One Book/One New Paltz explores Neil Gaiman’s Ocean at the End of the Lane
This choice of book is in many ways perfect for the time and circumstances in which we find ourselves.
All posts by Frances Marion Platt
Local Halloween happenings
It won’t be a typical year, but events are happening. Here’s a rundown.
As $1M deficit looms, legal costs sway New Paltz toward approving redesigned CVS plan
Trans-Hudson Management’s proposal to build a CVS drugstore, Five Guys Burgers restaurant and other shops on the 5.6-acre parcel bounded by the New York State Thruway, Route 299 and North Putt Corners Road in New Paltz has been reported as nearing approval so many times since it was first broached in 2014 that readers might be forgiven for viewing another such headline with a roll of a jaundiced eye.
New Paltz creates fund to build playground at new town courthouse
As New Paltz prepares to relocate its Police Department and Justice Court to a new facility at 59 North Putt Corners Road, an opportunity has arisen to make the site a more hospitable place for the transfer of children between divorcing parents.
Carrie Wykoff unopposed for Rosendale Town Board seat
In the sole local race up for a vote in the Town of Rosendale on Election Day 2020, Democrat Carrie Wykoff is running unopposed for a seat on the Town Board. She is already the interim appointee to the seat recently vacated by John Hughes; this election is to fill out the remaining year of Hughes’ term.
New Paltz’s Elting Library quietly marks 100 Years at current location
If you think you remember the Elting Memorial Library celebrating its centennial back in 2009, you’re not wrong. That was indeed 100 years from the date when seven women from the New Paltz Study Club, inspired by the opening of a new Normal School building after the original one was destroyed by a 1906 fire, decided that the town needed a Free Library Association. So, they opened a reading room at 60-62 Main Street: the first iteration of what was to become the modern library the town knows today. A few months later it relocated to larger quarters in the Nathan Van Wagenen building at 68 Main Street. The Regents of the University of the State of New York granted the New Paltz Free Library a provisional charter on April 1, 1909, and an absolute charter on December 2, 1915.
New Paltz mobilizes as local motel admits Level 3 sex offenders
In response to a firestorm of public outrage over the placement of paroled Level 3 sex offenders at the EconoLodge Motel on the eastern edge of town on Route 299, New Paltz officials are investigating possible strategies to stop the community from becoming a dumping ground for predators.
Rapping New Paltz cop reinstated
New Paltz police officer Robert Sisco will not lose his job on account of the controversial rap video he posted on social media in June, though he will be on disciplinary probation for four years. The lyrics in the rap included a call to hang Hillary Clinton “for treason,” blamed China for the “whole coronavirus” and declared “There’s only two genders.” Critics slammed the performance as “transphobic” and questioned whether the officer could be trusted to provide equal law enforcement protection to transgender citizens.
Gardiner’s 2021 town budget will exceed tax cap
Gardiner’s Town Board members got their first peek at a tentative town budget for 2021 at the October 6 workshop meeting.
Gardiner appoints Casey, Morgan Erenzo to committees
Some personnel changes are in store for the Town of Gardiner’s boards and commissions.