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Highlands Current
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The Highlands Current is a nonprofit weekly newspaper and daily website that covers Beacon, Cold Spring, Garrison, Nelsonville and Philipstown, New York, in the Hudson Highlands. This podcast includes select stories read aloud.

  1. 2h ago

    Notes from the Cold Spring Village Board In other business….

    Panel considers resident parking in lower village Mayor Kathleen Foley, at the Wednesday (June 24) meeting of the Cold Spring Village Board, outlined changes needed in the lower village regarding parking, enforcement and related signage. Foley said that although a resident parking district was created in 2015, signage was never installed. "Our officers cannot ticket non-residents without signs," she said. That can leave residents of the lower village without off-street parking, searching for spots on busy weekends. (A residential parking program in the upper village was established in 2024.) Eleanor Chew, a graduating Haldane High School senior, recently completed a three-week internship at Village Hall, studying the area between the Mero-North tracks and the river and inventorying and mapping parking spaces, signage, residences and businesses. Chew has drafted recommendations for resident parking and signage, along with the removal of unnecessary and outdated signs. "We need about 20 resident on-street parking spots," Foley said. The board supported her suggestion to appoint a five-member ad hoc committee composed of lower-village residents to recommend areas for residents-only parking. The board will discuss Chew's recommendations in detail in July. Foley said a "multitude of signs" also need to be removed from Main Street in the upper village, along with improvements to paid parking signage. The village has received a $6,000 donation to fund wayfinding signs throughout the village. Foley said "decluttering" signage needs to be done before the wayfinding system can be installed. The village will add solar-powered, rapid flashing signs at four pedestrian crossings. The signs, approved by the state Department of Transportation, will be installed at Locust Ridge and Route 301; Fishkill Avenue/Academy Street and Route 301; Craigside Drive and Route 9D; and Route 9D between the tennis courts and Haldane parking lot. Pavement striping at the crossings will also be improved. Foley said the project, to be undertaken this year, will cost $80,000, with Haldane covering up to half. The state will add flashing signs at the Main Street traffic light in 2027. The board approved an agreement with Haldane to add a crossing guard near Mountain Avenue and Craigside Drive. Haldane will pay the $15,000 annual salary. Crossing guards are employees of the village and supervised by the Cold Spring Police Department. Seastreak's request to dock at Cold Spring for fall cruises on Memorial Day weekend and on Oct. 24, the date of the annual Halloween parade, was denied. A decision on a request for 12 other docking dates between Oct. 3 and Nov. 1 is pending a structural assessment of the dock. Optimum internet service at Village Hall will be upgraded to fiber-optic for $280 per month. The Village Hall's basic service will be transferred to Wastewater Treatment Plant on Fair Street. Foley cited problems with Optimum throughout the village in recent months. "It is especially impactful for Village Hall because we provide public services, including the police department, and we cannot be down," she said. She described the negotiations with Optimum as "bruising" because "they have a monopoly. There has to be a way to get competition." The village's franchise agreement with Optimum expires in 2031. The board will revisit the licensing of food trucks. Trustee Tony Bardes found a sample law, which Trustee Andrew Hall revised for the board to consider. A year ago, the board instituted a six-month moratorium on licensing food trucks. At the time, Foley noted that Chapter 71 of the Village Code, which deals with licensing, had last been updated 34 years earlier. On June 10, the board approved Cold Spring Boat Club's request for a food truck to operate on Thursday to Monday between Memorial Day and Nov. 1. The boat club leases the riverfront property from the village. Responding to what she described as "a lot of chatter on social media" and elsewhere, Foley sa...

    5 min

  2. 22h ago

    Case Against Irizarry Continues

    Retired officer's 'brain health' being evaluated A report by a psychiatric expert hired to evaluate the mental health of Edison Irizarry, the retired Beacon police officer who said he shot his roommate nearly a year ago, is complete. A second, commissioned by prosecutors, is expected next. The findings of the first report have not been released. Once complete, both will be considered as the criminal case against the former 17-year Beacon police officer moves forward. Irizarry, 52 at the time, was arrested July 21, 2025, after Beacon police responded to a 911 call placed by Irizarry, who said he had shot his roommate. Officers found Casey Cuddy, 58, of Beacon, dead inside an apartment at 86 Rombout Ave. The department turned the investigation over to the New York State Police after learning that Irizarry, who retired in 2021, was a former officer. Irizarry is accused of shooting Cuddy, a psychiatric nurse, multiple times with a 9-millimeter semi-automatic Glock pistol. He pleaded not guilty in Beacon City Court on July 22 and was indicted by a Dutchess County grand jury on Aug. 5 on a second-degree murder charge. He is being held at the county jail in Poughkeepsie without bail. In an interview last year with the Times Union, Irizarry said he shot Cuddy in self-defense to prevent "something evil from happening" but would not provide details. On Friday (June 26), Brittney Kessel, the deputy unit chief of the Dutchess County DA's Office, and Alexander Rosen, Irizarry's public defender, replacing Susan Mraz Mungavin, who retired, met for about 10 minutes with Judge Jessica Segal in County Court in Poughkeepsie. Irizarry did not appear. After conferring, Segal announced that the defense's mental health report had been submitted. "That took a very long time to get, but it was helpful," she said. However, there has been "no agreed-upon disposition. That's still being discussed" as professionals assess Irizarry's "brain health," Segal said. She set an Aug. 27 date for attorneys to provide updates. That frustrated Cuddy's sister, Dana Miller, who said Friday that she has tired of the slow pace. "We've been waiting a year for the defense to present a defense," said Miller, who lives in North Texas. "It shouldn't have taken that long."

    3 min

  3. 1d ago

    River Pool to Open for 18th Season

    Allows swimming at Beacon waterfront When folk singer Pete Seeger envisioned The River Pool at the Beacon waterfront more than 25 years ago, he said he wanted to encourage swimming in the Hudson, which he sang about as "My Dirty Stream." "He felt that if people were swimming in the water, they would work to keep it clean," said Karen Frillman, president of the pool's volunteer board. Seeger died in January 2014, after the pool had been open for seven summers. The River Pool is scheduled to open this year on Wednesday (July 1) for its 18th season at Pete and Toshi Seeger Riverfront Park. It is waiting for final approvals from the Dutchess County Health Department. Frillman said the department samples the water weekly. "The first year they tested, they said it was [clean enough to be] almost drinkable," she said. "It's a great spot." The health department also inspects the structure to ensure it's safe for the 700 or so children who visit each summer. The pool is 17 feet wide and 30 inches deep, with a net bottom. It's attached to the riverbed with cables, allowing the pool to move with the tide. Seeger modeled the pool after the floating swimming cribs anchored in the East River off Manhattan in the late-19th and early 20th centuries. Volunteers assemble the pool each summer in a cove near the park. It is staffed with a paid lifeguard from noon to 6 p.m. every day except Monday through Labor Day. The group raises about $50,000 a year with The Annual Great Newburgh to Beacon River Swim, scheduled for Aug. 1. Typically, more than 200 swimmers pay $75 to traverse the river escorted by kayaks. The River Pool board would like to see its model replicated, said Ben Weiss, one of its nine trustees. "River Pool at Peekskill, River Pool at Newburgh, River Pool at Albany — that's the big vision." About 10 years ago, the group pitched a larger pool at Scenic Hudson's Long Dock Park in Beacon, measuring 54 feet long by 20 feet wide, with a separate wading pool. "Although this would be an appealing amenity, we were — and still are — concerned about the additional infrastructure, park management demands and liability linked to hosting swimming," said Seth McKee, executive director of The Scenic Hudson Land Trust & Land Programs. For those reasons, McKee said, swimming is not allowed at any of the two dozen waterfront parks and preserves managed by Scenic Hudson, although Sojourner Truth State Park in Kingston, which the nonprofit created with New York State, will soon offer swimming overseen by state parks. The River Pool is part of a larger movement toward providing free, supervised swimming holes. By one estimate, there are 10.7 million swimming pools in the U.S., but only about 300,000 are open to the public. In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul included funding for new or renovated public pools in her 2024 state budget as part of a program called New York Swims. The state awarded $38 million to municipalities in the Mid-Hudson region, including $8 million to help fund an outdoor aquatic center at Delano-Hitch Recreation Park in Newburgh that opened last summer. In New York City, a nonprofit called Plus Pool has been raising funds since 2015 to build a floating, self-filtering pool in the East River and to deploy river pools across the state, including near the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge. It is testing a 2,000-square-foot pilot this summer near Pier 35 in lower Manhattan.

    4 min

  4. 1d ago

    What's Next for Indian Point?

    Future use remains uncertain Despite a push from Rep. Mike Lawler and the U.S. Department of Energy, a restart at the Indian Point nuclear power plant seems increasingly unlikely. Doing so would require unanimous approval from five entities, three of which — New York State, Westchester County and the Town of Cortlandt — have repeatedly voiced their opposition to nuclear power being produced there. (The other parties are the Village of Buchanan and the Hendrick Hudson school district.) As a result, five years after the plant powered down, the question of what will be built there — and when — remains unanswered. The question arose again at the June 18 meeting of the Indian Point Decommissioning Oversight Board (DOB) when Matt Johnson of Holtec, the company decommissioning the plant, shared a schedule that listed 2041 as the goal for "partial site release." A full site release will require removing casks of spent nuclear fuel, but the federal government has not built a storage facility for them. Holtec had planned to release the grounds around a former training building, but discovered in 2024 that it was contaminated with cesium-137. Johnson said the company doesn't know when that release will happen. "I would say we're quite a bit away," he said. Legislators Call on Hochul to Sign Funding Bill Dana Levenberg, whose state Assembly district includes Philipstown, and state Sen. Pete Harckham this week called on Gov. Kathy Hochul to sign a bill that would extend, for another five years, funding for school districts and municipalities that lose tax revenue when a local power plant shuts down. Levenberg and Harckham, whose districts include Indian Point, are members of the Decommissioning Oversight Board. Surrounded by kindergartners at Buchanan-Verplanck Elementary School on Tuesday (June 23), the legislators said that the Electric Generation Facility Cessation Fund had been a lifeline to the Hendrick Hudson school district after the closure of Indian Point. However, the fund is set to expire in 2028. "Closing Indian Point has made our communities safer, but it has also meant a big loss in tax dollars," said Levenberg. Their bill passed in the Senate, 60-1, with support from Rob Rolison, whose district includes Philipstown and Beacon, and in the Assembly, 131-0, with support from Levenberg and Jonathan Jacobson, whose district includes Beacon. At the December 2025 meeting of the Oversight Board, Hendrick Hudson Superintendent Michael Tromblee said that the 2021 shutdown resulted in the loss of nearly a third of the district's operating budget because of the loss of property taxes paid by the plant. He warned that without continued funding, the district would have to consider cuts such as eliminating sports or merging with another district. At the federal level, a bill known as the STRANDED Act (Sensible, Timely Relief for America's Nuclear Districts' Economic Development) would allow municipalities with nuclear plants to tax spent fuel stored on-site. Theresa Knickerbocker, the mayor of Buchanan, said at the June 18 meeting of the Oversight Board that, after years of negotiation, the STRANDED Act appears to be dead, but that Rep. Mike Lawler introduced a similar bill in March, the Economic Recovery for Nuclear-Affected Communities Act. "The communities that are being stranded with this spent fuel should be compensated for the storage of it," said Knickerbocker. "We never agreed to store the spent fuel. The original agreement, when the power plant went in, was not to store it, so this is on the Department of Energy." Emiljuana Ulaj, a Westchester County legislator who is a member of the Decommissioning Oversight Board, said she viewed "full decommissioning" as meaning "people can live here. Someone is able to have a garden. Is that possible?" Tom Congdon, the Oversight Board chair, cited a 2018 study by the Indian Point Closure Task Force (which he also chaired) that advised against building homes at Indian Point. The study also...

    6 min

  5. 1d ago

    First Season Under the Roof

    Hudson Valley Shakespeare debuts Scripps theater The elephant on the grounds of Hudson Valley Shakespeare is the sturdy new Samuel H. Scripps Theater Center, which offers a dramatic backdrop and is named after a newspaper scion who lived in Rhinebeck and worked in the theater world as a lighting designer. But the shows must go on, and for the theater's debut season, the company is presenting a double dose from the Bard and a "special run" of Les Misérables. After previews, opening night for As You Like It was June 20, and King Lear got going on Monday (June 22). The productions run through mid-September, and the schedule begins mixing in Les Miz on Aug. 22. The company has come a long way from its first season at Manitoga when, according to lore, it rained, says artistic director Davis McCallum. They returned the next year at Boscobel under a tent, establishing a tradition that lasted 36 more summers but is now a thing of the past. "We're big on the 'Hudson Valley' part of our name," says McCallum. "Shakespeare's theater was outdoors, and we had to take advantage of the view." That vista inspired the 1809 painting "The Highlands-Hudson River," by James Renwick, one of the founders of the Cold Spring Foundry. The three plays represent "an interesting mix, including two greats from Shakespeare that start in court and unfold in the natural world," says McCallum. "In As You Like It, it's the Forest of Arden, and there's the Heath in King Lear. The river, the mountains and the greenery become part of the story." The Royal Shakespeare Company in London produced the original hit version of Les Misérables, which transferred to Broadway and is a staple of high school stages (Haldane presented it in March; the Beacon players did in 2023). Yet it's been at least a decade since the rightsholder granted a performance license to professional companies, due in part to the successful global tour of the concert version, says McCallum. "I wanted to do this since 2010, and director Jenn Thompson had a great approach," he says. "We petitioned them and, as the first in the cue, we got the go-ahead. It's such an epic canvas; our adaptation is Shakespearean in scale," and features 15 musicians. Despite a 28-year tenure with the troupe, Philipstown local Kurt Rhoads is tackling the intimidating role of King Lear for the first time as a pro at Hudson Valley Shakespeare. "He is the perfect actor on the perfect stage at the perfect time and has been training for a while," says McCallum. "These are banger scenes where actors must convey enormous power and emotional vulnerability," he says. "You have to be funny and terrifying as you're blasting out 40-line speeches at the top of your lungs. Many great classical actors shudder at the part." The work that benefits most from the stunning setting is As You Like It, which features five songs written for the show by Amanda Dehnert. "Some Shakespeare plays had lyrics, but no scores have survived," says McCallum. "We're creating a world inspired by the Gilded Age era and the Hudson River School of painting," he says. After bidding farewell to its seasonal tent, the company will still be exposed to the elements. "You can build an indoor theater anywhere," says McCallum. "Since the beginning, when it rained at Manitoga, being outside and using the setting has been an integral part of our heritage." Hudson Valley Shakespeare is located at 2015 Route 9 in Philipstown. For tickets, which range from $55 to $120, with discounts for seniors, students, children, teens and military, see hvshakespeare.org.

    4 min

  6. 1d ago

    Holiday at the Howland

    Author, performer will evoke jazz singer If any artist in history could have benefited from better public relations, Billie Holiday fits the bill. Maligned by the press and broadcast media during her lifetime, authors and film producers exploited her legacy after she drank herself to death in 1959 at age 44. To set the record straight about the beloved jazz singer, Paul Alexander, author of Bitter Crop: The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday's Last Year, will read from his book and interview Mala Waldron, Holiday's goddaughter, at the Howland Cultural Center in Beacon on Sunday (June 28). Waldron will also sing while accompanying herself on piano. Local author Eva Salzman produced the event, titled Billie & Banter: Billie Holiday Songs and Stories. Waldron and Alexander teamed up for the first time after she appeared at a symposium in New York City about Holiday's life that Alexander organized in 2024 at Hunter College, where he teaches. "It bothered me that all of the biographies are filled with bogus facts," Alexander says. "She made it hard on historians by making up a lot of things about her past, but there's a larger false narrative out there." The project is part of a growing reclamation effort. Alexander points to a permanent public artwork commissioned by New York City — an "inspirational abstract image" that will be unveiled at the Jamaica Performing Arts Center in Queens, where Holiday lived for many years. After the singer added controversial material to her repertoire, such as the anti-lynching song "Strange Fruit" in 1939, and got hooked on heroin in the 1940s, local and federal law enforcement hounded her. While Holiday lay in her hospital deathbed, Bureau of Narcotics agents handcuffed her to the rail. Sometimes, tragedy turned into triumph: In 1948, less than two weeks after her early release from a year-and-a-day federal prison sentence, she sold out Carnegie Hall. "The media came after her, and the government came after her, and she lost her cabaret card," says Waldron, the daughter of Holiday's final pianist, Mal Waldron. Until 1967, performers needed a New York City Cabaret Identification Card to play in venues that served alcohol. "Billie got such harsh treatment because she was a Black woman with other stigmas," she says. Surrounded by musicians since her childhood, Waldron has lived the jazz life. She will bring a longtime collaborator, bassist Christopher Dean Sullivan, with her to the Howland. Because she was just a year old when Holiday — born Eleanora Fagan and known as "Lady Day" — died in 1959, Waldron's knowledge is secondhand. "I heard all these stories from my father and people who knew her," she says. Holiday co-wrote several jazz standards, Alexander notes, including "God Bless the Child" (with Arthur Herz), "Lady Sings the Blues" (Herbie Nichols) and "Left Alone" (Mal Waldron). On her own, she penned "Tell Me More and More," three blues songs and "Fine and Mellow," the B-side of "Strange Fruit." "She taught Frank Sinatra how to bend notes, and her voice — there's nothing like it in all of music," Alexander says. "Even Ariana Grande, the best imitator I've ever heard, can't copy her. Holiday introduced a vernacular, conversational style that changed the direction of American music." The Howland Cultural Center is located at 477 Main St. in Beacon. Tickets for Billie & Banter, which begins at 4 p.m., are $20 at dub.sh/billie-banter, or $25 at the door.

    4 min

  7. 1d ago

    State Boosts Childcare Spending

    Dutchess, Putnam faced funding shortages More funding is on the way for families who were turned away for childcare assistance when Putnam and Dutchess counties suspended their programs last summer. Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers agreed last month to provide $2.4 billion in the 2026-27 budget for the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), a 40 percent increase. It also includes $630 million in supplemental funds for 2025-26. Demand for the program, which covers most of a family's childcare costs, skyrocketed when the state began allowing people with higher incomes to qualify. Income limits now range from $79,215 annually for a two-person family to $153,770 for a six-person household. Most families that qualify will pay no more than $15 per week as their share, according to the state. By September, when Dutchess and Putnam stopped taking applications, there were 1,079 children enrolled in Dutchess, compared to 706 in January 2020, according to the state Office of Children and Family Services. Putnam also experienced a significant increase — from 30 children to 118 — during the period. Dutchess, which received $12.7 million in base funding for CCAP in 2025-26, resumed taking applications on March 1 (see dub.sh/dutchess-child). Putnam, which was sent $1.1 million, still has a notice on the Department of Social Services webpage about the earlier hold on new applications. Hochul and state legislators "appear to have fully funded CCAP," said Himali Pandya, executive director of the Child Care Council of Dutchess and Putnam, but "the jury's still out" on whether $2.4 billion will be enough. Along with more money for CCAP, the budget includes funding for school districts to expand pre-K programs for 4-year-olds and $20 million for a pilot program in Dutchess County to provide childcare for 1,000 infants and children up to age 3. Dutchess, chosen along with Broome and Monroe counties for pilots, is considered a childcare "desert" — meaning it has more than 3 children under 5 years old for each childcare spot. In January, Hochul visited the Day One Early Learning Community in Poughkeepsie to announce that the pilot funding would be in her budget proposal. Founded in 2021, the nonprofit's primary initiative is an 11-week paid program for people who want to work at daycares, open their own or apply their credentials toward associate degrees at Dutchess Community College or Columbia-Greene Community College. Of Day One's 129 graduates, 86 percent are working in childcare, said Madeline Henriquez, its executive director. Day One also operates an 89-seat, five-classroom early-learning center, hosts groups for parents and provides technical assistance to people who want to open childcare centers or home-based programs. It is partnering with Hudson River Housing and Vassar Brothers Medical Center to renovate two houses that will become the county's first 24/7 childcare programs. There is one glaring shortfall in New York's childcare spending: funding to supplement the pay of the educators who are often paid only minimum wage, which is $16 in Dutchess, Putnam and the rest of upstate. The state Senate proposed $500 million in grants to supplement childcare workers' pay, but the proposal failed to make the budget. That leaves the status quo intact for students pursuing degrees in early childhood education at schools like Dutchess Community College, said Pandya. "Kids go through it, and then they go work at Amazon because they can make more money," she said. "Unless we can pay educators what they deserve, we're just not going to be able to retain them."

    4 min

  8. 1d ago

    Does This Work?

    Each month, writers gather for feedback at Script Lab Laurie Slattery, who discovered Savage Wonder's Script Lab online and appreciated the nonprofit's focus on veterans, showed up for the first time at a workshop last month. Her grandfather stormed Iwo Jima with the Marines, and her nephew served in Iraq. "I wrote some poetry and a script that I had to retrieve from an old computer," she says. After moving to Beacon three years ago, "it took me a while to get my nerve up, but I need some enlightenment and to be around creative people." During the three-hour session, Slattery observed as the group read, then mildly critiqued several script excerpts. Suggestions are delivered with a positive spirit; nothing gets carved up. Francis Kielbe, who had made revisions based on feedback from the previous Script Lab meeting, listened to "Version 2.0" of his screenplay about depressed monsters attending an AA-style gathering. Rob Barron, a regular who teaches theater at The City College of New York, suggested that Kielbe consider "character directions. Do you want the vampire to be like Bela Lugosi or some frat boy? What kind of zombie are you looking for?" Topher Kage, an actor, writer, Army veteran and director of experience at Savage Wonder, plays a genial and gentle host who asks writers, "What do you want to get out of this?" Most come to hear the dialogue outside of their heads. Lauren O'Brien, who created the one-woman Lolo's Boyfriend Show, is writing a TV pilot. "Early in the process, it's hard to tell what you have. Does it hit with people? Is it confusing?" she asks. "The lab helps you see what works and what doesn't work. I'm ready to feel it." O'Brien, who lives in Beacon, heard buzz about the gathering and decided to take the plunge. "I'm a sensitive artist, but we always need feedback," she says. As Kage read the opening scene at a frantic pace, O'Brien pressed play on a phone soundtrack as her alter ego darted around Manhattan, chased by a mystery man wearing expensive shoes. As much as the creators enjoy hearing people read their work, several attendees show up to bring the scripts alive. Cold and semi-cold readings notwithstanding, volunteers keep things moving. Animating one of Barron's scenes, Beacon resident Lily Cabe played a waitress with aplomb, supporting O'Brien and Ted Swindley, author of Always … Patsy Cline, who poured on the smarm as a rogue substance abuser with three ex-wives and a prison bid on his resume. Swindley also dug into his role as an air traffic controller in Kage's script, a 10-minute play presented with authentic sound effects. "I like to work the acting muscle," says Swindley, who also provides advice. Time limits for individual works are loose, but everyone gets an equitable shot depending on the work's length and merit. Kielbe's monster mash lasted four pages; others are more elaborate. "We get excellent feedback from skilled people, and I'm honored to get the attention," says O'Brien. "This vortex of creativity and sharing with others is like being close to God. I feel like I'm part of something." Script Lab is held at 6 p.m. for writers ages 21 and older on the first Wednesday of each month at Savage Wonder, 141 Main St., in Beacon. The next sessions are July 1 and Aug. 5. See dub.sh/script-lab.

    4 min
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About

The Highlands Current is a nonprofit weekly newspaper and daily website that covers Beacon, Cold Spring, Garrison, Nelsonville and Philipstown, New York, in the Hudson Highlands. This podcast includes select stories read aloud.

Information

  • Creator
    Highlands Current
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    71
  • Rating
    Clean