The Holiday in the Village parade, set for Sunday, Dec. 8 this year, will include puppets created during an after-school enrichment program with Patrick Wadden of Arm of the Sea Theater and Jodi Adams-Hill, a Saugerties school art teacher. Saugerties junior-high students created the masks, and will help bring them to life in the parade.
For the first time in its history, the Ulster County Legislature voted to condemn one of its own, New Paltz Democrat Hector Rodriguez, for sexual harassment and predatory behavior. Rodriguez’s expressionless face loomed over the room, projected onto a wall by a too-close webcam that he used to Skype into the meeting, while legislators voted 17-5 for his censure. His screen went black during the voting; Rodriguez abstained from the vote and made no comment.
Democrats appeared poised to maintain their single-vote majority in the Ulster County Legislature after a count of absentee ballots failed to upend election night results.
Former county legislator Chris Allen, who is facing a misdemeanor charge of criminal trespass, appeared in village court Monday evening and asked for a public defender in the case.
A potential conflict of interest for Saugerties Town Justice Chris Kraft in the matter of accused illegal dumpsite owner Joe Karolys caused the trial on misdemeanor charges that Karolys accepted dumping of construction and demolition debris on his three Saugerties properties outside of a court-mandated 7 a.m.-3 p.m. window to be moved to Woodstock Town Court. Now, it seems another conflict of interest may result in the trial having to be moved again.
In a 10-page ruling, Judge Richard Mott annulled the Ulster County Ethics Board’s finding that by voting twice on matters connected to the county’s contract with the CSEA — which affected his wife, a county employee — County Legislator Joe Maloney violated ethics laws.
According to the superintendent, the posting turned out not to be a cause for concern, but the district felt compelled to make a statement to ensure unfounded rumors didn’t spread.
The county’s proposed campaign finance reform law, which would allow candidates for countywide office or county legislature to tap into a $75,000 fund per year in county money for their campaigns prompted more than a dozen speakers, over half of whom were in opposition and emphatic about their positions, and about 50 onlookers at the county legislature’s public hearing on the proposed law on Tuesday, Nov. 12.
Shivering and chanting on a cold and snowy Tuesday morning, a group of about 30 protestors confronted oncoming trucks laden with construction and demolition debris depositing their loads at 1446 Route 212, the home of Saugerties resident Joe Karolys.
Three residents of 9 Lafayette St. awoke to the blare of their fire alarm and the smell of smoke on the morning Nov. 13, but were able to escape unharmed, firefighters said.