Highlands Current Audio Stories

Aspiring Eagle Scout spruces up namesake

Daniel O'Sullivan, an aspiring Eagle Scout, is sprucing up a decaying granite eagle.

The monument, which sits on a hillside near the entrance to the Haldane campus, was erected in 1899 by Daniel and Julia Butterfield when the property was their estate, known as Cragside. Daniel Butterfield, a Civil War general credited with writing "Taps," commissioned the statue to memorialize Gen. George Washington and his 3rd Regiment, which was posted during the Revolutionary War at Constitution Island.

Over the decades, the eagle had become grimy, with moss, mildew and dirt filling every crevice. Parts of the beak and the feathers have broken off.

O'Sullivan, a senior at Haldane High School who is a member of Troop 437, based at the Garrison Fish and Game Club, said the idea for the project came from Principal Julia Sniffen. "There have been people in town who wanted to get the eagle restored for quite some time," he said. An Eagle Scout project restoring an eagle sounded "perfect," and he liked the project better than his initial idea to build a Little Free Library box.

O'Sullivan's plan is to clean the eagle, build a flower bed around the base and install an informational sign. He considered trying to restore the eagle's broken beak and wings but decided the monument was too fragile. "I don't want to mess it up," he said.

To pay for materials, O'Sullivan recruited his mother, Tara, to organize a GoFundMe campaign, which quickly raised $700.

On Oct. 11, O'Sullivan led a team of volunteers bearing scrub brushes that included other Scouts, his younger siblings James and Margaret, his parents and his grandparents. They used a cleaner called D/2 Biological Solution that's typically used to clean headstones. O'Sullivan said he expected to finish the project by this week.

After his bird work, O'Sullivan will have two merit badges remaining - cooking and communication. Scoutmaster Gary Gunther said Troop 437 has had several Eagle Scouts in recent years, including twins Louis and Patrick Ferreira, who graduated from Haldane in 2024. Louis built standing desks for the high school, while Patrick constructed a gaga ball pit at Tots Park in Cold Spring. O'Sullivan's classmate, Daniel Campanile, who has received his Eagle Scout rank, made improvements at Village Green Park in Nelsonville.

O'Sullivan hasn't settled on what he wants to do after graduation next year. He enjoys fixing cars and is studying auto mechanics through Putnam-Northern Westchester BOCES. As the drummer for a rock-punk band called Michigan, he is also interested in music production.

TOWN BOARD

The five-member Town Board, which includes the supervisor, will have three seats on the ballot on Nov. 4.

John Van Tassel is running unopposed for his third term as supervisor on the Democratic and independent Philipstown Focus lines.

The other two seats are held by Jason Angell and Megan Cotter, both Democrats, who were elected in 2021 but did not seek second terms. They will be succeeded by Nat Prentice and Ned Rauch, who won a four-way Democratic primary in June. Prentice will appear on the Democratic line, and Rauch on the Democratic and Philipstown Focus lines.

The Philipstown Democratic Committee endorsed Rauch and Ben Cheah before the primary and subsequently endorsed Prentice. Cheah would have appeared on the Philipstown Focus line on the November ballot but withdrew. To read responses to questions posed by The Current to Prentice and Rauch before the primary, see highlandscurrent.org/town-board-2025.

Because of a new state law that pushes most town and village elections to even-numbered years, Prentice and Rauch will serve three years, rather than four, with their seats on the ballot in 2028. At the same time, the supervisor position, usually a two-year term, will be on the ballot again next year. New York's highest court on Oct. 16 unanimously turned away a challenge to the law, which is designed to put town and village elections on the same ballot as national ones.

TOWN JUSTICE

The ballot will also include a town justice seat with one candidate, Fred Clarke, whom the Philipstown Democratic Committee nominated. A lawyer in private practice, he has lived in Cold Spring for 25 years and previously worked with the Putnam County Legal Aid Society and in marketing and communications.

The seat is open because of the resignation in June of Camille Linson, who was elected to a third, 4-year term last year but moved out of the area. Luke Hilpert was appointed to succeed her until the election and has announced a write-in campaign to keep the position. The other town justice is Angela Thompson-Tinsley, a Democrat elected in 2023.

COLD SPRING BOARD

Mayor Kathleen Foley is running unopposed for her third, 2-year term. There are also two open trustee seats on the Village Board, which will be filled by John "Tony" Bardes and Anthony Hall, who are running unopposed. They will succeed Eliza Starbuck, who resigned earlier this year, and Aaron Freimark, who did not run for a second term. Hall was appointed in July to complete Starbuck's term.

COLD SPRING JUSTICE

The judge's seat at the Cold Spring Justice Court is up for grabs - the ballot will not list any candidates, meaning the position will be awarded based on write-in votes.

Justice Thomas Costello, who has served for 24 years, decided not to seek re-election to a seventh, 4-year term. However, he did so after an April deadline for candidates to file paperwork with the Putnam County Board of Elections to appear on the ballot. There are other ways for candidates to get on the ballot after the April deadline, such as an independent nominating petition or a being nominated following a party caucus, but no candidate took those routes.

Under state law, only village residents are eligible to serve, unless the Village Board adopts a local law that expands the residency requirements.

The Cold Spring Justice Court has two judges. The second, the associate judge, is appointed by the Village Board. Until June, Linson held the position, but she was replaced by Hilpert, who is campaigning as a write-in candidate for Costello's seat. This week, he received the endorsement of the Cold Spring mayor, Kathleen Foley.

PUTNAM LEGISLATURE

The Putnam County Legislature has nine members, including Nancy Montgomery, its sole Democrat, who represents Philipstown and part of Putnam Valley. She was elected in 2024 to her third, 3-year term; her seat will be on the ballot again in 2027. Each member is limited by county law to four terms.

Three seats will be on this year's ballot for voters els...

Beacon store merges brothers' interests

Jonathan Garcia's plan for retirement was to pursue coffee roasting and open a cafe. His older brother Joseph wanted to open a gaming store where people could hang out, play roleplaying games (RPGs) like Dungeons & Dragons or card games like Magic: The Gathering, and make some friends.

One day in 2019, as the brothers sat in a business class together at Dutchess Community College, they had a revelation: Why not combine the two ideas?

Another revelation quickly followed. "Why wait until we're old?" said Jonathan.

Last month, they opened Mana Potion Tabletop in Beacon. Alongside Warhammer figures and Pokémon decks, customers will find bags of freshly roasted beans and blended teas from the brothers' fantasy-themed Mana Potion Coffee line. The decaf, for example, is called Slumbering Dragon; the jasmine green tea is known as The Teamancer.

Joseph is a former film teacher drawn to role-playing games because they remind him of making movies, with a mix of storytelling and improv, he says.

Jonathan, who is working on his master's degree in business at SUNY New Paltz, has been warned by professors that most businesses fail in their first year because they can't attract enough customers. If his professors had been to the store's opening, they might have given him an A. "That door never stopped swinging," Jonathan says.

The foot traffic hasn't slowed much. Even on a late Wednesday afternoon, customers filled a table while playing a battle royale variation of Magic: The Gathering called Commander. Hardcore gamers regularly bump elbows with newbies. Some customers say they haven't played since they were children but want a refresher. The coffee roaster in Connecticut who taught the brothers the trade was inspired to help them because he played Dungeons & Dragons as a kid.

"We're meeting people who you wouldn't think would be into these games," says Jonathan. "They're an accountant, or they work for Verizon, but they're also into Warhammer." That's not surprising: RPGs have become a huge industry. Last year, the hosts of a D&D podcast, Dimension 20, sold out Madison Square Garden.

Add in the shortage of places in Beacon for teenagers to gather, and it's no wonder Mana Potion has been busy. "Not everyone can go to the bar or out for a $30 hamburger every night," says Jonathan. "You can come here, grab a table and start playing."

There have been a few miscalculations. The store stocks Settlers of Catan sets, but the game is so popular that it seems like everyone already owns it. Although gaming events throughout the week - including D&D for children on Saturdays and Warhammer tournaments - draw customers, Catan events have been a bust. "People didn't want to sit down with a bunch of random people and play a five-hour board game," says Jonathan.

Because the store has been so busy, Jonathan hasn't had enough time to play many games himself. That part of the business has fallen to Joseph, who said he usually runs a different game every night.

When Joseph started a Cyberpunk Red campaign, two players accidentally chose the same name for their characters. They decided their characters were identical twins, and they've since created a comic book together about them. "They took what I made for the game and created something new with it," Joseph says.

While Warhammer miniatures and Magic cards are bestsellers, the brothers' extensive knowledge of gaming has led them to stock deep cuts as well. Shadowdark, for example, is an indie variation of classic D&D released in 2024 that's become a cult hit. The game's rulebook is displayed prominently.

"People see that and say, 'Oh, you guys get it,' " says Joseph. "They can see right away that we understand this hobby."

Mana Potion Tabletop, at 192 Main St. in Beacon, is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday to Friday and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. For more information, see manapotioncoffee.com.

In Dutchess comptroller race, incumbent faces challenge from legislative chair

When Dan Aymar-Blair, the Dutchess County comptroller, first told his mother he was running for the position, she responded: "I'm so proud of you, honey. What is that?"

The anecdote got a laugh from a dozen residents gathered at a Hyde Park library town hall last month, but it also captures the central challenge for Aymar-Blair, a Beacon resident and former City Council member, in winning re-election to a full term as comptroller: persuading voters to care about an office so little-understood that even his mother needed an explanation.

His Republican opponent, Will Truitt, the 30-year-old chair of the Dutchess County Legislature, faces a different challenge. To win the race, he must mobilize a GOP political machine that has enabled Republicans to control Dutchess - the Legislature, the county executive's seat, the sheriff's office - for nearly all of the past three decades.

The vote should be close. Although there are about 20,000 more registered Democrats in the county than Republicans (75,000 to 56,000), another 12,000 voters are enrolled in smaller parties and 60,000 have no declared party affiliation.

Control of the office has repeatedly flipped between parties. But Republicans have historically been more effective at turning out voters in off-year elections like this one. In recent presidential years, Democratic turnout in the county is around 70 percent; in recent off-year local elections, that drops to below 45 percent, according to data from the county Board of Elections.

"It's a truly purple county," said Michael Dupree, who chairs the Dutchess County Democratic Committee.

Aymar-Blair won in November by fewer than 1,000 votes in a special election held during a presidential election year, a contest that occurred because Democrat Robin Lois resigned to become deputy comptroller of local government and school accountability in Albany. Gregg Pulver, a Republican who had chaired the Legislature but lost his seat, was appointed to the role. The narrow margin meant the outcome hinged on absentee ballots.

When it comes to the question Aymar-Blair's mother asked, however, the two candidates have very different answers.

"This office is an essential part of checks and balances," Aymar-Blair told the group in Hyde Park, part of a series of non-campaign events he has held in libraries to explain what his office does. The comptroller, he told the group, serves as an independent watchdog responsible for scrutinizing budgets, contracts and capital projects.

Truitt, who was elected to the Legislature when he was 20, frames the job differently. To him, the comptroller is akin to a chief financial officer, someone who works in step with the county executive and Legislature, keeping the government "one united team."

"Anyone here who's ever worked in small business knows if you have a CFO [chief financial officer] - a comptroller - who's working to undermine the rest of the team, you are going to fail," he told supporters at a fundraiser at a donor's home in Fishkill last month.

A self-described "Energizer Bunny," Truitt bounded through the crowd of 170 supporters and more than two dozen Republican elected officials, giving hugs, shaking hands and pausing for quick huddles with campaign aides. The event, advertised as offering "$250 hot dogs, $500 burgers and $1,000 steaks," delivered on its promise of red meat on the grill and in speeches.

Speakers at the fundraiser railed against the brainwashing of the young in academic institutions and warned of growing Christian religious persecution across the country. The crowd paused for a moment of silence for right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, assassinated days earlier, and Truitt vowed to uphold the political firebrand's legacy. Dutchess GOP Vice Chair Doug McCool whipped up the crowd: "Truitt!" he called. "Will do it!" the crowd bellowed back.

Truitt hopes these officials, donors and rank-and-file Republicans wi...

Rallies organized in Beacon, Cold Spring

Large crowds of protesters marched and rallied in cities across the U.S. Saturday for "No Kings" demonstrations decrying what participants see as the government's swift drift into authoritarianism under President Donald Trump.

People carrying signs with slogans such as "Nothing is more patriotic than protesting" or "Resist Fascism" packed into New York City's Times Square and rallied in Beacon and Cold Spring, as well as in parks in Boston, Atlanta and Chicago. Demonstrators marched through Washington, D.C., and downtown Los Angeles and picketed outside capitols in several Republican-led states, a courthouse in Billings, Montana, and at hundreds of smaller public spaces.

Trump's Republican Party disparaged the demonstrations as "Hate America" rallies, but in many places, the events looked more like a street party. There were marching bands, huge banners with the Constitution's "We the People" preamble that people could sign, and demonstrators wearing inflatable costumes, particularly frogs, which have emerged as a sign of resistance in Portland, Oregon.

It was the third mass mobilization since Trump's return to the White House and came against the backdrop of a government shutdown that not only has closed federal programs and services but is testing the core balance of power, as an aggressive executive confronts Congress and the courts in ways that protest organizers warn are a slide toward authoritarianism.

Trump spent the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida. "They say they're referring to me as a king. I'm not a king," the president said in a Fox News interview that aired early Friday, before he departed for a $1 million-per-plate MAGA Inc. fundraiser at his club.

A Trump campaign social media account mocked the protests by posting a computer-generated video of the president clothed like a monarch, wearing a crown and waving from a balcony.

In San Francisco hundreds of people spelled out "No King!" and other phrases with their bodies on Ocean Beach. In Portland, tens of thousands of people gathered in Portland for a peaceful demonstration downtown. Later in the day, tensions grew as a few hundred protesters and counterprotesters showed up at a U.S. Immigration and Customs enforcement building, with federal agents at times firing tear gas to disperse the crowd and city police threatening to make arrests if demonstrators blocked streets.

The building has been the site of mostly small nightly protests since June - the reason the Trump administration has cited for trying to deploy National Guard troops in Portland, which a federal judge has at least temporarily blocked.

About 3,500 people gathered in Salt Lake City outside the Utah State Capitol to share messages of hope and healing after a protester was fatally shot during the city's first "No Kings" march in June.

And more than 1,500 people gathered in Birmingham, Alabama, evoking the city's history of protests and the critical role it played in the Civil Rights Movement two generations ago.

"Big rallies like this give confidence to people who have been sitting on the sidelines but are ready to speak up," said Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut.

More than 2,600 rallies were planned Saturday, organizers said. The national march against Trump and Musk this spring had 1,300 registered locations, while the first No Kings day in June registered 2,100.

Republicans sought to portray protesters as far outside the mainstream and a prime reason for the government shutdown, now in its 18th day. From the White House to Capitol Hill, GOP leaders called them "communists" and "Marxists." They said Democratic leaders, including New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, are beholden to the far-left flank and willing to keep the government shut to appease those liberal forces.

"I encourage you to watch - we call it the Hate America rally - that will happen Saturday," said House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana. "Let's see...

Quality of life, public safety at stake

Before firefighters in Cicero in Onondaga County could battle the blaze that engulfed a residence in August, they first had to overcome a "buildup of everything," according to Chief Jim Perrin.

Boxes, papers and "old stuff, new stuff" prevented their attempt to enter through the front door, and they confronted more clutter while fighting their way through the garage, he told The Post-Standard in Syracuse.

"There was only a narrow path," said Perrin, whose firefighters found the deceased resident between the kitchen and living room. "Everything else was piled from floor to ceiling."

That is the kind of tragedy Dutchess County officials are hoping to prevent with an initiative to help people overcome hoarding problems. Officials with the county's Health and Social Services departments recognized that "there are quite a few people hoarding" in Dutchess and proposed doing something to support them, said Jean-Marie Niebuhr, the county's mental health commissioner.

Working with a consultant, a task force that included those two departments and the Office for Aging designed a program that begins with an in-home assessment. Hoarders who want help are paired with an "interventionist" from the Department of Mental Health who seeks to ease their discomfort, or even distress, about discarding stuff. They also help people set interim goals, such as clearing a path to a particular part of the residence.

Convincing someone to accept help can be difficult, especially because hoarders can be driven by shame to isolation, but Dutchess has had some successes, said Niebuhr.

"It's even prevented homelessness, because sometimes these situations get so bad that an individual could be evicted from their place of residence or the fire inspector might say this place is uninhabitable," she said.

Someone driven to that extreme is considered to have a disorder that is listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, "the Bible of diagnoses in the world of mental illnesses," said Niebuhr. The problem affects about 2.6 percent of the population, but the rates are higher for people over age 60 and those with mental-health diagnoses such as depression, according to the American Psychiatric Association.

Hoarders are not just rabid collectors or poor housekeepers, but people so unable to discard stuff that their living space, and sometimes their porches and lawns, fill up.

"It gets to the point where a person's home is so full of stuff that you might not be able to cook on the stove, sleep on the bed or sit on the couch because there's stuff everywhere," Niebuhr said.

What people hoard can vary, ranging from newspapers to furniture, cars and animals, and the repercussions extend to family and neighbors living next to junk-filled properties. Firefighters in Beacon have encountered hoarding and are trained in how to adjust to the problems it presents, said Chief Tom Lucchesi.

Those problems go beyond restricting access during emergencies, he said. Hoarding "increases the fire load, causing fires to burn hotter and spread more rapidly," said Lucchesi. "In addition, pathways are often blocked, which can complicate both rescue and evacuation efforts, while also increasing the risk of injury or entrapment for responders."

Earlier this month, more than 200 animals were found at the home of a wildlife rehabilitator on Long Island, where authorities discovered a 95-year-old woman who they say was essentially trapped in her room due to clutter.

Cats, dogs, parrots, roosters, hedgehogs, chinchillas, guinea pigs, voles and flying squirrels were among the 206 animals found Oct. 1 at the home in Suffolk County. The residence was infested with insects and cluttered with debris, garbage and household waste, making certain areas impassable, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said.

Dutchess has organized training sessions for staff at community organizations who may encounter people with the problem. Alon...

Actor performs 10 characters in play

Duane Boutte says his solo show, Dracula: The Journal of Jonathan Harker, is the most physically challenging role he has tackled. He sought help from a chiropractor and burrows so deep into the script that, during performances on Bannerman Island, he remained impervious to howling winds and plummeting temperatures. "I don't notice it at all," he says.

Boutte's outdoor run, where the house behind the stage doubled as a convincing castle, ended earlier this month, but he will reprise the drama at St. Rita's Music Room from Oct. 24 to 26.

Jim Helsinger's adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel premiered in 1995. It requires Boutte to portray 10 characters, including three women, and develop distinctive vocal timbres for each. It helps that he's a voice and text coach for The Acting Company's national tours of Great Expectations and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Beginning in 2018, the Bannerman Castle Trust produced a version of the story by Crane Johnson designed for a small cast. Then it imported a troupe from Kingston to perform the 1927 script that wowed Broadway and informed the 1931 film with Bela Lugosi.

This year, Kelly Ellenwood and Neil Caplan at the trust decided to produce Helsinger's take and reached out to Sean McNall at Hudson Valley Shakespeare to find a director and actor.

In 2023, Boutte had appeared in HVS's productions of Henry V and Love's Labor's Lost. Hired by the trust to direct, he lobbied to act instead and recruited Christian Conn, an actor living in Fishkill, to replace him offstage.

Based on the template created by the 1927 play and subsequent movie, many tales in the vast canon of vampire stories omit Stoker's first act, when Harker, an English lawyer seeking to finalize the contract on a country estate south of London, travels to Transylvania to meet the mysterious buyer.

Like Stoker's 1897 novel, the exploits unfurl through letters, diary entries and a newspaper clipping. The first act, which features Harker and Dracula (along with a Romanian woman and three vampirettes), discloses a chunk of backstory. Other characters like Dr. Von Helsing, who reveals a font of facts about the count, appear after Harker returns to England.

The stark stage setting on Bannerman Island included a desk, a side table, two trunks, three chairs and a chaise lounge. Dry ice effects simulated smoke wafting from Dracula's coffin.

Through body language, facial expressions, eye movement and vocal inflections, Boutte conveys the terror of hanging from a 1,000-foot precipice and the cat-and-mouse chase pursuing Dracula through the streets of London, evoking visceral and emotional reactions like the old radio dramas.

His portrayal of Renfield, a psychiatric patient who eats insects, included bulging eyes, nervous tics and manic expressions. Boutte also elicited a few laughs with Quincy Morris's Texas accent and the deadpan salutation, "Your Friend, Dracula."

At the island's closing show, Boutte received a standing ovation and the crowd buzzed over how he remembered so many words.

"I played the Archbishop of Canterbury in Henry V, who reeled off long lists of names, which I had a hard time with because it's not tied to anything that is going on," he says. "But [in Dracula], the action is so clear that even though there are a lot of lines, the story stimulates the memory."

St. Rita's Music Room is located at 85 Eliza St. in Beacon. Tickets are $35 at dub.sh/dracula-st-ritas, or $40 at the door.

Beacon orders removal from two locations

The City of Beacon and an anti-hunger organization headquartered in Fishkill are at odds after the city removed the nonprofit agency's two community refrigerators.

Fareground, which was founded in Beacon in 2012, collaborated with Binnacle Books and Beacon 4 Black Lives in 2020 to place a refrigerator at 321 Main St. Stocked four times weekly, the self-serve fridge was accessible 24/7 with the understanding that users "take what you need and leave what you can."

A second refrigerator, managed by Mutual Aid Beacon but routinely stocked by Fareground volunteers, was placed at the city's Recreation Center, at 23 West Center St., a year later. Food for the fridges was donated by the Regional Food Bank Hudson Valley, Beacon Natural Market, the Wappingers Falls Hannaford grocery, local farms and other sources.

Fareground also hosts 15 Tiny Food Pantries with dry goods in Beacon, Wappingers, Newburgh and other municipalities. Free marketplaces are held throughout the region, including at 9:30 a.m. on the last Friday of the month at Memorial Park in Beacon (except for November and December). A weekly Friday dinner program was launched at the First Presbyterian Church (50 Liberty St.) in January.

The community fridge program landed on the city's radar in June, when building maintenance forced Fareground to move the Main Street fridge. The organization asked to move the unit to Polhill Park but City Administrator Chris White and Nick Ward-Willis, the city attorney, said an unmonitored food source on municipal property could lead to liability issues.

Fareground temporarily moved the fridge to private property at 23 Cliff St. There, White said this week, neighbors complained, which led Building Inspector Bryan Murphy to investigate.

Murphy found that the fridge violated two city laws - one prohibiting the storage of numerous items, including appliances, auto body parts, animal shelters, trampolines and swing sets, in the front or side yard of a lot or on an open front porch; and another meant to protect children from abandoned refrigerators or other appliances with tight-fitting doors.

After Murphy's review, White asked Fareground to remove the Recreation Center fridge by the end of October, but when the administrator visited the site on Sept. 24, he said during Monday's (Oct. 6) City Council meeting, he found "squalid conditions" and had the appliance removed immediately.

White showed council members photos of dirt and mold, rotten and expired food, including a tray of pasta with an Aug. 1 date written on the lid. He also shared pictures Recreation Department staff said had been taken over the last 18 months of a tattoo machine with ink and needles, bags of prescription medication, a bedside urinal and an open box of female condoms that had been left at the site.

"You're allowing anybody, at any time, to put anything in this fridge," White said. "There wasn't a bit of food in there that was suitable for human consumption."

He said the city is willing to discuss partnering with Fareground on an alternative food distribution model that is "cognizant and respects food safety," but unregulated community refrigerators are too risky.

Several community members criticized White on Monday for taking what they said was unnecessarily aggressive action. "I don't care why it was removed," said KK Naimool. "I care about how it was removed, and we need something to fill that gap."

Kara Dean-Assael, a co-founder of Fareground, emailed White, Mayor Lee Kyriacou and council members Monday night to dispute the city administrator's report. She argued that White had removed the refrigerator without warning and "weaponized" photos that city staff had hoarded of unclean conditions.

She asked the council to reconsider the city code, which "is really about people leaving things that look 'junky' on front and side yards. This is not what community fridges are. They are community anti-hunger resources that are regularl...

Council also approves police contract

Beacon Mayor Lee Kyriacou on Monday (Oct. 6) introduced a $37.5 million budget proposal for 2026 while the City Council approved a three-year contract with police officers and a request to have the city assume ownership of the University Settlement property.

The budget includes $27.8 million in general fund spending, a 5.9 percent increase, which covers the day-to-day operations of Beacon's government. Expenditures for the sewer fund ($5.4 million) and the water fund ($4.3 million) are virtually flat.

The tax rate on residential properties would decrease by 3.7 percent, to $5.49 per $1,000 of assessed value - the lowest rate in 16 years. The proposal increases the commercial tax rate by 2.7 percent, to $8.71 per $1,000 of assessed value. Despite the increase, the commercial rate would still be significantly lower than 10 years ago, when it was $13.23.

As in recent years, Beacon assessments have increased (to $1.8 billion for residential properties and $446 million for commercial), so individual property owners' bills could go up. For a $532,500 house, the city estimates that its tax bill will increase by about $74, or 2.6 percent. A $500,000 commercial property is expected to see a $151, or 2.7 percent, jump.

The budget proposes to increase the property tax levy by $633,187, which is $100,716 below the cap allowed by New York State. Tax increases were mitigated by the addition to the tax rolls of $225 million in new construction or improvements since 2021, including $47 million last year, Kyriacou said.

City Administrator Chris White noted that new development helped the city pay for improvements this year at South Avenue Park and the municipal skateboard park. More work is planned next year at Memorial Park. "I know that people don't like all the development," he said, "but we're trying to tie a lot of this growth to reinvestment in the community."

The city anticipates the largest spending increases in 2026 to be health and dental insurance ($484,000), police salaries ($176,000), firefighter salaries ($156,000), retirement contributions ($278,000) and property and casualty insurance ($47,000).

Revenue from sales taxes is projected to increase from $6.1 million to $6.5 million - the result of a tax-sharing agreement Kyriacou negotiated with Dutchess County in 2022. The budget also anticipates $200,000 in hotel taxes, including $140,000 when the Mirbeau Inn & Spa opens next year.

For the first time, Beacon's proposed budget includes the appointment of a deputy city administrator. Ben Swanson, who has been Kyriacou's assistant since 2021, will transition into the deputy role.

Council members and Beacon residents have asked the city to hire a director of housing solutions, a position created in recent years in Kingston and Hudson. That conversation will continue during the council's Oct. 14 workshop, but White said that Swanson, who has a degree from the New York University School of Law, could take on some of those duties.

Police contract

The council unanimously approved a three-year agreement, running from Jan. 1, 2026, through 2028, with the union that represents Beacon police officers.

The contract gives officers 4.5 percent salary increases each year of the agreement. An additional premium encourages officers to work toward higher-ranking promotions, while a stipend rewards those who serve in field training roles.

In September 2024 Beacon police received a 5 percent raise, a move made to bring the department's salaries more in line with neighboring jurisdictions. The new contract addresses inflation and "puts us back in a competitive position to retain the staff that we have, to try to attract new transfers and other recruits, to fill the three open positions that we currently have," White said.

Fishkill Avenue

Temporary crosswalk striping was applied on Fishkill Avenue at its intersections with Wilkes Street and Blackburn Avenue on Tuesday (Oct. 7).

Several residents asked the counci...

Beacon brothers cut their first album

The wait is over. Zohar Cabo graduated from high school in June, and now he and his older brother, Adam, are embarking on a music career, with help from influential friends.

Under the no-nonsense moniker Zohar & Adam, they recorded their first album, Osmosis, at The Loft Recording Studios in Bronxville, owned by Philipstown resident Al Hemberger, who has worked with Rihanna, Britney Spears and Kelly Clarkson.

"He gave us the keys to the place and a room to figure it out," says Adam, 21. "We learned how to engineer, produce and mix. Two-and-a-half years later, it's ready."

Another advisor is bass player Christian McBride, who appears on the album and met the brothers at his Jazz House Kids educational ensembles in Montclair, New Jersey, and Trinity Church in Manhattan.

As they hang around Beacon and take on a long-term view, the duo's management team (which discovered Rihanna) and record label (Mack Avenue Music Group) are strategizing the act's trajectory.

Osmosis is scheduled for release in March, and a tour is likely to follow. For now, they're hosting an improvised Everything Jam at Beacon's Savage Wonder twice a month, beginning Sunday (Oct. 19).

The disc's title is apt because the brothers have played together since grade school. Marketing copy describes their interplay as "telepathic synchronicity." Improvisation and free-form exploration fuel their genre-busting, unbound sound, which is rooted in jazz but meanders. On keyboards, Zohar, 18, drives the bus as Adam lays down the percolating percussion.

"A lot of people are skeptical that we can be sonically interesting with two instruments, but so far, so good," says Adam. "If anything, we call it 'post-jazz.' "

Zohar plays bass parts with his left hand and coaxes ethereal sounds from his electronic keyboard. Sometimes he twiddles the dials more than he presses the keys. There is some singing on the new album, but their bread and butter consists of experimental instrumental compositions that stretch boundaries while remaining accessible.

One signature approach is to accentuate the ebb and flow between spacey interludes and parts with a solid groove where Adam hits hard. Segues are seamless as they shift the dynamics and tempos - often several times per tune.

"The fat part means so much more when we do that tension and release," says Adam. In the video of "Drones in the Sky/Dying Hands," an audition tape for National Public Radio's Tiny Desk series filmed at the Howland Cultural Center in Beacon, "we keep pulling back and letting go; it's not completely settled, yet it keeps people listening because they have no idea what's going to happen next."

After being offered a scholarship to study acting at SUNY Purchase, Adam decided to take the drumming tack, which follows the family pattern: Father Richard led a Latin jazz band, mother Dassi Rosenkrantz plays bass (and will perform Oct. 11 at Beacon Flow) and sister Noga, 23, is a singer-songwriter.

Growing up, the siblings played covers and originals all over town and recorded with Hemberger. While waiting for their future, Zohar & Adam can pop up on the streets of Beacon anytime and anywhere, including a recent impromptu jam behind the Mobil gas station on Main Street.

The Everything Jam traces to last summer, when the brothers winged it for hours busking in the former open space at the corner of Main and Cross streets.

"Everyone from babies to elderly people would turn their heads," says Adam. "Not to be too ambitious, but we're trying to foster a newfound appreciation for instrumental music."

They hosted the free-form jam at Lyonshare and, one night, 85 people showed up. "Despite all the crazy changes in our songs, part of our approach is to provide an entry point to make improvisational instrumental music that anyone can enjoy and create a sound that is universally understood," he says.

Savage Wonder is located at 139 Main St. in Beacon. For more on Zohar & Adam, including digital d...