This week we are going to talk to Kingston resident Nardia Bennett, a 31-year-old volunteer for Citizen Action who graciously shared some time afterwards to talk to me. She told stories me about seven instances of things she had experienced within our own city she believed to have racist motivations within the past year alone. I wish I could fit our whole conversation but wanted to share as much as I could.
“The harms of unaffordable cash bail are unequivocal: people lose their jobs, homes and families while detained,” writes Ulster County district attorney candidate David Clegg. “Even worse, innocent people sometimes plead guilty just to get out of jail.”
Ten days after the long-planned merger of Kingston’s Citibus system with Ulster County Area Transit, county officials say ridership is up so far. But some users of the newly unified bus systems say the service changes have left them high and dry.
Among the most significant changes is a proposal to introduce “Medication Assisted Treatment” to the Ulster County Jail. MAT programs, which include the use of opioid substitutes like methadone and Suboxone have been proven effective in reducing deaths from opioid overdose and reducing addicts’ dependence on street drugs. But, until recently, corrections officials have almost universally resisted their introduction into jails and prisons.
On Friday, July 12 a nationwide protest called Lights for Liberty: A Vigil to End Human Detention Camps “will bring thousands of people across the United States to detention camps across the country, into the streets and at Congressional buildings to protest the inhumane and dehumanizing conditions,” according to organizers.
We would get along if you left, with hardly a hitch — but your quality of life is infinitely improved by living with us. There is no place prettier, more scenic, no place with more art happening (at least not without the backdrop of skyscrapers and all that accompanies them). You have learned what we have known all along — there truly is no place like home. And now we need your help. I mean to say that we genuinely need it.
Donald Shumen was born in 1961 and has been part of Kingston ever since. That’s a lot of expertise on our lovely and lively city. I recently had a great shopping experience at Mike’s Office Furniture at 299 South Wall St. and knew that the friendly co-owner would make a great interview for the latest installment of Faces of Kingston.
Maybe badly buffeted Norwegian Air will experience a resurgence. Maybe it’ll thrive again. Maybe it’ll survive only in another form under another ownership. Maybe it’ll go bankrupt.
America has always been a society of joiners, and it was in that spirit that Ulster County executive Pat Ryan last Friday signed resolutions at the historic Volunteer Fireman’s Hall on Fair Street in Kingston to authorize up to $6.2 million in bonding for construction of a public safety training center on Ulster Landing Park in the Town of Ulster.
In a historic legislative session last month, New York lawmakers passed a long-bottled flood of progressive bills covering everything from early voting to rent control. But legalized recreational marijuana failed to make the cut, despite support from Gov. Andrew Cuomo and strenuous efforts by Democrats in the state’s two houses.
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