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.
Letter guidelines:
Hudson Valley One welcomes letters from its readers. Letters should be fewer than 300 words and submitted by 9:00am 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.
Although Hudson Valley One does not specifically limit the number of letters a reader can submit per month, the publication of letters written by frequent correspondents may be delayed to make room for less-often-heard voices, but they will all appear on our website at hudsonvalleyone.com. All letters should be signed and include the author’s address and telephone number.
We owe it to our students to be clear-eyed
The Onteora BOE would like to clear up some inaccuracies published in HV1 last week regarding our December 10 vote.
Normally we wouldn’t comment publicly on litigation, but since the petitioners who asked the State Education Department to stay our propositions, vote and central campus resolution publicized their petition, we feel it’s vital to update voters.
On November 25, the SED commissioner’s office rejected all the petitioners’ requests for stays. Our vote will proceed as planned in Boiceville on December 10, from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Detailed information (including mail voting) is available on the Onteora website. We hope for a large and informed turnout, as the results of this vote will be of great consequence to the next generations of Onteora students.
On that score, we also hope voters won’t be misled by Laurie Osmond’s letter in which she erroneously states “the Onteora superintendent plans to move forward with a $26-million bond to close the school … without a clear plan or cost analysis in place.”
The board’s (not the superintendent’s) 10/21 decision, and all of our public communication since, have been painstakingly clear — Onteora is moving to a central campus in 2028 whether these propositions pass or fail.
Proposition 1’s bond is to make elementary-level safety and learning environment improvements to keep fifth-grade students in the elementary school, rather than moving to the middle/high school. It does not determine the closing of Woodstock Elementary, which is an already-made decision. Voting “no” on Prop 1 cannot change the fact of a central campus future, which has clear plans and cost analyses.
We understand this situation brings up emotions, but we owe it to our students to be clear-eyed. A vote that so affects their futures should be an accurately informed one.
Cindy Bishop
on behalf of the Onteora Board of Education
Fear, currency of the soul
Lately, I’ve been thinking about fear — how it moves through our lives and quietly shapes the choices we make. I’m old enough now to recognize its weight the moment I wake, the way it sits on the nightstand of my mind like a coin left overnight. Fear, I’ve learned, behaves a bit like money. You can spend it wisely, squander it, hoard it, or let it distort everything you touch.
Much of what we call “division” in this country seems to stem from fear misdirected. When fear is amplified — by politics, by screens, by constant noise — we make decisions that are emotionally primitive, even when no real danger exists. We buy more protection, trust less, and close ourselves off. And when money becomes the tool we use to shield ourselves, we end up investing in isolation rather than understanding.
Yet fear isn’t the enemy. It’s part of being human. What matters is how we use it. That truth hits me most when tears come unexpectedly — as they sometimes do now — at small acts of kindness, honest words, or simple human decency. They remind me that fear and compassion are closer than we think; they share the same doorway in the heart.
We need more spaces where people can pause, breathe and speak to one another without the machinery of outrage grinding beneath every conversation. Rationality mediates fear, time arbitrates it, and honest, patient communication helps us understand it.
If we learn to spend our fear more carefully, we can spend our humanity more generously. In a time when so much is driven by reaction, our future depends on the simple courage of connection.
Larry Winters
New Paltz
Give it a try
Money is useless to animals — they don’t even try to eat it.
Sparrow
Phoenicia
GI joke
Trump, Hegseth scramble to justify boat strikes … DOD secretary Hegseth is guilty of murder or a war crime… This guy is on the fast track to karma. Trump said, “he’s doing a great job,” So, the President is also complicit? A drug boat speeding to America? Unlikely: it is thousands of miles away and there is plenty of time for other options to be put in place. Interesting — bragging about launching missile strikes against a made-up category called “narco-terrorists” while simultaneously pardoning more than one known drug trafficker is wild …
When a boat thousands of miles away from the USA might have drugs on it, there are actually plenty of options to prevent people on it from bringing drugs to America that stop short of blowing it up, killing people based on suspicions, and then let’s illegally double-tap kill the survivors, yes, they were victims of this extrajudicial murder — we are a nation of laws, one where due process is a right of EVERYONE, not just US citizens. This is a clear war crime.
Not one shred of evidence anywhere has ever been presented to even suggest that this tiny boat with a single motor and eleven people on it, a thousand miles from the United States, had even a single joint on it being smoked.
By the way: Trump gave a complete and full pardon to a former Honduran president convicted of “drug trafficking.” How do you square that Trump-loving MAGAt supporters and right-wing HV1 letter writers?
Oh right… YOU can’t! If you believe a “president” who pardons drug dealers is fighting a “war on drugs”, we seriously don’t know how to help you… Poor, poor, poor Trump embracers – Kicked in the head or ass again by Trump’s illogical bad actions, LOL!
Neil Jarmel
West Hurley
Please consider all options and the long-term consequences
I am a New York licensed behavior analyst, nationally board certified and a former New York State certified special educator and common core teacher. I have worked with children from birth through ninth grade for over 25 years. I write to oppose the proposal to close Duzine Elementary School and to share professional concerns.
Duzine is a purpose-built early childhood school with physical infrastructure — appropriately sized bathrooms, hallways, drinking fountains, gym, assembly and food-service spaces and outdoor areas — designed to meet elementary students’ developmental and safety needs. Closing it and relocating young learners into larger, older facilities risks compromising toileting and supervision, play and gross-motor activities and basic accessibility.
Equally important are the developmental and social needs of early learners. Research consistently recommends separate spaces for young children to support social development among same-age peers and to provide targeted supports for diverse learners. Duzine has successfully served a wide spectrum of abilities and ages; dispersing these students into a crowded, ill-suited environment would likely undermine both academic and social outcomes.
It is my understanding that no community study of alternative proposals has been presented. Before pursuing closure, the district should commission a rigorous examination of enrollment trends, educational impact, facility adaptation costs, and alternative solutions — such as redistricting, targeted grade realignment, or shared-site adjustments.
I am willing to share research, consult with a working group, and participate in developing educationally sound alternatives. Please consider all options and the long-term consequences for our youngest learners before making this irreversible.
Robyn Klimpl Miller
New Paltz
Our only hope is to keep standing up for what we believe in
A friend and fellow activist, recently sent me a wonderful quote from a clergyman and pacifist, A.J. Muste, who protested against the Vietnam War. When he was asked by a reporter if he thought that standing alone at night in front of the White House with a candle was really going to change the policies of this country, he responded, “Oh, I don’t do this to change the country. I do this so the country won’t change me.”
Our regular rallies in Ulster County (weekly in Kingston, Woodstock, Saugerties, Shokan, New Paltz and Accord — and monthly in Ellenville) might not change the policies of this authoritarian regime. But they remind us of who we are: people who believe in love and respect and justice for all.
Showing up every week to stand on the street with like-minded people also keeps us from sinking into despair. This feels like a miracle when Trump’s cruelty and hypocrisy-like ordering the murder of alleged narco-terrorists at sea, and then pardoning the former president of Honduras, a man who had abused his power to support one of the largest and most violent drug trafficking conspiracies in the world — threatens to throw even the steadiest of us off kilter.
There is no quick fix for what has gone terribly wrong in our country. Our only hope is to keep standing up for what we believe in. To remember who we are. And, unlike Muste, we don’t have to stand alone.
Charlotte Adamis
Kingston
Pass The New York Health Act
As a resident of New York City, born and raised, I’ve noticed an apparent and jarring difference between access to medical care in wealthy white neighborhoods and low-income black and brown communities. Many hospitals, urgent care centers and other immediate health care facilities in low-income neighborhoods don’t receive adequate funding, lack the resources to provide high-quality care, experience long wait times and are at risk of closing. This leaves many residents at risk for increased communicable diseases and preventable deaths. These issues affect not only me and my family, but also many other families in New York State. These issues do not have to burden so many New York residents; there is a substantial solution: The New York Health Act. This act would replace our current complex health care system with a universal, affordable, sustainable and long-term healthcare system. Under this new system, everyone would have access to healthcare regardless of race, socioeconomic status, employment status, or immigration status. It will help them receive better medical, dental, vision and hearing care, offered long-term under one cohesive plan that benefits everyone. This single-payer system will help low-income families like mine reduce overall costs, alleviate financial stress, eliminate out-of-pocket expenses, and lead to better health outcomes and better rates for services, low-cost medications and so much more! Over 90% of New York Residents will save more under this healthcare act than under our current, unsustainable, high-cost, and profit-driven healthcare system. This is an easy, crystal-clear solution we need right now. Call your elected officials ASAP, and encourage them to pass the New York Health Act!
Lani Gaston
New Paltz
Bully boy
McKenna’s recent HV1 jab at Anula Courtis – “I’ll sit back and laugh as she fumbles around” — isn’t just smug. It’s a window into how Woodstock’s politics were warped by years of shrugging indifference.
I remember his early boast: “I get into the office about seven in the morning for a couple of hours, then go swing a hammer midday at my other job.” That was the highest -paid supervisor in Ulster County, treating the role as part- time. When I called it out, his defenders basically waved it off with a “so what is the big deal attitude.”
That “so what attitude” was the seed. It normalized absentee leadership, gave him license to consolidate power and paved the way for the authoritarian posture we saw throughout his time in office. That posture gave way to selective transparency, i.e. open government when convenient, stonewalling when not; cronyism where friends are rewarded and dissenters are dismissed; ENTITLEMENT when the office is treated as personal property and DOUBLE STANDARDS where accountability is demanded of others and rarely applied to himself.
Now the reckoning: how many of those early defenders have had a change of heart? Some have peeled away, disillusioned. Others remain loyal. And many sit silent, unwilling to defend what they once excused.
Howard Harris
Woodstock
A twist on Caesarean day
Not many people are aware that January 14 2026 and every January 14 is National Caesarean Awareness Day. Although the caesarean birth rate is looked upon as sadly higher than in European countries and fortunately lower than some countries elsewhere, we who have had to abandon our hopes for waterbirth or VBAC are extremely grateful that the first C-Section transpired successful when it did. You can Google this.
Prior to that in Germany it was law since the 1500’s that a midwife — a woman be in attendance with the obstetrician and witness/attend the birth — her role was important — it was the law to protect the mother — to save her life and the child’s life. What if the doctor had a heart attack in the middle of delivery? Who would catch that crowning head? The mother maybe.
Which brings us to what is happening on 1/14/26 at Upstate Films Kingston and it fell into my birth keeper’s lap. The film with podcast of the same name Orgasmic Birth — Debra its director contacted me and I ran with it to Upstate Films where we will also be having a fundraiser for Robin Lim, CNN Superhero’s foundation Bumi Sehat International.
There is such pride for women who have had natural births and on the other hand sometimes grief for women who did not. Recovery time is both an inside and outside job. I would like to introduce Caesarean Pride — love your scar, love who you are!
Looking forward to January 14th this holiday season — such a twist on Caesarean day — an 85-minute film with a two hours of audience participants interacting by live and Zoom with the filmmaker and Robin unless a baby is crowning. Any questions about this event ask: info@upstate films.org or visit www.orgasmicbirth.com
Thanks to Jason Stern for supporting this event and Holistic Gynecology Dr. Eden Fromberg for participating too because the medical community is on board with operation population growth and the President says he is good for women — so we are all in this together. Orgasmic labor is possibly possible so an orgasmic C is too! No woman should be scathed for postpartum depression or taking Zoloft temporarily for it! Wow we will talk(#womenofearthtakebackyour birth.). Thanks and see the film!
Stacy Fine-Hager
Katie Cokinos and Upstate Films
Woodstock
I strongly oppose the proposed multiplex development at 21 Bluestone Court
I am a lifelong resident of Kingston, a retired local real estate agent, and I own two homes in Kingston; one single family and one multi-family. I care deeply about this city, its neighborhoods, its history and the safety and wellbeing of the people who live here.
I am writing to strongly oppose the proposed multiplex development at 21 Bluestone Court. While Kingston has grown in many positive ways, this project is not suitable for its location. It threatens the safety, character and long-term stability of a neighborhood that has remained a suburban, single-family area for generations.
My concerns are the following:
1. Pedestrian Safety on Lucas Avenue: This stretch of road has no sidewalks and has already seen two serious pedestrian accidents, including a tragic fatality of a local teenager. Labeling this a “walkable neighborhood” is inaccurate and dangerous. Adding dozens of units and the traffic they generate will increase the risk of injuries and fatalities.
2. Inadequate parking and emergency access: The narrow streets off Lucas Avenue cannot absorb overflow parking. Multiple units on a dead-end cul-de-sac like Bluestone Court will create blockages that could delay emergency response. Winter snow-parking restrictions and even narrower roads increase the danger.
3. Flooding and runoff issues: Bluestone Court has a history of flooding from the last building project. Additional impervious surfaces will likely worsen stormwater runoff into yards, easements and streets.
4. Scale and neighborhood character: A multiplex of this size is incompatible with the existing single-family homes in the area and will negatively affect property values, traffic, noise and overall livability.
5. Building Code Conflicts:
This proposal fails multiple requirements of Kingston’s Building Code, including walkability, density transitions and neighborhood-character protections. As a lifelong resident who supports responsible growth, I urge the planning board to deny this proposal at the December 8, 2025 meeting, 6:30 p.m., at city hall. The public is welcome to observe.
Josephine Reina
Kingston
War and peace
As the next part of the holiday season gets into full swing, please consider how gift giving may affect youthful recipients of presents. First and foremost, let us give the gift of peace, support, shared time and security to our young. As adults, we can do this by being models of peacemaking and respect for all. Material gifts can be fun and also provide opportunities for learning, sharing and cooperation with others. Look for toys/games/activities that stimulate the imagination, promote movement/exercise, inspire creative arts, science, or music and can be used alone or with others. Remember that youthful concerns include the environment, getting along with others at all levels in society and safety for all.
There are gifts that can be found that are age and developmental stage appropriate. For reference, explore truceteachers.org. To whatever extent is possible, our time and attention is inevitably the most cherished and needed. Happy Holidays!
Terence Lover
Woodstock
Graceful aging: The uncertainties
I find that there are three primary uncertainties that prowl my aging. The first is time: How much time do I have left? Even if I were given a terminal diagnosis, the actual time — months, weeks or days — is just compressed.
The second uncertainty is the unknown: What surprises and shocks will come? Slips and falls, a warm Thanksgiving, an old friend’s death, the delights of my grandchild, increasing memory loss, a poem made or read, spells of vacancy, boredom … I cannot see into the unforeseeable.
The third uncertainty is tolerance; How will I bear what lies in the indeterminant period that remains to me? Whatever my faculties and resources are at this moment cannot be counted on for the next. Dying may come slowly or quickly, after many years, or tomorrow. What spiritual strength will I have when push comes to shove, and pain comes to throb?
I learn in our group that the three uncertainties are common to all of us. I know they arise because we all have foresight. But, of course, the rub is that foresight is partially blind. It plays with possibilities and is played upon by them. Foresight can offer me the exciting prospect of a future pleasure, but it can also bring the anxiety of future suffering. And neither may come to pass.
The three uncertainties have always been with us, of course, but most of us have been culturally trained to overlook them: “Captains of our fates, masters of our souls,” and so forth. When, I admit my powerlessness over the process of my aging, when I tolerate the brief sinking feeling this truth brings — I wake up into the present. My senses bring me the beauty of this first snowfall, the white silence and the wide peace. Birds at the feeder. The music is still playing. Here and only here is where my life is situated.
Peter Pitzele
New Paltz
Another source of pollution: wood-burning smoke
As we head into another New York winter, the American Lung Association and the Hudson Valley Air Quality Coalition, urge communities to pay closer attention to a familiar, yet often overlooked, source of pollution: wood-burning smoke. Although wood fires may evoke a sense of comfort and tradition, the emissions they produce are far from harmless.
Residential wood-burning releases carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and fine particulate matter that are the same dangerous pollutants we see during the wildfire smoke events that have blanketed our state in recent years. These pollutants worsen asthma and OPD symptoms, and are particularly harmful to children, older adults and people with pre-existing heart and lung disease.
Emerging research underscores these dangers. A recent Yale Journal of Environment and Human Health report found that exposure to wood-smoke carcinogens like benzene and formaldehyde raise lung cancer risk regardless of geography or individual health status. This evidence makes clear that wood-burning pollution is a significant and preventable public health threat.
While this occurs, fossil fuel pollution continues to burden New York’s communities, contributing to rising rates of respiratory illness and the growing impacts of climate change. Winter is a stark reminder that our reliance on both wood and fossil fuels for heating is unsustainable for our lungs and our climate. That’s why New York must fully implement strong, clean renewable energy policies and move forward without delay on the cap-and-invest program. This program will cut harmful air emissions, make polluters pay, and help accelerate our transition to cleaner, healthier heating options.
We encourage New Yorkers to take care this winter by limiting wood-burning when possible, and we urge state leaders and Governor Hochul to advance the clean energy solutions that will protect our health for generations to come, and save New Yorkers money in the process.
Max Micallef
NYS Advocacy Manager
Clean Air Initiatives
American Lung Association
Lorraine Farina
Director, Hudson Valley Air Quality Coalition
Planet sea our Earth is mostly ocean
So let me tell you ‘bout this notion Where would you rather be? Planet Earth or planet Sea?
Wolf Maria Böhm
New Paltz
Bureaucratic Kristallnacht!
Trump has halted all immigration and citizenship proceedings from 19 countries
This is nothing short of bureaucratic Kristallnacht!
Instead of broken glass, broken dreams and promises
Against people: “Following the rules”
Against people: Coming here on a promise
Against people: At risk because they helped our military
Against people: Who were promised asylum and now given lies
Against people: Weak and powerless to fight the bully
The majority of these folks pose NO risk to us…
Unlike The “very fine people” who carry tiki torches and weapons of war
But of course the color of their skin is not the issue, is it? …is it??
This is a pogrom against the Ooher
Against the huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
the golden door has been illegally shut
The door has been shut on liberty in America today.
Tim Hunter
Gardiner
Dust And Stone
She’d like to take leave
of cards and wrapping,
ovens and crowded malls,
and enter into a new life
among the few rustling
leaves still left, and revel
in them. Be one with them.
Be the dormant grass,
the fresh flurry. Be the air.
Take on another reason
as the whispering wind,
live in one and all waters.
Live in the mysteries of
dust and stone. Be.
Patrick Hammer, Jr.
Saugerties
A weird idea
Reading Barbara Tuchman’s “March of Folly,” the sections on the Popes from 1470 to about 1530, was a reminder of how corrupt the Church was and what horrible religious leaders they were! Look it up!
Sixtus, Alexander, Innocent, Julius, Leo … all made the Vatican “a sink of all inequity” and Rome and the papacy in early 1500’s was also described as “No law, no divinity; Gold, force and Venus rule”…”O prostitute church … your abuse ,,, your poisoned breath rises to the heavens”!
Unreal!
As we fast forward to recent history the historical hope for an “Angelic Pope” doesn’t seem to have ever really entered the history books.
Yes, recent Popes have sincerely called for peace, but rarely ventured beyond just words.
Pope John III was called “The Good Pope.”
and John Paul II (Polish Pope) was also a good person and did positive things. They were certainly better than Pope Pius XII (who did not condemn Facism or the Nazis!).
Pope Francis was a kind soul too but more is needed.
Years ago I wrote a letter calling for Pope John to get in his Pope mobile and drive over to Kosovo, or anywhere in the Balkans to actively seek Sainthood and end the brutal slaughters.
Talking about peace and condemning wars from a pulpit is not the same as using the Pope’s powers to force change and peace.
The current Pope Leo XIV seems kindly and a good man. My hope is he will seek Sainthood actively by going to Ukraine and staying there for a couple of weeks and ministering to the suffering Ukranians.
I know, a weird idea, but I imagine his direct forcefully named condemnation of Putin followed up by a trip to Moscow will make all the difference in the world … literally!
Then, maybe Sudan, Niger, Gaza?
Ron Stonitsch
New Paltz
Silence is complicity
Once again, we are seeing the ramping up of drumbeats for war by the U.S. Military Industrial Complex (MIA) and their current front man Donald Trump. President Eisenhower warned us about the MIA and now they are targeting Venezuela based on a false narrative, which in like manner happened to Iraq where the false claim was they had weapons of mass destruction. One million Iraqis were killed of which 500,000 were innocent children. No one has been held accountable for that illegal war and because so another illegal war is about to happen. In both cases the real reason, which everyone knows, is the coveting of another country’s resources, namely oil. The false narrative the Trump administration is using is that it wants to stop the movement of drugs alleged to be coming from Venezuela. The U.S. has bombed 22 of their boats with no documented evidence made available of drugs on board and no due process to validate the taking of 88 innocent lives. U.S. law holds that everyone is innocent until proven guilty as there has been no trials just bombings and a mass invasion looming on the horizon. Besides the brazen unconstitutionality of all of this, there is the in- your-face-blatant hypocrisy of Donald Trump pardoning the President of Honduras convicted in U.S. Courts of trafficking one-million pounds of cocaine. So innocent people are being bombed and the guilty are set free. The ever-increasing lawlessness of the rogue Trump administration is setting new precedents and must be held accountable like the Nazis were at the Nuremberg trials. Join the resistance, oppose war, enforce the Constitution and demand justice before it’s too late!
Steve Romine
Woodstock
Needs a head
Recently, I hosted a bookstore discussion with Michael Ansara, whose memoir The Hard Work of Hope recounts his life in Boston from his teenage awakening in the Civil Rights movement in the early 1960s through his radicalization as an anti-war organizer until things turned crazy with rage, bombs, and the nihilistic rejection of electoral politics.
I say hosted, but, really, I sat and listened, given a front row seat for a master class in organizing.
“How many of you went to ‘No Kings?’” Michael Ansara asked.
My hand shot up.
“How many brought five friends?”
Not me. I went solo with my phone camera to snap shots of enthusiastic protesters in clever costumes with clever signs.
“For the next rally will each of your five friends recruit five more people so we’ll get to 25?”
Such is the stubborn truth of organizing, simple, but hard — at lease for a lone operator like me. Sure, I’ll go to rallies and write letters-to-the-editor, but talk politics with strangers? Not just talk, but persuade, which means I must accept who they are and what they believe before we might find common ground?
Yet, he pointed out a fundamental difference between the Sixties and today. Back then, the Civil Rights and anti-war movements were widely distrusted, even hated. Almost 80 percent of the public who knew of 1963 March on Washington, DC disapproved at the time. Nor did they like Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have Dream” speech, now a landmark of American history. Both movements were led by “prophetic minorities,” who had to work hard for years to win over the general public. Today, however, the majority of Americans are anti-Trump, anti-MAGA. But we’re not organized.
So hard work lies ahead, but Michael Ansara also said that it can’t be done without poetry.
Count me in.
Will you be one of my five friends? My website: https://www.willnixon.com/. My small press: https://www.willnixon.com/bushwhack-books.
Will Nixon
Kingston
Join the family! 
