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The proposed battery storage facility — bring it on!
I’m a resident of Hurley, which is chock-full of yard signs warning against plans for a “dangerous” battery storage facility in our area. As an environmentalist and active community member, I was alarmed. But after hearing the project details, I’m surprised that so many people are upset, and I hope for our community and our planet’s sake that the project will move forward. Our household cares a lot about alternative energy, and we know that its sources need storage; we all know sun and wind aren’t always accessible. It makes sense to put that storage close to where the energy is produced. As long as that can be done safely, let’s bring it on.
The “dangers” my neighbors fear are rigorously addressed in the plan for this particular facility. There have been accidents in battery storage facilities, but not ones that use this type of battery, this type of storage and this type of siting.
New York State’s stringent codes and standards wouldn’t have it any other way, and neither would community-focused local leaders like Sarahana Shrestha and Michelle Hinchey. The research and plans are clear: past mistakes have been suitably addressed. It’s not helpful or accurate to look at apples and call them oranges.
I’m hoping critical thinking — and shying away from NIMBYism — will rule the day on this one.
Gretchen Primack
Hurley
The path forward is clear
For those of us who have followed the history of 10 Church Road (“the Shady dump”), the recent letter from the Woodstock Environmental Commission (WEC) to the town board comes as no surprise, but great appreciation. Years ago, the WEC, under Alex Bolotow, was vocal in urging the board to properly remediate the site. But after the ploy that removed Ms. Bolotow, the WEC fell silent and ultimately collapsed. Now it’s risen again, and led by Susan Paynter, someone independent of the sphere of Bill McKenna, they’re showing determination to finally get this threatening blight cleaned up. Despite years of warnings by six professional hydrologists that it wasn’t a matter of if the contaminants would leach into our groundwater but when, Supervisor McKenna has continued to hide behind an ambiguous “nothing to see here” report by the DEC, which relied on a simple visual inspection and reading a report prepared on behalf of the property owner. Yet, he also says that he cleaned up the site, referring to his sort and shift (“plan E”) end-around to the full clean-up he’d promised, which simply got rid of some of the larger pieces while leaving the unrecognizable remnants that actually pose the greater danger.
It’s indisputable that the 200 truckloads of C & D materials dumped here, in violation of two Woodstock laws, came from the Karolys site in Saugerties that was judged contaminated. And although no link between the PFAS contamination of our drinking water and 10 Church Road has been proven, because no real source tracing has been allowed, the timeline matches up. The path forward is clear. A second notice of violation must be sent by the town to the property owners, and an independent hydrologist/hydrogeologist must be hired. It’s unclear the reasons why McKenna has intentionally road blocked cleaning up Shady, but the hope is the new board will act ethically and expeditiously to protect the health of its constituents.
Alan M. Weber
Woodstock
The usual suspects
We all know (including myself), on both sides of the aisle, that not all of Trump’s campaign promises have been delivered. But, let’s not pretend that NO promises have been delivered, which is what Jack Simpson, Charlotte Adamis, Bud Lavery and other avid progressives would want us to believe.
Of course, it’s natural for all the Trump haters to go way out of their way to NOT acknowledge ANY of Trump’s successes. They’re far too busy, hopelessly stuck in their ruts of imagining Trump as Hitler, Nazi, fascist, racist, homophobic and yada, yada, yada.
Bud Lavery refers to troops aiding local law enforcement in fighting crime as the “militarization of masked police forces.” Bud, Charlotte, Jack and others intentionally fail to acknowledge that masks are required due to the doxxing and hits placed on law enforcement’s lives which obviously doesn’t bother these anti-Trumpers and anti-law enforcement lefties. The crime fighting forces don’t stomp on peaceful protesters, Bud, just the protesters causing injury, death, property damage and the shooting of law enforcement personnel. Bud apparently thinks that all protesters are peaceful, as do many others.
Jack asks me if we’re getting closer to what people want America to be. With the significant drop in crime in all cities assisted by troops, with tens of thousands of illegal criminals being apprehended, with 13,000 trafficked children being rescued, and with no illegal border entries in six months, I’d say that most patriotic and safety-minded Americans are quite pleased with these results.
A February 26, 2025 report from the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform found $2.7 trillion in USAID fraud and abuse over the past two decades. I’m guessing Jack is okay with this continuing fraud so that some lives can be saved.
The 300-word limit prevents me from addressing the remainder of Jack’s generalized and undocumented assumptive questions.
John N. Butz
Modena
Cost to run
Thank you voters and donors for supporting my campaign. You motivate me to steward with the care, collaboration and vision that our community in New Paltz deserves, as our town’s next supervisor.
For this June’s Town of New Paltz supervisor Democrat primary, I raised and spent $0 on my campaign and won.
For November’s general election, I raised $4,427.25 and spent $4,237.71. To close my campaign account, the remaining balance of $189.54 will be split and shared equally with the New Paltz Democrat and Ulster County Democrat committees.
Contributors: The largest was $500 from Patrick Ryan’s Patriot PAC after receiving their endorsement. The other $3,927.25 came from 34 donors, averaging $116. The median was $75. Personally, I was one of the 34 and contributed $31.
Expenditures: The largest expense paid for a one-time mailing of 6×11 postcards. Including postage for these 2,315 pieces, the mailing cost $2,189.64. The second largest expense of $1,000 paid for consultant Joe Mangan from Blue Stone Campaigns. His help included producing the campaign website, a mailing to voters who requested absentee or vote-by-mail ballots, palm cards and Facebook/Instagram ads. These costs added $873.59. The balance of the $174.48 in expenses paid for Act Blue fees, credit card processing fees and permission from Lauren Thomas to use a photograph she had taken of me previously.
The NYS Board of Elections reporting system for candidate filings is found: https://publicreporting.elections.ny.gov/
Tim Rogers
New Paltz
Graceful aging: Moods
Once upon a time many forms of mental illness were called “mood disorders,” but that rather poetic term soon gave way to an increasingly complex and subtle system of diagnoses that turned moods into diseases that could be treated with medications. The pharmaceutical companies thrived. Meanwhile, moods slipped into the twilight and found their place with the poets again. Shakespeare caught a mood when he wrote, “That time of year thou mayst in me behold / When yellow leaves, or none or few / Do hang upon those boughs that shake against the cold, / Bare reined choirs where late the sweet birds sang …” This is the moody melancholy of old age.
Indeed, in aging, moods become powerful yet subtle presences and we recognize them. They may be compared to the weather, for moods come and go like pressure systems. It makes sense they do, for weathers are the moods of the planet. Do moods come from some correlation between our metabolisms and the atmosphere? Who knows?
But a better answer to the question, “How are you?” might be an account of our mood of the moment. Think of the way clouds send down shafts of sunlight like spells of wonder, or the way winds, invisible in themselves, are known by what they move. And so we shake with laughter. Moods come, remain like lows, or bluster through us like a squall. We can be bright or dreary, soft or sullen, warm or humid.
I wrote last week about “interoception,” literally our ability to register our internal states. Think of it as a barometric sensitivity. We cannot forecast our moods, but we can attune to them, for they have a mysterious power to influence thought and feeling. Moods infuse us, and perhaps music captures them best. No moodier a musician than Chopin: listen to his “Nocturnes;” they are veils of mood.
Peter Pitzele
New Paltz
The world isn’t waiting: Part 3
I thought I’d write the third letter in this series exclusively about China. But then Australians stole the march, of course with solar panels manufactured in China. So, here’s a short story from down under.
Despite all the misinformation around subsidies for renewable energy, the truth is that unsubsidized wind and solar have been the lowest cost electricity generation sources for the last ten years globally. It’s no wonder that in 2024, more than 90% of the new energy capacity built worldwide was renewable, as per data from the International Renewable Energy Agency.
While the Trump administration is trying its best to destroy decades of progress on renewable energy with steps like the abrupt sunset of incentives for residential and commercial solar, Australians are enjoying the bounty of cheap solar energy. Renewables account for about 40% of the electricity generation in Australia, with solar alone producing more than half of this. Within a few years, Australia has gone from being a laggard to the global leader when it comes to installed solar capacity per capita. And now, the Australian Federal government has ordered retailers to share the spoils of cheap solar with their consumers. Beginning in 2026, a new scheme by the Australian government will require retailers to offer FREE electricity to households for at least three hours in the middle of the day, when solar is peaking. WOW!!
Now, that is something Americans can only dream of with the ever-increasing prices of electricity and a federal government committed to “reinvigorating America’s beautiful clean coal industry” at immense ecological and economic costs. Since 2022, retail electricity prices in the US have increased faster than the rate of inflation and the US Energy Information Administration expects them to continue increasing through 2026.
I’ll write more about the energy transition in my next letter. Till then, keep dreaming of cheap solar.
Samrat Pathania
New Paltz
Reviving the spirit
It turns out that Make America Great Again means “bring back the mass demonstrations of the 1960s.”
Sparrow
Phoenicia
A bipartisan sh*tdown
He came for the cameras. He left with a chorus of boos. Donald Trump, the first sitting president in almost half a century to attend a regular-season NFL game, clearly thought the crowd would love him. But when the jumbotron showed him smiling, the stadium turned and loudly booed. And all those “beautiful-upraised-middle-fingers” meant he’s number one! Get the picture Donny-boy, those are not thumbs-up responses — yes, he gets all the BEST fingers!
Gotta love it. This wasn’t a D.C. protest or a blue-state rally. This was an NFL game — middle America’s church on Sunday. It was an NFL crowd, working-class, middle America, “his people.” The ones he’s bragged about who would “never abandon” him. Yet, there it was, live on national TV: America is turning its back.
The boos, hit him like a brick wall [brutally booed for two minutes]. Trump faced what he’s earned — the raw, unfiltered hatred of a public tired of being played, it makes no difference where the venue is — Wow. Simply wow.
Fans understood the assignment. I loved the crowd’s reaction. It sounded like Bruce Springsteen showed up. Except everyone wasn’t yelling “Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuce.” Lmao!
Trump is now burying himself into his demented reality. No longer can he call out “fake news” regarding his huge drop in national polls and ignoring press questions that call out Trump’s lies and misinformation that are Trump’s lies.
Are “we the people” about to get hit with an executive order on not booing the president? Normally presidents don’t have time to waste on going to Sunday NFL football games. But with him, ripping things apart is less work than building them. So he has lots of free time “NOT” to work. And finally, yes, FYI, I sent my “booing” via text.
Neil Jarmel
West Hurley
Secular
God is turning secular
After he sees what is done
In the West Bank
Not to mention
Gaza
Ze’ev Willy Neumann
Saugerties
Until death do us part
I recently read Twenty Years of War by Thomas Howard, a professor at Boston University, published by the Watson Institute at Brown University. It reports that over four times as many post-9/11 service members and veterans have died by suicide as in combat — more than 30,000 lives lost to despair. That single number should stop us cold. The war doesn’t end when the shooting stops.
My understanding of moral injury began years after Vietnam, when the fog of war lifted and I saw its hidden cost. Over 58,000 soldiers died for political and corporate agendas. Still, when I hear the Star-Spangled Banner, my body reacts as if belief were an involuntary reflex. Idealism, like plutonium, has a long half-life.
Every combat veteran knows that immorality is not confined to the battlefield. When dishonesty comes from political leaders, what dies first is faith in the ideals that once gave meaning to sacrifice. War has become a business. Moral language is used as camouflage to persuade new generations to enlist.
The Veterans Administration is left to manage the wreckage, labeling the wounded with “disorders,” as if trauma were a private illness rather than a collective failure.
We call them heroes, leaving them alone to carry the moral burden. The real disorder belongs to a nation that asks its young to kill for profit while hiding behind patriotic slogans.
These are vows that bind long after the battlefield is silent. Until death do us part.
Larry Winters
New Paltz
Fact vs Fiction
There are two kinds of people who raise concerns about their job: whistleblowers and disgruntled employees. Whistleblowers rely on facts and specifics. Disgruntled employees tend to offer their complaints because they have a bone to pick.
The anonymous allegations by a member of the police department in the November 5 issue of HV1 about Woodstock police chief Keefe appears to fall into the latter category. The piece criticizes “Officer Phil” and his return to duty “without any apparent disciplinary action or accountability,” blaming the Chief. Fact: Only the town board — not the chief — has the authority to discipline town employees.
It also claims that “repeated use of racial slurs and instances of sexual harassment” were ignored. Fact: Chief Keefe investigated the incident and submitted his findings to the town supervisor.
Then there’s the claim that “multiple items of evidence had been removed or mishandled,” and that “Chief Clayton” took no action against ‘Phil,’ who oversaw the property room. Let’s be clear: evidence refers to material submitted in a legal proceeding. Fact: The items in question — a scooter and a leaf blower — were safeguarded property, not evidence. Neither was missing.
Howard Harris
Woodstock
Save our country
America has become a split-screen reality show. On one side, we have stockholders cheering Elon Musk’s new trillion-dollar deal. On the other, we have a president and his Republican enablers refusing to pay SNAP benefits to 42 million people.
It’s hard to believe Trump’s claim that he didn’t have the “power” to release the money to feed the most vulnerable members of our community. Since he took office a second time, he’s claimed just about every other power. Power to impose tariffs on more than 90 countries. Power to unleash a masked and unaccountable ICE force that is terrorizing American communities. Power to unleash the National Guard on unwilling cities. Power to murder at least 69 alleged drug traffickers in South American waters. Power to knock down the East Wing and build himself a gilded ballroom. Power to pardon crypto criminals, January 6 insurrectionists and lying George Santos.
But when a reporter asked one of Trump’s minions why he didn’t have the power to release SNAP funds, she sniped: Was he supposed to search under the “metaphorical couch cushions?”
The federal government’s couch cushions aren’t “metaphorical.” They are quite real. And Trump, of all people, knows this. For the past eleven months, he and his grifter cronies have been digging around in them with their greedy fingers, finding plenty to enrich themselves.
No matter who you voted for in the past, I hope that you find this reality show as unsustainable and immoral as I do. And if you aren’t already standing up and speaking out, the time is now! Join a weekly protest; join a grassroots pro-democracy group like Indivisible; volunteer to support our local Democratic candidates running in the mid-term elections. If we’re going to save our country from this authoritarian nightmare, it will be up to us, ordinary citizens.
Charlotte Adamis
Kingston
New Yorkers have made their choice
Stop with the hand wringing. Oh no! Mamdani is going to impose sharia law! He’s a communist! He’s a Marxist!
Your comments are exhausting. Mamdani is what we call an FDR Democrat. Roosevelt’s presidency reshaped the Democratic Party, aligning it with the progressive reforms we all enjoy to this day. As mayor, Mamdani aims to do the same, lifting all New Yorkers.
Where was your outrage when, on Veterans Day, Trump had a photo op in the oval office with former al-Qaeda leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, a man personally responsible for the death of many U.S. soldiers in Iraq? How about when the Trump family got $2 billion from Saudi Muslims? No problem with wealthy Muslims, even those who murdered journalists and funded 9/11 terrorists? Qatar (remember them and the gift of a luxury airplane?) is set to build an air force facility at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho, where Qatari pilots will be trained to fly F-15 fighter jets. A Qatari airbase on U.S. soil sounds okay to you? Remember when Trump invited the Taliban to Camp David in 2019 for peace negotiations? At the time, this meeting drew significant criticism for bypassing the Afghan government and involving a group labeled as terrorists. The talks ultimately collapsed, and the situation contributed to major challenges during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. You like to overlook Trump’s part in the Afghan withdrawal.
Spare us your cherry-picked islamophobia. New Yorkers have made their choice. Mamdani has the support and team to make his campaign promises a reality, creating a model for cities all across the U.S., lifting us all.
Virginia Luppino
Saugerties
Central Hudson isn’t listening!
As I imagine many or all of Central Hudson’s customers did, I recently received an email from them titled “We’re listening — and making changes that matter.” The “change that matters” to most customers is the unconscionable rate hike of 12% over three years, the stated purpose of which was to increase their profit margin! Not to install better equipment or to cover increased energy costs — just to increase their profit margin. This rate hike was approved by the Public Service Commission, the members of which are appointed by Governor Hochul, and the rate hikes were approved despite overwhelming public opposition. The alternative to Central Hudson and its continual rate hikes is the proposal put forth by our Assembly Member Sarahana Shrestha, If adopted, this proposal would establish a publicly-owned utility in place of Central Hudson. If we had a publicly owned electric/gas company, we wouldn’t be paying for any rate hikes connected to the “need” for increased profit margins. That would be the “change that matters!”
Richard Azoff
Saugerties
Follow-up to elder grief
I have to agree with Mr. Pitzel in his recent article, dated November 5. I felt very comfortable as I aged up through the 20th century. We had different POTUS’s from different political parties but they always seemed to work together for the benefit of the people, notwithstanding there were ‘glitches’ that arose but they always seemed to address.
Like Mr. Pitzel and I quote, “unlike my father, I am not optimistic about the world that I will be leaving my grandchildren.”
The GOP is hell bent on breaking the socialistic and liberal society of FDR’s and LBJ’s administration. It was the GOP’s 81% and the Democratic 87% that put FDR in office for three terms in the first place, knowing full well that once they opened the door to this ‘welfare’ state,’ they would be in there for a long time. Different POTUS’s always managed to work with the Congress to address problems and institute programs for the working American.
Today, at long last, the GOP has their hatchet man in the oval office, taking the hatchet to numerous programs, the long-awaited dream of the GOP, thus their steadfast devotion to his policies. But Mr. Pitzel caught my attention, especially his comment on ‘grandchildren.’ I believe at my age of 87, shortly, I and persons of my generation drawing benefits, will/should be able to receive our benefits until 1932, so they say, reduced 20% or so after that. But our grandchildren will not have them, period; I and everyone of my generation believe likewise.
The GOP is hell bent on getting rid of this as they hate the FICA. They do not want anything to do with state involvement or the interests and involvement of and with the states regarding Federal outlays to the states, like Medicaid, for example. What they want is no state involvement, let the states take care of themselves. I don’t think this will ever happen, though, hope not, but time will tell.
Robert LaPolt
New Paltz
This should be interesting
“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”
Then why are you so obviously scared to death that the Epstein files will tie you to a ring of pedophiles? Is there actually such a thing as a scandal that will bring your house of cards crashing down? Hard to imagine — but I suspect we’re going to find out. This should be interesting.
Vive la Résistance!
Mauriac Cunningham
Saugerties
Not just NYC’s problem
NYC picked a commie mayor to give them lots of free stuff. The mayor-elect has made many promises, but most of these are beyond his power to implement. It is interesting to note that he only got a minority of votes from native New Yorkers. The bulk of his 50.4% of the votes were from foreign-born citizens. As quoted from Thomas Jefferson and others, people deserve the government they elect and they deserve it good and hard.
The NYC mayor can’t deliver on many of his promises but he has allies in the state legislature. The Republicans lost the state Senate seven years ago and the NY government lost balance. Here’s some of what the crapweasels in Albany have done and will do.
In 2021, the Less is More act was passed allowing violent criminals to go free. People have died.
Cecilia’s Act for Rights in the Sex Trade. This decriminalizes prostitution. Senate Bill S3600 to eliminate penalties for illegal drugs. A Brooklyn senator backs a bill to raise the youthful offender age to 25.
They are working on legislation to greatly limit charter schools. This keeps minority students in failed government schools. Charter schools are currently governed by the SUNY trustees and appointed SUNY board of regents. Mamdani’s SB 6800 would put all the decision power in the partisan board of regents.
The state Senate has two bills pending to regulate housing rental rates and commercial property rates statewide. We all know what happens with rent control. Rental owners have diminished profits and so don’t invest in upgrading their properties. Developers don’t build new housing because they know rent controls will limit profits. Socialists don’t know the simple law of supply and demand. More housing will reduce rental prices. Rent controls will reduce new housing.
You may say to let Mamdummy inflict himself on NYC, but he and his ilk affect the whole state and more.
Tom McGee
Gardiner
Beyond the hype
Last week, veteran letter-to-the-editor writer Larry Winters claimed that we who refuse to take the alleged Covid vaccine are somehow unpatriotic and are “a betrayal of the tribe.” Before the vaccine rollout, in its bid to gain “emergency use authorization,” the FDA prepared a slide presentation on the alleged “safety and effectiveness” of the proposed vaccine, to convince the CDC to permit its use without the normal trial period. Scrolling down to page 17, slide 16, (https://www.fda.gov/media/143557/download), is the list of 23 possible adverse event outcomes of the subject inoculation.
Some of the more familiar serious outcomes named are: “Guillain-Barré syndrome, convulsions/seizures, stroke, myo carditis/pericarditis, autoimmune disease, multisysytem inflammatory syndrome in children, vaccine enhanced disease, pregnancy and birth outcomes, Kawaski disease, narcolepsy, tranverse myelitis” and ten more including “death.”
By the FDA’s own admission, the list could be more. The FDA knew early on there could be serious adverse outcomes and many people have in fact been injured, including my stepfather who died the day after vaccination, my good friend who became disabled with transverse myelitis after vaccination and many more I personally know of. I would advise military-minded Larry to Google the affidavit of military whistleblower Lt. Theresa Long MD. MPH., who witnessed the many airmen and airwomen she was in charge of caring for who were perfectly healthy before the Covid shots and became disabled after inoculation and could no longer fly. Maybe those realized “outcomes” among it ranks were why the Department of Defense eventually rescinded the Covid vaccination mandate for all military personnel since January 10, 2023. (https://www.war.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3264323/dod-rescinds-covid-19-vaccination-mandate/). So much for Larry’s “science.”
Steve Romine
Woodstock
More pipelines and crypto mining?
Last week was a bad one for environmental activists and for the State of New York. The previous Friday, the Hochul administration approved the Northeast Supply Enhancement pipeline after the DEC had denied permits three times to the Williams Cos. My question is what makes this project so attractive now?
Equally distressing is the DEC approval of air permits for the Greenidge fracked-gas power plant that will supply electricity almost exclusively to a crypto mining operation on Seneca Lake. The DEC had allowed the plant’s operation even as the agency complied with a two-year moratorium on crypto regulation which ended last November. This year, the DEC released a scathing Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement on crypto mining. The report stated that 11 crypto mining sights are sucking up 7.7 terawatts of electricity a year, fouling our air and water and are completely out of alignment with the state’s climate goals. So, with all the evidence that crypto mining and fracked gas electricity generation are in violation of New York’s climate law, why is the DEC changing its tune now?
Then, it is announced that the governor has delayed implementation of the All-Electric Building Act. Hochul says she wants all legal appeals to get through the courts before the law goes into effect. Why stop now? The legal process could last months or years!
The answer is that the administration is succumbing to the fossil fuel lobby which is pushing the development of new gas infrastructure and fighting battery storage while crypto and AI are booming and consuming huge amounts of electricity. Hochul has taken the bait. She is afraid that the electricity grid will fail during her watch. This will have to happen soon, since her watch may just end in 2026.
Mark Varian
Gardiner
Join the family! 
