ulster’s current Sales Tax Sharing Agreement, the 4% local share apportionment is decided on by the City of Kingston and the county. They share 96% of this tax revenue and the 20 towns and three villages share the balance. Additionally, individual Ulster County towns and villages are not involved in discussing whether the split is done considering a town’s assessed value versus its population size. Recently, annual sales tax in our 12561 zip code represented $13.4 million but the town and village of New Paltz received a combined $251,000 to help offset our property tax bills.
Soccer also got us thinking about the socioeconomic and demographic differences between our school districts.
New Paltz v. Rye
• Students 1,824 / 2,868
• Expenses per student $31,237 / $51,512
• Students eligible for free or reduced lunch 24.7% / 2%
• Average teacher salary $97,366 / $250,007
• Median household income $86,091 / $227,565
• Median home value $379,700 / $1,727,200
Good luck Rye mayor Josh Cohn, but we are excited for our girls who are amped and have been preparing for this game for years. See you in Nyack for our match up?
Mayor Tim Rogers
New Paltz
Why no concern for Israel?
Susan Puretz and Meyer Rothberg sent excellent letters last week outlining another point of view that the anti-Israel writers don’t want to hear.
Even though the loss of life is unfortunate, we all know the main reason for such great numbers is the fact that, as Susan points out, the Hamas cowards used the Palestinians as human shields. And yet, the Palestinians elected Hamas to power with who knows how many of the Palestinians actually backing and supporting Hamas’s endless attacks on Israel for years. In return, Hamas showed no concern or respect for the lives of the residents who handed Hamas their power. And, to add insult to injury, Hamas then steals the aid money intended to help the Palestinians.
Other than Susan, Meyer, and myself, no other writers seem to care one bit about what the dangerous future still holds for Israel. Instead, we just hear the constant drum beat for an immediate cease fire, as if that’s going to solve everything.
If Hamas, Hezbollah, and even Iran were truly interested in preventing any more loss of life and achieving peace, they’d have seriously come to the negotiating table long ago. However, their only interest continues to be wiping Israel off the face of the earth. Would a cease fire prevent Hamas, and Hezbollah from regrouping, strengthening, and re-arming themselves for future endless attacks on Israel? Not likely, at all! That’s why Hamas, and Hezbollah need to be completely humiliated and exterminated.
As Meyer points out, gutless (my word, not Meyer’s) Iran is financially behind all these terror groups. And Iran’s financial strength was compliments of the spineless Biden/Harris administration who destroyed Trump’s crippling sanctions on Iran by releasing billions of dollars to Iran, enabling them to significantly up their game of terrorism against Israel. After the October 7th attack on Israel, any competent president, vice president, and their administration would have immediately reimposed the most severe sanctions possible on Iran.
So, the genocide crowd, in their refusal to address all the aspects of these battles from the viewpoint of the pro-Israel perspective, their silence speaks volumes as to their total lack of concern for Israel and its future.
John N. Butz
Modena
Air, water and soil
Delegates to COP 16 have been meeting in Colombia and delegates to COP 29 are meeting in Azerbaijan to further develop strategies to diminish/halt the effects of climate change and promote environmental justice. Previous gatherings have produced a limited amount of steps that have been adhered to by this planet’s nations. But, keep in mind that many delegations of young people have attended and returned to their communities throughout the world. Individually, we may not be aware of the actions that have been introduced by these delegates and other committed youth. Programs are alive in cities, disenfranchised locations, public/private schools and colleges, and in distant as well as nearby communities. If you can say that you have a hope for the future, don’t think it to be a foolish or empty hope. Allow your hope to be well-founded in interested, intelligent, active and devoted young people. Please be willing to show them your support, acceptance and encouragement along with guidance, collaboration and shared vision. Together, all can make a difference.
Locally (Woodstock), may we strongly urge our governing officials to fully inform their constituents of steps being taken to protect the community from environmental harm. If it takes the asking of questions by those who are on the town board or are in the community to seek clarification (for themselves/residents) of proposed board actions, let these questions NOT be interpreted as being hostile. Rather, may this be an opportunity to promote understanding within the community. When situations arise which may threaten the health/safety of anyone living in or visiting Woodstock, exhaustive and openly reported efforts by our governing officials should be expected. Trust in relationships, including between town residents and its officials, will grow when nourished by transparency and truth. The well-being of the town and its residents depend on the health of the air, water and soil as well as a genuine unified effort to heal and improve these resources. May there be a determined commitment to move forward positively.
Terence Lover
Woodstock
Wreaths Across America
The Saugerties VFW Post 5034 is again sponsoring a bus trip for the annual Wreaths Across America program at Saratoga National Cemetery on December 14, 2024. The bus will leave from the Saugerties Senior Center at 8:30 a.m. The wreath placement is scheduled for 11 a.m., ceremony at 12.
After placing the remembrance wreaths and the ceremony, we will go to the Schylerville American Legion Post for a warm lunch. After lunch, we will drive through the cemetery on our way back home.
The cost is $17 per person, the price of a wreath. There are over 16,000 fallen soldiers in Saratoga.
If you wish to attend this beautiful ceremony, please make your checks payable to the Saugerties VFW Post 5034 and mail to Saugerties VFW Post 5034, P.O. Box 152, Saugerties NY 12477-0152. If you are joining us, please call me at 845-246-8510.
Bob Howe
Saugerties VFW 5034
A welcoming space
The corner of North Front Street and Main Street in New Paltz, where the Elting Memorial Library stands, has long been a gathering spot for community expression. To ensure the library remains a welcoming space for everyone, we kindly ask that all signs and displays be kept to the sidewalk in keeping with the library’s “public displays policy,” which prohibits commercial and political displays on library grounds. Thank you for helping us maintain a neutral and inclusive environment for all.
Hilary Cloos
on behalf of the Elting Memorial Library Board of Trustees
Save Winston Farm
“Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you got
‘till it’s gone?
They paved paradise and put up a
parking lot”
Joni Mitchell had it right and they’re still at it. Save Winston Farm!
Arabella Colton
Saugerties
Praising a local hardware store
After moving all kinds of heavy things in my laundry room, I finally found my two hedge clippers. Somehow, they had slipped off a file cabinet and were rusted from a water leak occurring many months ago. It seemed to me that they were beyond repair and totally useless. Replacements would be a hefty chunk of change but on an off chance, I brought them to our local Smith’s Hardware in Saugerties and rather apologetically asked a young man behind the counter if he thought anything could be done. How easy it would have been for him to support my suspicions about their total loss and simply sell me two new ones. Instead, he carefully studied each one and said: “I’ll call the man who sharpens things like this in our store and let’s give it a try.” He took my name and number and later that day, I got a call saying they had been sharpened and ready to go. For a fraction of the cost of two replacements, I have two like-new functioning hedge clippers!
Only in such a local shop run by the same family for generations, could one have such a great experience. Who needs box stores when a shop like Smith Hardware is right here in our town?
Margaret Hogan
Saugerties
We the poisoned
On July 12, 2024 a letter was sent to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation by Anuala Curtis, Erin Moran and Woodstock supervisor Bill McKenna requesting that Woodstock be considered in being awarded financial compensation for the contaminated waste dumped at 10 Church Road Shady — dumping began in December 2019. At the time of sending the July letter, the haulage company run by Joseph Karolys had been fined $8 million by the Supreme Court for dumping contaminated waste in Saugerties.
The letter sent by our town officials also stated that the contaminated waste at Shady was from the same contaminated waste-source as Karolys site in Saugerties and was therefore a threat to Woodstock’s drinking water and therefore Woodstock should be included in any available financial compensation that resulted from the Karolys $8 million fine/conviction.
Fast forward to October 2024 and water tests done in May 2024 by the Town of Woodstock have confirmed the presence of PFAS or forever chemicals in our drinking water at levels above that recommended by the NY Department of Environmental Conservation but below that recommended by NYSOH. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), no amount of these chemicals are safe to consume.
The Town of Woodstock have decided to conform to the highest level allowed by the NYSOH.
To summarize, the Town of Woodstock knows we have forever chemicals in or drinking water, have requested financial compensation for the possible source of those chemicals in order to remediate the site where those chemicals exist, but town board members Anuala Curtis, Bill McKenna and Laura Ricci refuse to do source testing. Source testing if done professionally by hiring a hydrologist, would discover exactly where the forever chemicals are coming from. This would allow the town to remediate by removing the forever chemicals at the source. Finding and removing these chemicals at their source would probably decrease the level of these chemicals at present in our water. Ignoring the source of the chemicals will almost insure that levels increase in the coming years in the same way that ignoring a cancerous tumor in your body would probably insure the growth of that tumor.
In Flint, Michigan during 2014, neglect by city and state officials in the handling of its drinking water source has today caused cancerous disease rates of up to 300 percent above averages for Michigan. Forever chemicals in Woodstock’s drinking water may not affect your health today or tomorrow, but the clock is ticking as our town officials continue to refuse to do source testing.
Chris Finlay
Woodstock
Will the embrace of Trump suffocate us all?
By the time you read this, Donald Trump will have either won the election or be wreaking havoc over Kamala Harris’s victory, so there’s little point now in my continuing to try and make the case for Harris or against Trump.
And indeed, except in my wildest moments of hubris, I’ve never had any illusions that my words could sway the minds or change the convictions of Trumpers, especially since I don’t think this election has been about “minds” or “convictions.” I think it’s primarily been about the fear and anger that many feel but may have never analyzed, personally or professionally, and that Trump and his billionaire backers have ruthlessly exploited: fear and anger among men over women’s increasing power and independence (and Kamala Harris’s candidacy); over the pinch many people feel on their pocketbooks; over the border “invasion” and the resulting “wave” of rapes, murders, lost jobs and overrun cities and towns; over the “elitism” of the city-bred, better-educated and higher-paid. I think it’s this fear and anger that led to the spread of white Christian nationalism that was acted out in Charlottesville in August of 2017 and in D.C. on January 6, 2021.
However, I’m theorizing, maybe errantly. Speaking instead from my heart, I can tell you with certainty that it has been heartsickening to consider that, apparently, half of America wants Donald Trump to lead them, when it seems so obvious that it’s people like him — obscenely rich and always looking to become obscenely richer, all-powerful yet forever seeking greater power still, conscienceless, vindictive, misanthropic and misogynistic, planet-polluting — who have “rigged the system,” created “the swamp.”
Trumpers have had ample opportunity to see who Donald Trump is and to renounce him. Instead they have embraced him. As I apprehensively await the election results, I hope with all my heart that this embrace doesn’t wind up suffocating all of us.
Tom Cherwin
Saugerties
Terrorism causes terrorism
Once again Ms. Puretz and Mr. Civile repeat their same old tired arguments including there being no genocide in Gaza, when every human rights organization in the world says it is clear genocide, including Israel’s leading human rights group B’Tselem. Ms. Puretz brings up “The Nova Music Festival” and that if I were there, my views might be different. Maybe not because the festivalgoers were not only fired on by Hamas terrorists, but also by the Israeli Apache helicopters, as it has been revealed by Israeli Air Force colonel Erez, who admitted a “mass Hannibal directive” was invoked.
The ugly truth is that the hundreds of burned-out cars, some with young people still in them, on the road near the festival site, was not done by Hamas who were on foot or on motorcycles, but by Israel’s Apache copters and their very lethal hellfire rockets. There is released IDF video footage of this killing spree which I have viewed. Unbelievably Israel will kill its own citizens to avoid hostage taking (Hannibal directive); allow Hamas terrorists to enter Israel (as I detailed in my last letter) to have alleged justification to flatten Gaza; and commit ethnic cleansing by driving out Palestinians (not slaughtered in the genocide), all for the Zionists goal of Greater Israel. So much for Ms. Puretz’s moral army propaganda arguments.
Meanwhile, Mr. Civile doesn’t seem to comprehend that a brutal apartheid system allowed to operate in any country, the fruit thereof will always be resistance and a quest for freedom. The leading Israeli human rights group B’Tselem asserts this in their 2021 report “Israel is an Apartheid State.” Mr. Civile and Ms. Puretz are apparently unaware that terrorism did not begin with Palestinians on October 7, 2023 but in1929-1949 by Zionist terror groups known as, the “Irgun”and the “Lehi”/“Stern Gang” (https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/terror-out-zion-irgun-zvai-leumi-lehi-and-palestine-underground). One particular act of terrorism committed by the Irgun was the 1948 “Der Yassin” massacre whereby the Irgun attacked this peaceful village, killed most of its inhabitants being 250 Palestinian men, women and children with brutal savagery, like hanging them from trees and setting them on fire, and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem.” (https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-211346/) Sound like similar brutality to October 7th’s events? Ms. Puretz and Mr. Civile paint the picture that Hamas invented terrorism when in fact the radical Zionist underground were the early terrorists setting in motion this continual cycle of violence. And now here we are today with a radical Zionist (Netanyahu) at the helm of nuclear Israel stoking the flames of WWIII and the potential end of us all if he is not removed and arrested. Pray for the people of Israel to do the latter.
Steve Romine
Woodstock
New Paltz United Teachers rallies for a new contract
The New Paltz United Teachers (NPUT) is stepping up its public actions to secure a new contract. The actions come as New Paltz educators and professionals began the new school year with an expired contract (June 30, 2024), despite negotiating with the New Paltz Central School District since January 2024.
The union is rallying on Wednesday, November 6th in New Paltz at the intersection of Routes 32 and 299 to ramp up public awareness of its needs and priorities. While NPUT and the district have certainly made encouraging progress on many important topics, the district leadership needs to demonstrate greater commitment toward working through the remaining issues with the goal of reaching a fair agreement!
NPUT members show up for our students every single day despite working for over four months without a contract. NPUT is advocating that the district make key improvements for its educators, professionals and students. A fair contract would include an agreement that provides NPUT members with a compatible and livable wage that allows them to continue working in the communities they serve.
NPUT believes that NPSCD is not as hamstrung or debilitated by debt as they want to contend! New Paltz CSD has shown that if it WANTS to pay for something, it “FINDS” a way to do it! NPUT refuses to accept that NPCSD can’t do right by us! NPUT does not have a contract and that is a choice!
We hope New Paltz Central School District will respond to New Paltz United Teachers’ urgent and reasonable proposals, acting in good faith to settle its contract. In doing so, we can all resume our focus on providing the best possible education to the district’s children!
Paulette Easterlin
on behalf of the New Paltz United Teachers
Why?
Why is there no Generation Y?
Sparrow
Phoenicia
The wayback machine
Setting the wayback machine, I launched myself like a rocket, cartoon dreams alight, in echoes of euphoric nights, stars twinkling bright. Fingertips stretched skyward, past a sonic fabric of the now, where memories like whispers sublime, and joy takes a bow.
Round, round, get around, like melodies on loop, cartwheeling through the years, beneath the cosmic soup. Wah-wa-ooh, it sings in hues, a rhythm all its own, a symphony of yesterdays, where seeds of dreams have grown.
Each moment a vibrant brushstroke, each heartbeat a booming sign. Let the stars be my canvas, for the moonlight is all mine, so… set the wayback machine, let us wander free, In the realms of what was, in the wonder yet to be.
Good luck to the dream,
Voices rise in unity,
Oh, say! Can you see?
Neil Jarmel
West Hurley
The civil light
At what some would call the summit of civilization, we gaze out over cities and towns. As evening falls, countless lights flicker on, creating islands of warmth against the coming dark. A sliver of moon hangs low on the horizon while, somewhere nearby, the hinge of a door begins to squeak open — the familiar door of fear.
The word “civilization” traces back to “civil,” meaning “of or relating to citizens.” Civility speaks to our unwritten but essential values — politeness, courtesy, tolerance and humanity. Those lights scattered across our communities represent the backbone of civility, a web of quiet, unseen values that keep us connected despite everything.
But as political fog rolls in, blotting out this civil landscape, our lights begin to disappear. We are left wondering what we will find at sunrise, especially after the election, when shadows have lengthened and swallowed the familiar landmarks of trust.
True civilization isn’t a matter of owning more, flying higher, or conquering what we fear. Armies or resources don’t define civilization; it is determined by a willingness to open our doors to each other and leave a light on for our neighbors. But bullies roam on today’s global playground, wielding influence under darkness. Intimidation has twisted the definition of civil into a tool for political gamesmanship.
And so, when did we turn off our porch lights? When did we stop lighting the way for neighbors to visit safely? Now, more than ever, we must reach for that civil light switch, flipping it on as a welcome gesture. Our porch lights are more than mere bulbs; they are the beacons of hope that resist darkness.
Join me. Let us turn on the light — so our neighbors can find their way home again.
Larry Winters
New Paltz
Last chance
Red and white
and scarlet oaks
in full sun
under deep blue sky
blazing.
Red maples
commit to color
in striking brilliance.
The sweet gum
turning, leaves
top-heavy trees
in yellow-purple.
All at once, all around:
red-orange, yellow-gold.
What is left: brown
to bald. So all beauty,
and shades of it, goes.
Patrick Hammer, Jr.
Saugerties
Shovel ready
“Turn the page.” Look Sally, look. Ruffy found a bone and you must run and get it! Why? It’s toxic!” So the Dems and the Pubs told us about the competition. Two deceitful political parties … yawn.
Our society is built on our Constitutional rights. We have a solid foundation that will withstand the DC dishonesty in both parties. Extreme liberals seem to believe many of us are incapable of making good life choices.
Kamala’s last round was fired when Trump said Liz Cheney would not do well if sent into the face of enemies shooting real bullets (my interpretation). VP Harris interpreted that Trump said Ms. Cheney should be shot, and that is “disqualifying.” Who gave her that idea? And what jerks OK’d the Dems calling Trump ‘Hitler’?
That 40% of our fellow citizens have expressed approval of each candidate is disappointing, but the voting is over. I accept either result! The system we use for self-governance only works when we accept the results.
Don’t kill the umpire. The umpire is us, in total, with our counted votes: we chose this outcome. As for shovel-ready: that’s politics. Don’t fall for what seems improbable next time. That “Hitler” claim really frosted me, a lot of us knew great men who were badly hurt, or died, stopping that monster.
Paul Raymond
New Paltz
Join the family! 
