Preamble to the Kingston to come
Editor’s note – our full report on Monday’s comprehensive plan meeting will be in the print edition of the Kingston Times, but for now, here’s the text of the “Vision for Kingston” in the draft of the “Public Visioning Report and Needs Analysis” of the Kingston 2025 comprehensive plan: In 2025, Kingston will be a...
More epic ladies: strength in the face of challenges
I don’t know what is about Kingston, but this city is fully loaded with super-strong women. Last week, I told one woman’s story of her Herculean battle with cancer and interviewed another on the challenges of being a mother, wife and a policewoman. Charlene LaDay-Hill, a regulator for the state Gaming Commission, is also the...
Euro-tent looks to bring a new vibe to Midtown
The advent last summer of the Midtown Farmer’s Market, which sells fresh local produce every Tuesday afternoon on the site of the former vice-epicenter King’s Inn on Broadway, planted a seed on a depressing stretch of Broadway, a seed that a few weeks ago led to a second, spectacular blooming — the erection of a...
BREAKING: Public Service Commission approves Fortis takeover of Central Hudson
The New York State Public Service Commission on Thursday, June 13 voted to approve the $1.5 billion takeover of CH Energy Group Inc., owner of Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corporation, by Fortis, Inc. of Canada. The proposed merger, first announced in February 2012, came under significant local public criticism, with residents and lawmakers on...
Epic ladies: Community blessed with strong women
Lately, I have been especially inspired by all the strong women in my life, including those whose deeds I have been privileged to chronicle in my newspaper stories. I have written about some of the strongest, smartest, accomplished, barrier-breaking, deepest and most bad-ass women around. A minister of an inner-city congregation and soup kitchen who...
Fortis foes allege eco-misdeeds
In pressing the case that the proposed $1.5 billion acquisition of Central Hudson by Canadian holding company Fortis would be bad for ratepayers, Citizens for Local Power (CLP), an Ulster-based grassroots group which has risen to oppose the merger, is pointing to what they say is Fortis’ poor record in dealing with projects in Belize...
Michelle Elise transforms old stuff into new greatness
To everything there is a season. But what happens after its season is over, and it gets flung into the $1 sale bin? Then sold at a garage sale for 15 cents? Then tossed into the to-be-donated box and shoved into the attic corner? More and more designers have been taking pleasure by imagining a...
Kingston After Dark: Come together
As both a singer and an entertainment writer I have learned to be fairly open-minded and as a result I have wide-ranging tastes. One week I could be interviewing Christian hard rock band Stryper and the next covering pig’s blood-spewing Swedish black metal horde Watain. You need to be a little flexible and a good...
World War C: Cicadas are coming
This might be the ideal summer to finally acquire that long-coveted outdoor furniture at yard sales for next-to-nothing — because after the cicadas emerge from their 17 year-hiatus and start molting, droning and dying all over the place, many of us will abandon anything that has to do with the outdoors. With as much drama...
Food bank honors Rev. Kelley for work at Caring Hands
Last Tuesday, the Rev. Darlene Kelley, pastor at Clinton Avenue Methodist, was lauded by the Hudson Valley Regional Food Bank with its Award for Outstanding Achievement for her work to help feeding Kingston’s hungry. Kelley operates the Caring Hands soup kitchen and food pantry in her church each week from Monday through Friday, serving about...
Lost and found and “liked”
If you are on Facebook and live anywhere in the Hudson Valley, then for the past year your newsfeed may well have contained heart-wrenching home photos of children draped over a patient old terrier, golden Labradors racing across lawns or a vexed-looking striped cat with red-eye from camera flash waiting by the door to be...
KayCee Wimbish takes the city farm’s rake
When one thinks of Kingston, one might think of historical sites and buildings, arts, music, culture, wealthy and downtrodden neighborhoods… “city-type” stuff. But how many think of slow, quiet growing time in a sunny veggie garden? How many people think of John Deere? Or kids playing in the dirt? Urban farmer KayCee Wimbish does. South...