Comprehensive plan steering committee meets

MILLBROOK — Officially appointed by the Washington Town Board on Monday, Oct. 4, the four new members of the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee, Karen Mosca, Maureen King, Josh Mackey and Kate Farrell, met for the very first time by speakerphone  a day later on Tuesday, Oct. 5, at 6 p.m. The notice was posted on the door of Town Hall on the same day, but word got out quickly and the committee, Margaret Irwin of River Street and Bob Audia, the Town Board liaison, were joined by a few informed residents for the session.

Mosca positioned the meeting as a brainstorming session on the next steps, and the flow of ideas between the newly-appointed members and the audience was relaxed and productive. The committee agreed that it had no authority to make decisions and that its role was to oversee and get the process of adopting a new comprehensive plan moving.

King suggested the group focus on when and where members should meet and how they communicate. No one seemed sure of what the actual name of the steering committee should be and Irwin pointed out that the comprehensive plan itself should no longer be considered a mere update to the 1989 version.

After a discussion of whether the next public meeting should address the issue of housing or the vision statement, the four agreed, with some constructive comments from the audience, that a vision statement workshop should come first.

Mackey pointed out that the entire group should have access to the information that the original committee produced.

Irwin, the plan’s consultant, reminded the group that the scope of work had expanded. She also suggested to the committee that it “needed to respond in some way� to letters received from residents. The group agreed to present its initial thoughts at the next meeting of the full Comprehensive Plan Committee, which would be the first since June 28.

At press time, the town of Washington’s website indicated the full Comprehensive Plan Committee, another newly proposed name for this group which has also been referred to as a “review� or “update� committee, would meet on Tuesday, Oct. 12, although this meeting is not included on the general town calendar. Nor were the new names of the full committee, whatever it shall officially be called, yet posted.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less