DOWNLOAD or PLAY the audio version of the local news headlines for Wed., Feb. 15 (9:25). (Produced by Philip Grant.)

Daniel Zuckerman is reporting in The Daily Mail a resolution to authorize funding for the construction of a new Greene County Jail will not be presented to the county Legislature during its meeting Wed., Feb. 15. The decision to table the item was announced by county officials Mon., Feb. 13. Following a meeting with members of the New York State Commission of Correction last week, lawmakers decided to explore alternative options for the project, Legislator William Lawrence said. "We should take a look at those options. We are still undecided about the exact size," he said. New design options could possibly include plans for a 92-bed, and a 100-bed jail, Lawrence said. "We don’t want to be building an addition or boarding out in five years," he said. The project will be delayed for at least two months, the Cairo Republican said. The discussion about the scope of the project will continue at a meeting of the Public Safety Committee on March 1. "We know that we can’t use the current site [in Catskill] and we can’t board all the inmates out. We can’t build on the same site," Lawrence said. Greene County Administrator Shaun Groden denied the rumored $90 million price tag for the project. He told the paper the new jail would cost "a shade over" $70 million, which includes the cost of building a parking lot on the site. The $70 million would be raised from a $52 million bond and funds from the county budget, Groden said. Read the full story in The Daily Mail.

Rosa Acheson is reporting in the Register-Star Friends of the First Presbyterian Church last week announced the launch of a new campaign to raise funds to stabilize and restore the 181-year-old historic landmark, located on Warren Street in Hudson. The estimated cost to stabilize the structure is between $50,000 and $100,000. To completely restore the structural integrity of the roof will require substantially more. The congregation vacated the building in November, after engineers warned the church roofing framework had significantly deteriorated. The report, prepared by engineers Ryan Briggs and Clark Davis, indicated the church roof rafters and beams had become detached from exterior load-bearing walls, and other beams were no longer solid. The report confirmed the structure would not support the weight of repairs. "Right now, we are solely focused on stabilizing the structure; restoration is a whole other project," said the Rev. Kathryn Beilke. "We realize we have a duty to the city of Hudson to ensure that this historic treasure doesn’t deteriorate, but we can't do it alone." In the interim, church-related services and meetings will continue at Solaris, located across the street from First Presbyterian, in the 300 block of Warren, Beilke said. Read the full story in the Register-Star.

Rick Karlin is reporting in the Times Union legislation has been introduced to raise the state's minimum marriage age to 17. Children in New York state can be married as young as 14. The majority of children married at that young age are girls. If they were not married, the spouses of these child brides would be in violation of statutory rape laws, said Westchester Democratic Assembly member Amy Paulin, who is sponsoring the bill along with Staten Island Republican Sen. Andrew Lanza. Participants at a press conference held Tue., Feb. 14, said the practice of forced teen marriage span the spectrum of religious faiths and ethnic origins. Unchained at Last, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping women escape or resist forced marriages, has found that nearly 4,000 teenagers as young as 14 were wed in New York state between the years 2000 and 2010. In New York, children age 14 and 15 need parental consent and a judge's approval to marry, and there are no instructions for judges to view those arrangements as statutory rape even if the husband is over the age of 30. Read the full story in the Times Union.

Full child marriage press conference (9:34)

Grey Fox lineup
Is here! Happy Valentine's Day; spread the love! pic.twitter.com/a3FO0uJkSx

— gfbluegrass (@gfbluegrass) February 14, 2017

Ricky Skaggs, the Del McCoury Band, The Gibson Brothers, and others are among the musicians announced Feb. 14 to perform at this summer's Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival in Oak Hill in Greene County. Over 40 acts will be on five stages July 13-16. The festival began in 1984 as the Winterhawk Bluegrass Festival on the Rothvoss Farm in Ancramdale, in Columbia County, and moved to the Walsh Farm in Oak Hill in 2008.

The Daily Freeman reports U.S. Rep. John Faso (R-Kinderhook) will make his second public appearance in his congressional district, at a $20-admission small business forum Feb. 21 in Monticello in Sullivan County. The event is at 8:30 a.m. in the back dining room of Miss Monticello Diner, 406 Broadway. There is very limited seating, and anyone interested should RSVP Steven Kurlander at (845) 796-8948 or email at stevenkurlander@kurlanderstrategiccommunications.com. Seats can also be reserved via PayPal at http://bit.ly/2lJiR2y. Faso's district includes Ulster, Greene, and Columbia counties, most of Dutchess County, and some or all of seven other counties. Faso also hosts a fundraiser Feb. 22 at the Fort Orange Club in Albany, rescheduled from Feb. 9. On Jan. 18, spoke to the Ulster County Chamber of Commerce. read the full story in The Daily Freeman.

Patricia LeBoeuf reports in The Berkshire Eagle that Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts organization now does not know if or when 50 refugees, mainly from Syrian and Iraq, may be settled as planned in Pittsfield. While the program was approved in January, the president's Executive Order, now on hold in the courts, has created confusion. "People are coming in, but we have no idea how long it will last," said the group's president Maxine Stein. "I'm very, very optimistic that Pittsfield will become a refugee resettlement community. When ... we don't know." The group hosted a community forum Feb. 13 to explain the refugee process to local residents. Read the full story in The Berkshire Eagle.

Rick Karlin reports in The Albany Times-Union that mayors from across New York state pushed back Feb. 13 against a proposal by Gov. Andrew Cuomo that links state aid for municipalities to towns and villages local consolidation plans. Counties would be required to devise ways to consolidate and share services and put those proposals before local voters. Cuomo wants to eliminate villages inside of towns, and other layers of government he says are redundant. "The only thing it provides is a mandate from the state," Peter Baynes, executive director of the state Conference of Mayors, said. "It's not something that can be forced down from above." A Cuomo flack, Rich Azzopardi, responded, "We understand some people want to protect their fiefdoms at all costs, but the governor's plan is to get municipalities to talk to each other and actually lower taxes for property taxpayers." Read the full story in The Albany Times-Union.

Today is Day 1 of the WGXC Radical Radio 2017 Winter Pledge Drive. During the coming days, WGXC programmers, volunteers and staff must raise $20,000 to keep WGXC Hands-on Radio on the air, live and local during the coming months. Your support will make all the difference. Call (518) 697-7400 or go online to wgxc.org [slash] donate. Thank you for supporting creative community radio in New York's Greene and Columbia counties.

Local weather forecast:

TODAY: A cold front will move across the region beginning Wednesday. There is a chance of snow showers before noon, then a chance of rain and snow showers. Mostly cloudy. High near 39. Chance of precipitation is 50 percent. Wednesday night, a slight chance of snow before 11 p.m. Mostly cloudy. Low around 24. Wind 11 to 17 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph.

FORECAST FOR THE NEXT TWO DAYS
THURSDAY: A slight chance of snow after 9 a.m. Mostly cloudy. High near 31. Thursday night, mostly cloudy. Low around 17.
FRIDAY: Mostly sunny. High near 31. Friday night, partly cloudy. Low around 15.

Sunrise today: 6:49 a.m.
Sunset today: 5:29 p.m.
LENGTH OF THE DAY: 10:39 hrs.

PUBLIC MEETINGS
Today is the third Wednesday of the month.

WGXC suggests calling ahead to confirm time and location.
All numbers are in the 518 area code unless otherwise noted.

CATSKILL Board of Education meeting, 7 p.m. at high school, 341 Main Street, Catskill (943-4696).
CATSKILL Town Board Committee meeting, 6:30 p.m. at Town Hall, 439 Main St., Catskill (943-2141).
COLUMBIA County Board of Supervisors Space Utilization Sub-committee meeting, 4 p.m.; Public Safety Committee meeting, 5 p.m. at 401 State Street, Hudson (828-1527).
GREENE COUNTY Planning Board meeting cancelled; full Legislature meeting, 6:30 p.m. at County Building, 411 Main St., Catskill (719-3270).
HUDSON Zoning Board of Appeals meeting (tentative) , 6 p.m. at City Hall, 520 Warren St., Hudson (828-1030).
NEW LEBANON Board of Education meeting, 7 p.m. at junior-senior high school, 14665 NY-22, New Lebanon (794-7600).
STUYVESANT Zoning Revision Committee meeting, 7 p.m. at Town Hall, 5 Sunset Dr., Stuyvesant (758-6248).
TACONIC HILLS Board of Education meeting, 6:30 p.m. at high school, Board of Education Room, 73 County Route 11A, Craryville (325-0390).

POLITICAL EVENTS

NATIONAL GENERAL Strike, Feb. 17 through Feb. 20, nationwide. No work. No school. No shopping. A peaceful display of resistance and solidarity.
TRAINING for the Resistance workshops, 1 p.m., Feb. 19 at 45 Maple Street, Springfield, Mass. Hosted by Western Mass. Jobs with Justice.
NOT MY PRESIDENT'S DAY Rally, 12 p.m., Feb. 20, on the SUNY New Paltz campus at the JFT Concourse. Organized by Move Forward New York.
Unofficial JOHN FASO Town Hall, 6 p.m., Feb. 24 at Kingston Town Hall. Organized by Citizen Action of the Hudson Valley. Local activists organized this town hall event for Faso. The first-term Congressman is not holding public meetings with his constituents.

DOWNLOAD or PLAY the audio version of the local news headlines for Tue., Feb. 14 (9:02). (Produced by Philip Grant.)

Daniel Zuckerman is reporting in The Daily Mail the organizers of Mountain Jam XIII has announced Matisyahu, the Head and the Heart and the String Cheese Incident are among the last acts to be added to the lineup for the annual Hunter Mountain rock festival, scheduled this year for June 16 through 18. The String Cheese Incident joins Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers and Steve Miller Band as the third headlining act. Peter Frampton, jam mainstay Michael Franti and Spearhead, St. Paul and the Broken Bones, the Strumbellas, the Revivalists and White Denim will also appear. "The slope at the base of Hunter Mountain acts as a natural amphitheater," Hunter Mountain Marketing and Communications Manager Katie O’Connor said. There is also enough space for people to camp out and dance to more than 40 bands, she said. The combination of those elements make it a "unique concert venue," O'Connor said. Read the full story in The Daily Mail.

Matthew Hamilton is reporting in the Times Union Gov. Andrew Cuomo has proposed $2 billion be used over five years to upgrade and protect drinking water statewide, but some estimates for the total cost of future water infrastructure needs are 40 times that amount. At a joint legislative budget hearing on environmental conservation held Mon., Feb. 13, in Albany, state Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Basil Seggos said the total need over two decades, for both drinking water and wastewater, is near $80 billion. At the same time, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli's office estimated that the state's water systems may need roughly $40 billion for drinking water system repairs and improvements over 20 years. The comptroller also pointed to the need for a cybersecurity infrastructure to protect the state's water from sabotage. Seggos said Cuomo's $2 billion proposal would be used to leverage $10 billion in total funding for those water needs. "That's a significant investment, a significant chunk taken out of the overall need," he said. Seggos said his department is willing to work with the Legislature on how to direct the funding. Read the full story in the Times Union.

Matthew Hamilton is reporting at Capitol Confidential U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand deflected a question about her potential presidential aspirations in a radio interview Sun., Feb. 12. Gillibrand said she is focused on running for re-election in 2018, and not seeking the Democratic nomination in 2020. “I’m running for Senate in 2018,” the former Hudson resident said on WNYM-AM’s “The Cats Roundtable.” “I really love my job, and I feel like I can make a huge difference for New Yorkers fighting for them.” Gillibrand, a Democrat, made headlines for consistently voting against the president’s cabinet picks so far. She said divisiveness has arisen in Washington because of a focus on Trump’s agenda, which is “very far outside the mainstream and certainly is not consistent with New York values.” Read the full story at Capitol Confidential, a Times Union blog.

Roger Hannigan Gilson reports in the Register-Star Austerlitz received 18.5 inches of snow, Catskill and Chatham received 18 inches, Norton Hill received 22 inches, and Greenville received 23.5 inches, all since Thu., Feb. 9, according to unofficial observations published by the National Weather Service. Meteorologist Joe Villani with the National Weather Service in Albany said this year stands in stark contrast to last year, the third-least snowy year on record for Albany. Snow emergencies were declared for both the village of Catskill and the city of Hudson. City officials reported that 95 vehicles were towed for disobeying city parking rules during the emergency. In Catskill, Department of Public Works Highway Superintendant Michael McGrath said at 3 p.m. Monday his department had to clear West Bridge Street, but he expected the roads to be cleared and the snow emergency to be lifted by 8 p.m. There were only a couple disabled cars towed during the snow emergency, McGrath said. The village of Catskill will clear snow from its two municipal lots until noon Tue., Feb. 14. All cars must be removed from the lots before then, according to the Village of Catskill Police Department. Read the full story in the Register-Star.

Emilia Teasdale is reporting in The Columbia Paper Ichabod Crane APPR Principal Melissa Murray has announced her retirement, effective June 30. The Board of Education accepted Murray's resignation at a recent meeting. Murray has been employed by the district since 1983. She taught at both the middle and primary levels, and served as the principal of the primary school before taking over an administrative role, developing the district's teacher evaluations. The board chose Suzanne Guntlow, the current primary school principal, to replace Murray in July. Superintendent George Zini said the position of APPR principal has many of the same duties as an assistant superintendent, but "would cost the district less." The board eliminated the assistant superintendent position in 2010. The board thanked Murray for her years of service to the district. Board President Anthony Welcome said he had been a guest in Murray's classroom and "she was the best teacher I have every observed.” Read the full story in The Columbia Paper.

Victoria Addison is reporting in the Register-Star the state Education Department last week released high school graduation data for 2015. Overall, the state rate is now 79.4 percent, up from 78.1 the previous year. Graduation rates in Greene and Columbia counties, varied, Addison writes. While some districts experienced an increase, others saw a decrease. In Columbia County, the completion rate increased in the Germantown, New Lebanon, Taconic Hills and Chatham school districts. Both the Hudson and Ichabod Crane districts reported a drop in the number of students graduating in 2016. The Greenville district reported the only increase in Greene County; the Cairo-Durham, Catskill and Windham-Ashland-Jewett districts maintained the same completion rate; and, in the Hunter-Tannersville and Coxsackie-Athens districts fewer students graduated this year than last. Read the full story in the Register-Star.