Voters move to vote on firehouse

FALLS VILLAGE — At an unusually well-attended meeting, voters overwhelmingly approved moving the question of bonding $2.5 million for a new emergency services center to a referendum. The town meeting vote was held Tuesday, Aug. 16.The vote to hold the referendum was 112 to 22. A “no” vote would have removed the need for a referendum, and the Falls Village Volunteer Fire Department would have been forced to begin the process again.The multipurpose room at the Lee H. Kellogg School was packed with interested citizens. In addition to the 134 people who voted, there were at least a couple dozen more observers and children attending. All the folding chairs were used.The meeting, which started about 20 minutes late because of the turnout, was lively, with extended arguments about procedural matters.There was considerable confusion about what action the town meeting was taking. Clearly some voters attended thinking the actual vote on the bonding was to take place.But things settled down, more or less, once it was clear that the purpose of the vote was whether or not to hold the referendum.That voters approved holding the referendum does not mean that it will pass. A very informal survey afterward was about evenly split between supporters of the firehouse plan, and those who believe that embarking on a major capital project at a difficult economic time is unwise.The referendum was held Tuesday, Aug. 23, at Town Hall from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Absentee ballots were also available. Registered voters in the town of Canaan (Falls Village) and those owning property assessed at $1,000 and up were eligible to vote.UPDATE: The referendum failed by a vote of 126-230. Full update to follow.

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