Trouble at the water tower


PINE PLAINS — Last Sunday, Oct. 12, at about 2 a.m., there was a slight problem at the town’s water tower. The telemetry stopped working, setting off the tower’s alarms, according to town Supervisor Gregg Pulver.

"There was plenty of water, it’s just that something got screwed up," Pulver said. "We looked at it, and it was set on schedule."

According to the supervisor, the problem was discovered after looking at the computer. The 10-year-old computer, that is.

"It’s bad," he said. "That computer is obsolete."

Pulver told the rest of his board that the town can either decide to replace the computer with more of the same, by purchasing replicas of "what is already there," which will cost $5,000 to $6,000, or it can update the computer completely and buy a better version, which uses radio.

"It’s much more efficient and less computer-oriented," he said.

And there’s not much more of a price difference. To upgrade to the radio option, the town would only have to invest an additional $1,000 to the $5,000 or $6,000 needed for the computer anyway.

"It’s a little more money, but it’s more current and up-to-date," Pulver said.

"It’s a no-brainer," said Councilman Rick Butler, whose words were echoed seconds later by Councilman George Keeler.

The board agreed to move forward with the radio model; Pulver then said he felt like the situation is pretty much "under control."

Latest News

Finding ‘The Right Stuff’ for a documentary

Tom Wolfe

Film still from “Radical Wolfe” courtesy of Kino Lorber

If you’ve ever wondered how retrospective documentaries are made, with their dazzling compilation of still images and rare footage spliced between contemporary interviews, The Moviehouse in Millerton, New York, offered a behind-the-scenes peek into how “the sausage is made” with a screening of director Richard Dewey’s biographical film “Radical Wolfe” on Saturday, March 2.

Coinciding with the late Tom Wolfe’s birthday, “Radical Wolfe,” now available to view on Netflix, is the first feature-length documentary to explore the life and career of the enigmatic Southern satirist, city-dwelling sartorial icon and pioneer of New Journalism — a subjective, lyrical style of long-form nonfiction that made Wolfe a celebrity in the pages of Esquire and vaulted him to the top of the best-seller lists with his drug-culture chronicle “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” and his first novel, “The Bonfire of The Vanities.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Art on view this March

“Untitled” by Maureen Dougherty

New Risen

While there are area galleries that have closed for the season, waiting to emerge with programming when the spring truly springs up, there are still plenty of art exhibitions worth seeking out this March.

At Geary Contemporary in Millerton, founded by Jack Geary and Dolly Bross Geary, Will Hutnick’s “Satellite” is a collection of medium- and large-scale acrylic on canvas abstracts that introduce mixtures of wax pastel, sand and colored pencil to create topographical-like changes in texture. Silhouettes of leaves float across seismic vibration lines in the sand while a craterous moon emerges on the horizon, all like a desert planet seen through a glitching kaleidoscope. Hutnick, a resident of Sharon and director of artistic programming at The Wassaic Project in Amenia, New York, will discuss his work at Geary with New York Times art writer Laura van Straaten Saturday, March 9, at 5 p.m.

Keep ReadingShow less
Caught on Camera: Our wildlife neighbors

Clockwise from upper left: Wildlife more rarely caught by trail cameras at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies: great blue heron, river otters, a bull moose, presenter and wildlife biologist Michael Fargione, a moose cow, and a barred owl.

Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies

‘You don’t need to go to Africa or Yellowstone to see the real-life world of nature. There are life and death struggles in your wood lot and backyard,” said Michael Fargione, wildlife biologist at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, during his lecture “Caught on Camera: Our Wildlife Neighbors.”

He showed a video of two bucks recorded them displaying their antlers, then challenging each other with a clash of antlers, which ended with one buck running off. The victor stood and pawed the ground in victory.

Keep ReadingShow less