Two community banks serving Ulster and Orange counties, Wallkill Valley Federal Savings & Loan in Wallkill and Hometown Bank of the Hudson Valley headquartered in Walden announced their merger last week.

State money will fund “a traveling celebration,” a pilot project for “how boats, cargo, ideas and people influenced the region’s river, canal and ports.” These arts and culture programs will be held aboard the 1902-built SS Columbia. In order for those programs to occur on that locale, the venerable 208-foot-long steam-powered vessel has to be moored on the Hudson River, and specifically on the Rondout Creek.

The county’s vision for its economic future, Ulster Tomorrow, is in need of a major update— particularly in how the nature of work has changed, perhaps the most profound economic trend in the past decade. It completely escaped the Ulster Tomorrow net.

With a few exceptions, such as Uptown Kingston, things are quiet, but changes loom on the horizon.

If the supply of water available for New York City continues to slowly dwindle, as it has been doing in recent months, the gap between the existing levels and the normal levels of water in the reservoirs becomes more palpable — and the people in charge of them get a little more anxious.

For the first time, the Ulster County Industrial Development Agency intends to ask local agencies and organizations to compete for

The Good Work Institute seeks to provide kindred spirits an ecstatic experience that fosters the communitarian vision. Could the sparks it sets off kindle a generational fire in the Hudson Valley?