In small towns, sometimes no good deed goes unpunished, and that’s doubly true in this age of social media. Keyboard warriors can say nasty things to their neighbors, anonymously, that they would never say in person. Case in point: the New Paltz Community Facebook group, a veritable hotbed of insults, exaggerations and accusations (alongside an occasional good in-joke that you simply won’t get, if you didn’t happen to check in during the week when the topic of discussion was, say, the mysterious disappearance of the supermarket’s seltzer aisle).
Certain subjects that appear benign on the surface are pretty much guaranteed to spark disgruntlement among Paltzonians, and one of those is any well-meaning public beautification effort, such as floral displays or Christmas lights. Over the decades, many volunteer groups have sprung up with a mission to take on the responsibility of creating and maintaining such outdoor décor: the Community Improvement Team, the New Paltz Beautification Committee, the Garden Club, the Downtown Business Association. Results have been mixed, for a variety of reasons ranging from limited Town and/or Village funding to the pandemic, from disagreements about municipal commemorations of religious holidays to reductions in accessible electrical power supply. Also, once-reliable volunteers age out of climbing ladders, die, move away, lose their enthusiasm or get too busy with other responsibilities.
When someone does make an effort to pretty things up a bit, some community members will predictably grouse about it. An ongoing war of words was sparked by Central Hudson’s multiyear campaign to replace outmoded streetlight poles with new models featuring more economical LED bulbs, for example. The problem was that most of the newer poles didn’t come with a built-in electrical outlet that could be used to power holiday lights, as in the past. Getting them retrofitted with outlets is costly and takes years to arrange with the utility.
In New Paltz, the response was to hang banners along Main Street adorned with pictures of glittery snowflakes, as a substitute for lights. The general consensus from the public was that they were not impressed. Eventually the banners were replaced by sturdier glittery snowflake signs, but again, many community members were disappointed. Nostalgia for the days of lighted Yuletide decorations held firm.
So the tinsel-covered signs were replaced by solar-powered snowflakes that didn’t need plugging in, but the lightbulbs on them turned out not to work very well, due in part to competition from ambient light sources. Again the public scoffed. At least one commenter on Facebook described the village’s meager holiday lighting displays as “disgusting.” No wonder many of the volunteers got discouraged. Similar sorts of reactions were posted about floral baskets hung on light poles in the warmer months, which require regular maintenance and don’t hold up well in drought conditions.
The fact that you can’t please everybody hasn’t utterly discouraged efforts to spruce up the community’s main drag, however. Where some just want to nitpick, others ask what needs to be done and how they can help. In the summer of 2025 a new group of volunteers stepped forward, at the instigation primarily of Melanie Cronin of CronArt USA, with the intent of organizing a “light up the village” push during the December holidays. “It all started with Melanie gathering a group of businesses and business-owners to try to beautify Main Street, to light it up,” explains Anita Cunniff of Boxwood Realty & Design, who was a member of the town’s official Community Improvement Team before COVID forced a hiatus. “We wanted to make it feel festive,” says Cronin.
The ad hoc volunteer group that Cronin pulled together has since morphed into something bigger, more energetic and ambitious. The members started out calling themselves the Winter Wonderland Committee, but it quickly became clear that many were eager to make year-round changes. The new group hasn’t settled on a more expansive name yet, but you can expect to be seeing the fruits of their labors multiplying around town — beginning with four metal deer sculptures, two of them already installed on the South Manheim Boulevard side of New Paltz Middle School and another pair on the platform overlooking the Wallkill River at the bottom of Main Street.
“When we came together at the end of last summer, we started to try to figure out the snowflakes. The brackets were the biggest issue this year,” Cronin relates. “We were looking to install more plugs, but that turned out to be a longer process than we had time for. So we decided that to light up the community would be Step One. We knocked on doors, asking downtown business people to decorate for the holidays … How fun would it be if everybody committed to lighting up their homes and businesses? We’re going for a unified look and feeling.”
As the campaign to get more of the snowflakes electrified turned out to be a more complex project than anticipated, group members started talking about other things they could do in the meantime, and decorations that could stay up year-round. The Winter Wonderland theme gave rise to the idea of using business-sponsored deer sculptures as a way of branding New Paltz, “like horses in the Outer Banks,” says Cunniff. “Pine Bush has aliens,” notes Melissa Gagne of the Grazery, another founding member of the new committee. The core group also includes Liz Rogers, Robyn Gullickson and Misty Brown.
The members make a strong case for deer being a solid choice, and arguably emblematic of the town, its sense of place, the surrounding landscape. “Throughout history, it has been traditional to put deer in gardens,” Gagne says. “They’re a symbol of nature. They’re a proud animal and could be a symbol of local pride.” “And New Paltz is a community geared to nature and the outdoors,” agrees Cronin.
First, the group “went through the proper channels,” consulting with village mayor (now town supervisor) Tim Rogers and Department of Public Works secretary Heather Nielson before lining up the first four business sponsors: Theresa Fall of Jar’d Wine Bar, Kevin and John Domitrovits of Hans Auto and Steve and Mille Weinman of FirstCare Medical, along with Cunniff’s Boxwood Realty. Then they found an artist based in Colorado who could manufacture the deer sculptures to order, a few at a time, both bucks and does. “He casts them in aluminum and coats them in bronze,” Cunniff explains.
The group set out low-maintenance concrete planters in the first two locations selected to display the deer, with winter greenery donated by Masseo Landscaping. “The deer were supposed to be installed at the same time, but they were delayed,” says Cunniff. Says Cronin, “Because this process is 100 percent volunteer, everything takes time. It’s a slow whirl: one flower, one deer at a time.”
The sculptures are up now, though, staked to the ground and wearing temporary collars identifying the business sponsors, eventually to be replaced with small bronze plaques. Greg Gagne, Michael Domitrovits and Clive Cunniff pitched in to set them in place. The group is now seeking commitments from additional businesses, with hopes that as many as six more deer can be placed in various locations this year as donations to the town. “We have to decide by August 1 for them to be installed in the fall,” Cunniff adds.
Meanwhile, they’ll be refilling the planters with seasonal flowers “as soon as the frost is gone, after Mothers’ Day,” according to Gagne. “This whole effort is a chance for local businesses to work together, to promote one another.”
The committee members have plenty of ideas on how to use the installations to boost commerce, visitation and a sense of community pride in New Paltz. Gagne suggests that families can take their holiday photos in front of the planters. And although the deer aren’t designed for sitting on, they’re sturdy enough for middle schoolers to dress them up in costumes for Spirit Week, according to Cunniff.
By the time next winter rolls around, the new committee hopes to have the issue with the snowflake brackets sorted out, and to make some progress on getting more of them lit up directly from the light poles. Maybe they’ll even have decided on a name for themselves by then. In the meantime, if you have a business on or near Main Street in New Paltz, you can expect a call urging you to decorate your storefront and put up some lights, come December 2026.
Join the family! 
