TOP LOCAL News
By NYVT MEDIA
January 11, 2025
Photos by SCOTT LANGLEY Various scenes from the “7 Dreams of Kwanzaa” play. Kids enjoying a crafts during the celebration. Kwanzaa is held on December 26 through January 1. The seven-day holiday encourages people to think about their African roots as well as their life in present-day ...
By PETER W. WAGNER, publisher, nwestiowa.com MANY OF TODAY’S metro newspapers are facing serious circulation problems they created for themselves. Owned and managed by profit conscious investment groups, most large and medium-size city papers have stripped their newsrooms of reporters and ...
By NANCY JANE KERN IT HAS BEEN A WARM FALL and it is late this year to look for ducks and geese passing through our area on their way south. If you visit Copake Lake, there may be some little ruddy ducks that cock their tails to show off. A raft of about a hundred common mergansers often ...
By JEANETTE WOLFBERG HUDSON--The Columbia County Board of Supervisors voted to proceed with replacing the historic one-lane Stuyvesant Falls Bridge with a two-lane structure, by submitting the construction plan to the NY State Department of Transportation, at its meeting December 11, where it ...
By DOUG LAROCQUE NYVT Media GREENVILLE--Big Lots, Inc., has announced an agreement to sell hundreds of its stores to Gordon Brothers Retail Partners of Boston, enabling the transfer of between 200 and 400 Big Lots locations, distributions centers and intellectual property to other retailers, ...
By PETER FLIERL AUSTERLITZ--Supervisor Robert Lagonia opened the monthly meeting of the Austerlitz Town Board December 19, noting the coming availability of balloon pictures of the proposed new Verizon cell phone tower. Board member Cara Humphrey reported on the Climate Smart Committee and ...
By DIANE VALDEN HUDSON—Hudson Police arrested Michael A. Davey, 39, of Hudson on six separate counts of first degree rape (a child less than 11 years old), a class B felony, and one count of predatory sexual assault against a child, a class A-II felony, December 19. Police received ...
By EMILIA TEASDALEVALATIE—At their December 10 meeting, the Village Board passed a motion to hire Weston & Sampson Architects as consultant for the design of a new PFAS treatment facility for the village’s water system. The village has received about $2.8 million in funds from the state for ...
By LORNA CHEROT LITTLEWAY THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5 marked the 242nd birthday of President Martin Van Buren, a Kinderhook native and lifetime resident. The Friends of Lindenwald, the estate purchased by Van Buren at the end of his one-term presidency in 1841, and the Columbia County Historical ...
By MELANIE LEKOCEVIC Capital Region Independent Media VALATIE—When Hurricane Helene struck the Southeast in late September, countless families, communities and businesses were devastated. One local company has done its part to help ease the community’s journey to recovery. Tierra Farm, an ...
By DEBORAH E. LANS HUDSON--Evictions in the county shot up post-pandemic, along with the dramatic rise in rental and homeownership costs and the consequent unaffordability of housing for many residents. The adoption of a “good cause eviction law” in Hudson and a bevy of programs designed to ...
Click here to visit the Columbia Paper Journalism Fund. The Columbia Paper Journalism Fund The fund supports local reporting on education, economic development, the arts, the environment and health care, in print and online, by The Columbia Paper. The goal of the fund is to secure ...
The annual Winter Walk parade in the Village of Valatie breezed down Main Street on December 14 under an almost full moon. Santa Claus is always the star. Photo by Emilia Teasdale Santa was also at the Copake Holiday Light Parade on December 14. Santa and Mrs. Claus arrived at the Copae ...
By NANCY JANE KERN SOME YEARS AGO I received a shiny new KitchenAid stand mixer for Christmas, arriving in plenty of time to make Christmas cookies (I think this gift came with an ulterior motive). Allrecipes.com is a great site for recipes and cooking tips so it was the first place searched.
By DIANE VALDEN HUDSON—Hudson Police still await DNA testing results on the human skeletal remains found in the city the morning of December 9, Hudson Police Chief Mishanda Franklin told The Columbia Paper by phone December 18. The remains are those of an adult, but the person’s age or how ...
PHILMONT—Drop by and learn about smart meters, digital devices that measure electricity or gas usage and send the information to the energy supplier automatically, at an Open House at 113 Main Street, the storefront at the corner of Summit Street, Friday, December 27, 2 to 5 p.m. A ...
By DEBORAH E. LANS KINDERHOOK--The Samascott family began farming in Columbia County four generations and more than 100 years ago. Through a transaction that closed in November, the family committed 532 acres of prime farm land to conservation easements that ensure the land can remain in ...
By JEANETTE WOLFBERG HUDSON--The Columbia County Board of Supervisors adopted the county's budget for 2025 at its full board meeting December 11. The budget appropriates $179.9 million and calls for a 2.9% tax levy increase to cover 25.8% of the appropriation. 2025's budget is 4.4% ($7.5 ...
By NANCY JANE KERN “TWAS THE NIGHT before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring not even a mouse.” Anyone who has lived in the country knows this would be a miracle. Years ago I went to Albany for a car repair. On arrival at the service center, a frazzled young ...
By DIANE VALDEN HUDSON—The morning of December 9 at 11:18 a.m. the Hudson Police Department (HPD) received a call transferred from the New York State Police reporting that a survey crew on Mill Street in the City of Hudson discovered human skeletal remains. HPD patrol and detective units ...
By EMILIA TEASDALE VALATIE—The Kinderhook Town Board heard presentations about the local rescue squad, well water testing for residents, the upcoming public meeting on the Comprehensive Plan update and a cyber security program at their last regular meeting in 2024. At the December 2 meeting, ...
Tenth in a series about the justice system By DEBORAH E. LANS HUDSON--Every year, more than 185,000 individuals are released from incarceration in New York. Indeed, it is axiomatic that virtually every one (statistically 99%) of those incarcerated today will be released one day. What happens ...
By DIANE VALDEN COPAKE—The key to unlocking a possible connecting pathway or a “spur” from the Harlem Valley Rail Trail to the Copake hamlet seems to hinge on a future State Department of Transportation (DOT) bridge repair or replacement project. At the Town Board’s November 14 meeting, ...
NORTH CHATHAM–Longtime resident and former president of North Chatham Historical Society (NCHS) George Vollmuth donated the Trolley Station to the North Chatham Free Library (NCFL) in September. For 75 years, the old Trolley Station on County Route 32 housed the North Chatham Firehouse until ...
By NANCY JANE KERN THE NUMBER of hours of sunlight per day is noticeably decreasing in our Earth's northern hemisphere. If the weather outdoors remains tolerable, I like to be out to see what is happening and get some of those remaining rays. In summer it is nice to be out in the morning and ...
By DOUG LA ROCQUE Capital Region Independent Media NEW LEBANON–Following a public hearing at which there was no comment, the New Lebanon Town Board gave its unanimous approval to the town’s 2025 budget during their November meeting. The spending plan reduces expenditures by 2.85%, which in ...