Ulster County’s next executive could come into office flying into financial headwinds, according to a memo from the county’s budget director. Challenges include: lower-than-expected sales tax revenue, a $1 million shortfall in jail boarding fees and $200,000 in unexpected costs associated with the April 30 special election for county executive.
As affordable housing issues take center stage in Kingston with a series of public hearings and heated debate over a major market-rate apartment complex being pitched for the heart of Uptown Kingston, a local activist group has published a study arguing that evictions in the city are reaching rates not seen since the housing crisis a decade ago.
Battle lines were drawn in the matter of the city’s most divisive development proposal in years when more than 200 people turned out for a public hearing Wednesday night on the proposed Kingstonian project. While members of the city’s business community came out strong in support of the proposed housing, parking and retail complex in the Stockade District, affordable housing advocates and other activists called for the city’s planning board to reject the $52 million project, claiming that it would fuel gentrification and lead to Kingston’s poorest residents being pushed out of their homes.
An East Kingston woman who reported an incident of racial harassment at a Town of Ulster Walmart has been fired from her job because of language she used in the aftermath of the alleged incident.
A shakeup at a city commission charged with maintaining Kingston’s historic character has led to two resignations from other volunteer boards, and accusations that the changes are part of a politically motivated purge to help clear the way for a major building project in Uptown Kingston.
A pioneering African-American Kingston cop and onetime police commissioner will be honored with a ceremonial street renaming and a plaque at
City lawmakers voted Tuesday to approve funding to replace a section deteriorated section of the Pike Plan canopy in Uptown Kingston. The council did not weigh in on the long-term fate of the system of covered porticos which shelters sidewalks on Wall and North Front streets.
U.S. Rep. Antonio Delgado (D-Rhinebeck) took another step towards fulfilling a campaign promise this week, and made a bid for a leadership role in the House’s restive freshman class with a new bill that would allow Americans of all ages to buy into government-backed “public option” health insurance plan, using the same Medicare providers network available to Americans over age 65.
An East Kingston woman said that she and her family were the targets of a racist remark by a fellow shopper at the Town of Ulster Walmart last week. It’s the second time in recent weeks that controversy over bigotry has erupted on the Town of Ulster’s commercial strip.
Developers of a proposed retail, residential and parking complex in Uptown Kingston are planning to present studies on traffic, stormwater and other issues at an April 10 public hearing at City Hall. It will then be up to the city’s planning board to determine if the proposed Kingstonian project needs to go through a more extensive — and potentially years-long — environmental review.