Highlands Current Audio Stories

West Point plans power line corridor opposite Garrison

Conservation groups are raising concerns about a proposed power line that would cut a path through the forested mountain across from Garrison's Landing.

The U.S. Army wants to upgrade and construct transmission lines and substations to increase power to West Point, which will alter the viewsheds of various registered historic districts, including Harriman State Park and the Thayer Hotel and Buffalo Soldier Field on base.

Garrison's Landing is "in the direct view of this unfortunate proposal to scalp a 150-foot-wide swath through the forest, down that ridge to the Hudson River," said J. Jeffrey Anzevino, director of land use advocacy at Scenic Hudson. The landing was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

An Army report on the project maps a 2.5-mile right-of-way for two new lines that would each deliver 69 kilovolts (kV) of electricity. Of the existing 9.5 miles of lines, which run at 34.5 kV, some would be removed and others upgraded. In addition, three substations would be upgraded, a substation would be built next to one at Wilson Gate and a substation in Highland Falls would be decommissioned. A switching station would also be built. Neither West Point nor Orange & Rockland, the utility that would construct the lines and substation, responded to requests for comment.

In its report, the Army acknowledges that the project "will noticeably and substantially alter the Hudson Highlands landscape" and "diminish the integrity of setting, feeling and association" of West Point and Garrison's Landing, but says its plan is still the best option. Upgrading the existing lines to handle larger loads and projected increases to up to 138 kV without building new lines would cost an estimated $60 million more than the $113 million approved for the project. Burying the lines would also be too expensive, it said, and impact wetlands and streams.

Anzevino said conservation and preservation groups would like to know more about how the Army determined that other options, such as going underground, are not feasible. "The consensus is there's not an awful lot of detail in their rationale," said Edward Warren of the Hudson Highlands Land Trust. He cited research showing that while tunneling is more expensive, it reduces maintenance costs because the lines are protected from storm damage.

The groups also would like more information about why the upgrades are needed. Anzevino said that he was only told by West Point that it has "electrical issues" every summer.

"What is West Point doing to generate its own energy?" he said. "Renewables, battery storage?" He said the military told them the review doesn't have to consider that.

The project must undergo a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review, but because West Point is federal land, it will not be subject to state review. It's not clear if the public will be invited to weigh in, Anzevino said. "I don't believe West Point is going to allow the rank and file — the residents who are going to be viewing this — to be participating," he said.

Pointing to an Army rendering that shows trees disappearing along Fort Putnam Street in Highlands Falls, he said, "I doubt the people on that street even know this is happening."

Library recounts war story of local family patriot

Sitting onstage and decked out in brownish historical garb, Chapin Fish wore one black Adidas sneaker with white stripes as a mutton-chopped storyteller, Jonathan Kruk, reeled off highlights from the new Desmond-Fish Public Library exhibit, Nicholas Fish: Choosing Liberty, in dramatic fashion.

On his other foot, Fish, a recent graduate of Fordham University with a degree in American studies, wore a white boot because of a foot injury. He otherwise hobbled around on crutches, adding a touch of irony to the proceedings, which celebrated his ancestor, who got "sick in camp" at the Battle of White Plains in 1776 and suffered a wound during the Battle of Monmouth.

Despite those setbacks, Nicholas Fish played a prominent role in the Continental Army's leadership, fighting alongside George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Benedict Arnold and the Marquis de Lafayette. Many other members of his family were Loyalists who remained faithful to the monarchy, says Anita Prentice, the library board chair, who wrote a 40-page biography that spearheaded the project. The exhibit began as a slow burn in 2019, when the library received a portrait of the war hero, now on display.

Nicholas Fish's saga stretches from a 1775 raid by the Sons of Liberty and a Columbia University militia on British guns in Manhattan to the Battle of Yorktown in 1781.

When the war formally ended in 1783, Fish rode with Washington to attend a banquet for Continental Army officers before they disbanded at Fraunces Tavern in Manhattan. Six years later, he again accompanied the general to Federal Hall on Wall Street, serving as an eyewitness to the first president's swearing-in.

In 1824, Nicholas reunited with an old pal, Lafayette, who was making a triumphant tour of the nation, including the Hudson Valley. (His visit to Beacon is commemorated by a blue-and-gold plaque at the waterfront.)

During the Revolutionary War, Nicholas visited Philipstown often but never established ties, says Prentice. He was a regular at the Beverly Robinson house, which served as Washington's headquarters (it was on Route 9D south of Route 403 but burned down in 1892), and often ferried to West Point.

After the war, Fish rattled around New York City (his birthplace), abandoned by his family and "struggling with PTSD, I'd imagine," says Prentice, a retired history teacher. "He fought for eight straight years with no time off, longer than Washington, because he had nowhere else to go."

Things turned out OK. Fish raised five children, including his eldest son, Hamilton, born in 1808, four years after his namesake died in a duel. Hamilton Fish made a lasting impression, serving as New York governor, a U.S. senator and secretary of state under President Ulysses S. Grant. The now-abandoned home at Glenclyffe, dating to the 1850s, became one of the family's three mansions and their local foothold.

The meat of the Desmond-Fish exhibit is 15 wall panels packed with information and punctuated by portraits, illustrations and paintings. Artifacts include Nicholas Fish's hefty bible and some of his silverware.

After the portrait donation, Prentice thought the library would need two or three panels to tell Fish's war story. "But he went wire to wire and participated in almost every major battle and incident, and his story is much more amazing than I ever could have imagined," she says.

The Desmond-Fish Public Library, at 472 Route 403 in Garrison, is open daily. See desmondfishlibrary.org. The exhibit continues through June 15. The library will host the Hearts of Oak Reenactors from 1 to 3 p.m. on Saturday (May 9).

Also, updates on parking, historic properties

Beacon residents will be able to apply later this year to serve on a committee tasked with updating the city's comprehensive plan.

New York State recommends that municipalities update their plans — the blueprint for how a city will grow — every 10 years; Beacon's was last revised in 2017.

That document was drafted by a consulting firm with input from a committee of residents and city officials. Public workshops were held in the fall of 2016.

There has been a general shift from doing "everything and the kitchen sink" rewrites of comprehensive plans to focusing on priorities, planning consultant Natalie Quinn told the City Council on Monday (May 4).

The 2017 update focused on the waterfront and Metro-North train station area. Council members should begin thinking about important areas, because the 2027 plan will guide future councils as they enact zoning laws, said City Attorney Jennifer Gray. Topics mentioned Monday included non-vehicular transportation, smaller housing units as an affordability tool, climate adaptation and protected scenic views.

Council Member Lastar Gorton disagreed with the approach, saying she would prefer a review of the entire plan. "Beacon is completely different now" than in 2017, she said. "Let the community have its say."

Historic properties

A public hearing on properties nominated for Beacon's historic district, scheduled to continue on May 18, will likely be adjourned to June 1.

In the meantime, the city is creating an FAQ to explain the program. Many residents who spoke during the first part of the hearing last month seemed uncertain about the details.

Properties added to the district will be required to obtain approval from the Planning Board before making alterations to certain historic features, but there are tax and assessment benefits that come with the designation, Mayor Lee Kyriacou said.

Parking requirements

It's too soon to say whether Beacon's new parking requirements for developments will affect the number of apartments being built in the city.

In August 2024, the City Council eliminated minimum parking requirements for new developments and substantial reconstructions in "core" walkable areas, such as Main Street and parts of the waterfront. Instead, there is now a maximum number of spaces developers may provide.

Studies have concluded that minimum parking requirements added to the cost of new housing and hindered the development of affordable units.

A report by the Planning Board looked at 10 projects approved by the end of last year. In that time, four applicants provided the same parking as would have previously been required, three provided one to three fewer spaces, and two provided as many as 40 fewer spaces.

In several cases, the report said, applicants voluntarily provided on-site parking because of design considerations and anticipated demand. But developments on Main Street provided fewer spaces. The Planning Board said it's too soon to know how reduced supply will impact demand for on-street spaces, because the developments have not been built.

Moving forward, the board said it will monitor applications that provide no parking but rely on municipal lots, to avoid over-allocating or "double-counting." In addition, overuse of city lots could be an issue during snowstorms.

As for the new parking regulations and the density of development, "unit counts" are affected by factors other than parking, Quinn told the council. Future data will provide more clarity, she said.

Council Member Carolyn Bennett Glauda remarked: "If we want to encourage people to come here and not have cars, we need to talk about our bike comprehensive plan, and we need to talk about public transportation as viable options."

Meeting schedule

The City Council seems ready to continue meeting on the first and third Monday of each month, instead of weekly, as it had done for decades.

The shift to every other week (except during months with five Mondays) has allowed ...

Beacon Photo Club to host second book arts fair

According to the authorities, the definition of an art book (aka artist's book) is serious stuff.

For Printed Matter, a nonprofit bookstore in Manhattan, they are "publications conceived as artworks in their own right." The Center for Book Arts calls them "artistic practices related to the book itself as an art object."

Of the 28 vendors exhibiting at the Art Book Fair at the VFW Hall in Beacon on May 16, 13 live in the city or nearby. This is the second iteration of what the Beacon Photo Club intends to be an annual event, according to Emma McDonald Diamond, who founded the group.

Broadly, the genre ranges from black-and-white zines to uber-elaborate permutations that make a paperback look like a cave painting.

"What binds them is that they're self-published," says Chiara Di Lello, co-founder of the collective Little Histories, which will be there.

One creator is Jennifer Lauren Smith, who will share her Weeping European Beech Baby Sleep Tonic. Her website reveals precise details about the binding, paper, color plates and cover, which is giclee on Hahnemühle Photo Rag. All 15 editions were printed, engraved and bound in Beacon.

The reception is positive: Reed College will acquire an edition for its art collection (Smith is an alum), and another will be displayed at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Massachusetts beginning June 12.

Smith just completed a month-long Interlude Artist residency in Hudson and is in the second year of The Photobook, a long-term residency program with the Penumbra Foundation.

"The books are so laborious and precious, I'm almost embarrassed," she says. "But that's why they're expensive [$200 each]. I work in sculpture, so I'm a craftsperson, and I take the materials seriously."

Little Histories will present zines with themes, such as using Wordle guesses to create the text. There's also one based on crosswords, says Di Lello, who previously created a formal art book exhibited at a Brooklyn show.

The members of Little Histories, including co-founder Chelsea Mize, write personalized poems on the spot with a typewriter, hammering away at a piece of gray paper. "We talk with the person — I call it 'intake' — and figure out where their head is at, and if it's intended for them or someone else," says Di Lello. "They come back later and pick it up. They're not hovering over us."

Andrea Moed, a ceramicist, is bringing zines along with hand-drawn comics. The cover of no costume depicts the view from her front door, including the porch, power lines, a pickup truck and her neighbors' houses. Her plans include Street Furniture of Beacon, New York, which will feature "a lot of weird stuff beyond the dummy light" in Beacon, she says. "At the foot of Mount Beacon, near the bus stop, there's some mutant, non-functioning contraption with four prongs."

Moed also is a paper engineer (think pop-up books) using the digital Cricut machine at the Desmond-Fish Public library in Garrison to create little lamps.

Scrawled on the walls of her studio are instructions for improving panels of her comic Monoculture, along with affirmations like "Less Think More Draw!!!" sketched out in colorful bubble letters.

"Many people are tired of being online, and the pendulum is swinging back to tangible interests and hobbies," says McDonald Diamond. "CDs, vinyl records, cassettes and shooting photos with film are making a comeback, and this event reflects all that."

The VFW Hall is located at 413 Main St. in Beacon. The Art Book Fair is scheduled for May 16 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free and open to all ages. See beaconphotoclub.com/2026-beacon-art-book-fair.

Haldane graduate bringing quartet to St. Mary's

Robert Freimark is best known for two things: his complicated jazz piano compositions and his hair, which is so long and straight that it serves as curtains over his face when he plays. The look resembles that of Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman.

"Someone told me that recently, but I had no idea who he is," says Freimark, 18, a 2025 Haldane High School graduate who is studying music at William Patterson University in New Jersey. "It makes me more recognizable."

On Saturday (May 9), Freimark will perform in Cold Spring as part of the Music at St. Mary's series with his quartet: Carter Stein on saxophone, Maria Kolesnik on drums and Gabriel Balado on bass (stepping in for Marcelo Díaz).

Earlier this year, Freimark won a Young-Arts National Competition Award in jazz, one of 741 musicians selected from some 13,000 applicants. His goal is to make a living as a professional musician.

He started playing piano at age 7, taking lessons in classical repertoire, but shifted to jazz when his teacher, Jesse Stecken at Forte Piano Studio in Beacon, encouraged him to improvise. A turning point, Freimark says, is when he nailed a solo arrangement of "Rhapsody in Blue" during his sophomore year at Haldane.

Conversant with standard and more obscure repertoire, his style is subtle but sophisticated. His goal is to reel off any of hundreds of instrumental jams on the fly.

"That's what being a jazz musician is, and I'm going through acute ear identification training," he says. "Another skill is listening and being able to identify chord changes on the spot, even if you don't know the song — 'ear-balling it,' as some people say."

Freimark arranged a version of "My Favorite Things," adapting John Coltrane's sax rendition for piano, changing the time signature and delivering a straightforward groove. He can replicate and build on the style of odd-bird Thelonius Monk, whose wobbly, off-kilter phrasing shook up jazz in the 1950s and '60s.

"Just You Wait," an original Freimark composition, which sounds like it's dredged from the classic Monk era, opens with a bebop-influenced passage in which the bass, played by Stecken on keyboard in a video shot at the Howland Cultural Center, doubles the piano's left hand through a few bars of Freimark's solo, then shifts into swinging, walking phrases to provide a launch pad for the pianist to modulate the timing and make other low-key modifications.

"A bunch of notes came to me so fast; I figured I should write them down immediately," Freimark says. "From that draft, not much has changed. There are abstractions, but it still feels grounded."

Reflecting the influence of his mother, Sandy McKelvey, a guitarist who is passionate about the music of Central and South America, Freimark also explores Latin Jazz, executing his feathery touch to "Soñando con Puerto Rico."

On Saturday, he and his bandmates will perform an extended version of "Just You Wait," along with a mix of "songbook standards and compositions that are important to jazz musicians," he says.

Though he began playing at a young age, Freimark never considered himself a prodigy. "There were always kids half my age who could play more difficult music," he says. "I'm just trying to do my own thing."

St. Mary's Church is located at 1 Chestnut St. in Cold Spring. The concert, which begins at 2 p.m., is free, but donations for Music at St. Mary's are welcome.

State weighs second license for the village

A cannabis dispensary opened in Cold Spring on Friday (May 1), nearly five years after village residents voted to allow retailers and as the state considers an application for a second shop at the Butterfield complex.

Mogu opened in a small space at 137 Main St., where it sells cannabis flower grown at its farm in Warwick, pre-rolls, edibles such as gummies, disposable vapes and accessories such as grinders, lighters and rolling papers. Adults 21 and older can book five-minute appointments online or order pre-rolls and flowers for pickup. The products have names such as Bob Hope, Chubby Bunny, Jelly Donutz and Purple Runtz.

The shop operates under a "microbusiness" license awarded by the state Office of Cannabis Management in November 2024 to Pleasant View Harvest LLC, based in Brewster. A microbusiness is allowed to operate a retail shop but can only sell cannabis that it grows and processes. According to its website, the dispensary is open from 2 to 6 p.m. Wednesday to Friday, and from noon to 7 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

"Hopefully, we get a good name and reputation with the folks in the village and people who live in the nearby area," said the store's manager, Greg, who declined to provide his last name because cannabis is still banned by the federal government, and he said some people associated with marijuana businesses have reported having credit cards canceled.

According to Cold Spring officials, the Office of Cannabis Management is also considering an application for a dispensary at 10 Julia Lane, adjacent to the U.S. Post Office. The village was notified in December of the application by NYC Sour Apple, doing business as Cannabis Realm of New York.

The Office of Cannabis Management also awarded a processor license in 2024 to Two Puffs and Pass LLC, a company registered at an address in Philipstown. Processors extract concentrated cannabis and its compounds and blend, infuse and manufacture them for resale.

New York legalized recreational marijuana in March 2021. Under state law, villages, towns and cities could "opt out" of allowing sales and/or on-site consumption. Cold Spring sent the issue to the ballot, and residents voted to allow retail but not on-site consumption. The Philipstown and Nelsonville boards voted to opt out of both, though they can opt in at any time with a second vote.

The Beacon City Council took no action, allowing sales and on-site consumption. Today, three dispensaries operate in the city: LotusWorks Wellness, at 261 Main St., and Hudson Valley Jane, at 544 Main St., are microbusinesses, while The Station Beacon, at 463 Main St., can sell cannabis but not cultivate it.

New York has 647 licensed dispensaries selling recreational marijuana. In April, the state announced that sales had exceeded $3.1 billion, including more than $400 million in 2026.

Sales are taxed at 13 percent — 9 percent goes to New York State, and 4 percent is shared by the county and municipalities where the store is located. (The split on the latter is 75 percent to the city, village or town and 25 percent to the county.) Beacon estimates it will receive $15,000 this year from its three dispensaries, compared to $13,600 in 2025.

Despite earning the state billions of dollars in revenues, more than two-thirds of the cannabis businesses surveyed by the Office of Cannabis Management in September 2025 were concerned or very concerned about taxes, out-of-state products infiltrating New York's market, the illegal sales of marijuana, the concentration of proximate businesses and state regulations.

Less than half of businesses overall reported being profitable, with variations among retailers (58 percent), growers (46 percent) and microbusinesses (20 percent). Revenue among retailers open at least a year averaged $2.9 million, ranging from $1.2 million to $5.5 million.

To boost profits, half the businesses surveyed said they were switching suppliers, cutting advertising and marketing...

After arson, a dispute over rebuilding

The former owner of a Beacon boardinghouse that burned down in 2023 has sued the city, accusing its Zoning Board and a former building inspector of causing him to lose money on his investment.

The lawsuit, filed April 24 in federal court, alleges that the city illegally canceled a building permit for then-owner Yeshia Berger's property at 925 Wolcott Ave.

Specifically, it says, the city "extinguished a vested, permit-backed, legal preexisting non-conforming, constitutionally protected use through an unreasonable interpretation of an ambiguous ordinance after affirmatively authorizing its continuation and reduction."

Along with the city, the suit names the Zoning Board of Appeals and former Building Inspector Bruce Flower as defendants.

The sequence of events that led to the lawsuit was unusual.

On the morning of Jan. 3, 2023, a former tenant, Brian P. Atkinson, started a fire that destroyed the 4,136-square-foot, three-story structure. Atkinson had been due in court that morning to protest eviction proceedings; instead, he walked to the Beacon Police Department and turned himself in, authorities said. He pleaded guilty later that year to third-degree arson and was sentenced to 4 to 12 years in state prison.

The boardinghouse had been a longstanding "legal non-conforming use" allowed in an area zoned for single-family homes. Before the fire, Berger had received a permit to convert the 16 single-occupancy rooms into nine larger units. But in July 2023, the Zoning Board upheld Flower's determination that Berger must rebuild after the fire in accordance with the zoning code.

Flower said he relied upon a provision requiring structures that have been more than 50 percent destroyed, such as by fire, to be rebuilt according to current standards — in this case, as a single-family home.

Even the vote by the five-member Zoning Board was complex. Its members first reversed two of Flower's determinations: that the non-conforming use had been "removed" by the fire and that a non-conforming building cannot be "structurally altered during its life" if the alterations amount to more than 25 percent of its value.

The board did agree that the structure should be rebuilt only under current regulations; Berger would have been allowed to proceed only if the Zoning Board had reversed all of Flower's determinations.

In response, Berger asked the board to consider two types of variances, but withdrew his appeal before a decision was made. According to the lawsuit, he was forced to sell the parcel for "less than half" of the $650,000 he paid in 2022. He argues that the city code is "at best, ambiguous" and should have been "interpreted in a light most favorable to the property owner."

Berger said he sold the property in February 2024 to Faust Design Build, "a luxury designing and building firm" that constructed a single-family home. Dutchess County records show that the parcel was last sold in October 2024 for $300,000.

Many Beacon residents opposed Berger's rebuilding plans, speaking out at public hearings and submitting petitions to the Zoning Board. Some said fights and other disturbances had taken place at the site for years; others suggested that Berger planned to construct a "luxury building."

In his 35-page complaint, Berger said that the proposed reduction in units would have decreased traffic "and any other impacts." The units would have continued to be single-room occupancies; all he "was trying to accomplish was to rebuild the building for affordable housing consistent with city code," he said. Instead, "it is clear that the city succumbed to generalized community opposition."

Will challenge Rep. Pat Ryan in November

A state judge ruled on Friday (May 1) that a new Republican and Conservative candidate for the U.S. House district that includes Beacon can appear on the November ballot to challenge Rep. Pat Ryan, the Democratic incumbent.

In a lawsuit filed on April 16, the Ulster County clerk, Taylor Bruck, and Amee Peterson, deputy chair of the Kingston Democratic Committee, asked Judge Bruce Hidley to invalidate nominating petitions filed by Sharanjit "Sunny" Thind, who lives with his family on Long Island.

After submitting the petitions, Thind filed to refuse the nominations, and the Republican and Conservative parties named Jackie Auringer to replace him. Because the deadline to file petitions had passed, Auringer must rely on Thind's submissions to get on the ballot.

Bruck and Peterson had earlier appealed to the state Board of Elections to reject Thind's petitions, claiming the candidate provided an inaccurate home address and had not numbered the signatures as required, making them harder to review.

On April 28, the Board of Elections ruled that the accuracy of the address provided by Thind was not within its jurisdiction to review. At the same time, it validated both nominating petitions. Candidates for District 18 had to submit at least 1,250 signatures of registered district voters for the Democratic or Republican line and 509 for the Conservative line. Thind submitted 3,005 signatures on his Republican petition and 1,140 on his Conservative petition, and a review did not invalidate enough of them to drop below the minimum.

That left only the challenge to Thind's address on the petitions, which Bruck and Peterson said was fraudulent. After hearing testimony, Hidley ruled on May 1 that Bruck and Peterson had failed to establish that the Lagrangeville address, although owned by a friend, was not a second home. The judge also noted that, regardless, House members are only required to live in the state they represent, not the district.

Nearly $3M raised by Lawler, Democrats

U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler raised $1.5 million and the five Democrats pursuing his District 17 House seat brought in a combined $1.3 million during the first three months of this year, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

The reports, which detail donations received through March 31 from individuals and political action committees (PACs), show Lawler beating his previous quarter as he seeks a third term in a district that includes Philipstown.

They also show Cait Conley, a West Point graduate from Orange County and former director of counterterrorism for the National Security Council, more than doubling the donations of Beth Davidson, a Rockland County legislator.

Individuals donated $563,000 to Lawler's campaign. In a statement, he said 9,054 contributions came from 4,314 individuals, "a testament to the deep grassroots energy driving the campaign." He also received $573,000 from other committees, including the Lawler Victory Fund. Lawler's campaign splits the fund's proceeds with his political action committee, MVL PAC, and the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Another $365,000 came from special-interest PACs, including $7,500 from No Labels, a group of moderate Democrats, Republicans and independents who criticize "the extremes on the far left and right"; $5,000 each from the Allied Pilots Association, Ernst & Young and the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America; and $2,500 each from the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, the Loan Syndications & Trading Association and the National Cotton Council of the American Committee for the Advancement of Cotton.

Lawler spent nearly $792,000. His expenses ranged from $141,000 to the Campaign Engine Group for digital consulting, $43,000 to BrabenderCox for digital ads and $117,000 for wages, including $34,000 to his campaign manager, Ciro Riccardi, and $18,333 to the deputy campaign manager, Alexander Mathis.

While Lawler does not have to spend on a primary, five Democrats will face each other on June 23 for the party line in the November general election. Two months out from the primary, Conley widened her fundraising lead, bringing in $731,000 during the first quarter compared to $361,000 for Davidson.

Conley drew $666,000 in donations from individuals and $41,000 from PACs, including $10,000 from the JUNO Fund, which supports "dynamic candidates who do things differently" rather than the "aging leaders and old ideas" of the Democratic Party; and $5,000 each from Equality PAC (which supports LGBTQ+ candidates and "allies") and the New Democratic Coalition Action Fund.

Of Conley's $423,000 in spending, $163,700 went to SB Digital for advertising and fundraising services, $21,600 to her campaign manager, Emily Goldson, and $16,700 to Berger Hirschberg Strategies for campaign consulting.

"I'm deeply grateful for the incredible support behind this campaign," said Conley in announcing her fundraising totals. "From fundraising to volunteer power, we've built an incredible movement by people who believe in the possibility of a better America and the need for new leadership."

Davidson and Effie Phillips-Staley, a Tarrytown trustee, were the only other Democrats reaching six figures in donations during the quarter. All but $3,000 of Davidson's funds, including $2,500 from the Great Lakes PAC, came from individuals.

Some of Davidson's biggest disbursements were $79,000 to Blueprint Interactive for digital consulting and the purchase of contact lists from other campaigns, $44,100 to Impact Research for polling and $21,300 to her campaign manager, Ellen McCormick.

Phillips-Staley's contributions included $5,913 from a March 22 benefit concert in Sacramento, California, headlined by the band Cake. The show also raised funds for Mai Vang, who is running for a House seat there. One of her biggest expenses was $31,000 to Bartholomew Communications & Strategies to gather nominating petition signatures, so...

Public hearing on revised plan set for May 28

A company seeking approval to build offices and a warehouse at Route 9 and East Mountain Road North is proposing signage, an electronic speed indicator and the donation of land for a right-turn lane to assuage safety concerns.

During its April 23 meeting, the Philipstown Planning Board scheduled a second public hearing for May 28 on Krasniqi Plaza LLC's scaled-down proposal for 9,500- and 5,300-square-foot buildings at 3626 Route 9 for its fencing and heating-oil businesses, and spaces for contractors.

First introduced in October 2023, Krasniqi's project no longer includes three 29,000-gallon tanks for heating oil. They were removed in February 2024 after an outcry that led Philipstown to pass a moratorium on large petroleum storage containers. (The town eventually adopted a law banning big tanks outright and limiting smaller containers to south of Routes 9 and 301.)

In May 2024, the Planning Board held a public hearing on the revised plan, which calls for a larger building with storage and warehouse space for Krasniqi's businesses, offices for contractors and an 8,800-square-foot outdoor equipment area in the rear. The smaller structure contains four units of up to 1,000 square feet that contractors could use for storage, and renters can request a 325-square-foot mezzanine in their unit for office space.

Since that hearing, Krasniqi has shifted its driveway 5 feet to the north, away from a curve south of the property and a utility pole that had sparked concerns about sightlines and the ability of northbound drivers to stop in time for vehicles exiting the property's driveway.

Adam Thyberg, a senior associate with Insite Engineering and one of the project's representatives, said the state Department of Transportation did not consider traffic heavy enough to warrant a traffic light at Route 9 and East Mountain North, but approved the driveway relocation and supports a sign warning northbound drivers of an impending driveway and an electronic sign displaying the speed of those driving above the 45-mph limit.

In addition to those measures, Krasniqi would also be willing to donate land if the town wanted to request from the state the addition of a dedicated lane for northbound drivers turning right onto East Mountain Road North, said Anthony Russo, a regional manager for SLR Engineering, Landscape Architecture and Land Surveying, the Planning Board's consultant.

A turn lane "would facilitate a movement that can be executed without having to turn from the northbound through lane on Route 9, where vehicle speeds can be high, and provide adequate space where vehicles can reduce their speed more safely to execute the near 90-degree turn" onto East Mountain, Russo wrote in a memo to Neal Zuckerman, the Planning Board chair.

Traffic data compiled by SLR Engineering in September 2024 seemingly supported residents' concerns when the firm estimated higher traffic volumes than Krasniqi Plaza and waits of up to one minute and 22 seconds during the morning peak and up to two minutes and 44 seconds during the evening peak to turn south onto Route 9 from East Mountain Road.

But the Department of Transportation later determined that SLR's counts were inflated because they were taken during the renovation of the Breakneck Tunnel, when drivers used Route 9 to avoid delays on Route 9D. One Planning Board member, Heidi Wendel, still had doubts about the accuracy of the state's crash data for Jan. 1, 2021, through Dec. 31, 2023.

Five accidents were reported at Route 9's intersection with East Mountain and Old Albany Post Road, but none involved vehicles turning left from East Mountain and none were in the area of Krasniqi's proposed driveway, according to the company.

Krasniqi agreed to provide updated crash data for the hearing.

"It doesn't seem likely that this is not a dangerous area for people turning south off of East Mountain," said Wendel. "I'm befuddled how it could be the case that this is no...