The Daily Mail leads with a report this morning that about a recently-hired Greene Correctional Facility officer being charged with the rape and robbery of a Buffalo-area woman last week. According to the story, Buffalo authorities say Christian M. Ott, 27 and a native of North Tonawanda awho was hired as a corrections officer trainee at Greene Correctional Facility in Coxsackie last July, allegedly raped and robbed a woman after burglarizing her North Tonawanda apartment early Thursday morning. He was arrested hours after the incident near his home on First Avenue in North Tonawanda, according to the Niagara County district attorney’s office and has been charged with numerous felony and misdemeanor charges related to the incident. Ott was in possession of a knife and shotgun at the time of the arrest, officials said. He was sent a letter Friday from DOCS, terminating his employment effective Dec. 17, and is currently facing up to 25 years in prison. For the full story click here.

A preview into how arts funding will come under new scrutiny in the coming term dominated Monday night’s meeting of the Hudson Common Council, according to a report in today's Register-Star. According to their coverage, there was much discussion about whether the city should obtain expense and income records for all of the city’s concert promoters and art groups which host performances, with Alderwoman Ellen Thurston, D-Hudson 3, suggesting the city request a full report of income and expenses for organizations which receive vouchers to put on events in the city. The resolutionfinally introduced from the informal meeting, however, stated that all organizations receiving money from the city be required to “provide a narrative” after a sponsored event illustrating how everything went and how it could be improved in the future.

At the meeting, a resolution was also introduced to authorize the city treasurer to pay $10,000 to Rob Caldwell of Musica to put on four concerts at the Henry Hudson Riverfront Park; $1,000 to Operation Unite for the city’s annual Black Arts and Cultural Festival; $1,000 for Stageworks Productions’ Mettawee Puckets performance; and $500 for the BeLo3rd group’s Taste of Hudson food festival. The entire discussion was a harbinger for more contentious budget cutting and oversight talk expected to dominate all aspects of the news over the coming year. For the full story, including the cultural support voiced by all involved, please click here.

Fired as DEC commissioner two months ago, and a legendary state assemblyman for decades before that, Pete Grannis has joined Environmental Advocates of New York as “special counsel.” The Times Union reports today that just after his canning — primarily the result of Grannis’ pushback against the Paterson administration’s DEC layoffs — EA Executive Director Rob Moore called it “the final insult of the Paterson administration toward environmental protection.” At that time, Grannis said he believed the circumstances of his departure would allow him to lobby his former employer without the standard two-year bar. Even so, EA spokesman Erica Ringewald said Grannis wouldn’t be appearing before DEC. Former Park Commissioner Carol Ash made a similar move by joining the Alliance for New York State Parks, although since she jumped instead of being pushed from her state post, Ash will not be able to lobby her old agency. For the full story about the battlelines being shaped over environmental issues during the upcoming Cuomo administration -- which seems ripe for a fight, click here.

Andrew Amelinckx of the Register Star, who will also be co-hosting the Difficult Histories program on WGXC starting Christmas Eve, continued his spot-on reporting on the criminal trial of Salvatore Cascino and his Bronx-based waste hauling company on two class A misdemeanors for allegedly illegally dumping debris in Clermont and releasing petroleum into the environment in today's paper. The latest developments saw finalization of the state's prosecution case, involving testimony from state Department of Environmental Conservation officials, and the start of Cascino's defense, led by veteran Albany-based attorney Dennis Schlenker, which drew several former DEC officials, and other county and private consultants, who spoke to the Clermont site's previous history as a dumping site where ordered remediation steps, including capping, were never finished. Key tension for the day seems to have come when Schlenker sought to have one of his own witnesses, a 31-year DEC official, declared "hostile" and disallowed, which the judge overrode. The witness spoke about how the refuse he investigate 20 years ago on what is known as the old LaMunyan landfill was on a different piece of property now owned by William Cole.

The state Attorney General’s Office indicted Cascino and his company in April on charges of operating an unpermitted landfill and fourth-degree endangering public health, safety, or the environment for allegedly releasing petroleum into the environment and illegally dumping more than 70 cubic yards of solid waste at an unpermitted facility off Route 9G, just south of Firehouse Road, in Clermont between Dec. 31, 2007 and July 2009.

The case is now being heard by a jury in Columbia County Supreme Court in Hudson, with Judge Jonathan Nichols presiding. Court was to resume at 9 a.m. this morning. For the full story click here.

The Greene County Town of Cairo's three-year effort to write its first zoning law inched forward again at the latest in a string of work meetings in town hall on Monday night,where the Cairo Zoning Commission’s yielded changes to its draft zoning map in reaction to previous publicly stated or privately written comments. The Daily Mail reports today that the changes include an expansion and renaming of the hamlet commercial district along Main Street from the intersection with Route 32 until Route 23 near the Bank of Greene County; a shift in setbacks between the outer and downtown Main Street commercial areas; a plan for sidewalks up to Route 32; the elimination of junkyards and large propane storage and distribution facilities from permitted uses in the commercial/mixed-use district on Route 145; various allowances, and creations of new districts, for existing industrial and commercial properties; and the creation of municipal districts for the former town landfill, the town park, town hall and the town highway garage. The commission's next work meeting is set for Dec. 27 at 6 p.m. Public comment on the law is until Jan. 10, 2011. Copies of the law are on file in the town hall and public library at 512 Main Street, and can be viewed online at www.planningbetterplaces.com/cairo.
For the full story click here.

The Vice President of Ulster Savings Bank today explains what went wrong with a recent online auction sale of Catskill's Friar Tuck Inn and Spa last month and vows to continue sales efforts over the coming months. The Daily Freeman story quotes Michael Shaughnessy, executive vice president of Ulster Savings Bank, saying that the winner of an online auction through Auction.com failed to come forward within 15 days to submit a down payment for the resort on state Route 32, then noting that the bank’s broker is now working with some backup buyers to try to negotiate the resort’s sale. There are eight or nine potential buyers, three of whom had been registered to bid during the Nov. 18 auction, Shaughnessy said. “We’re still hopeful we’re going to sell it,” Shaughnessy said Monday of the resort property. He said the bank hopes to sell the resort for at least the $2.5 million that was bid on it during last month’s auction.

The bank foreclosed on the Friar Tuck Inn resort in April after the owners tried to file for bankruptcy protection in June 2009 and then tried unsuccessfully to sell the property at auction in November 2009. At the time the property was foreclosed on, the bank was owed about $3.8 million on the resort’s mortgage.



Shaughnessy previously said the bank would take a loss on the sale of the resort, but said the financial institute is not in the real estate business and did not want to continue carrying the resort and the insurance, taxes and security on the property.

The Friar Tuck had been owned by cousins Ricky and Ross Caridi. The auction they arranged last year failed after the winning bidder, identified only as an Oklahoma City business, failed to come forward with the funds to pay for the property.

The winner of last month’s auction was not identified.

The Friar Tuck resort has 376 guest rooms, 52,000 square feet of exhibition space, banquet facilities, conference rooms, two outdoor pools, an indoor poll and an indoor Jacuzzi, among other amenities.

National Public Radio reporter Rick Karr came to Hudson in late September for WGXC's "Station Barnraising," but current events pushed the piece he recorded then to the side. Now, current events have brought it back, as Karr packages his recordings from Hudson with what is going on nationally with the LPFM bill to allow more community radio stations across the country currently struggling in Congress. This evening "All Things Considered" aired Karr's reporting which quotes Bill Lawrence, a Republican Greene County Legislator from Cairo who will be one of WGXC's "Morning Show" hosts; WGXC Executive Director Galen Joseph-Hunter; free103point9 board member Andy Gunn; and also a clip from a crowd during the WGXC/Prometheus Radio Project Station Barnraising in September. Click here to listen to the story. Click here to read Watershed Post coverage of NPR story.



Transcript from NPR:
ROBERT SIEGEL, host:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel

MELISSA BLOCK, host:

And I'm Melissa Block.

Thousands of new voices could soon hit radio airwaves across the country, that's if the Senate takes up and passes a community radio bill in its lame duck session.

The measure could increase the number of noncommercial stations broadcasting in the U.S. by nearly a quarter. Media reform advocates say the new stations could do wonders for political and civic discourse, but as Rick Karr reports, the bill won't do anything until it clears a major hurdle in the Senate.

RICK KARR: A few weekends ago, dozens of people came to downtown Hudson, New York, to build a new community radio station.

(Soundbite of electric saw)

KARR: They cut lumber for studio tables and soundproofing baffles, they screwed together racks to hold broadcasting equipment, and they learned the best way to strip the insulation off of audio cables.

Unidentified Man #1: Yeah, I just - what I do is I just score the edge of the rubber and then sort of twist it back and forth.

KARR: They were all volunteers working to get WGXC on the air. The station's filling a void for nearly 75,000 people in Columbia and Greene counties.

Greene County legislator Bill Lawrence says the area used to have a commercial radio station that actually reported local news.

Mr. BILL LAWRENCE (Legislator, Greene County, New York): Back when I first became a legislator in the early '80s, we had great reporting, investigative reporting actually, and I thought they did a good job of doing both sides of a story. We lost it. They went regional, and we've sort of lost that local input.

KARR: Long story short, San Antonio-based Clear Channel Communications bought the station and cut local programming.

Lawrence has volunteered as a co-host of the new station's morning show. And in case you're thinking he's some kind of crunchy, touchy-feely hippie, he's a Republican. WGXC's general manager Galen Joseph-Hunter is not, and she says that's the point.

Ms. GALEN JOSEPH-HUNTER (General Manager, WGXC): He and I couldn't disagree more politically. But he approaches his point of view with respect for others and with humor. And hopefully everyone on the station will have those qualities.

KARR: Joseph-Hunter admits that perfect bipartisan cooperation on the air may be a bit of a utopian dream. But the idea that neighbors can get along if they're all on the air together is at the heart of the push for more community radio in the U.S.

Activists have been asking for more licenses for community stations for more than a decade. And just as WGXC has supporters from across the political spectrum, the nationwide movement has support from liberals and conservatives.

Michele Combs is senior spokesperson for the Christian Coalition.

Ms. MICHELE COMBS (Senior Spokesperson, Christian Coalition): I think that this is really a family issue. It's affecting a lot of good churches and a lot of good schools out there and a lot of people who this is how they get their news, and this is how they get their information.

KARR: Supporters on the left tend to cite what new stations could do for immigrants or underprivileged inner-city communities. Advocates on all sides of the political spectrum see community radio as an antidote to media industry consolidation.

Senator MARIA CANTWELL (Democrat, Washington): And that level of consolidation yields a lot of clout.

KARR: Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington is co-sponsor of a bill that would let as many as 1,000 new community stations go on the air, but it's stuck. It passed the House with bipartisan support, and her co-sponsor in the Senate is Arizona Republican John McCain.

But a couple of anonymous senators have used parliamentary procedure to effectively veto its chances for an up or down vote. Cantwell says it's yet another example of minority rule on Capitol Hill, which happens to lots of bills that have bipartisan support.

Sen. CANTWELL: A lot of these bills would pass 98 to two, or, you know, 95 to five, if we got rid of what are called secret holds, where one or two members hold something up really on behalf of some special interest.

KARR: The special interest in this case is the National Association of Broadcasters, the trade group for commercial radio. It's been opposing an increase in the number of community stations for more than a decade.

An NAB spokesperson declined to comment on whether the group was behind the secret holds in the Senate. He did say the NAB is worried that hundreds of new stations might cause interference with the signals of existing stations.

Cantwell says rigorous testing has shown that the trade group's objections are unwarranted. Besides, she says, the need for the new stations outweighs the concerns of broadcasting conglomerates.

Sen. CANTWELL: What my constituents, and I think many Americans, want to see is a diversity of voices and an array of information being distributed from radio stations that can have a very, very unique perspective.

KARR: Supporters of WGXC in Hudson, New York, say that's what they want from their community station.

Unidentified People: Ten, nine, eight...

KARR: After they built the station's studio, they counted down to the moment when it hit the airwaves.

Unidentified People: Five, four, three, two, one.

(Soundbite of applause)

KARR: Now, it's up to the U.S. Senate to decide whether or not other community stations can throw the switches on their transmitters.

Unidentified Woman #1: Transmission.

KARR: If the bill doesn't pass this month, Cantwell says she'll introduce it again next year.

For NPR News, I'm Rick Karr.

Town meetings tonight
TOWN OF COXSACKIE Regular meeting second Tuesday of each month at 7:30 p.m. at Town Hall, 16 Reed St., Coxsackie.

Birthdays
Dec. 14 birthdays include Spike Jones, Don Hewitt, and Ellen Willis.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="260" caption="Image from Wikipedia."][/caption]

Lynn Sloneker via Twitter reports from tonight's Hudson School District board meeting:
"BoE appoints Steven Spicer principal of John L. Edwards Primary School, effective Jan. 3, 2011, at his current salary of $103,636 per anum... 'pending the completion of a school and community question and answer forum with the parents, faculty and staff of JLE,' Thursday.... Thomas Gavin appointed principal of Hudson High School by BoE, effective Jan. 3, at his current salary of $118,002.00 per anum.... Spicer present for the vote; no Gavin. JLE PTO reps not pleased. What's the point of a Q&A with a candidate if he already has the job?... BoE also amended employment agreement with JLE interim principal Carol Gans to end 02.18.2011, allowing a 6-week transition between admins.... Thomas Gavin appointed principal of Hudson High School by BoE, effective Jan. 3, at his current salary of $118,002.00 per year... 'pending the completion of a school and community question and answer forum with the parents, faculty and staff of JLE,' Thursday.... No action on Abitabile tonight. He is currently acting assistant principal at Hudson High."

UPDATE: Spicer answers Gavin's wife's letter-to-the-editor in Register-Star with his own.

The U.S. Senate voted today 83 to 15 to pass the the tax cut and spending package agreed to between President Obama and Congressional Republicans. New York's senators split on the bill, with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, formerly of Hudson, voting against the plan, saying keeping low taxes for the wealthy will add too much to the national debt. Sen. Charles Schumer, took a different tact, voting for the bill but complaining as he did. “It is unfortunate that Republicans have dictated an ultimatum that we either provide tax breaks for millionaires or else jeopardize our fragile economic recovery,” Schumer said in a statement quoted in The Wall Street Journal. “These millionaire tax breaks have exploded the deficit without creating jobs. We cannot allow them to become permanent.” Though voting differently, their statements were similar. "Right now, we need to focus on the middle class, who are always left behind, not the people at the very top, who are doing just fine in this economy,” Gillibrand explained in a statement reported in The New York Times. Turns out, they may both be wrong. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has created this helpful graph to explain where the savings and spending in the plan are going.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="337" caption="From Center on Budget and Policy Priorities."][/caption]
Earlier: Murphy favors tax cut and increased spending plan.

Carline Murphy, WGXC volunteer, recorded an audio mp3 for the Hudson Teen Theatre performance of "Tripping to the Tune of the 12th Night" at Hudson Opera House. Click here to listen to an mp3 audio recording, or paste the following url into your computer's media player:
http://www.wgxc.org/media/uploaded_files/2010/12/TeenTheatre_TwelthNight_121210.mp3

Debora Gilbert in The Columbia Paper has a story about the potential Dec. 31 demise of the 12-year-old Hudson Family Literacy Program (HFLP) without $17,000 in funding. The program helps kids and their parents, many from non-English-speaking families, and, "is based on research that shows a child's first and most important teacher is his or her parent, and that the early childhood years before school are critically important learning periods," Gilbert writes. “The concept was to work with kids and families,” said John L. Edwards Elementary School Principal Carol Gans. “That's the big difference between Even Start and Head Start, which just works with kids. We started with the family from birth,” Gans told The Columbia Paper. HFLP serves 30 families of 107 people at no cost to the families. Services include an early childhood class for two- and three-year-olds, after-school tutoring, summer day camp, counseling, adult education, GED and Regents exam help, transportation to and from school, and aid with employment. HFLP helps parents with adult education, and advises new immigrants on citizenship applications and drivers licenses, and with so many immigrant families in Hudson it seems to work. "So far, 35 participants have become citizens, and two are first-time homeowners who will move into houses on Columbia Street early next year because they were introduced by HFL to the county chapter of Habitat for Humanity," Gilbert writes. “We've connected people with resources in the community they don't know about,” HFL Director Sophia Becker told The Columbia Paper.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="144" caption="Chatham's Crandall Theater helped same a soggy Winterfest yesterday, December 12, with a free movie screening for all."][/caption]The Chatham Business Alliance is thankful that the local Chatham Film Club stepped in yesterday, December 12, to sponsor a free screening of the movie “How to Train Your Dragon” at the Crandell Theatre, given the driving rains and 70 mile per hour winds that literally put a damper on its annual Winterfest yesterday. According to today's Register-Star, elements of the event had to be canceled or re-arranged. Draft horses, who were going to pull a carriage for free carriage rides, were called off. Yet despite the weather, local Girl Scouts continued to sell cookies and hot cocoa... and everyone vowed to pray for better, less rainy weather next year.

As goes the Capital District, so goes Greene... at least according to the county's Industrial Development Agency Sandy Mathes, who is quoted in a Mid Hudson News Network story today saying that companies are starting to inquire about the possibility of locating in Greene County as part of the supply chain for a high tech microchip manufacturing plant opening up in Saratoga County, and helping feed the remaining IBM plants further down the Hudson Valley.

“I’m hoping that our strategy of positioning Greene County as the location for the supply chain for the Global Foundry project being exactly in the middle between them to the north of us and then IBM in East Fishkill to the south seems to be bearing some fruit, so there's a lot of tire kicking going on and over the next three to six months, some real estate decisions are going to be made from that supply chain that we hope we can a little piece of,” Mathes said.

Global Foundries, established last year, has manufacturing centers in Germany, the United States and Singapore that "deliver advanced technologies to market in high volume and mature yield faster than any other foundry in the world" and has been setting up business "near the major hubs of semiconductor activity in the US, Europe and Asia." The company's Fab 8 development in Saratoga County is part of a $6B development commitment for the United States and is being touted by the company as "the largest commercial capital expansion project in the USA." The company is a spin-off of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), a Silicon Valley company that prides itself on being the second-largest global supplier of microprocessors and one of the largest supplier of graphics processing units in the world.

With New York's GOP set to take the same slim 32-30 majority state Democrats have had for the last two years, given a current judge's ruling against further recounts in a close Long Island race holds, all eyes are now on how incoming Governor Andrew Cuomo will work with one Republican and one Democratic chamber of the legislature, come January. State pundits are beginning to ponder how such a split between Upstaters, who will make up all of the Senate north and west of Westchester, barring two Democrats in urban Syracuse and Buffalo, and Downstate interests will be playing out, particularly without disgraced Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, a master of spreading pork barrel spending amongst his upstate supporters, at the helm. And furthermore, with a two percent cap on property tax, meaning all local town and school, and most county spending, starting to seem locked in for the coming term, with both the GOP and Cuomo backing such a plan. The chief wrench in the works, notes Nick Reisman of the Binghamton Press and Sun-Bulletin in a particularly astute bit of commentary today, may very well be "geographic conflicts over drilling for natural gas," which has most of its supporters in the Republican caucus, who are touting the controversial fracking process as a must-do for Upstate economic development, at present. But also some leading opponents.

For Resiman's piece, click here and stay tuned over the coming months.

Lynn Sloneker's Twitter feed reports on the agenda for tonight's Hudson school board meeting. There will be a "follow-up discussion from November meetings," presumably the meetings discussing student fights and assistant principal disputes. There also will be a "JLE Principal Search Update" with Sloneker guessing, "Tonight could be the night. Spicer to JLE; Gavin with Abitabile as his #2 at HHS." That would split up current dual assistant principals Steven Spicer and Tom Gavin (they were involved in the recent incident at the school board meeting). And in new business, "Student Bullying Prevention and Intervention Policy #0115." Hudson School Board link. Gavin's wife, meanwhile, wrote a letter to the editor of the Register-Star, printed Saturday, and in it alludes to the Hudson DA recently dismissing charges against her husband. She writes, "After 3 weeks of false accusations and rumors, the city of Hudson now knows that Steven Spicer and his 'community entourage' lied about the 'hallway incident.'"

Following last week's meetings on Lafarge's plans for its Hudson Valley cement plant and the first phase of an ongoing state Department of Health review of the facilities history, local coverage has started to shift somewhat, acknowledging opposition to and concern over the plans and studies that belied Lafarge representatives' predictions, while meanwhile Lafarge has started beefing up its behind-the-scenes dissemination of its own materials to local press. Recent editions of The Daily Mail and Register-Star have run stories about the informational meetings held last week at Ravena High School, leading off today with a prominent mention of how the main Wednesday meeting saw a crowd of "roughly 50 people turned out" and emphasizing Lafarge's "recently completed DEIS (Draft Environmental Impact Statement)" and the fact that the state Department of Environmental Conservation "recently renewed the Lafarge air permit for its existing plant,and the company is now focusing on moving forward with the modernization which requires its own set of permits." Comments are being accepted by the DEC until Feb. 22, 2011. DEC has also scheduled a Legislative hearing Jan. 20 for all “persons, organizations, corporations, or government agencies which may be affected by the proposed project to submit oral or written comments.” DEC will then determine whether “substantive or significant issues” were raised during the public comment period and legislative hearing warranting an Adjudicatory Hearing/Issues Conference. Project documents including the DEIS and draft permits are available for review at http://lafargeravenafacts.com, a company-sponsored website being promoted by the daily newspapers at present.
•WGXC recording of DOH Lafarge hearing Dec. 9 at RCS High, Ravena.
•WGXC recording of Lafarge Environmental impact Statement Public Informational Meeting Dec. 8 at RCS High School, Ravena.

Average retail gasoline prices in New York have risen 2.5 cents per gallon in the past week, averaging $3.23 per gallon Sunday. This compares with the national average, which has increased 1.3 cents per gallon in the last week to $2.96, according to gasoline price website NewYorkStateGasPrices.com. Including the change in gas prices in New York during the past week, prices Sunday were 40.5 cents per gallon higher than the same day one year ago and are 15.7 cents per gallon higher than a month ago. The national average has increased 7.4 cents per gallon during the last month and stands 35.4 cents per gallon higher than this day a year ago. Statewide, the lowest prices are under $3 on Indian reservations in the west of the state, then $3.05 in the Auburn area in the middle of the state. Highest prices are near $3.90 on Long Island and in New York City. Locally, the highest prices are $3.25 at service stations on the Thruway, in the $3.20 range in northern Dutchess County, in the $3.19 range in Greene County, and around $3.13 per gallon in Columbia County.

With crude oil prices at the highest level in more than two years, Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at Wall, N.J.-based Oil Price Information Service, is saying in a Daily Finance report that prices are likely to drop a bit for the winter... and the reach much higher prices likely by springtime. Crude oil hit $90 a barrel last week, its highest point since 2008, when prices were plunging from that summer's high of $145 a barrel in the worst energy crisis of the last decade. Driving the higher prices is increased demand in China and developing nations around the world, forcing demand to rise above output in what may be a first demonstration of the concept of Peak Oil. More specifically, a many analysts are pointing to a more immediate cause being problems at a refinery in Nova Scotia that hit the U.S. East Coast in recent weeks. Kloza believes gasoline prices will hover around $3 a gallon until Christmas, and then drop back until spring. But then he expects them to surge dramatically, perhaps as high as $3.50 a gallon, although he that he doesn't think it will be long-lasting.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="St. Patrick's Parish Church in Catskill, seen when its steeple was repaired a decade ago."][/caption]A group of about 70 Catholic congregants, their families and friends stood in the rain Sunday morning at the footsteps of Catskill's shuttered parish church, St. Patrick's, chanting Hail Marys and praying for a swift resolution to a long-awaited renovation project that would see their church's doors reopen in the coming year. The church on the corner of Bridge and Spring Streets was closed in spring, 2008 for needed repairs to its plaster ceiling, its roof and the parking area due to decades of water damage and mold problems, resulting in many of its congregants joining other congregations around the region. According to a story in today's Daily Mail, Kerns Group Architects of Arlington, Va. have estimated the total project cost would be $2.5 million. The first priority phase, which included parking lot drainage, mold remediation, and roof flashings replacement, was estimated to cost about $600,000. The consensus among the dozens huddled under dripping umbrellas on Sunday was that the work on the church, consecrated in 1884 after replacing a first church built in the 1850s on nearby Williams Street, was not happening fast enough.



Deborah Johnson, one of the event organizers, said the priority for the Albany diocese should be to re-open the church before working on the parking lot.

“We’re hearing from them it’s about money, it’s the parking lot,” she said. “We just don’t feel there’s good reason for the church to be closed.”

Kenneth Goldfarb, communications director of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, said Sunday that the goal of the work was to prevent seepage into the church building, which entailed repairing the parking area’s drainage issues.

“Before you can make any interior repairs — painting and conditioning — you have to seal the building,” he said.

Some parishoners are not convinced.

“They want to start with the parking lot, we want to get in the building,” said Anthony Vespucci, a lifelong member of the St. Patrick’s Church.

Vespucci, with his wife Tonilee, have been attending services in Cairo and Palenville since the church was closed.

“It’s such an old church. We need it. It’s such a part of this community,” he said, adding that his children were baptized in St. Patrick’s.

Like the Vespuccis, many of the church’s parishioners have found communities outside of the parish. Some would rather go to Cairo or Hudson than attend services in the parish center behind the St. Patrick’s Church.

Johnson, who attends services in Hudson, said she would prefer attending services in a church — something she hopes the gathering Sunday would convey to the diocese.

“It’s been a staple of the community for so long,” she said. “We have to get it back.”

After the church was closed in spring 2008, Goldfarb said, the parishes of Athens and Catskill were combined and Saturday mass was alternated between the Catskill parish center and St. Patrick’s Church in Athens. Sunday masses are still held at both locations every week.

The reorganization, Goldfarb said Sunday, was additionally an example of broader impacts occurring in the Catholic church across the Northeast.

“With a dwindling number of priests available, what we ended up doing was merge administration from Athens and Catskill,” he said. “We don’t have enough priests to go around to administer parishes. The diocese has been at the forefront of developing these parish life directors and sacrimental ministeries.”

Parish Life Director Sr. Mary Mazza is the current administer of the Athens and Catskill parishes.

“You have to look at the resources, both personnel as well as financial,” Goldfarb said. “Catskill has not really grown in recent years and the number of Catholics have dropped, probably, as well.”

Goldfarb said the Albany diocese has developed several programs to revitalize Catholicism in the region and preserve the current congregations, including a program to renew Catholic schools around the state.

In an e-mail sent by Goldfarb Sunday, there are plans for the Catskill parish financial council to launch a capital campaign for St. Patrick’s starting in early 2011.

“The campaign brochure will outline details of the repairs needed to promote, preserve and restore the church and to ensure the safety of the parishioners now and for many years to come,” he said in the e-mail.

Parishioners can review the reconstruction and remediation plans by appointment at the parish center, Goldfarb said.

The greater impact, locally, Goldfarb said, was that the congregation was not as unified as in the past.

“It’s unfortunate that people have left the parish,” he said. “It’d be better if people were there to help solve the problem. If everyone united, this could get done quicker.”

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="504" caption="Coxsackie-Athens Community Band got a big ovation at their Christmas concert at the Reformed Church in Athens. Photo by Sam Sebren."][/caption]
From Sam Sebren, WGXC volunteer:
On Saturday, Dec. 11 the Coxsackie-Athens Community Band, under director Ann Clapper, gave their annual Christmas concert at the Reformed Church in Athens. Close to a hundred people enjoyed the beautiful holiday music and were treated to several new arrangements this year. Also performing was the Reformed Church Choir under director Kathy Boyer. The beautiful voices of the choir were wonderful on the festive song, "Goin' on a Sleigh Ride." This concert was in conjunction with the newly revived, annual Athens Victorian Stroll which took place all day, all over Athens. The recording below starts with the CACband performing "A Christmas Flourish," "A Most Wonderful Christmas," "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!," "In the Bleak Midwinter," "Happy Holiday," and "White Christmas." Next is the Reformed Church Choir singing "Noel, Noel," "Lullaby," and "Goin' On a Sleigh Ride." The CAC band returned to finish the evening with "A Fireside Christmas," "On This Day Earth Shall Ring," "Sleigh Ride," "Christmas 'Pop' Sing-Along," and "A Christmas Festival." To listen to mp3 audio recording of the performances click here, or paste the the following url into your computer's media player:
http://www.wgxc.org/media/uploaded_files/2010/12/CACB_RFC_WGXC_121110.mp3

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="508" caption="The Athens' Reformed Church Choir performed a holiday concert at the church. Photo by Sam Sebren."][/caption]