Upfront costs pose a challenge

Philipstown and Cold Spring are pursuing state funding to build sidewalks on the east and west sides of Route 9D between the village, the Gateway Trail at Little Stony Point and the Washburn parking lot.

But they must first find the money required by the state's Transportation Alternatives Program, which has a pre-application deadline of Thursday (Jan. 15), with finalized applications due by March 15, said Supervisor John Van Tassel during the Town Board meeting this past Thursday (Jan. 8).

Philipstown would apply jointly with Cold Spring for the stretch between Mayor's Park in the village and the Gateway Trail at Little Stony Point, a project that will cost an estimated $1.5 million to $2 million, said Van Tassel. The town is also seeking a grant for a sidewalk along the east side of Route 9D from the village border to Washburn, a $3 million project.

The Transportation Alternatives Program reimburses 80 percent of the costs, but the state refuses to waive a requirement that municipalities first spend their own money, said Van Tassel. "Somewhere between Jan. 15 and March 15, we need to have the money secured, or another route to finance the two sidewalks," he said.

Van Tassel said he asked Putnam County if it was willing to guarantee the 80 percent outlay, but the county could not because it would need approval from the full Legislature, which is not scheduled to meet again until Feb. 3, after the pre-application deadline. The county did offer to help with engineering and the application process, said Van Tassel.

The town also approached Hudson Highlands Fjord Trail Inc. for help, he said. "So far, the answer is not 'No,' " said Van Tassel. "They need to explore more, and I understand that. They're really willing to work with us."

While funding is uncertain, the Town Board approved a resolution requesting that Putnam relinquish a 0.17-acre strip on Fair Street that is part of the area where the westside sidewalk would go.

Depot Theater

The board approved a 99-year lease for land at the Recreation Department property where The Depot Theater wants to build a "backstage" building for props, rehearsals and classes for students interested in lighting, set construction and sound.

The Depot is seeking a state grant to construct the building, which will be given to the town and leased by the theater. Philipstown has already approved a lease for the building but needed a ground lease because of the state's concern "that there wasn't an immediate possessory right to the land," said Stephen Gaba, the town attorney.

"It's one of the considerations that the state has in deciding whether or not to award the funds," he said.

Gas station restrictions

The Town Board approved laws restricting businesses that store petroleum products from opening north of Route 301.

The laws confine new gas stations and "hybrid petroleum storage facilities" — such as home heating oil companies and truck depots — that store up to 25,000 gallons of fuel between Route 301 and Philipstown's southern border on Route 9, as well as a stretch of Route 301 between Route 9 and the Nelsonville border.

The changes were spurred by fears that an oil spill could contaminate the aquifer that homeowners and businesses rely on for drinking water. Philipstown also approved a townwide ban on businesses that store large amounts of petroleum products.

Conservation subdivisions

Philipstown set a public hearing for March 5 to hear feedback on proposed amendments to its conservation subdivision zoning, which allows developers to build at a higher density in exchange for preserving as open space portions of their properties with features such as forests, scenic views and wetlands.

Under the zoning code, developers proposing four or more housing units must submit a conservation analysis to the Planning Board. If the Planning Board determines that the project may adversely affect Philipstown's rural character, it has the option of requiring that the devel...

Shortage of funds and staff as federal deadlines loom

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Newburgh and Poughkeepsie flexed their industrial muscle by installing state-of-the-art water systems.

Unfortunately, state-of-the-art was lead, notes state Assembly Member Jonathan Jacobson, whose district includes both cities, as well as Beacon. "There's no such thing as a safe level of lead in the water," he said. Water contaminated with lead usually looks, smells and tastes the same, and the negative health effects of lead poisoning can take years to become apparent.

According to an analysis by the New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund of newly available data, many lead pipes may still be in use. In Poughkeepsie, 82 percent of the pipes that connect mains to individual buildings are lead, the highest rate in the state. Beacon is in better shape, with only two service lines confirmed as lead, and only 13 in Putnam County. But the status of 45 percent of Beacon's lines, and 41 percent of Putnam's, is unknown.

The data was released because of a federal law passed during the Biden administration that required municipalities to submit water-line inventories to the Environmental Protection Agency by October 2024. By October 2027, municipalities must confirm which lines are lead. By 2037, according to the law, every lead line in the country must be replaced. The EPA estimates there are about 500,000 lead service lines in New York state.

Jacobson notes that, to meet the 2037 deadline, 41,000 pipes will need to be replaced, on average, each year, at an estimated cost of $7,000 to $12,000 each. While state and federal funding is available, it doesn't seem to be reaching the communities that need it most. "The state has to take this seriously," said Jacobson.

Mapping the problem

Lead has a lot going for it. It's flexible and durable, making it an ideal candidate for service lines that must wind their way from street mains to homes.

But in the mid-20th century, scientists began to sound alarms about lead, linking neighborhoods with high levels in the water to ills ranging from higher dropout and violent crime rates to developmental disorders and birth defects. Municipalities began adding chemicals to water to keep lead from leaching into the supply. But getting the mix right requires monitoring, as Flint, Michigan, found to its peril when in 2014 it switched its drinking water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River.

The river water was more acidic, but the city didn't adjust. That error, along with many other failures, led to 100,000 Flint residents being exposed to water with lead levels several times higher than the federal limits. A national outcry over the crisis prompted the federal legislation to remove all lead service lines. In 2021, Congress included five years of funding in its Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Josh Klainberg of the New York League of Conservation Voters notes that, while other environmental regulations have come under fire from the Trump administration, the lead rules have so far proved the exception. "This is a very popular program," he said. "The money is going out to red states and blue states."

While every state must inventory lead lines, the federal law doesn't require them to share the information with the public. New York passed its own disclosure law, but says it will take several years to turn the data into an interactive map.

The NYLCV decided to make its own. "We figured we could do better," said Klainberg. "This is letting folks know what's going on — not just within their household, because they should get notification of that from their local water system — but within the community." (You can browse the map at dub.sh/lead-lines.)

Beacon had a similar idea. Its lead-line map can be found at bit.ly/BeaconLead, although Ed Balicki, the superintendent of water and sewer, said it's due for an update. The city has data to add because of an unlikely ally: the pandemic.

The funding pipe...

Actor and author Ally Sheedy to visit Garrison

On Saturday (Jan. 17), the Desmond-Fish Public Library in Garrison will host a creative writing workshop for children and teens ages 8 to 13 led by Ally Sheedy. Philipstown resident Emily Lansbury will interview the actor and author before she is presented with the Alice Curtis Desmond Award for Excellence in Children's Literature.

Sheedy is best known for her roles in The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's Fire, both released in 1985. But a decade earlier, when she was 12, she wrote a children's book, She Was Nice to Mice, a memoir of a literary mouse in the court of Queen Elizabeth I that was published by McGraw-Hill and two years later in paperback by Dell. She also published a collection of poetry in 1991, Yesterday I Saw the Sun.

Sheedy says her Garrison library visit is designed to encourage reading. "I am a big reader," she says. "It's about different ways to look at the world, and you get that from reading a lot of books."

She also admits to being "a history obsessive," which is what inspired She Was Nice to Mice. As a child, she watched Anne of the Thousand Days, a 1969 film starring Richard Burton as King Henry VIII and Geneviève Bujold as Anne Boleyn, his second wife.

Because of that movie, "I got obsessed with the Tudors; I got obsessed with Elizabeth I," Sheedy recalls. "I wanted to be in that world all the time. I read everything I could find," including A Little Princess, a 1905 novel by Frances Hodgson, and the Mary Poppins series by P.L. Travers, which led to a further focus on British novelists and British history.

About 15 years ago, she began to help her mother, Charlotte, at her literary agency. "Because I read so much, I started reading manuscripts and writing up editorial reports," she says. "That led to working with some writers one-on-one, to look at their structure and story arc and see if there's a way to get their manuscripts into the best possible shape for submission to publishers.

"I'm better at writing an analysis of somebody else's writing than I am at coming up with my own ideas. For some reason, I'm really suited to taking apart stories. Maybe it has something to do with taking apart scripts."

Sheedy says her favorite book is The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, by Peter Frankopan, and that she enjoys podcasts such as The Rest is History. "I love to read nonfiction," she says. "I thought there were — even at this age [she's 63] — gaps in my education about world history. I've been on this search to fill those holes."

When asked if the students at the workshop will have seen her iconic films, she says: "I don't think that they're going to know. We'll skip right over that and just talk about writing. I did write a book when I was 12, so — you never know."

The Desmond-Fish library is located at 472 Route 403 in Garrison. To register for the free event, which begins at 2 p.m., see dub.sh/DF-ally-sheedy. She Was Nice to Mice is out of print, but the library has 10 copies to lend.

Exhibit replaces 16 portraits of library founders

The Desmond-Fish Public Library offers a scavenger hunt for kids, who receive a sticker for finding 26 red-paper mittens with letters written on them that are sprinkled about the children's room.

Now, adults can get in on the game, searching for their own treasures that diversify the institution's longstanding artistic motif.

Although the building looks like an old colonial house, it was built in 1980. For more than 40 years, 16 painted portraits of the families of founders Alice Curtis Desmond and Hamilton Fish III (along with one of the Marquis de Lafayette) occupied the walls.

After the 2020 killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, the library Board of Trustees formed a Racial Equity and Social Justice committee, which determined that "the portraits were tying the library to the past and that placing different artwork on the walls could communicate to patrons that we are a place where everyone is equally welcome," says board president Anita Prentice.

Then, the pandemic hit, followed by a few years of grappling with whether to change the library's name because of then-Congressman Fish's interactions with Germany during the build-up to World War II. (In 2024, the board voted 18-4 to keep it.)

Attention returned to the library walls. The Fish portraits have been placed in storage, says Prentice, although some might be reinstalled. The Desmond family paintings are on long-term loan to the Alice Desmond Center for Community Engagement at her former home in Newburgh.

To fill the bare space, local artist Peter Bynum floated the idea of hosting annual themed exhibits. Bill Burback led the group that decided how to proceed, and consultant Karlyn Benson kept everyone organized, says Prentice.

Last year, after members of the project saw an exhibit curated by an upstate artist known as ransome at SUNY New Paltz's Dorsky Museum (that included one of Bynum's works), they recruited him to put together Picture Us: A New Exhibition in Portraiture, which continues through March 29.

Local, national, and worldwide artists contributed, though not all works reflect the rubric. For example, "Deep Dive" by Alia Ali juxtaposes three busy patterns of Indian fabric that mesh in harmony.

In "Burger Hill," an oil-on-linen by Nadine Robbins that looks like a photograph, the subject's skin glistens. Characters in G. Brian Karas's 10 works hanging in the children's room exude an odd but playful quality. Jordin Islip used 14 materials for his collage "Left Behind," including paint, shopping bags, wallpaper, sandpaper and newspaper.

The four acrylics (with collage) completed by ransome last year are standouts. Located in the Alice Room, a cozy nook with comfortable chairs, they show content and confident young people accentuated by streaks of color. In "Jardin Girl" and "Fille Du Jardin," the bursting background complements the girls' shirts.

Hazy self-portraits by JaFang Lu reflect stillness, but the ones by Dylan Rose Rheingold suggest movement. Beverly McIver uses abstract techniques to create coherent representations of two faces and "Renee in Her Purple Dress."

The squiggly lines in a six-pack of John Ebbert's self-portraits look like he swirled the graphite pencil around, only lifting it off the paper after a joyful ride.

Placed in the Fish Room, another serene reading space that contains busts of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, a man's shoulders, head and dreadlocks emerge from a blur of blue water ("Swimmer," by Patty Horing).

Says Prentice: "I love the way the subjects of all the portraits, from the children to the older folks, gaze calmly down at the patrons and seem to assess us as we look back."

The Desmond-Fish Public Library, at 472 Route 403, is open daily. See desmondfishlibrary.org.

Beacon council to stop weekly schedule

For the first time in more than 30 years, the Beacon City Council in 2026 will meet twice a month instead of weekly, beginning this month.

For decades, the council held two workshops and two voting meetings each month. It will now meet at 7 p.m. at City Hall on the first and third Mondays of the month. The meetings are broadcast via Zoom and YouTube.

Holidays force shifts from time to time. The second meeting this month will be held Jan. 20 because of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and the second meeting in February will be on Feb. 17 because of Presidents Day.

The council has met most Mondays (except the fourth week in months with five Mondays) since 1992, the year before Mayor Lee Kyriacou began his first of nine terms as a council member. In 2024, it began meeting twice monthly in July and August, and last year added June.

"In a way, [the summer schedule] was a pilot to see if it adversely affected our ability to progress needed council business," said City Administrator Chris White, who crafts the agendas with the city attorneys, Kyriacou and Deputy City Administrator Ben Swanson.

There were no significant negative impacts, White said, but perhaps some positives. The council will begin each meeting with a workshop, at which votes are not taken. He said that the change will allow city staff to eliminate some repetition when briefing the council on agenda items.

The flow from the introduction of an issue to discussion to voting also might be easier for the public to track, he said. And the shift allows community and/or council members flexibility to attend meetings of the Beacon school board, held on the second and fourth Mondays, or the Dutchess County Legislature, on the second Monday.

"This could actually help with public engagement in some ways," Council Member Amber Grant said on Monday (Jan. 5). "Not having to keep track of four meetings a month could be helpful. It would be really great if people were tuning in to more of the workshop discussion," and not just when votes are taken.

Kyriacou noted that council members would likely work the same number of hours. "I don't know why we do it the way we do it, since we're the only community that does that," he said.

In Philipstown, the Town Board meets monthly. The Cold Spring Village Board meets four times per month, with three of them considered workshops. The Putnam County Legislature meets monthly.

The Beacon council agreed on Monday to make one change for its combined meetings: Public comment will be held at 7 p.m., after the call to order, roll call and Pledge of Allegiance. If a community segment (such as a presentation) or a public hearing is on the agenda, it would come next. The workshop would follow, then the voting meeting, which always concludes with a second opportunity for public comment.

There is a benefit to a predictable schedule of public comment every first and third Monday at 7 p.m., Council Member Paloma Wake said. Rather than "happening after a workshop that will go on for an indeterminate amount of time," it's important, she said, to "make sure that the public has clear access to make their opinions known."

The council will schedule additional meetings as needed. In most cases, state law requires 72 hours' notice before a public meeting. In an emergency, notice is required "to the extent reasonably practicable," said City Attorney Christian Gates.

However, Sergei Krasikov, the newly elected Ward 3 representative, wondered Monday whether combined meetings would compel the council to make hasty decisions. "Are we trying to find efficiencies? Are we embracing four-hour meetings? Are we embracing speeding through certain items?" he asked.

"I would hazard a guess that probably by about April we'll have a discussion on 'How are we doing?' " Kyriacou said.

In other business on Monday, the council reappointed Kevin Byrne, John Gunn David Jensen and James Vermeulen to the Planning Board. Gunn, who has been on the board ...

Daedalus Quartet filmed for All Arts program

This past March, 10 technicians and producers from a new PBS television show descended on the Howland Cultural Center in Beacon, ringing the balcony with robo-cameras and high-end microphones to film a performance that ties several local strands.

A concert by the Daedalus Quartet, sponsored by the Howland Chamber Music Circle, began streaming at allarts.org earlier this month and will make its broadcast premiere on Sunday (Jan. 11).

Kristy Geslain, who grew up in Beacon and graduated from the old high school, is executive producer for the All Arts Channel, an affiliate of the WNET group (Channel 13). She oversees the show, Passing Notes, which films chamber music ensembles in locales like Caramoor in Westchester County and a catacomb in Brooklyn's Greenwood Cemetery.

Geslain moved back to Beacon a few years ago from Manhattan. It took a nanosecond to zero in on the Daedalus performance in her backyard. That day in March, the ensemble played selections by Haydn and Bartok, as well as String Quartet No. 1, Encountering Lorca, by Debra Kaye, who lives in Beacon.

The program represents some irony: For its 25th anniversary in 2017, the Chamber Music Circle commissioned and premiered Kaye's String Quartet No. 2, Howland Quartet. The filmed performance on All Arts marked the premiere of Encountering Lorca — her first quartet — in its entirety.

"There's another little connection because I got to know the [Daedalus] quartet through the Chamber Circle and I asked them to record Encountering Lorca [in 2023] because they play classical and contemporary repertoire, which is fitting for the type of music I write," Kaye says. "Having them perform it [at the Howland center] felt like a full-circle fruition."

The PBS episode features tight shots of individual musicians and the ensemble, many of which reveal artwork hanging in the background. Sometimes the editors cut to a balcony camera that shows more of the building's interior — and the backs of audience members' heads.

For any musician, it's a thrill to be recognized. Kaye is modest: "It's gratifying to have a performance that hits the mark," she says.

Known for programmatic music, Kaye's quartet evokes the poetry and homeland of Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca. One movement is titled "Wrestling with the Moon"; another is "The Dance the Turtle Dreamed."

"I started reading Lorca and realized that some of the imagery he uses pops up in different poems, and using the same phrase in different contexts seemed musical to me," she says.

The work opens with pleasant plucking and maintains a judicious balance between consonance and dissonance as tension peaks and plummets before fading out in an abrupt ending, which led to a pregnant pause before the applause.

"For contemporary music, the piece is easy on the ears," says Thomas Kraines, the cellist for the Daedalus Quartet, which has performed 10 times for the Chamber Circle. "Some new works are challenging, but it's like broccoli: It's good for people to be exposed to new ideas that years down the road could be accepted like Haydn and Mozart."

It's tough to top a catacomb in an historic urban cemetery for sonic and visual appeal, but the cultural center in Beacon comes close and is obviously more sentimental to Geslain.

"That's where I took voice lessons as a kid," she says. "I hadn't been there in years, but I saw what great chamber music lineups they had, so when the idea of the new show came up, I figured it would be magical."

"Passing Notes: Daedalus Quartet at the Howland Cultural Center" and other chamber music performances can be streamed at allarts.org/programs/passing-notes, or viewed below. The episode will premiere on PBS at 7 p.m. on Sunday (Jan. 11).

District assesses its transportation system

Haldane's school buses are usually less than a third full.

And when they're dropping off or picking up students at the school, they're part of an "alarming" traffic pattern, "where you have a lot of students intermingling with buses and buses intermingling with cars."

So said Paul Overbaugh, a consultant hired by the district to review its student transportation. Overbaugh works for On the Bus Transportation Planning Service, created in 2023 by the Franklin-Essex-Hamilton BOCES in Malone. He presented his findings at the Tuesday (Jan. 6) board meeting.

Overbaugh said he found that Haldane buses were never more than 38 percent full and often had far fewer students. He cited one elementary route that averaged only 13 passengers on a 65-passenger bus. The district should aim to fill 70 percent of the seats by consolidating routes or using smaller buses, he said.

Eliminating a large-bus route could save $47,000 a year on fuel and maintenance, he said. The district owns 18 buses, ranging in capacity from five to 65 passengers.

Superintendent Gail Duffy said that Haldane hopes to increase ridership, which is "lower than we'd like." She said the district plans to evaluate its routes and encourage families to use the buses.

Overbaugh recommended that the district formalize its policy around which students live within "walking distance" and are ineligible for bus service. He said the district has 217 students in the "walk zone," which is a half mile for kindergarten through fifth grade and a mile for grades six to 12. Formalizing the policy would require voter approval.

He also discussed traffic patterns on campus. "If you have parent drop-offs in the morning, they should be separated from the bus traffic," he said, noting some 200 vehicles drop students off every morning.

Overbaugh recommended a pattern that is already included in a $28.4 million capital project approved by voters in 2024. Under that plan, buses would enter campus from Route 9D on Craigside Drive, while parent and student vehicles would enter on Cedar Street from Route 301/Main Street.

District officials experimented with the same pattern in the fall of 2018 after discussions with the Cold Spring police and fire departments about cars parked in the circle at the center of campus, which has a fire lane. School officials said at the time that in two cases when the fire department was called to the school during the morning rush, first responders were slowed by vehicle and bus traffic.

Duffy said that the district plans to test the pattern beginning in April. She said traffic "gets congested" during pickup and drop-off, and "parents are in a rush and so sometimes they are maybe not following the speed limit." Students are good about using crosswalks, she said. "It's not a free-for-all, but we could absolutely tighten it up."

Julia Sniffen, the high school principal, said one issue is the presence of vehicles near the Mabel Merritt building, where some classes are held. "You hold your breath when you see the high school kids pull in [to reach parking behind the building], the buses come down and the high school kids trying to cross, all at the same time," she said.

The capital project is expected to reduce pedestrian traffic by eliminating classes at Mabel Merritt and upgrading sidewalks and crosswalks. Construction, which includes a major addition to the high school, is expected to begin later this year.

Gouldman voted Legislature deputy

Dan Birmingham defeated Bill Gouldman on Wednesday (Jan. 7) to become the chair of the Putnam Legislature, whose first meeting of 2026 included two new members.

Birmingham, whose district includes Croton Falls, Mahopac and the Village of Brewster, won the chair's seat by a 5-4 vote, with support from Nancy Montgomery, who represents Philipstown and part of Putnam Valley, Toni Addonizio, Thomas Regan Jr. and last year's chair, Amy Sayegh. Birmingham also voted for himself.

Gouldman, who represents most of Putnam Valley, defeated Regan and Montgomery for deputy chair, with six votes. Regan received four votes and Montgomery, who nominated herself, received three votes, from herself, Gouldman and Sayegh.

Wednesday's meeting was the first for two Republican legislators: Regan, who in November won the District 6 seat (Southeast) formerly held by Paul Jonke; and Jake D'Angelo, who won the District 5 seat (Lake Carmel, Carmel) after defeating the incumbent Republican, Greg Elner, in a primary.

Project designed to increase climate resilience

New York State announced on Jan. 2 that it is sending $2 million to the City of Beacon, which will cover about half the cost of fortifying the Melzingah Reservoir Dam against increasingly frequent extreme weather.

Melzingah, along with the Mount Beacon and Cargill reservoirs and three wells, provides drinking water for Beacon, parts of the Town of Fishkill and the Fishkill Correctional Facility.

The grant is part of $22.7 million awarded by the state to Climate Smart Communities. The Beacon City Council has authorized spending $1.9 million to complete the $3.9 million project, which should go out to bid this year, City Administrator Chris White said.

The dam is considered a Class C High Hazard structure, meaning that if it fails, the "uncontrolled release" of up to 58 million gallons of water would likely cause deaths and widespread property damage. In July 1897, the first Melzingah dam did burst, sending a 15-foot wave down the mountain. Three adults and four children were killed. In 1924, the current dam was constructed nearby.

Even if the dam held during extreme weather, flooding caused by overflow could cover the Metro-North tracks or Route 9D. The land surrounding the dam is part of Fahnestock State Park, including portions of the proposed Hudson Highlands Fjord Trail.

The hazard classification won't change because of the repair work, but the dam likely will no longer be considered by the state to be in "poor" condition, White said. "This is one of the adaptations to make sure that the water supply remains available and that we don't adversely affect the people downstream," he said.

The grant, announced by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, will raise the dam's crest and increase its spillway capacity to better absorb runoff during storms, such as the one that hit in July 2023, dumping 8 inches on the Highlands. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted in a study that year that the Hudson Valley could experience such "100-year storms" every 11 to 25 years.

The city completed a similar project in 2023 at the Mount Beacon Dam and in 2022 made repairs to prevent leaks at the smaller Pocket Road Dam. Engineering recently began on repairs to the transmission line of the Cargill Dam, which is owned by the city but located in Philipstown.

According to the DEC, the remediation will allow the Melzingah Dam to safely handle 50 percent of the "probable maximum precipitation," adjusted for climate scenarios projected for the next 10, 20 and 30 years.

Before the award, Beacon had received more than $891,000 in Climate Smart grants from the state due to its status as a "silver" community, the program's highest level.

Among other state grants announced on Jan. 2, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, based in Beacon, received $675,000 to restore the sloop's topsides and transom; the City of Newburgh got $6.9 million to create 209 mixed-income downtown apartments and $2 million to build a deep-water pier for river cruise ships; and the Paramount Hudson Valley Theater in Peekskill was awarded $1.78 million to upgrade its HVAC system to create a community cooling center. There were no grants to entities in Putnam County.

Blame foreclosure on 'unhinged' acquaintance

A state judge has been asked to decide if a former Philipstown couple will have a chance to reclaim a Route 9 property they lost to foreclosure because of what they say was deception by an acquaintance.

Judge Gina Capone on Jan. 2 issued a temporary order restraining M&T Bank from transferring the deed for 3154 Route 9, which from 1995 to early 2024 was owned by Sokhara Kim through Mary Dawn Inc., and hosted her business, Nice & Neat Dry Cleaners; a residence she shared with her husband, Chakra Oeur; and a nail salon.

Kim and Oeur, immigrants from Cambodia who also operated a restaurant and art gallery at the property, were evicted on Dec. 9, ending a 17-month foreclosure process that began in August 2022 after Kim stopped making payments on a $570,000 mortgage held by M&T. Capone ordered the foreclosure in February 2024. Four months later, a bank subsidiary, Chesapeake Holdings, paid $620,200 for the property at an auction.

On Thursday (Jan. 15), Capone will hold a hearing to consider Kim and Oeur's defense — that they were victims of Derek Keith Williams, who met the couple when his girlfriend, Mauny Sun, owned the nail salon. According to court documents, Williams convinced Kim that he had paid off the mortgage. He hid the foreclosure by demanding that she "turn over any mail or paperwork relating to the property, Mary Dawn Inc., any court or any bank," said her attorney, Jacob Chen.

From the start, Chen argued, the court "never acquired personal jurisdiction" over Kim because the process server said he handed the original documents to a "co-worker." Chen also said that Oeur should have been included as a party to the foreclosure proceeding because he lived at the property and managed the Khmer Art Gallery.

Their loss of the property is a "deeply tragic — and profoundly avoidable — result" of the actions of "an unhinged and dangerous criminal who exercised coercive control over them," said Chen, who is asking Capone to vacate the foreclosure and give Kim and Oeur a chance to regain the property.

In a statement filed with the court, Kim said a personal loan she used to rebuild the property after a fire in 2005 had been taken over by M&T Bank when she met Williams through Bun in 2019. Kim said that Bun, whose mother she had known for over 30 years, "reminded me a lot of my daughter … and I put a lot of trust and faith in her." She decided to accept Williams' offer to buy the property for $1.2 million and transfer it to an entity called DKW Trust.

"I had worked tirelessly for many, many years at that point," said Kim. "I was excited about the opportunity to take a break from working and to be able to give something to my grandchildren, and so I agreed."

Williams requested access to the Mary Dawn bank account, provided Kim with "official-looking documents containing seals and stamps" and said he had paid off the mortgage and would let her live there while he "finalized" the trust, according to court documents.

In addition to demanding that any mail related to courts and the bank be turned over to him, he asked Kim to sign documents and submit filings without explaining what they were, and demanded access to her emails, according to court documents.

Williams "treated questions as disobedience — responding with rage, profanity and intimidation, including threats that she would 'lose everything,' that the property was 'his' and that he could have her evicted if she did not comply," according to court documents. Kim said she "got on my knees and begged" when Williams badgered her to take him shopping instead of taking Oeur to a hospital visit ahead of his looming kidney transplant.

Carmen Chuchuca, who assumed ownership of the nail salon, said Williams began collecting $2,500 per month in "rent" from her, saying he owned the property, which Kim confirmed to her. (Chuchuca moved out before the eviction and has reopened at 1806 Route 9D in Cold Spring.) Kim said she also provided Will...