DOWNLOAD or PLAY the audio version of the local news headlines for Mon., May 22 (8:54). (Produced by Philip Grant.)

Some of the stories that made the news Fri., May 19 through Sun., May 21:

Rosa Acheson reported in the Register-Star Hudson Mayor Tiffany Martin Hamilton and Police Commissioner Martha Harvey signed the Welcoming and Inclusive City executive order Thu., May 18, restricting Hudson police cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Harvey said she expects related department policy to be issued in 60 to 90 days. The order formalized a resolution passed by the Common Council in March. The order "is completely in line with what the police chief has been saying the practice is all along — that Hudson police don’t stop people on the street or pull people over and ask for proof of citizenship," Harvey said. The order directs that Hudson police will not stop, question, interrogate or arrest a person based solely on their immigration status. It also requires Hudson police to act on ICE detailer requests only if a judicial warrant is presented. During the past three months, approximately 20 people have been detained in Columbia County, according to the Columbia County Sanctuary Movement. More than a dozen people were taken in Hudson. Hamilton and Harvey signed an earlier executive in February, limiting ICE access to city resources.

Rick Karlin reported at Capitol Confidential the Empire Center last week released a database identifying more than 800 so-called ”double dippers” statewide. Double dippers are public sector employees who receive special permission to collect government paychecks for more than $30,000 a year, and continue to receive a public pension. The practice has long been controversial since to get such a waiver, the hiring agency is required to go through "extensive recruitment efforts" to demonstrate they were unable to find anyone to do the job other than the waiver recipient. Of the 849 double dippers on the Empire Center list, only one is employed in Greene or Columbia counties. Livingston resident and Hudson Police Chief Ed Moore currently receives a salary of $85,000 per year from the city while drawing down an annual pension from the Division of State Police in the amount of $94,000. According to the Empire Center database, Moore was granted limited approval of a 211 waiver for the first time in March 2013, the month he retired from the state police. Since then, he has received a total of five waivers, the most recent effective through October 2016, according to the center.

Audrey Matoff reported in The Greenville Pioneer efforts in Greenville to build a new firehouse stalled after a May 8 meeting ended without a consensus on location. "It seems the board is still split on the location on where to build the firehouse. The motion was made to put the discussion about the new firehouse on hold and that motion was passed," fire Commissioner Theodore Nugent, Sr. said. Opinions differ between 15 acres the fire district owns on State Route 81 near Greenville Center, and two locations closer to the town's commercial center, one near the town park, the other next to the St. John the Baptist Church on Route 81. All three locations have various roadblocks including wetlands, "ledge rock," and other safety concerns. The fire commissioners have no plans to meet further on the issue.

Ariél Zangla reported in the Daily Freeman it is possible the tick population will increase this year throughout the Hudson Valley. “You should always be careful, but it could be more dangerous this year than usual,” said Richard Ostfeld, a disease ecologist for the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook. Ostfeld said the predicted increase in blacklegged ticks and tick-borne disease came from work done at the Cary Institute. He said one of the best ways people can protect themselves is by using a permethrin-based repellent on their clothing. He said the permethrin kills ticks that crawl on treated clothes and shoes. And because nymph ticks are found on the ground and on low vegetation, it is particularly important to treat shoes and socks with the repellent, he said. The state Department of Health’s website at www [dot] health [dot] ny [dot] gov [slash] tickfree provides information on protecting against ticks and tick-borne illness, as well as a video that details the proper way to remove a tick that has become attached.

Emilia Teasdale reported in The Columbia Paper Kinderhook residents turned out last week for the regular meeting of the Village Board to hear what officials are doing about two dilapidated houses on Sunset Avenue. Village Code Enforcement Officer Glenn Smith said he issued warnings about violations at 14 Sunset Avenue and the owner of 12 Sunset sent a letter to the board saying he was making needed repairs. Both two-story residences appear to be vacant. The property owners were given deadlines to complete the required work. If they do not bring the buildings into compliance, the village is prepared to take them to court, Smith said. The board took the action after several residents in April asked the village to take action. No further public comment was offered following Smith's presentation at the meeting last week.

William J. Kemble reported in the Daily Freeman three Ulster County BOCES [BOE-seez] students have named the winners of a NASA competition to create meals for the International Space Station. Kingston High School students Lauren Hoetger and Sara Freer, along with Wallkill High School junior Angelina Violante won for their Strawberry-Rhubarb crisp. NASA expects to send the dessert to the space station next year. “Our original plan was to make a peach frangipane, which is like a peach cobbler, but NASA contacted us and said ‘no crumbs, you can’t make that,’” Hoetger said. “So we changed it and ... had to make variations to our recipe to change the carbohydrates and sugars and fats.” The Ulster BOCES team was one of 10 teams to make it past the regional competition to the finals, held on April 20 at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The team’s recipe will be included in an astronaut cookbook for preflight preparation.

Daniel Zuckerman reported in The Daily Mail Tannersville Mayor Lee McGunnigle submitted a letter to the state Comptroller’s Office in response its April audit of the village water system. McGunnigle said he does not object to the audit's findings and recommendations, but he believes a passage in the report about leakage and unmeasured water in the village is inaccurate. “The system is totally tight — we’re not losing water,” McGunnigle said. The report was critical of the Tannersville Village Water Department, finding that staff was not required to perform periodic reconciliations of water produced to water billed; the village’s water supply infrastructure has deteriorated; and the governing board had not created policies and procedures to ensure proper billing and collection of water rents. The village has to come up with a correction plan, McGunnigle said. The new water system now under construction will be efficient and could last up to 60 years, he added. “Ever since I got into office, all I care about is water quality,” McGunnigle said. “...The water system is constantly getting better.”

Local weather forecast:
TODAY: Rain. High near 60. Monday night, showers likely, mainly before 11 p.m. Patchy fog after 1 a.m. Otherwise, mostly cloudy. Low around 49.

FORECAST FOR THE NEXT TWO DAYS
TUESDAY: Patly sunny. High near 72. Tuesday night, a chance of showers, mainly after 2 a.m. Mostly cloudy. Low around 52.
WEDNESDAY: A chance of showers. Mostly cloudy. High near 71. Wednesday night, a chance of of showers. Mostly cloudy. Low around 55.

Sunrise today: 5:27 a.m.
Sunset today: 8:16 p.m.
LENGTH OF THE DAY: 14:48 hrs.

PUBLIC MEETINGS
Today is the fourth Monday of the month.

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

COLUMBIA COUNTY Board of Supervisors Broadband Sub-committee meeting cancelled; Economic Development Committee meeting, 5 p.m., at 401 State St., Hudson (828-1527).
GHENT Zoning Review Committee meeting, 6:30 p.m., at Town Hall, 2306 State Route 66, Ghent (392-4644).
GREENE County Legislature Alternatives to Incarceration Jail Sub-committee, 4 p.m. at 411 Main Street, Fourth Floor, Catskill (719-3200).
HUDSON Board of Education meeting, 7 p.m. in high school library, 215 Harry Howard Avenue, Hudson (828-4360).
HUDSON Industrial Development Agency meeting, 1 p.m. (828-0212); Common Council Fire Committee meeting, 5:30 p.m., Police Committee meeting, 6 p.m. (828-1030). All at City Hall, 520 Warren St., Hudson.
NEW BALTIMORE Town Board meeting, 7 p.m. at Town Hall, 3809 Co. Route. 51, Hannacroix (756-6671).
STUYVESANT Planning Board meeting, 7 p.m. at Town Hall, 5 Sunset Drive, Stuyvesant (758-6248).
TAGHKANIC Zoning Board of Appeals meeting, 7 p.m. at Town Hall, 909 Route 82, Taghkanic (851-7638).

ZDNet reports that the Federal Communication Commission won't reveal evidence of an alleged distributed denial-of-service attack against the radio regulating agency. The hack on the FCC's website is said to have prevented many people from commenting on the FCC's website in support of net neutrality. The attack came a few weeks ago just after John Oliver's latest rant about net neutrality on HBO. Oliver set up his own website, gofccyourself.com, to get around the FCC's now-more-complicated online commenting process, and urged viewers to make public comments to save net neutrality. Just then, ZDNet and others have reported, unknown anti-net neutrality spammers posted hundreds of thousands of the same messages to the FCC's website commenting about the net neutrality issue. The FCC voted last week to begin the process of rolling back the net neutrality regulations, which will allow a handful of internet companies to create "fast lanes" on the internet for those with money to spend. Evan Greer, campaign director at Fight for the Future, a non-profit group promoting internet freedoms, said the FCC should be able to figure out who was behind the attack on its website. "If the fake comments -- many of which are using real people's names and addresses without their permission -- were submitted using the FCC's API, that means they should absolutely have information about who is committing this act of fraud," she said. Two senators, Ron Wyden and Brian Schatz, have written to the FCC to inquire about the agency's claims it was attacked by an "external party."

Click here (3:46) to listen to WGXC's Congressional report, a look back at the week in news for Rep. John Faso (R-Kinderhook).

The New York Times reported that on May 17 U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein appointed Robert S. Mueller III, the former F.B.I. director, to serve as a special counsel for an investigation into Russian meddling in the election, and local representatives on both sides of the aisle applauded the decision. Rep. John Faso, or someone using Twitter for the Kinderhook Republican, wrote, "Mr. Mueller has unquestioned integrity and is a wise choice to lead the FBI investigation as Special Counsel." Sen. Chuck Schumer's Twitter feed read: "Former Director Mueller is exactly the right kind of individual to serve as special counsel in the Russia investigation. I now have significantly greater confidence that the investigation will follow the facts wherever they lead."

Matthew Hamilton reports in Capitol Confidential that Sue Sullivan, a strategic planning consultant from Ulster County, is the latest Democrat to file paperwork to run in the 19th Congressional District, where John Faso (R-Kinderhook) is now the representative. “People have asked why I’m doing this,” Sullivan said in a statement. “They say, ‘don’t bother, nothing is going to change.’ But that’s not how I was raised. Through my work across these communities I’ve seen directly how working together and listening we can get things done.” Sullivan is a former executive at St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital in Newburgh who says she has worked with Sen. Charles Schumer, former Sen. Hillary Clinton, and former Rep. Maurice Hinchey to change the Medicare reimbursement rate. She has since founded the Greater Newburgh Partnership, raising millions to promote development in Newburgh. Other official candidates so far include Antonio Delgado of Dutchess County, Brian Flynn of Greene County, Steven Brisee of Ulster County, and Gareth Rhodes of Ulster County. A Woodstock teacher Jeff Beal has also announced an intention to run against Faso in 2018. Read the full story in Capitol Confidential.

Dan Freedman in The Albany Times Union reports that Rep. John Faso (R-Kinderhook) does not have much to say about the constant deluge of negative stories about President Donald Trump. Last week Faso wanted a new FBI director acceptable to Republicans and Democrats, and if that could not be agreed upon, than a special prosecutor. Now that the Deputy Attorney General has appointed a special counsel to investigate possible Russian involvement in the recent election, Faso released a statement saying: "Facts are more important than Washington political games. Let the appropriate committees do their oversight work and collect the facts." Read the full story in The Albany Times Union.

Nicole Gaudiano at USA Today reports that Rep. John Faso (R-Kinderhook) voted May 17 to block a vote on legislation to create an independent commission to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election. Only one Republican voted against the measure blocking the bill from reaching a vote. The legislation, which was blocked 229-188, would have created a 12-member, bipartisan commission to interview witnesses, obtain documents, issue subpoenas, and receive public testimony about Russia’s attempts to influence the election. The bill was co-sponsored by two Republicans, and one of them voted against the bill. Read the full story at USA Today.

Here are some stories from the Hudson River this week. Click here to hear an audio version of this report.

• The Stevens Institute reports temperatures this week in the Hudson River below Poughkeepsie have been between 55 and 59 degrees.

• Brian PJ Cronin reports in The Highland Current that even after the state ended commercial fishing in the Hudson River, shad are still struggling. Riverkeeper’s John Lipscomb warns that the Hudson shad population had become dangerously low. Shad are important to the river, coming upstream to spawn each spring, eating plankton and being eaten by larger fish and bald eagles. John Waldman, author of "Running Silver: Restoring Atlantic Rivers and Their Great Fish Migrations" said that, “if we can solve the shad, we can solve everything else” that needs to be addressed in the Hudson ecosystem, because, “shad are large fish that want to go pretty far upriver. If you get shad far up the river, then the bass, the sturgeon, the alewives, the lampreys, are also going to make it. If they’re successful in making their way all the way up the river to their spawning grounds, then everything else should follow.” Besides centuries of fishing, scientists say that invasive species such as largemouth bass eat the shad, invasive species such as zebra mussels eat the plankton that shad feed on, and power plants along the river may be killing off up to 20 percent of the spawning population, suckied up by power plant cooling systems. Read the full story in The Highland Current.

• Local sewer plants released announcements about their releases into local Hudson River water sources after heavy rains last weekend. The Village of Catskill Wastewater Treatment Plant on May 13 had a five-and-a-half hour "permitted overflow" into Catskill Creek. The City of Hudson Wastewater Treatment Facility on May 13 had an eight-hour release of "disinfected primary effluent" into the Hudson River. And the Village of Coxsackie Wastewater Treatment Facility had a four-hour sewage overflow May 13.

Jesse McKinley reports in The New York Times that New York's comptroller’s office is investigating with law enforcement officials stipends being doled out to state senators for committee positions they did not hold. Republican leadership in Albany approved a plan to award tens of thousands of dollars to certain Senate committee vice chairmen, even though state law does not explicitly allow such stipends. Three members getting payments are Democrats that vote with Republicans as the Independent Democratic Conference. Governor Andrew Cuomo, though, criticized the comptroller’s office for signing off on the Senate’s disputed stipends. ”If it was not legal, the comptroller shouldn’t have done it,” he said. State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office and the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District each both also requested relevant documents from the comptroller’s office about this issue. Read the full story in The New York Times.

Kenneth C. Crowe II reports in The Albany Times Union that Assemblymember Steve McLaughlin has officially filed papers with the state Board of Elections to run for Rensselaer County executive. Earlier in the week Deputy Rensselaer County Executive Christopher Meyer, also a Republican, announced that he wants to take over for the retiring Kathleen Jimino as Rensselaer County executive. McLaughlin has early endorsements from state Conservative Party Chairman Michael R. Long and former U.S. Rep. Chris Gibson. Read the full story in The Albany Times Union.

Audrey Matoff in The Greenville Pioneer reports that efforts in Greenville to build a new firehouse have stalled after a May 8 meeting ended without consensus for a location. "It seems the Board is still split on the location on where to build the firehouse. The motion was made to put the discussion about the new firehouse on hold and that motion was passed," Board of Commissioners Chairman Theodore Nugent, Sr. said at the board's meeting. Opinions differ between 15 acres the fire district owns on State Route 81 near Greenville Center, and two locations closer to the town's commercial center, one near the town park, the other next to the St. John the Baptist Church on Route 81. All three locations have various roadblocks including wetlands, "ledge rock," and other safety concerns. Now, the board is planning no further meetings on the issue.

Local weather forecast:
TODAY: Mostly sunny, with a high near 66, and a low around 42.

FORECAST FOR THE NEXT TWO DAYS
SUNDAY: Partly sunny, with a high near 65, and a low around 49, and showers possible after 2 a.m..
MONDAY: Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm. Cloudy, with a high near 63.

DOWNLOAD or play the audio version of the local news update for Friday, May 19 (2:35). (Produced by Neva Wartell.)