Michael Ryan is reporting in The Daily Mail a judge in the Stacy Post felony eavesdropping case Wed., Oct. 14, threw out the criminal indictment filed against the Windham town supervisor. The reasoning behind the decision was not immediately known. The case has been sealed since County Supreme Court Justice Richard Mott was assigned the matter in May. Mott's decision is expected to be made public early Thursday. Mott’s ruling was made in response to an omnibus motion filed by Post following the February indictment. Post was indicted on 30 felony counts of eavesdropping, official misconduct and possession of eavesdropping devices. It is alleged that she placed audio and video recording devices in Windham Town Hall to monitor the conversations of town employees and visitors. Post has continued to serve as town supervisor and is seeking re-election on November 3. Read the full story in The Daily Mail.

John Mason is reporting in the Register-Star the first Hudson mayoral debate was held Wed., Oct. 14, at the John L Edwards Primary School. Chamber of Commerce President David Colby served as moderator, posing questions to incumbent Mayor William H. Hallenbeck Jr., a Republican, and Democrat challenger Tiffany Martin Hamilton. The candidates answered questions submitted by audience members and screened by Columbia-Greene Media Managing Editor Mary Dempsey. The candidates were queried about what was in store for their first 100 days in office, their plans for affordable housing, how they would better support the business community and if they would support a Community Review Board for the Hudson Police Department. They also discussed gentrification, the truck route and crime. Mason writes that Hallenbeck often returned to his central theme -- that he has kept taxes low for the past three years, while increasing the fund balance and revenues. Hamilton charged that during Hallenbeck's tenure a culture of "no" has been created and that it is time for that to change. The second, and final debate will be held 6:30 p.m., Wed., Oct. 28, at the Montgomery C. Smith Intermediate School. Read the full story in the Register-Star. To PLAY OR DOWNLOAD AUDIO of the first public conversation between Hallenbeck and Hamilton during the October 7 broadcast of "Something to Talk About," go to the WGXC Newsroom at newsroom [dot] wgxc [dot] org.

Kenneth C. Crowe II in the Albany Times-Union reports that the Rensselaer County Legislature rejected a local law to regulate blasting in an effort to halt the Northeast Energy Direct pipeline, and never considered another. A Republican-sponsored law that would have imposed blasting limits on projects that used state or federal eminent domain laws, went down 19-0. The Democrats put forth a blasting bill similar to the one passed by the Albany County Legislature, but it was never considered. The Northeast Energy Direct pipeline would cut across Albany and Rensselaer counties, and Oct. 16 is the deadline for comments on environmental issues concerning the pipeline with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. In Rensselaer County, the Kinder Morgan pipeline would pass through Schodack, Nassau, and Stephentown. "We recognize this project is not in the best interests of those living in Rensselaer County, particularly in the towns of Schodack, Nassau and Stephentown. The NED project could hurt the quality of life, health, safety and property values of these communities," Legislature Chairman Stan Brownell, R-Hoosick, said, promising a crowd of about 100 that the legislature would draft a blasting bill. Read the full story in the Albany Times-Union.

John Mason is reporting in the Register-Star the Hudson City Democrats announced Tue., Oct. 13, the committee is now supporting Third Ward resident Tom DePietro in his bid for Common Council President. DePietro is not affiliated with any party. Despite the committee endorsement, his name will only appear on the All-Hudson line at the bottom of the ballot. In a statement released Tuesday, committee chairman Michael Chameides wrote, “DePietro values open and honest government. As Council President he will seek everyone’s input and then steer the city in the right direction.” DePietro said, “I’m glad to accept the Hudson Democrat’s endorsement. Together we will work to make this great city even better.” The Democrats' original candidate, the committee's former chairman and current vice chairman Victor Mendolia, withdrew from the race in August. However, his name will still appear on both the Democrat and Working Family lines of the ballot. DePietro's remaining opponent, Claudia DeStefano, has the Republican, Conservative  Independence lines. Incumbent Common Council President Don Moore is not seeking re-election. He is instead a candidate for Hudson Third Ward Supervisor. The general election is November 3. DISCLOSURE: DePietro and Mendolia are WGXC programmers. Read the full story in the Register-Star.

Today is Day 1 of the WGXC Dead Air Pledge Drive. Tune in for special remote broadcasts, and turn out for special events. Your tax-deductible contribution will help sustain WGXC as a public platform for information, experimentation and engagement. Thank you for supporting creative community radio in New York’s Greene and Columbia counties. Donate now!

Weather right now


[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="128"] Cairo: High 62F; Low 43F.[/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="125"] Catskill: High 62F; Low 44F.[/caption]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FAR LEFT: The temperature on the far left is from the Hawthorne Valley Farm Weather Page.
MIDDLE TEMP: Cairo from Weather Underground page.
FAR RIGHT: Catskill from Weather Underground page.

Local weather forecast
Today’s forecast is specific to Cairo, in Greene County:

Today: Sunny. High near 61. Thursday night, a chance of showers, mainly after 2 a.m. Mostly cloudy. Low around 45. Chance of precipitation is 40 percent.

Forecast for the next two days:
Friday: A chance of showers, mainly before 10 a.m. Partly sunny. High near 61. Friday night, a slight chance of showers. Mostly cloudy. Low around 37.
Saturday: Mostly sunny. High near 52. Saturday night, mostly clear. Low around 27.

Sunrise today: 7:08 a.m.
Sunset today: 6:13 p.m.
Length of the day: 11:04

Public meetings
Today is the third Thursday of the month.
WGXC suggests calling ahead to confirm time and location.
(All telephone numbers are in the 518 area code except where noted.)

CATSKILL Town Board meeting, 6:30 p.m. at Town Hall, 439 Main St., Catskill (943-2141).
GERMANTOWN Board of Education meeting, 6:30 p.m. in the Elementary Music Room, Germantown School, 123 Main St., Germantown (537-6281).
GHENT Planning Board, 7 p.m., at Town Hall, 2306 State Route 66, Ghent (392-4644).
HUDSON Common Council Economic Development Committee meeting, 6 p.m. at City Hall, 520 Warren Street, Hudson (828-1030).
STUYVESANT Zoning Revision Committee meeting, 7 p.m. at Town Hall, 5 Sunset Dr., Stuyvesant (758-6248).
TAGHANIC town meeting, 7 p.m. at Town Hall, 909 Rte. 82, Taghkanic (851-7638).

Click here to play or download an audio version of this report.

James Careless in Radio World has a long story about longwave radio, and its inevitable demise in England. Longwave, as the name suggests, are large waves, near AM on the dial, and in the UK largely in the 148.5–253 kHz range. Like AM radio, transmitting requires a large antenna to create that big wave, and the sound quality means broadcasting music does not work. Recently, Irish state broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann announced it would end its longwave Radio 1 service to Britain Jan. 1, but the same Radio 1 programming would still be available on the Web and via the Freesat satellite TV service. Longwave loyalists, many of them Irish who listened for Irish news from in England, though, successfully protested and petitioned and persuaded the government to postpone RTÉ’s longwave closure until Jan. 1, 2017. It was the third attempt to end longwave in England that was put off. Eventually, though, the transmissions will end. The BBC has bought up the entire world supply of specially-crafted one-meter tall glass valves, but they will run out in a few years. “We have purchased whatever parts we can find, but the truth is that when our current longwave transmission equipment becomes irreparable, our long-wave service will be off-air for good,” Denis Nowlan, network manager for BBC Radio 4, said. “The BBC has committed to continue to sustain the medium for as long as the current infrastructure is viable, but that’s it.” You can read the full story at Radio World.

DOWNLOAD or play the audio version of the local headlines and weather for Wed., Oct. 14 (7:05). (Produced by Tom Roe and Philip Grant.)

https://data.wavefarm.org/r/7j/kj/er/WGXC_local_news_20151014.mp3

Kate Seckinger is reporting in The Daily Mail approximately 700 people were without power in Durham and parts of Cairo for more than an hour on Tue., Oct. 13. Chris Valdez, a spokesman for Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp., said the outage was caused when a squirrel is believed to have bitten through some electrical wires on a pole at the intersection of Frank Hitchcock Road and County Route 20. Valdez said damage caused by wild animals is not a regular occurrence, but is more commonplace than some might think. “Most wouldn’t think the damage at one pole like that could cause an outage for that many people, but it did. Fortunately, it was brief,” Valdez said.

The Daily Freeman is reporting the New York Department of Environmental Conservation announced Tue., Oct. 13, awards to the village of Catskill and Bard College that will support projects intended to increase resiliency to flooding, protect water quality and conserve natural resources in the Hudson River Estuary. The village of Catskill will receive $42,500 to complete a risk and engineering review of its wastewater system and to implement the recommendations from the “Resilient Catskill" report. The village will also receive a second grant in the amount of $25,500 to fund a Hudson River Shoreline Flooding Plan. Bard College will receive nearly $45,000 to support the development of a science-based community stewardship called the Saw Kill Watershed Community Group. Other awards went to the city of Kingston, Ulster County, Riverkeeper and the Orange County Water Authority. Read the full story in the Daily Freeman.

Dan Freedman is reporting for Hearst Newspapers a new study Tue., Oct. 13, concluded that more than half of New Yorkers without health insurance are not taking advantage of the state's expanded Medicaid program and the subsidies available under the Affordable Care Act. The nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation found that of the 1.4 million people in New York who now lack health insurance, the majority qualify for either enlarged Medicaid or could get premium subsidies via tax credits. The remainder are either undocumented immigrants or not qualified to have insurance under the program, have not signed up for insurance from employers or make too much money to receive subsidies. The New York figures parallel the report's national snapshot, which showed that of more than 30 million non-elderly people without health insurance, close to 16 million also do not take advantage of expanded Medicaid or ACA marketplace subsidies. The lead author of the report said she is uncertain why potential enrollees are not taking advantage of the health care coverage to which they are entitled. The study comes just weeks before the New York marketplace's third open enrollment period begins on Nov. 1. Read the full story in the Times Union.

Jordan Carleo-Evangelist in the Albany Times-Union reports that he Capital Region's hazardous materials squad won a state grant to prepare for a potentially disastrous oil train derailment in the area. Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple said the port of Albany, passing 2.8 billions of crude pass each year, is by a fire department with a cache of fire-battling foam and oil-corraling booms. "That to me probably poses the least amount of threat," Apple said. "I know that's not what everybody down there is going to want to hear." Instead, he worries about all the trains filled with crude criss-crossing the area en route to the port. With the $17,147 grant from the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, Apple wants to hold a joint training exercise for the entire four-county hazardous materials team, including Albany, Rensselaer, Schenectady, and Saratoga counties. The report also says, "Albany County lawmakers are expected on [Oct. 13] to appoint Gerald Paris Jr., the former chief of Colonie's Shaker Road-Loudonville Fire Department, as the county's new fire coordinator." Read the full story in the Albany Times-Union.

Amanda J Purcell reports in The Poughkeepsie Journal that the Hudson Valley ranks among the worst of 125 populous U.S. metro areas surveyed for mobile network performance, and New York Senator Charles Schumer (D-) was in Millbrook Oct. 12 to talk about that problem. Schumer was asking the Federal Communications Commission to investigate if network providers fairly and accurately advertise their wireless coverage. Schumer specifically cited the Town of Clinton, Village of Millbrook, the Town of Milan, and along the Taconic Parkway as areas with poor cell service. “Dutchess County’s Emergency Response system is hindered by the lack of cellular service, in part because you can’t triangulate phone calls,” Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro said. “When you call 911, you might very well be redirected to a state police dispatch who then physically through a manual operation has to transfer you back to 911." Dutchess will debut a system that would allow texting to 911 later this year. Read the full story in The Poughkeepsie Journal.

Weather right now


[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="128"] Cairo: High 60F; Low 38F.[/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="125"] Catskill: High 62F; Low 40F.[/caption]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FAR LEFT: The temperature on the far left is from the Hawthorne Valley Farm Weather Page.
MIDDLE TEMP: Cairo from Weather Underground page.
FAR RIGHT: Catskill from Weather Underground page.

Local weather forecast
Today’s forecast is specific to Cairo, in Greene County:

Today: A slight chance of showers after 11 a.m. Partly sunny. High near 64. Chance of precipitation is 20 percent. Wednesday night, partly cloudy. Low around 40.

Forecast for the next two days:
Thursday: Mostly sunny. High near 62. Thursday night, a chance of showers, mainly after 9 p.m. Mostly cloudy. Low around 44.
Friday: A chance of showers. Partly sunny. High near 62. Friday night, a slight chance of showers. Mostly cloudy. Low around 38.

Sunset today: 6:15 p.m.
Length of the day: 11:07

Public meetings
Today is the second Wednesday of the month.
WGXC suggests calling ahead to confirm time and location.
(All telephone numbers are in the 518 area code except where noted.)

ATHENS Village Board meeting, 6:30 p.m at the Athens Community Center, 2 First St., Athens (945-1551).
CATSKILL Zoning Board of Appeals meeting, 6 p.m. at Town Hall, 439 Main St., Catskill (943-2141).
CLERMONT Planning Board meeting, 7 p.m., at Town Hall, 1795 Route 9, Clermont (537-6868).
COLUMBIA COUNTY Board of Supervisors Economic Development Committee special meeting, 7 p.m.; Finance Committee special meeting, 7:20 p.m.; full board meeting 7:30 p.m., all at 401 State St., Hudson (828-1527).
COPAKE Hamlet Revitalization Task Force, 7 p.m.; Environmental Committee meeting, 7 p.m. at Town Hall, 230 Mt. View Road, Copake (329-1234).
GHENT Planning Board Application meeting and Zoning Board of Appeals meeting, 7 p.m. both at Town Hall, 2306 State Route 66, Ghent (392-4644).
HUDSON Housing Authority Board of Commissioners meeting, 6 p.m. at Bliss Towers, 41 N. 2nd St., Hudson (822-9743).
HUDSON Planning Board meeting, 6 p.m. at City Hall, 520 Warren St., Hudson  (828-1030).
JEWETT Town Board meeting, 7 p.m., at Municipal Bldg. 3547 Co. Rt. 23C (263-4626).
KINDERHOOK Town’s 9 & 9H Corridor Committee meeting, 7 p.m. at Town Hall, 4 Church St, Niverville (784-2233).
KINDERHOOK Village Board meeting and budget hearing, 7 p.m. at 6 Chatham Street, Kinderhook (758-9882).

Click here to play or download an audio version of this report.

Wired reports about the FireChat app from the company Open Garden. FireChat, and the similar Serval Project, build mesh networks by connecting smartphones via the device’s Bluetooth or peer-to-peer Wi-Fi. Every smartphone with FireChat then becomes a node that can carry and deliver text messages. People can build their own decentralized networks without any corporate or governmental interference. “In a sense it’s like a blind postman,” says Christophe Daligault, Open Garden’s chief marketing officer. FireChat launched in the spring of 2014, and it has been used during protests in Iraq, France, and Ecuador, and also in natural disasters. During student protests in Hong Kong recently, more than 500,000 people downloaded the app over a couple days. "FireChat works on phones as long as they’re less than 200 feet apart, but in times when the density is spotty, the company will use a GreenStone, a little plastic module that stores messages and uses Bluetooth to extend the network," Wired reports. The company hopes that enough people will use the app that they can turn it into a totally free mobile carrier that could replace one's paid phone service. “I don’t know when we’ll cross the chasm so that this technology will become ubiquitous enough that everyone can benefit from it,” says Daligault from Open Garden.

DOWNLOAD or play the audio version of the local headlines and weather for Tue., Oct. 13 (5:58). (Produced by Philip Grant.)

https://data.wavefarm.org/r/63/h4/77/WGXC%20DailyNews20151013.mp3

Audrey Matott is reporting in The Daily Mail Superintendent Cheryl Dudley has announced she will retire in November. Dudley has been with the district for more than a decade. The announcement was made in a statement released following a brief board of education meeting. According to the statement, Dudley informed the board "of unforeseen personal issues that arose causing her to express her wish to retire at this point in her career." The district acknowledged the sudden nature of Dudley's notice, but said it was "in the best interest" of the superintendent and the board to accommodate her wishes. The district declined to provide further details. Dudley joined the district in 2015, after serving for seven years as superintendent of the Cincinnatus Central School District in Cortland County. Assistant Superintendent Tammy Sutherland will serve as Greenville's acting superintendent while the board contemplates appointing an interim superintendent to serve during the search for Dudley's permanent replacement. Read the full story in The Daily Mail.

Jim Planck is reporting in The Daily Mail Catskill town officials last week presented details as to why they feel maintaining the town's own ambulance department is both financially and operationally better for town residents and taxpayers. The other option available is to sign onto a proposed, independently operated countywide ambulance system. Catskill Ambulance Department Director George June told the crowd assembled the town's conclusion is that dismantling its own department, selling its equipment and transferring direct control of the operation to an independent not-for-profit agency was too big a risk to take with taxpayer dollars and the well-being of town residents. “What I found, is that the benefits of the countywide system to the town of Catskill residents is questionable,” June said. The Catskill Town Board voted in June 2014 to upgrade its ambulance department to paramedic level. Town boards countywide have through November to decide if they will participate in the county plan. Read the full story in The Daily Mail.

Scott Waldman is reporting at Politico New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli is auditing the Public Service Commission’s oversight of customer complaints. The audit will begin this week, according to DiNapoli’s spokesperson. A timeline for completion or when the results would be public was not provided. The PSC handles consumer complaints about utilities, internet companies and energy service companies. Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York praised DiNapoli's decision, and said oversight of the PSC is overdue. Some groups in New York have been calling for the Cuomo administration or state Legislature to establish an independent consumers' advocate office in Albany. The office would represent consumers' interests during negotiations with regulated industries. A Commission spokesperson said officials would cooperate with DiNapoli’s audit. Read the full story at Politico New York.

Emilia Teasdale is reporting in the Columbia Paper work has begun on the Chatham Safe Routes to Schools project. The announcement was made by both the Chatham Central School District and the village of Chatham last week. Village Mayor Tom Curran wrote on the village’s Facebook page, “After several years of working with the D[epartment] O[f] T[ransportation] and CSX to get everything worked out to implement a federal grant, the Safe Routes to Schools project is finally scheduled to begin.” The project is designed to improve the sidewalks along Woodbridge Ave. and along School Road, the route from Woodbridge Avenue to the Mary E. Dardess Elementary School and Chatham High School buildings. The tentative work schedule includes sidewalk excavation during the next three weeks. The new sidewalks are expected to be poured and ready by November 22. Read the full story in the Columbia Paper.

The Daily Freeman is reporting the average retail gasoline price in New York state fell 0.3 cents per gallon last week, settling at $2.39 on Sunday, according to GasBuddy’s survey of more than 6,000 outlets. In the Catskill area, prices at most stations ranged from $2.19 to $2.25 per gallon of 87-octane unleaded on Mon., Oct. 12, according to GasBuddy. The national average increased 2.7 cents per gallon, reaching $2.31 on Sunday. The average gas price in New York Sunday was 15.9 cents per gallon lower than a month earlier and $1.12 lower than a year ago. Read the full story in the Daily Freeman.