Budget hole forces Copake to trim its police department
From The Columbia Paper

COPAKE - Councilman Bob Sacks proposes suspending the town's police force for six months, to partially close the $200,000 deficit Copake faces. The article also says that, "If the town has to borrow $200,000 this year, it would cost property owners an additional 30 cents per $1,000 of assessed value to cover the shortfall. If the town has to raise $450,000 to cover shortfalls of 2009 and 2010, it would cost taxpayers an additional 60 cents/$1,000 assessed value, or $120 for a home assessed at $200,000."

Serrano won't challenge Gillibrand
From The Daily Politics

Rep. Jose Serrano won't challenge NY Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in the 2010 Democratic primary, reports Elizabeth Benjamin.

WGXC sets meetings for local journalists
From WGXC
New community radio station WGXC will host a meeting of local journalists Thu Aug. 20. One meeting will be at 10 a.m. in Hudson and one at 6 p.m. in Catskill. There are two purposes for the meetings:
1) Introduce local journalists to WGXC, and talk about ideas to work together. Erin Roberts, who is working with WGXC and used to work with KBUT in Colorado will be there. She will explain a system her community radio station used that trained print journalists to become audio reporters, and then paid them an additional fee for their audio work. This might be one model we use at WGXC. But we also want to hear your ideas, and see how you think the new community radio station might work with your newspaper, blog, or media outlet.
2) See if we can form a loose alliance of all local newspapers, radio stations, writers, blogs, etc. to co-sponsor candidate forums and debates. Again, we are looking for your ideas.
For both of these topics, we will not lecture to you, or tell you how things have to be. WGXC is interested in working with the local journalism industry, just like all other industries, so that all parties benefit. For this meeting we will listen to your ideas. Many local journalists have already contacted us and seem very interested in being involved somehow in the new community radio station. We hope this meeting can be the first step toward making that happen. WGXC will certainly be reporting news on its own, and DJs and hosts will undoubtedly be talking about your stories on the air too.

Morning meeting
Parlour coffeeshop (formerly The Muddy Cup)
724 Warren St., Hudson
10 a.m.

evening meeting
Catskill Community Center
344 Main St.
http://www.catskillcommunitycenter.org/
6 p.m.

If you plan to attend, please RSVP to news(at)wgxc(dot)org.