The Cioni Building (photo by Phyllis McCabe)

Though there hasn’t been much to report on the sale of the Cioni Building, Kingston City School District school officials said this week the process is still heading in the right direction, albeit slowly.

“Right now our attorneys and the purchaser’s attorneys are trying to schedule closing dates,” said Superintendent Paul Padalino on Wednesday, adding that he had a meeting planned later in the day to get an update. “You put it in the hands of attorneys and you know what happens. Nothing moves fast and everything gets complicated. We’re just waiting on the closing date. But the deal is still moving forward.”

Last July, the school board approved selling its current administrative headquarters to 61 Crown Street LLC, which is led by New York City-based developer Neil Bender and filed a bid as BRE Properties. The $4.25 million bid, with an eye on turning the property into a boutique hotel and spa, came during an open bidding session on the highly coveted property in booming Uptown Kingston. The next highest bid was for $1.8 million.

In January, trustees voted to drop the sale price from $4.25 million to around $3.47 million, after an environmental review done by the purchaser found a variety of structural reasons. In April, Padalino said he hoped to close in early May, but that period passed and a date has yet to be set. But the superintendent this week cautioned the public not to read anything into that, and that the sale is still in the works.

“I think the gentleman that bought our building has bought every other vacant property in the City of Kingston,” Padalino said. “I think he’s invested in obtaining this property as part of his plans and is invested financially in making it happen.”

Voters in the district last week approved the creation of a new capital reserve fund, in part to hold the proceeds from the sale of the Cioni Building. That measure passed by a margin of 1,617-459. Using the reserve fund in the future would also require voter approval.

Just days after it was revealed that Ron Kelder would not be retained as the Kingston High School varsity boys basketball coach, school officials confirmed that his return would be recommended after all. This followed a public wave of support for Kelder after news broke two weeks ago that Kingston City School District Director of Health, Physical Education & Athletics Rich Silverstein declined to renew his contract. 

“I base my recommendations on my own personal observations and evaluations of every coach in our district,” said Silverstein last week. “When it comes to the specifics, I am not going to be recommending Ron Kelder for the position of varsity boys basketball [coach] based solely on my evaluations and observations.”

Kelder served as the Tigers’ head coach for the past 22 seasons, amassing a record of 289-159 (.645) with just a single losing season in two decades under his tenure. Kingston played in the Section IX finals nine times under Kelder, winning the title from 2002-04 and again in 2013.

Most recently, Kelder coached the Tigers to a 16-6 record and a visit to the Section IX, Class AA semis in the 2017-18 season.

“Ron has done an amazing job for many, many years for our student athletes here in Kingston,” said Silverstein, the day before last week’s school board meeting. “We are all very proud and happy with the job that he has done with us for many years, and he has helped elevate many athletes in their high school careers as our coach. Unfortunately I’ve decided to take the basketball program into a little different direction, and I won’t be recommending Ron for this position. I have spoken with Ron personally recently and informed him of my intent.”

But during a meeting of the Board of Education the following evening, members of the public voiced support for Kelder and shared concern about the decision to let him go. 

“I am requesting that the Board investigate our athletic department,” said Carmela Genther. “I am also asking that you look into the evaluation process and policies. I think it is in the best interests of our student athletes, as well as coaches, that this happens sooner than later.”

Darryl Strawberry

Kelder’s sister-in-law Carole Kelder, a district resident and principal at Mount Marion Elementary School in the Saugerties Central School District, told the board she believed friction between the coach and the athletic director may have contributed to the Kingston district losing out on an opportunity to host a talk by baseball legend Darryl Strawberry, who will instead appear at Saugerties High School on Friday, June 8.

“I’m a member of the community, I’m also an educator, and I’m the mother of a child who overdosed on heroin in August of 2015,” said Kelder. “When that happened, our family without hesitation knew that we had to be open about how Ryan died. We also knew that we had to do something that could help other people in this community who were suffering the same way that we did. I run a grassroots organization called Raising Your Awareness about Narcotics: The acronym, R.Y.A.N.”

Through R.Y.A.N. fundraising, both the Kingston and Saugerties districts last year hosted a similar talk by former NBA star Chris Herren. The latter was open to the public at Kate Walton Field House and was attended by around 2,000 people.

“Chris shared his descent into addiction followed by his miraculous recovery, celebrating almost 10 years clean,” said Kelder in an interview with the Saugerties Times. “Last year’s event changed the lives of so many. About five or six weeks after Chris came and spoke, one person wrote to us to let us know that hearing Chris’s story saved him.”

Carole Kelder said Ron Kelder brought the Darryl Strawberry event to Silverstein’s office but hadn’t gotten anywhere.

“I don’t want to speak for him, and I don’t know the specifics, but I know that he really wasn’t getting a clear answer,” she said. “As time went on and we either had to secure a date or not, I reached out several times to the athletic department…and I didn’t get a response … I don’t know where the breakdown in communication came.”

Padalino this week said he thought it was too late to try and salvage a Strawberry event, but after speaking with Carole Kelder after the School Board meeting he made it clear that the district would like to work with R.Y.A.N. in the future.

“I don’t know where that breakdown was,” Padalino said. “It never got to my desk. I told her if there was ever a hold up or any kind of confusion, or she isn’t getting a response that she could and should call me. We look forward to partnering with them again.”

While the KCSD may have lost out on hosting Darryl Strawberry, they still have an opportunity to retain Ron Kelder as their basketball coach. According to Superintendent Paul Padalino, Silverstein can make recommendations to the superintendent, but only the superintendent can then bring recommendations to the school board. And Padalino said he planned to recommend Kelder remain the boys’ basketball coach, something he expects to happen at the June 6 school board meeting.

“I think it was a lack of proper communication,” Padalino said. “I take responsibility for that. I think we need to make sure people understand and realize that recommendations regarding personnel come to me and are reviewed at this level before anything else happens. That’s my responsibility. At the end of the day I don’t think that Mr. Silverstein had received the best guidance or instruction on how we want things done, and we got a little ahead of ourselves. Luckily enough we caught it, and my recommendation will be for Mr. Kelder to continue as basketball coach.”

Ron Kelder declined comment for this story.

Darryl Strawberry

Baseball legend Darryl Strawberry, who won the World Series as a player with both the New York Mets (1986) and New York Yankees (1996, 1998, 1999), will visit Saugerties High School on June 8. He will discuss how he overcame addiction and found his true purpose in helping people with their struggles. 

The Strawberry visit is sponsored by R.Y.A.N. (Raising Your Awareness about Narcotics), an organization founded by the family of Ryan Kelder, who died of a heroin overdose in August 2015. Ryan’s mother, Carole Kelder, is the principal at Mt. Marion Elementary School.

Carole Kelder said a similar event last year was a rousing success. “Last year R.Y.A.N. raised enough money to bring Chris Herren, former NBA Celtic, for an assembly for Saugerties High School students in grades 9 through 12, followed by an evening event at Kingston High School that drew almost 2000 community members from throughout Ulster County to hear Chris’s inspiring story,” said Kelder. “Chris shared his descent into addiction followed by his miraculous recovery, celebrating almost ten years clean.”

Kelder reported that the response to Herren’s inspiring story had been overwhelming. “Last year’s event changed the lives of so many,” Kelder said. “About five or six weeks after Chris came and spoke, one person wrote to us to let us know that hearing Chris’s story saved him.”

Kelder said she expects the community to respond similarly to Strawberry’s visit, which will include a presentation by the baseball star, followed by an interview with two Saugerties High students. 

“Darryl will be discussing his battle with childhood abuse, anxiety, and drug and alcohol addiction,” Kelder said. “He will discuss how effects of low self-esteem, self-worth, bullying, and emotional pain can lead someone to drugs or alcohol. He will share his hard truths about his journey into addiction, and also his inspiring, hopeful message that recovery is possible.”

In a press release, Strawberry talked about how he came to dedicate his life to helping people get through the same struggles he’s faced. “I have a heart for people, especially those who are faced with conditions, situations, or battles in their lives that often bring a deep sense of hopelessness to the soul,” said the release. “As many people know, much of my life has been filled with the battles that have left me without hope. However, that is not the case today. Today I have hope!” 

Kelder said the Strawberry event was very much in line with what R.Y.A.N. is trying to achieve in Saugerties and beyond. “It is a privilege that I get to work with children every day,” she said. “I see how our students are affected by the disease of addiction, depression, anxiety, as well as many other things. I feel that as an educator it is my obligation to do the best job that I can to educate children and their parents, empowering them with knowledge so that they can make good decisions for themselves, help a friend, or even know where to find important resources.”

Funding for R.Y.A.N. events is primarily through their annual 5k run, scheduled this year for Sunday, October 21 at Kingston’s Loughran Park. Prevention education programs are organized in partnership with other community groups.

“There are also many free resources at the disposal of the community, we just need to find them and take advantage of them,” said Kelder. “R.Y.A.N. heard about a program through the Ulster Prevention Council (UPC) called Too Good for Drugs. The evidenced based program is more than about drugs, it teaches students to form healthy relationships, to be confident, and to make good choices.” 

More recently, R.Y.A.N. helped coordinate an assembly for fifth and sixth graders at Mt. Marion Elementary led by New York State trooper Craig Vedder and R.Y.A.N.’s school and community outreach coordinator, Randi Kelder. Both talked about the risks and rewards of social media.

“Opioid addiction is a national crisis,” said Carole Kelder. “We are losing an entire generation at the rate of 179 people a day to this epidemic. Many give up thinking that they can never escape the grip of addiction. I know that my son Ryan was afraid that he would have to live the rest of his life fighting this demon. He lost hope, and struggled understanding his life’s purpose. I think that the important message that our community needs to hear is that recovery is possible …. Darryl’s story can change the way a person feels about themselves, giving them a sense of purpose and hope again.”
The Darryl Strawberry event at Saugerties High on Friday, June 8 at 6:30 p.m. is free and open to the public. A limited number of tickets are available in advance for reserved seating. Those without tickets will be seated on a first-come, first-served basis. Doors will open at 6 p.m., and those without tickets are encouraged to arrive early.
“I think that each person will take away something different from Mr. Strawberry,” said Kelder. “I think that kids look to our professional athletes, actors and musicians as role models .… Our hope is that we can open the eyes of as many kids and adults as we can.”

Meagher Elementary School (photo by Will Dendis)

While the KCSD has yet to announce a closing date for the sale of its headquarters in the Cioni Building on Crown Street, the future of the former Frank L. Meagher Elementary School is continuing to take shape.

Plans for Meagher include housing district offices along with a pre-kindergarten hub. It was revealed during last week’s school board meeting that the latter would include two classrooms where lessons in both Spanish and English are taught beginning with the 2019-20 school year. The current configuration of the Meagher space for its first year includes a total of four pre-k classrooms with a maximum of 18 students in each. Two more pre-k classrooms at Meagher are also in the plans, though it’s unclear when they would open.

According to school officials, the classes would be taught in Spanish and English on alternating days, an immersive experience designed to help kids become bilingual at an early age. There are currently two pre-k classrooms in the district, with over a dozen program providers helping meet the needs of 265 pre-k students, a state-funded initiative. The demand, said Superintendent Paul Padalino, is expected to grow.

“When we look at our live birth and enrollment projections, in 2015 we had 580 live births; in 2016, 582; in 2017, 585,” said Padalino. “These are the students we’re going to be seeing coming in 2019 and beyond into our schools, [and] maybe we can serve more of those students, those 4-year-olds, with the new center.”

In April, the district received the first review of architectural plans for Meagher from the New York State Education Department, giving school officials hope that they’ll be able to break ground on the project this summer and move their headquarters there from Cioni by September 2019. The cost of renovating Meagher has been estimated at $4.23 million, with any work dedicated to classroom or other academic space eligible for state aid. Last week, Padalino said the state Education Department has approved the plans, and the district is looking to open bidding sometime this month.

Teen Dating Violence Video Contest participants. (Photo courtesy of the office of the Ulster County Executive)

Student filmmakers from Saugerties High School have taken first and third place in the fourth annual county teen dating violence video contest. The short films in the contest were up against entries from other high schools across the county, including Ellenville, which took second place. 

The Ulster County Inter-Agency Council on Domestic Violence formed the video contest committee to help raise awareness of the issue. High schoolers produced short films which identified signs of unhealthy or abusive relationships and publicized local domestic-violence resources. 

The first-place video, “Get Help,” written, directed and produced by Alexis Metcalf, featured a student, played by Becky Sauer, who speaks to a teacher about a jealous boyfriend’s verbal and physical abuse after she says she wants to hang out with friends. The boyfriend is played by Dylan Smith. 

Metcalf, a student in Saugerties High’s computer video production (CVP) course, said “Get Help” would not have been possible without the help of others. “The process was very collaborative,” Metcalf said. “I not only worked with my teachers, but also other students in order to make the video the best it could be. The only hurdle I would say that I may have had to overcome was making sure that I portrayed teen dating violence correctly and accurately.”

The desire to set an authentic tone speaks to the importance of the issue, she said. “I think it’s important to address the issue of teen dating violence because I feel like people should know that, even though it’s hard, there are people around that can and will help you. Also, if someone sees a situation they are in on screen, it may help them realize that they can confide in someone they’re close to to get the help they need.”

Metcalf, a SHS senior heading to Emerson College in the fall, plans to study film production in college. 

“Love Isn’t Perfect,” which won third place, was written, produced and directed by SHS senior Ethan Carroll, who stars in the film alongside Julie Raleigh. Raleigh plays an abuse victim who laments that people on the outside erroneously see her relationship as being perfect. 

Carroll, a two-year CVP student, said there weren’t any hurdles in putting the video together, and he had help from his girlfriend and another friend. “I think it’s important so that kids know that it’s not okay to be taken advantage of in a young relationship, and you shouldn’t be forced to be in a relationship,” he said. “I think the contest is very informative.”

Carroll said he’s planning on studying fashion design in college. 

Teachers Scott Wickham and Jackie Hayes served as faculty advisors to the Saugerties High filmmakers. All participants received certificates from county executive Mike Hein, and the winners also received gift cards from the contest committee. Gift cards were provided by the Ulster County Police Chiefs Association. 

Michael Iapoce, Ulster County commissioner of social services and chair of the Inter-Agency Council on Domestic Violence, said that the participation of student filmmakers and their faculty advisors was crucial in combating the widespread issue of teen violence. 

“The student and educator participation in the contest embraces what seems to be a growing nationwide trend of teens becoming more involved in addressing current social/safety issues that exist in today’s world on their school campuses,” said Iapoce. “These issues are extremely important and locally we are encouraged that youth in our community see the need to advocate for education and awareness and use their creative talents to achieve this goal. Congratulations and thanks to all of the high-school administrators, staff and students that participated in raising awareness about this important topic.”

Saugerties police chief Joseph Sinagra praised Hein’s commitment to “supporting healthy relationships amongst the youth of Ulster County. 

Saugerties High School principal Thomas Averill was pleased that students in the high school have been perennial participants in the video contest. “I am very proud of the focus and awareness our students have demonstrated through video technology toward this very important issue,” Averill said. “Not only has Saugerties always had at least one place winner each year, but the number of videos and students involved has grown yearly. In the end, it is our hope that these videos will help raise awareness with domestic violence.”

Hein congratulated the students from both Saugerties and Ellenville high schools, while also noting that the theme of the contest was a very real issue that needed attention. “Unfortunately, statistics show that one of three teens experience some kind of abuse in their dating relationships, and that is why it is important to address this difficult topic,” said Hein. “We hope that these videos will be seen by their peers, helping others recognize the signs of an unhealthy relationship and direct teens to the resources that are available if they find themselves in or observing an abusive situation.”

The county assistance program can be reached through the 24-hotline number at 340-3442.

The winning videos from Saugerties and Ellenville can be seen at: https://youtu.be/mrrcxzdOAJk

Mike Hein (photo by Phyllis McCabe)

Though the project is currently going through an environmental review, the debate over a 20-megawatt electric generating power plant proposed for the Town of Ulster continues. Ulster County Executive Michael Hein last week released a statement of opposition to the project, along with a jab at “flawed” state and federal laws that allow similar projects to happen.

“Throughout my tenure as Ulster County executive, the careful balance of environmental and fiscal responsibility has been a central tenet of my administration,” stated Hein. “While I have great respect for the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) process and for local responsibility and autonomy in land use decisions, I cannot and will not be silent about the proposed Lincoln Park Project, which I feel threatens our citizens and our environment.”

The GlidePath-run power plant would operate on a small parcel of a 121-acre site off Frank Sottile Boulevard. According to developer Lincoln Park DG LLC’s plans, a building housing the equipment would stand for between 30-40 feet in height; an exhaust stack would rise above the structure, and though developers were initially determined to keep that below the 100-foot height limit for the area, though developers several weeks ago said they’d scaled back the proposed height to around 80 feet, and hoped to get the stack lower than the tree line along the property, which is roughly 70 feet high. The project would include the 20 MW lithium ion battery array, and natural gas-powered reciprocating engine generators which would also use on-site low-sulfur diesel stored in a tank if the gas supply is disrupted.

Hein’s statement, released on Friday, June 15, said he’d one day earlier sought aid from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) in suspending the project until policy changes could be enacted to “allow for a non-fossil fuel alternative, such as a battery-only or battery-with-renewable facility.”

“Current state and federal policy is severely flawed and is in stark contrast to Governor Cuomo’s stated environmental goals,” said Hein. “As a result of these policies, Ulster County is now faced with a fossil fuel project that includes gas engines, hundred foot smokestacks, and air pollution impacts. If this project is allowed to proceed, the result will be a lose-lose outcome that will negatively impact our quality of life and further entrench the fossil fuel industry as well as the market for ‘fracked’ gas.”

Hein said that the project in its current incarnation is designed to benefit downstate communities and investors rather than the local community in which it would sit, adding that more rigorous oversight could result in projects like the one proposed by Lincoln Park DG LLC becoming better for the environment, the economy and the local community.

“With the right state and federal policy changes, this project could be transformed into one that supports the growth of our local tax base while avoiding greenhouse gas emissions and protecting our residents,” Hein said. “In Ulster County, we believe that what strengthens our environment also strengthens our community and our economy and by hosting the best and most advanced renewable energy and storage projects, we can do just that.”

Hein’s not the only one

The project has seen opposition from local residents since early on, with many of them turning up at public scoping meetings to share their displeasure on a wide range of matters, most of which were included in the scoping document that the developer will have to address as part of the SEQRA process that’s currently underway. And while approval of the project will ultimately be decided by Ulster town officials, many opposed to the proposed power plant this week applauded Hein’s efforts to move the matter further up the food chain.

“Ulster County Executive Mike Hein gets it right — both in opposing the GlidePath/Lincoln Park power plant and calling for alignment of federal and state policies regarding the siting of power plants in the region,” said Scenic Hudson President Ned Sullivan. “We look forward to working with him, both on halting this project and promoting the development of clean, renewable energy, rather than new fossil-fuel plants, while conserving the region’s natural and scenic treasures.”

Laura Hartmann of local advocacy group Town of Ulster Citizens was also pleased to have Hein’s voice in the mix.

“The whole organization is thrilled with Mr. Hein’s statement,” said Hartmann. “Not only does he talk about the imminent danger to the Town of Ulster in the Lincoln Park Grid Support Center, he addresses the bigger issue of why this came to be in the first place, which is the zoning capacity. That’s far more than we ever hoped to get. We couldn’t be more pleased with his statement and we support him fully.”

Ulster Town Supervisor James Quigley III addressed Hein’s statement and the SEQRA process as two separate issues, adding that the latter may well address issues brought up by the county executive and other opponents to the project.

“The SEQRA process is ongoing and will demonstrate the impacts on the community when it’s completed,” Quigley said. “SEQRA is an ongoing process. This is a project that the developer is dotting every ‘i’ and crossing every ’t’ to make sure that there are no challenges to any of the technical work that they do. They’re going to take their time to get it right.”

Quigley added that he and Hein might be closer philosophically than it might appear, but that the law and current policy don’t necessarily align with their opinions.

“If you closely read his letter, what he’s advocating for is a policy change on the state level,” Quigley said. “And I don’t necessarily disagree with the policy change. And I acknowledge the fact that the natural gas generating engines and generator set has to be attached to the batteries because of the nature of the regulatory structure in the state of New York. And it’s way above my pay grade to even opine on that. … If his statement has any impact on the PSC and NYSERDA and other people in Albany who make regulatory authority, God bless them,” Quigley said.

Students in the Saugerties schools celebrate the end of the 2018-19 school year this week. With the beginning of summer vacation, graduation, moving-up ceremonies and no end of parties have been planned. But the district doesn’t take the summer off: There’s plenty of work to be done. 

Though no large-scale capital improvements will take place this summer, the district will be buzzing with activity, starting with routine maintenance projects in all its schools, according to deputy superintendent Lawrence Mautone and business manager Lissa Jilek.

“Obviously, there’s the routine summer maintenance work that has to be completed,” said Jilek. That undertaking requires precision scheduling and heavy lifting. “The floors get stripped and re-waxed, all the furniture gets cleaned, all the rooms get a really thorough cleaning, there’s painting that goes on,” she said. “The halls all get done, the gymnasium floors get refinished.”

The latter activities at the high and junior high campus have to be completed before fall sports teams begin holding their tryouts and practices in mid-August.

Everything remaining in the classrooms is emptied into the halls while cleaning work is being done, and then it’s put right back in again. Jilek credited the district’s head custodian, Mike LaTourette, and his staff for making the process as fluid as possible. “It’s a routine and they know what to do,” she said. “They hit one wing at a time or one floor at a time, and then they basically move on down the hall. Every school, every classroom, every nook and cranny, gets deep-cleaned.”

Most district offices are in constant use during the summer break, but even those rooms aren’t spared a thorough cleaning, with staff being relocated to accommodate LaTourette’s crew. Numerous programs involving students will include the academic summer school in the junior high school, a BOCES-run summer school program at Cahill Elementary, the third-year English as a New Language (ENL) Academy at Cahill, and the introduction of a robotics camp at the high school.  

“We try to be as coordinated as possible,” said Jilek. “The building principal still runs the building.”

Most of the interior cleaning and maintenance in all four elementary schools are completed by mid-August, when there’s a four-day orientation program to give kindergartners a chance to get used to a new routine, said Mautone.

The district’s technology department is also busy during the summer. “[They] swap out computers, rotate out old computers in computer labs,” said Mautone. “They’re working non-stop over the summer as well. All the computers get cleaned, all the projectors get cleaned. We make sure we maintain all that equipment over the summer as well.”

The grass on all district properties has to be mowed. How much rain hits the Catskills impacts the amount of work.

The schools were closed May 15 for a superintendent’s conference day, the same day the polls were open for budget votes and school-board elections.

This year, there’s parking-lot reconstruction going on at Riccardi and Mt. Marion elementary schools. “It’s a significant amount of work at Riccardi,” Jilek said.”It’s not quite as much at Mt. Marion. I believe that’s going to start after the Fourth of July holiday.” A reconstruction project for the Mt. Marion school is due to begin soon. 

Some weather-related work is already under way at the high school because the storm that hit the area in mid-May left a mark. “Part of the pole vault pit got blown away,” said Jilek. “We had some roof damage. We’ve been addressing that with our insurance company. [Those repairs] are under way and ongoing.”

Maintenance work has been identified by the administrators of each school. “Building principals come up with a wish list they have for the summer. We have a very talented maintenance staff, and we can try and accommodate what the principals want completed,” Jilek said. “We’re lucky. We have a lot of facilities, so they’re very flexible. They are able to move from one facility to another.”

Some issues are revealed after the cleaning work is under way, as classrooms are emptied of their furniture. “It’s surprising how a lot of things come up during the summer when we have a chance to investigate and go into rooms that we aren’t ordinarily able to access so readily,” Jilek said.

Seth Turner (file photo by Dion Ogust)

After spending the past two decades with the Saugerties Central School District, Superintendent Seth Turner notified the school board on Wednesday that he’s taking a similar role in the Amagansett Union Free School District for the 2018-19 school year.

Previously a teacher with BOCES in Plattsburgh, Turner came to Saugerties in 1997 as a special education teacher in the alternative education program at the high school. In 2000 he became an assistant principal before becoming principal at Grant D. Morse Elementary in 2003. Turner was hired as superintendent in 2009 following the retirement of Richard Rhau. Turner’s current contract was approved in 2015 and runs through 2020.

Turner said that as a member of both the New York State Council of Superintendents and the American Association of School Administrators, he frequently received notices about open administrative positions in other school districts. But there was something about Amagansett, which he said was one of the premier school districts in the country, that caught his attention. Amagansett students move into the East Hampton Union Free School District for middle and high school, and the idea of being able to work more closely with younger students in a district with fewer than 100 kids was worth exploring.

“I really became more and more interested the more I learned about the district,” Turner said on Wednesday. “Having served as the principal of Morse Elementary School, which was also a K-6 design, it really began to appeal to me the thought of being able to work closer to students than I currently am able to. For me, it’s one of the most enjoyable parts of the job.”

Turner said Amagansett began their nationwide search sometime in the early spring, and he turned in the paperwork necessary to show his interest in early April. He didn’t hear anything until sometime in May, when Dr. Charles Fowler, the president of educational recruiting and development firm School Leadership, LLC got in touch. Fowler was serving as a consultant to Amagansett in the district’s search to replace outgoing Superintendent Eleanor Tritt.

Turner had a pair of interviews over two weekends in mid-June, the second with the full five-member Board of Education on Saturday, June 16. The following day — Father’s Day — he was told he was the finalist for the position and that they only had to follow up with his references. By that Monday the offer was made, and by that Tuesday a contract was in place. Turner waited until three days later to notify his staff by e-mail, preferring to wait until the school year was over for students so as not to provide any undue distractions.

“I started the e-mail with this: In this year we are accomplishing an 84 percent graduation rate in four years, and 10 years ago it was 69 percent,” Turner said. “We have brought graduation rates up 15 percentage points in the last 10 years.”

In addition to the increase in the graduation rate, Turner added that he hopes his legacy in the district is connected to the many academic programs which were developed and grown in Saugerties, which he credited to the collaborative efforts of his colleagues.

“I’m just so proud of the great work that’s been done by all the good people with whom I work,” Turner said. “I have nothing but the greatest respect and admiration for the people who work in the Saugerties Central School District, our top-quality administrators, teachers, all faculty members. These are people that are my friends and family and that I’ve worked with since 1997.”

Turner’s contract with Amagansett runs from October 1, 2018 through June 30, 2022, with a starting annual salary of $195,000.

What next?

School board President Robert Thomann on Wednesday said trustees had plenty of work to do to figure out how best to make the transition, including whether to seek a new full-time superintendent or bridge the gap with someone working on an interim basis.

“A lot of this happened suddenly, so I don’t know that I have a comment,” Thomann said. “We got a letter of resignation today, so I scheduled a board meeting for Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. That’s where we’re going to discuss the process. We need to get everybody’s input. Obviously we have to keep the business of the district running and look at what that transitional process is going to be. But I think that’s when we’re going to hash everything out.”

Thomann added that with Turner remaining in Saugerties until Tuesday, Sept. 25, he expects there will be some assistance at the administrative level at making the transition as smooth as possible, but that the future will be ultimately directed by the school board.

“I haven’t spoken to Mr. Turner about any ideas he has for that,” Thomann said. “We’ll listen to his perspective, and then we’ll figure out what the board wants to do.”

Turner said he and his family are just beginning to get used to the idea of moving out to the Hamptons.

“Our life is in a whirlwind right now,” Turner said. “It’s very positive, but it’s a significant change and transition, one that we’re confronting adss a family. We have a tight-knit family unit and none of us was expecting this. But over the last week-and-a-half we’ve been making the adjustments necessary.”

Turner added that the move will be bitter sweet after spending the past 20 years in Saugerties.

“This is a wonderful community comprised of outstanding individuals,” Turner said. “These students are now friends of mine for life.”

Despite a gutsy performance on both ends of the pitch, Kingston Stockade FC fell to the Brooklyn Italians on Saturday, a 1-0 result on the turf at LIU Brooklyn. A first-half defensive miscue led to the Brooklyn goal, but in spite of being red-carded down to 10 men midway through the second half, Kingston threatened to come back right up until the very end.

It was a disappointing result on a night where goalkeeper Steve Skonieczny played one of his best games for Stockade FC, turning away numerous Brooklyn shots that could have led to a lopsided loss, including one breathtaking penalty kick sequence midway through the second half. But it was a night of excellent goalkeeping on both ends of the pitch, with Brooklyn’s Michael Bernardi also on top form.

“Steve gave us a chance to win, a chance to stay in the game and a chance to stay in the season to a certain degree, and that’s all you can ask for from your goalkeeper,” said Kingston coach David Lindholm. “He had a great night and some pretty incredible saves to keep the game at 1-0 and give us a chance to do something with a minute left and have chances to impact the game late.”

Momentum shifts are part of any game, and in soccer they can last a few minutes or much longer. Stockade’s momentum built in the thrilling second half of last week’s 4-4 home draw with reigning National Premier Soccer League (NPSL) champion Elm City Express seemed to spill over into the early stages of the team’s trip to Brooklyn, as they spent nearly a half hour on the Italians’ side. But somewhere along the way Brooklyn bounced back.

“I thought the first 25 minutes we had a lot of the ball and we were playing really well, and then we couldn’t get the game back after that,” Lindholm said. “I’m not as good as I could be about recognizing what tactically changed after 25 minutes or so that sort of got us out of the game.”

It wasn’t until the 33rd minute on a breakaway goal by Brooklyn’s Thomas Suchecki that the shift in momentum became apparent. And from there on, at least until the waning moments in stoppage time, Stockade FC was unable to get that momentum back.

Arguing leads to ejection

It didn’t help that Kingston drew the ire of the NPSL referee. In the 69th minute Afonso Pinheiro drew two yellows in rapid succession for dissent, leading to a red card and a dismissal. After briefly sitting on the trainer’s table, Pinheiro moved back into the bleachers before being told to leave the area entirely, banished to the locker room and possibly out of Brooklyn altogether.

Later, Juan Gatti picked up a red, also because of an accumulation of yellow cards. His first came on a first half foul, and his second as he left in a substitution and said something to the 4th official.

“We gave him reasons to throw us out of the game,” said Lindholm of the head ref. “I think our mistakes were bigger than anything he could have done to influence the game. From a strictly refereeing standpoint, I thought there were some little calls early in the game that he missed that made it more contentious later on. But from a dissent standpoint, we got red cards because we committed dissent. And that’s really disappointing. And that’s what I said to the guys post game. It’s something I feel bad about, and I want to apologize to our fans and to a certain degree to the league. We could have handled ourselves better than we did tonight.”

Of the roughly 100 people in attendance, around half were there to support Stockade FC, including members of the Dutch Guard, who did their best to keep spirits up with a series of increasingly creative chants.

Following the loss, Kingston is 2-4-2 overall.

On Sunday, Kingston gave 426 fans a chance to cheer at Dietz as they hosted Providence City FC under threats of a thunderstorm. With a few role players getting rare starts, Stockade won 2-1 with goals from Pedro Espindola and Scott Zobre.

Victories needed, and more

The path to the playoffs narrowed for Stockade following the loss to Brooklyn; the team must win each of their last two remaining regular season games, but they’ll also need help to slide into the final slot. The New York Cosmos B (24 points) and Hartford City FC (16 points) cannot be caught. Of the six teams still vying to punch their tickets for the last two slots, Kingston has the toughest road to travel. They’ll need to beat Boston City FC at Dietz on Saturday, and then they’ll have to accomplish what no other side has managed all season long: Beat the Cosmos at Columbia University’s Baker Athletic Complex on Saturday, July 7. Lose or draw in either and it’s all over.

Stockade will have to root for Brooklyn against both New York Athletic Club on Wednesday, June 27, and Greater Lowell on Saturday, June 30. That would ensure the Italians lock up the third playoff slot while simultaneously slowing the progress of two other teams in Kingston’s way. Victories on Friday, June 29 by both the winless Seacoast United Mariners and TSF FC would also help. A few other games would have to shake out favorably for Stockade to return to the playoffs, but as of press time the team still has a glimmer of hope. But they’re also playing these last two games for pride, to show their mettle in a season where in spite of some of the franchise’s best moments, they’ve lost or drawn games they feel they should have won.

Saugerties is a sports town, and not just for the kids. While youth leagues tend to rule the roost at the Cantine complex, grownups get in on the action through the Saugerties Athletic Association. In the summertime, that means softball. 

On the men’s side, there are five separate divisions representing various levels of intensity, with 35 teams in total. The women’s side has three divisions, with eleven teams overall. With weekly games and a playoff schedule that runs deep into August, the impression may be that there are softball games happening all the time.
With that in mind, it can be tough to stand out in the crowd. But that’s exactly what Tommy Sperl did on Monday, June 25. Sperl, who pitches for Supreme Builders in the men’s A division, hurled that rarest of treats, a perfect gamer, in his team’s 19-0 rout over Benson Steel/Bart Hill Tree Service. Sperl secured eleven fly balls out of the 15 straight batters he retired. 

While Sperl and the Supreme Builders defense played lights-out in the field, the team’s bats were hot. Joe Dellamorte smashed a pair of home runs and a triple to drive in five runs. Jimmy Shook (home run, double, two singles), John Surrano (four singles), Mark Palazzo (two-run home run, two singles), Brett Wrixon (double, two singles), and Keith Hoyt (home run, single, three RBI) all contributed.
The two teams battled again on Monday, July 2 with Supreme Builders winning by a more modest 7-0 result. 

The win left Supreme Builders at 6-3 overall, just one game back of Augustine Nursery in the four-team A division. Augustine Nursery lost a 6-5 nail biter to Seamon-Wilsey Funeral Home/Exchange on Monday night, with Jared Mayr earning the win on the mound. Seamon-Wilsey led 6-1 going into the bottom of the sixth before Augustine Nursery made it interesting, scoring three runs in the frame. Augustine tacked on one more in the bottom of the seventh.

Dan Koegel homered, doubled and scored twice for Seamon-Wilsey, while Tom Sickler went three for four with a double, three RBI and two runs. Mayr also had a pair of singles and an RBI to help his own cause. 

E division results

On Friday, June 29, Jake’s Bombers used an eight-run sixth inning to roll over the Asbury Fire Dept. 17-5. The Bombers unloaded with nine straight hits in the sixth and 22 hits overall. Scott Grandstaff (double, two singles, four RBI), Ray Krom (four singles), Neko DeJesus (double, two singles, two RBI), Jim Ferrendino (double, two singles) and Nick Gruccio (double, single, three RBI) all contributed. 

The E-division-leading Other Guys cruised past Woodstock American Legion 20-4, with winning pitcher Derrick Hoger helping his team with a bat as well. He had a double, a pair of singles and two runs batted in. Eugene Sullivan was a homer away from hitting for the cycle for the Other Guys, and Kevin Brocco (triple, double, three RBI), Austin Dreher (home run, triple), Tom Basciano (home run, single, two RBI) and Jeremy LaChance (two singles, three RBI) helping out. 

Family of Hope/Pro Printers stayed just a half game behind the Other Guys with an 11-3 win over the Gotham City Knights on Friday. Eric Holmes (home run, two doubles), Gianni DeCicco (two doubles, three RBI), John Hanley (three singles) and Devan McGill (three singles) also pitched in. 

With The Other Guys (8-1) and Family of Hope (8-2) already a lock for the playoffs, Jake’s Bombers (4-5), Asbury Fire Dept. (4-5), Renner’s/Sawyer Energy (4-5) and the Woodstock American Legion (4-6) are battling for the two remaining postseason slots. At 1-9, Gotham City Knights are out of the running. 

C division play

C division also took the field last Friday, with Mirabella’s/Torok Excavating winning its seventh straight, creating a three-team tie for first place by beating Sue’s Restaurant/Rip’s Auto Parts 8-2. Manorville Mill is also at 7-3. There are just three games left in the regular season.

Mirabella’s/Torok saw winning pitcher Lance Salmi give up eight hits, with just one for extra bases. Chris Gage doubles and smacked a pair of singles for the winning side, while Kyle Gentile and Mark Fabiano each accumulated a pair of singles. 

Olympic Diner remained in the playoff hunt with a 9-3 win over Mirabella’s Sports Bar — two C division teams sponsored by Mirabella’s — with both teams battling for the fourth and final slot in the postseason with 6-4 records. John Solian led Olympic Diner with three singles and a pair of RBI, while Clint Heathwood smashed a two-run dinger. Chris Wilson earned the win on the mound, giving up seven hits, just one of which went for extra bases. 

Manorville Mill outlasted Mt. Marion Fire Dept. 8-6 on Friday, with Chris Caitch hitting a home run and a single, and driving in a pair of runs. Patrick VanWagenen (double, single, three RBI), Seth LaBounty (double, single) and Nick Bernard (double, single) all helped out.

Bannen Landscaping stayed in the postseason conversation on Friday with a 14-2 win over the Senior Stallions, a team sponsored by Hudson Valley Property Inspections, Praetorius & Conrad, and Stella’s. Jesse Daly was a double shy of the cycle, driving in five runs in the process. Brett Bannen, Chris Fricke and Dan Fricke each had a pair of hits for Bannen Landscaping. Larry Swart allowed just seven singles in the win.

Last month, Ulster County Executive Michael Hein released a statement of opposition to a 20-megawatt electric generating power plant proposed for the Town of Ulster, a project he said he believed, “threatens our citizens and our environment.” This week, GlidePath Power Solutions, LLC, the company behind the proposed Lincoln Park Grid Support Center power plant, responded. 

In a letter addressed to Hein by Peter Rood, GlidePath’s chief development officer, sought to address what he called “misconceptions about our company and the proposed project” in Hein’s June 14 letter to the New York State Department of Public Service (DPS) and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), as well as a meeting between developers and the county executive on Wednesday, June 27. 

“Your letter, unfortunately, makes several inaccurate assertions about the project,” wrote Rood. “While we were disappointed to not have been invited to speak directly with the you about the county’s concerns, nor to have had the opportunity to provide you with accurate information prior to publication of your letter, we appreciate the subsequent meeting with you and your staff. GlidePath remains willing to work with the county and other stakeholders to address each of those stated concerns herein.”

The GlidePath-run power plant, currently undergoing an environmental review, would operate on a small parcel of a 121-acre site off Frank Sottile Boulevard. According to developer Lincoln Park DG LLC’s plans, a building housing the equipment would stand for between 30-40 feet in height; an exhaust stack would rise above the structure, and though developers were initially determined to keep that below the 100-foot height limit for the area, though developers several weeks ago said they’d scaled back the proposed height to around 80 feet, and hoped to get the stack lower than the tree line along the property, which is roughly 70 feet high. The project would include the 20 MW lithium ion battery array, and natural gas-powered reciprocating engine generators which would switch to on-site low-sulfur diesel stored in a tank if the gas supply is disrupted.

Hein’s public statement, released on Friday, June 15, said he’d one day earlier sought aid from NYSERDA and the Public Service Commission in suspending the project until policy changes could be enacted to “allow for a non-fossil fuel alternative, such as a battery-only or battery with renewable facility.”

“Current state and federal policy is severely flawed and is in stark contrast to Governor [Andrew] Cuomo’s stated environmental goals,” said Hein in his statement. “As a result of these policies, Ulster County is now faced with a fossil fuel project that includes gas engines, hundred foot smokestacks, and air pollution impacts. If this project is allowed to proceed, the result will be a lose-lose outcome that will negatively impact our quality of life and further entrench the fossil fuel industry as well as the market for ‘fracked’ gas.”

Hein said the project in its current incarnation is designed to benefit downstate communities and investors rather than the local community in which it would sit, adding that more rigorous oversight could result in projects like the one proposed by Lincoln Park DG LLC becoming better for the environment, the economy and the local community.

“With the right state and federal policy changes, this project could be transformed into one that supports the growth of our local tax base while avoiding greenhouse gas emissions and protecting our residents,” Hein said. “In Ulster County, we believe that what strengthens our environment also strengthens our community and our economy and by hosting the best and most advanced renewable energy and storage projects, we can do just that.”

But Rood argued that there is a need for the project locally as a response to data published by the New York Independent System Operator about the need for addition resources in the state’s Zone G, which covers Ulster, Greene, Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Sullivan and Rockland counties. Rood added that despite Hein’s contention, areas outside Zone G such as Westchester County, New York City or Long Island would be served by the Lincoln Park project.

“The project will benefit local residents, not metropolitan New York,” wrote Rood. “It is simply inaccurate to assert that the [power plant] is proposed here in Ulster County only to serve the energy demands of New York City. The project will be connected to the low-voltage portion of the Lincoln Park substation, the same system to which numerous local businesses, homes and community facilities are currently connected. Because the grid operator is required to dispatch cheaper energy first, and [the power plant] will provide cheaper and cleaner energy, it will be utilized before the older, dirtier, fossil fuel plants in the region. All electric consumers across Ulster County would use and benefit from the reliability of services provided by the project because the LPGSC will offer the same service at a lower cost.”

Rood acknowledged that because of the interconnected statewide grid, it’s possible the state could pull energy from the Lincoln Park project to use elsewhere, though he added that it would be “extremely unlikely” that such a need would arise.

GlidePath also took exception to other issues raised by Hein, noting that the project actually aligns with Cuomo’s energy plans to source 50 percent of the state’s electricity from renewables and reduce greenhouse emissions by 40 percent by 2030.

“By providing a more efficient way to provide capacity and other ancillary services, the [power plant] will displace the current providers of grid support services, which are often older fuel-oil and gas-turbine generators,” wrote Rood. “[The power plant] will provide the same services with significantly less emissions.”

Rood added that the batteries would enable the project to provide frequency regulation services necessary to balance variations in output due to shifts in the environment from wind and sunlight.

While he said he understood concerns from Hein and local residents opposed to the project, Rood said that the developer would continue to be candid moving forward.

“We understand that the community is interested in fully understanding our project’s emissions and we have committed to sharing detailed data about our emissions, including sources, assumptions and calculations, throughout the SEQRA review and DEC permitting processes as we move though the SEQRA process,” Rood wrote. “We are happy to further discuss the constraints of today’s technology and why certain energy production and storage projects are required in particular regions.”

The next meeting of the Ulster Town Board is scheduled for Thursday, July 19.

While discussion over a 20-megawatt electric generating power plant proposed for the Town of Ulster has reached the county level, area residents are still voicing their concerns about a scoping document for the Lincoln Park Grid Support Center (LPGSC) prepared by town officials.

In an April 24 letter to Town Supervisor James E. Quigley, III, members of the local advocacy group TownOfUlsterCitizens.org called the scoping document a “weak, boilerplate” effort which contained the issues brought forth by area residents opposed to the project, but failed to offer depth or alternative solutions.

“The overriding perception among many people in our town is that your request for citizen input into the scoping process was a fool’s errand,” said the letter, which was co-signed by group members Laura Hartmann and Regis Obijiski. “You fulfilled your legal responsibility to invite public comment, but the public views are of little account to you. We embraced your request — in fact your command that we ‘do our homework’ — and worked very hard, and took seriously, our role in the [State Environmental Quality Review] process. The reciprocity stopped there. In reviewing the final scope, it is evident that you wasted our good efforts.”

Last week, Hartmann expanded on the group’s issues with the scoping document, along with the feeling that town officials are doing the bare minimum required by law as lead agency in the SEQR process in an effort to more easily green-light a project the community is against.

“The membership of TownOfUlsterCitizens.org feels that [the scoping document] did not accurately represent our questions. Our questions were much more specific than what the Town submitted. It didn’t represent fully our concerns with this power plant. The biggest one is the lack of suggestions of alternatives. That’s an important part of the scoping process and the SEQR process, and to put in there that ‘alternatives will be discussed’? What does that mean? We’re not privy to those discussions, so are we just going to go on faith? We gave very good, solid alternative suggestions. And that’s what should be done, in our opinion.”

On Monday, Quigley said that TownOfUlsterCitizens.org’s understanding of the State Environmental Quality Review process doesn’t align with the town’s.

“Unfortunately, under SEQR, if you’re proposing to build a store on one corner of the intersection, SEQR doesn’t allow you to say, ‘Well, the town doesn’t think it’s appropriate for you to build on this corner, you should go buy the other corner on the other side and move it over there,’” Quigley said. “We can’t tell them that. And quite frankly, I think what [TownOfUlsterCitizens.org is] looking for us to do is say that this plant is inappropriate for the Town of Ulster, move it to New Jersey.”

Hartmann didn’t disagree.

“In our opinion this is not a good project and not a good fit for our community,” she said. “Who’s going to want to look down from those peaks and say, ‘Oh, look at that beautiful smokestack?’ We can’t underestimate community character and what that brings to our community. It says everything about what our community is.”

TownOfUlsterCitizens.org provided a comparison between the points raised during the public commentary and what was eventually included by the town in its scoping document. In addition to a dearth of alternatives, the citizens group said the town failed to adequately address issues of public safety, public benefit, toxic emissions, and other concerns.

Ulster County Executive Mike Hein last month came out against the proposed LPGSC project, saying he believes it “threatens our citizens and our environment.”

GlidePath Power Solutions, LLC, the company behind the proposed Lincoln Park Grid Support Center (LPGSC), responded. Peter Rood, the chief executive officer of the project’s developer GlidePath Power Solutions, LLC, penned an open letter last week addressing what he called “misconceptions about our company and the proposed project” in Hein’s June 14 letter to the state Department of Public Service (DPS) and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), as well as a meeting between developers and the county executive on Wednesday, June 27. Rood’s letter disputed both Hein and other local opponents of the project that it would only benefit communities outside of Ulster.

“The project will benefit local residents, not metropolitan New York,” wrote Rood. “It is simply inaccurate to assert that the LPGSC is proposed here in Ulster County only to serve the energy demands of NYC. The project will be connected to the low-voltage portion of the Lincoln Park substation, the same system to which numerous local businesses, homes and community facilities are currently connected. Because the grid operator is required to dispatch cheaper energy first, and LPGSC will provide cheaper and cleaner energy, it will be utilized before the older, dirtier, fossil fuel plants in the region. All electric consumers across Ulster County would use and benefit from the reliability of services provided by the project because the LPGSC will offer the same service at a lower cost.”

Hartmann disagreed. “I think that’s a crock,” she said. “Really, it’s downstate that needs it. I think he’s just grasping at straws, quite frankly. Downstate counties are benefiting, and we receive none of the benefit. So why do we have a need to have this here?”

Quigley said TownOfUlsterCitizens.org are, among other things, concerned about issues that will be addressed as the SEQR review moves forward, including some that are required by the New York Stated Department of Environmental Conservation.

“They’re making points about measuring environmental impacts from the air pollution,” Quigley said. “[Developers] are subject to air-discharge permits from the DEC. All that material is going to be produced and given to the DEC as a condition of their air quality permit.”

The supervisor added that it was clear the two sides were arguing from very different perspectives.

“They’re all talking about facts, and their facts are in one place on the left hand side of the field, and the facts from what I see are being talked about with the developer on the right hand side of the field,” he said. “And nobody is meeting in center field.”

Hartmann said TownOfUlsterCitizens.org and other members of the public opposed to the Lincoln Park project aren’t going to give up.

“Would we have preferred to not get to this point? Sure,” she said. “But we still stand by our interpretation of this, that there’s only the negative that we’re going to be getting in this community and there’s no benefit. It’s still a worthy fight, one we’re going to take on.”

Seth Turner and Lissa Jilek.

The Saugerties school board ia getting down to the job of replacing schools superintendent Seth Turner and business manager Lissa Jilek. 

Jilek’s resignation letter was submitted on the same day that Turner was formally offered the job of superintendent of the Amagansett Union Free School District, a single-school district with fewer than 100 students in grades K-5. Amagansett students move into the East Hampton Union Free School District for middle and high school. 

Previously a teacher with BOCES in Plattsburgh, Turner came to Saugerties in 1997 as a special education teacher in the alternative education program at the high school. In 2000 he became an assistant principal before becoming principal at Grant D. Morse Elementary in 2003. Turner was hired as superintendent following the retirement of Richard Rhau in 2009. Turner’s current contract, approved in 2015, runs through 2020.

While Turner and Jilek will remain with the Saugerties schools through late September, the school board’s search for permanent replacements could take longer. The district may want to hire an interim superintendent and/or interim business manager. 

During a special meeting on July 3, board president Robert Thomann said trustees planned to continue their dialogue about the parameters of their superintendent search during workshops in July. Presentations on how the process works may be made both by Ulster BOCES superintendent Charles Khoury and by Jamie McPherson, leadership development manager with the New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA). The school board has already received some information from both. 

“It’s something you don’t want to rush through, so it would be good to spend a couple of hours working on which direction the board wants to go,” said Thomann. Thomann said that NYSSBA has already provided Saugerties with a list of firms in the state which specialize in helping school districts search for superintendent candidates, as well as a link to a webinar on what to look for during a search. 

Jilek is leaving the district to become the business manager in the Highland school district, where she’ll earn $128,000 per year. Her contract in Saugerties pays $114,322 each year.

Jilek said that she was resigning “with a heavy heart,” but that as per the terms of her contract, she would remain with the district until Friday, September 28. 

“I would personally like to thank you for your confidence in hiring me five plus years ago,” Jilek wrote Turner in a letter dated June 18. “It has been non-stop from day one to present. I have enjoyed the leadership team meetings with yourself, and [deputy superintendent] Larry Mautone, and also the support staff members in your offices.”

Jilek has been the district’s business manager since 2013, having previously served in the same capacity in the Cairo-Durham (2007-13) and Catskill (2000-07) school districts. 

The school board also has paperwork pertaining to Highland’s recent search for a new superintendent. The district officially hired Thomas Bongiovi in February of this year after he served for four months in an interim capacity following the departure of former superintendent Deborah Haab, who retired. Thomann said the Highland materials included, among other things, what he called “the most important document,” a timeline of how the entire process unfolded. 

“There’s an initial planning day for the board, the development of a vacancy announcement, an online survey from the community, meetings with constituent groups,” Thomann explained. “That search took place from August of last year all the way to January, so it’s quite an extensive process.”

Trustees are still determining the costs of various options. Thomann said BOCES charges would largely cover the cost of ads, administration of a community survey, and other similar charges. Those services would cost less than if they were provided by a private professional firm. 

Trustee Elena Maskell expressed concern about the cost of a superintendent search. “Do we have a budget for this?” she asked. “Do we have money to be doing superintendent searches, paying outside agencies, all that hullabaloo?”

Trustee Damion Ferraro said he wasn’t sure what to do. “Personally, I don’t know what the best route to go is,” said Ferraro. “Do you go to a nationally recognized firm or something that’s close to the northeast? What do we do in that situation?”

No one presently on the school board was a trustee the last time the district conducted a superintendent search nearly a decade ago. Thomann suggested the board move forward as deliberately as possible. “Since it’s a new process for all of us, I think we’re going to have to get more information before we jump in,” he said. “Because we’ve had two resignations in one evening, I think there’s a tendency to say, ‘Oh, my gosh, we’ve got to do something quick.’ And I’d rather act on the side of caution rather than proceeding rapidly.”

Thomann said that BOCES can help with a temporary business manager should the search extend beyond late September. Presently, no other school district in Ulster County is without a business manager. Thomann said Khoury plan to reach out to BOCES supervisors in neighboring counties to see if any other districts could help.

Ulster Fillies player Shannon Bonewit gets a hit. (Photo by Phyllis McCabe)

The Ulster Fillies held their second annual Fillies Showcase at Cantine Veterans Memorial Complex in Saugerties last weekend. It was a unique opportunity for local high school softball players to be seen by college coaches without having to travel far from home.

Unlike other tournaments the Fillies compete in, including their own Fillies Frenzy held at Cantine in mid-June, the Fillies Showcase is less a bracketed tournament with a clear champion and more a combination of a pre-game clinic followed by a weekend’s worth of games designed to give players a chance to show their abilities in front of college coaches.

Rick Spriggs is the coach liaison and tournament director of the Fillies, a fast-pitch softball organization sponsored by American Legion Post 150 in Kingston. Spriggs is also the head coach of the Fillies 18U team. But he stressed that the Fillies Showcase isn’t just about the Fillies, who had three different teams among the 37 who competed.

“It’s all about the Hudson Valley region and the lack of true college showcases for the teams in this area to be recruited,” said Spriggs. “There just isn’t anything like this here. We’ve had to take our kids to Pennsylvania or Connecticut.”

In addition to the 18U team, the Fillies fielded a pair of 16U teams as well. Over the three-day tournament, the players were seen by coaches from colleges all across New York and the Northeast. On Friday, July 13, a college coaches clinic was held from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m., with the weekend’s first games being played an hour later. 23 coaches participated in the clinic, giving them a unique opportunity to work with the 106 campers from five different states. The camp was deemed a success by players and coaches alike.

“I had several coaches say they’ve been invited to several clinics and across the board they said this was the best one they’d done,” Spriggs said. “Cantine is a perfect location with the number of fields and the compression of the park to minimize travel. Most tournaments there are multiple venues and coaches have to travel from field to field, sometimes as much as a half hour or 45 minutes to go see a player.”

For the most part, high school softball players will have committed to a college sometime during the summer between their junior and senior seasons, though Spriggs said a few will wait until the fall. All but three of the girls on the Fillies 18U team are committed to play in college, so the showcase is more of a tournament, with the clinic an opportunity for the players to become even more familiar with the rigors and expectations of post-high school softball.

“For our older players, they’ve established a lot of relationships, so it gives them responsibility in organizing and getting to know the coaches, to ask more personal questions of what’s going to be expected of them once they get to the college level,” Spriggs said. “It’s a very educational thing.”

Players on 16U teams are generally still looking to find a home after high school, and the Fillies Showcase lets them show what they’re capable of without hitting the road.

Erin Ricks is one of two Saugerties Sawyers on the Fillies 16U team. Ricks and Jade Winters are both outfielders from Saugerties High’s Class of 2019. Ricks said she enjoys playing for both the Sawyers and Fillies, but the latter provides a clearer path to competing in college.

“The Fillies allows for more potential college exposure and brings the game to a whole different level,” she said. “The competition is more varied compared to high school.”

Ricks said that she got a lot out of the Fillies Showcase, though she’s reluctant to speak of her favored college destinations for fear of jinxing anything. Wherever she winds up, she’d like to study to become an athletic trainer.

“I’ve talked to other colleges before and I’ve been to a showcase before,” Ricks said. “But my experience this weekend went beyond my expectations as I was exposed to many college coaching styles and was able to put my game skills into practice during the tournament.”

Spriggs said players hoping to connect with a coach or college have to put in the work, not just on the field in showcase tournaments, but also later by reaching out and showing an interest in particular programs. College coaches attending showcase tournaments will compare notes and decide which payers they’d like to contact, opening up a two-way street that for many will lead to college softball and the possibility of athletic scholarships.

Like most of the players on the Fillies, Ricks has been with the organization from early on. There are 10U, 12U, 14U, 16U and 18U Fillies teams, and there are tryouts later this month and into August for all but the 18U College Team, which Spriggs said will have no vacancies going into next season. Teams play in fall tournaments, with some having winter workouts or tournaments ahead of the following summer.

“Most of my more successful girls have been Fillies all their lives,” said Spriggs. “There’s something to be said for strength of continuity. They play together, they train together, they make each other better. Those still looking to play for a 16U team or a college showcase level team, we’ve got two of those next year.”

Spriggs added that tryouts are an opportunity for the Fillies to get a sense of who they’d like to see make the cut, but it can also be an eye-opening experience for some players and parents.

“Some girls just aren’t college-level players,” Spriggs said. “We provide plenty of resources to the players in our organization, but it still involves a lot of individual and family work, academics, good character. We just want the right fit. We want the ones who are aspiring to be college players. That’s pretty much the bottom line.”

Kingston players on the Fillies 18U team include catcher-outfielder Jessica Chilcott, catcher-utility player Alyssa Finno, pitcher-infielder Megan Peace, pitcher-outfielder Angela VanPelt, pitcher-utility player Shannon Bonewit, outfielder-second baseman Sydney Bonewit, and catcher-outfielder Alyssa Villielm. 

Saugerties players on the Fillies 18U team are utility players Vanessa Brandt and Kailey Collins.

Kingston players on the Fillies 16U team include utility player Kailyn Lukaszewski, pitcher-first baseman Victoria DeMercurio, catcher-outfielder Grace Tremper, outfielder-second baseman Ryan Fitzgerald, and catcher-third baseman Monica Reyes. 

The Fillies 14U and 16U teams are currently closing out their summer season at the United States Specialty Sports Association (USSSA) Nationals in Ocean City, Maryland. That tournament runs from July 17-22. The Fillies 18U team will compete in the USSSA 18U Open Nationals in Salisbury, Maryland from July 23-28.

(Photo by Will Dendis)

The Kingston school board held their annual reorganizational meeting earlier this month, agreeing by consent agenda to a wide range of personnel and other district matters. Trustees also reelected President Nora Scherer to another year in office, and elected Priscilla Lowe to serve as vice president.

Lowe, nominated by fellow trustee Suzanne Jordan, will take over from the Rev. James Childs, Sr. Lowe was the only nominee.

Scherer faced a brief challenge from Robin Jacobowitz, who was nominated by fellow trustee James Michael. Jacobowitz quickly and graciously withdrew her candidacy, with Scherer earning full support during voting.

“I so appreciate the nomination,” said Jacobowitz during the meeting held on Thursday, July 5. “I’m honored and surprised. But I feel that I can’t take on that responsibility at this stage of my life.”

Trustees also approved the hiring of two new principals who will fill vacancies at Edward R. Crosby and John F. Kennedy elementary schools.

“We had several very good candidates, and these two impressed us above and beyond,” said Superintendent Paul Padalino. “They distinguished themselves above and beyond the other candidates, and we’re really excited, very impressed, and we can’t wait to get rolling as soon as possible.”

Kathleen Sickles is the new principal at Crosby, after serving as an assistant principal at Highland Elementary School since October 2014. Prior to her move to Highland, Sickles was an assistant principal and third-grade teacher at St. Joseph School in Kingston. Sickles has a bachelor’s and master’s degree from SUNY New Paltz, and a certificate of advanced graduate study from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. “I’m looking forward to getting started,” Sickles said. 

Melissa Jamieson will take over at JFK, moving upstate from Brooklyn, where she most recently served as assistant principal at P.S. 164 Caesar Rodney in the Borough Park neighborhood. Further details on Jamieson’s background were not available as of press time.

“I’m honored to be a part of the Kingston City School District,” said Jamieson.

Both principals were hired on a four-year probationary term with an annual salary of $115,000. Jamieson’s official start date is Tuesday, Aug. 1, while Sickles’ had yet to be determined.

In other personnel news, Jordan was the sole trustee to vote against extending the assignment of tenured elementary teachers Michael Circe and Jonathan Hambright as instructional coaches through June 30, 2019. Instructional coaches primarily work with other teachers and school leaders on contemporary evidence-based practices.

“I have a concern about instructional coaches serving for more than two years,” said Jordan. “I just feel that a teacher who is exceptional should be working with kids in our district. I fully support the instructional coach idea, but I philosophically cannot keep good teachers out of the classroom.”

Jordan added that she would prefer to see teachers serve as instructional coaches for no more than two years before returning to the classroom, a discussion she said she was bringing to the board for the first time after numerous conversations in the district’s teaching and learning committee.

“Personally, I can’t support more than a three-year term,” Jordan said. “These two individuals are going into a four-year term. I’m just forced to vote no. And I’m not trying to influence anybody else. It’s just something I feel very strongly about and I wanted to explain why.”

Padalino said he expected the debate would continue in committee as part of a larger discussion about instructional coaches.

“There’s a conversation going on around the instructional coach model in a lot of different ways,” Padalino said. “So I think this is something we will continue to discuss in the teaching and learning committee.”

Saugerties is likely to seek to hire an interim schools superintendent to help steer the school district. The search for a permanent replacement for outgoing district administrative leader Seth Turner could take around six months. 

The school board has scheduled a special meeting on Tuesday, August 1, at which Boces superintendent Charles Khoury is expected to guide the district’s trustees through the various steps in searching for and hiring a new superintendent. None of the current members of the school board were in place when Turner was hired in 2009.

Board president Robert Thomann said a planned talk with the New York State School Boards Association was off. “We were going to have a presentation by NYSSBA about outside agencies, but they couldn’t do it until the end of August,” explained Thomann. “So we’re going to get an overview from Boces about the components of a superintendent search, and at the same time we’re trying to gather prices for what different agencies as well as Boces [for the] cost to search, along with what they provide. I just want everybody to hear what the components of that search will be.”

Thomann said the school board could decide on which areas to focus. “It’s kind of like a menu, and you can pick and choose,” Thomann said. “You can decide how much public involvement you want, for example, and it’s priced accordingly. I just want everybody to be on the same page about what the search might look like, get costs, and we’ll decide probably toward the end of August what we’re going to go with.”

Late last month, Turner announced that he was leaving Saugerties to serve as the superintendent of a small Long Island district for the 2018-19 school year. Previously a teacher with Boces in Plattsburgh, Turner came to Saugerties in 1997 as a special education teacher in the alternative education program at the high school. In 2000 he became an assistant principal before becoming principal at Grant D. Morse Elementary in 2003. Turner’s current contract was approved in 2015 and runs through 2020. 

Thomann said the district received a timeline of how the entire process unfolded from the Highland school district, which hired as superintendent earlier this year. Based on that timeline, trustees concluded that hiring an interim superintendent would take the pressure off during the search for a permanent replacement. 

Thomann declined to offer specifics about whether the school board had already identified potential interim candidates. “I can’t go into a lot of detail with that because it’s a personnel matter,” he said. “But once the superintendent has vacated the position you can appoint an interim. There’s people within and outside the district that would be available to do that.”

The district is also seeking to replace business manager Lissa Jilek, who will leave Saugerties in late September for the same role in the Highland district. Jilek has been the district’s business manager since 2013.

The Saugerties district is hopeful of finding an interim business manager through Boces. Thomann said interim business managers were available in Ulster County, and that Ulster Boces might also work with Sullivan County Boces on that hiring task.

John Skiff

The Saugerties High School Class of 2019 will return to class for its final year of high school in less than two months, looking forward to college, jobs or other opportunities the summer after. For John Skiff, senior year will include an extra day of classes each week. The talented tenor will will be spending his Saturdays in the Juilliard pre-college program. 

Opened in 1905, the Juilliard School is a performing-arts conservatory located on the Lincoln Center complex on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. It’s widely regarded as one of the world’s leading schools for music, dance and dramatic arts. Around 850 college and nearly 300 pre-college students will take a wide range of courses of study there.

For Skiff, studying at Juilliard is a dream come true. “I tried to stay humble about it before, not really overplaying any abilities that I had,” he said. “But when I found out that I would be able to do Juilliard, I kind of decided that I had to put in as much effort as I could, do as much work as I could. Because Juilliard, that’s insane.”

Skiff will study music theory, ear training, diction and vocal performance. He will receive intensive private vocal coaching. He’ll be encouraged to consider a wide range of elective courses, including improvisation, post-tonal theory, and “the science of resilience,” which teaches students how to deal with the physical and psychological rigors of performance-based singing. 

At Saugerties High, Skiff has studied under music teachers Rebecca MacDougall and Marisa Trees. According to the former, Skiff is a naturally gifted singer who has never had private vocal instruction. With the school recently reinstating vocal classes, Skiff was able to learn his repertoire for the Juilliard audition, which will include a standard classical song from the Italian anthology, a classical song of the applicant’s choice, and a short classical song in a foreign language. 

MacDougall said Skiff’s audition came about thanks to a fortuitous bit of scheduling, and because she and Trees believed that Skiff should intensify his study ahead of college. 

“Ms. Trees and I, we could hear that he was probably one of the best tenors we’ve ever heard in both of our careers,” said MacDougall. “One of the best singers, actually. We were calling around to different schools to see if someone would hear him, because we knew he was just so wonderful. When I e-mailed different places, nobody really got back to me. When I e-mailed Julliard, they did, and they said, ‘Can he come this Saturday at 5 o’clock?’”

Fortuitously, the SHS music department had already planned a field trip to Lincoln Center for that same spring day for a performance of the opera Cendrillon, so Skiff was already going to be mere steps away from the pre-screening audition. 

“When I went in for the pre-screening, it was nerve-wracking because I didn’t really know what to expect,” Skiff explained. “I walked in, I was in a little room, I didn’t get to do any warmups, and I just had to start with no preparation. No one really knows what to expect until you get there.”

The more he sang for Juilliard, the easier it became. Mostly, anyway.  

“As it went into auditions and callbacks, it was a little bit easier, but still stressful because you can’t mess up something like this,” he said. “I was giving it my all to try to do everything I could to make sure they knew how much I wanted this. It’s an opportunity of a lifetime.”

Once the audition process was completed in May, Skiff still had to wait until early June to learn whether he’d made the cut. 

“Funny story about how I found out,” Skiff said. “It was 6:40, I was supposed to get the e-mail at six o’clock, and I forgot to check my e-mail. 6:40 rolls around, I heard a knock at the door and my dog starts barking. I go to the door, come to find out there’s Mrs. MacDougall and Ms. Trees on my front porch. I close the curtain and say to myself, ‘Are they really out there?’ I open the door and there they are.”
He checked the e-mail and found out that he had been accepted. “I was honestly glad they’d showed up at the door. It was better to share the experience than to e-mail them saying I got in. I was ecstatic. To find out that I got in? Someone from Saugerties, New York?”

Skiff said that his joy over getting in won’t overwhelm him. He’s earned an opportunity that could open a great many doors for him, both academically and professionally. 

“Juilliard is the best of the best,” Skiff said. “To get into Juilliard, the possibilities are endless. Just to say that I got into the Juilliard pre-college, that could get me into any college afterward even if Juilliard were to say, ‘You’re not the right fit for us.’”

After college? Skiff is hoping the Juilliard pre-college program will make his career dreams come true. 

“Honestly, I want to be famous,” he said. “That’s a lot of people’s dreams. And just to be able to do what I love, which is singing.”

(Photo by Crispin Kott)

Kingston Stockade FC just completed its third season of semi-pro soccer, a campaign which by most measures came up short of the standard set one year earlier. The team saw its share of challenges on the field in 2018, and according to club chairman Dennis Crowley, it saw them off the field. too.

This week, Crowley’s preliminary numbers showed a drop in overall attendance from 6145 in 2017 to 4646 this year. The seven games represented in the 2017 figure included six regular season matches plus a playoff game on July 15 that drew a club record 1393 fans for a 2-1 win over Hartford City FC. The 2018 tally also includes seven games, though two of those were friendlies. The team did not make the postseason.

Game-day ticket revenue fell 20 percent in 2018, and merchandise revenue dropped 45 percent. The total number of transactions also fell by 36 percent. 

Stockade FC is here to stay. Crowley, general manager Randy Kim, and others involved in the team have always talked about long-term projections over five years, a decade, and beyond. Through this prism, Crowley said, the team’s third season at Dietz Stadium as part of the National Premier Soccer League (NPSL) was a success. 

Building momentum, audience

Stockade went 3-5-2 on the season, with all three wins and one of the ties happening in Kingston. Last year, the first under head coach David Lindholm, the team went 7-4-1 in the regular season, followed by a win in the franchise’s first ever playoff game. With the loss of the Seacoast United Phantoms, the NPSL’s Northeast Region saw its remaining eleven teams moved from a pair of conferences into one, resulting in ten regular season games, down from twelve in 2017.

“We didn’t do the home-and-away thing, and you got a random draw for who you were going to get,” Crowley said. “I tried to design the schedule wherein we had a home game up front, a bunch of games on the road, and the thinking was we’d come back and have five or six games in a row and build momentum in terms of audience and the consistency of the play. But the two things that happened were the team never found a good rhythm on the road, and it was challenging when we came back home. And on top of that we had a string of bad weather, with days when it was just too hot, days when it was supposed to rain, days when it was raining. When you only have five matches at home, when you get two or three hits in the weather it’s really hard.”

In the home opener, 372 fans turned up on a cold, rainy evening to see Stockade beat the Rhode Island Reds 3-0. Kingston then went on a brutal three-match road trip that saw two losses followed by a puzzling referee-shortened 2-2 draw at TSF Academy on May 30. The team didn’t play its second home match until June 2, a frustrating 2-1 loss to New York Athletic Club before a very good turnout of 881 fans. The club had its third-highest turnout ever the following Saturday, when 1014 supporters showed up for a 2-1 win over the Seacoast Mariners. 

A week later, a heat wave settled over the Hudson Valley, and Stockade still drew 724 fans for a thrilling 4-4 draw against the defending league champs TSF Academy. After 426 people attended a friendly against Providence City on June 24, the team closed out its home slate on June 30 with a 5-1 win over Boston City FC.

Rain is unpredictable, but the likelihood of hot weather is not. After peppering its first two seasons with a few afternoon games, the team went exclusively to starts no earlier than 6 p.m. Crowley said that helped, both in the stands where it gets very hot in the afternoon, and also in the quality of play on the pitch. But beyond the weather, Crowley acknowledged that those who aren’t ardent supporters are more likely to show up when the team is playing well.

“I think a bunch of things have to go right to have record attendance,” he said. “A little bit of it is the narrative of the club, there are playoff hopes, everything is exciting. And I think a little bit of it is the weather. And I also think a big part of it, which I really want to explore next season, is the atmosphere that we make for the fans. I think we do a really great job, but we didn’t improve a lot from last year to this year.”

More festival atmosphere

One change Dennis Crowley would like to see will hinge on what can and can’t be done at Dietz now that the city has agreed to fully take over ownership of the stadium. Previously it shared ownership with the school district, an arrangement made it impossible to secure grant funding for improvements, and also placed restrictions on what could be sold on the property. With recent state Downtown Revitalization Initiative funding, the city has earmarked $2.5 million to renovate Dietz. Crowley said the 2019 season will likely come and go before work is done. 

What could happen sooner, though, is the idea of tented vendors on site and a mini-festival atmosphere on game day. “This is how it’s supposed to be every game,” Crowley said. “I really believe that we should be making this mini-festival every weekend that is a mix not just charitable causes, but of vendors showing the stuff we have in the Hudson Valley. You’re not allowed to do that right now because of the way the contracts are with the stadium. If you want to do a food truck, you can’t. Tommy [Keegan of Keegan Ales] wants to move closer, he can’t. If you want to do a farmer’s market, you can’t. But if we can get rid of some of those restrictions and there’s a couple of thousand square feet, and if you create that type of atmosphere you can bring even more people in, and different people in.”

Stockade officials have always been transparent with their numbers, with Crowley assembling a season recap each year and posting it online (medium.com/stockadefc) around September. 

While Kingston’s season was by few measures as successful as 2017, Crowley maintained that the team is still very much heading in the right direction.

“The point of doing the club was not to go win as many trophies as possible,” Crowley said. “The point was that we want to make something that’s cool here, we want people to love it, we want to bring people together, and we want more kids to play soccer. Every season we execute better and better with those things. I feel good about where we are three years in, and I think next year is going to be a good year for us.”

Ulster Savings Bank pitcher Erin Murphy gets a hit in a game earlier this month. (Photo by Phyllis McCabe)

Every Monday night, the Women’s Lower B division of Kingston Recreation softball takes to the field at Block Park for what has been described by players as the most “laid back” experience on the diamond. Not that the teams, five in all, aren’t trying to win. They just want to have fun along the way.

Nicole Fuoco is the team captain and third baseman of the Lower B’s top team, sponsored by Ulster Savings Bank. As of press time, they’re in first place with a 7-2 overall record. A KHS Class of 2009 alum, Fuoco grew up playing softball, and is currently in her fourth year playing in Kingston Rec. The team was founded by Cassidy Scanlon, and though she still plays the outfield for Ulster Savings, she asked Fuoco to take over the detail-oriented work of captain heading into this season. Though the captaincy changed, the team has mostly been the same since its inception.

“Our team is pretty lucky in that we have a core group that’s been playing together, some of us, since little league,” said Fuoco, who works for Jordan Trading. “For the most part everybody is in the same spot each week.”

Though they swing for the fences when they come to bat, Fuoco stressed that much of the motivation for playing at the Lower B level is camaraderie.

“For us, we want to have a good time and have fun,” she said. “We’re all pretty much friends, so it’s kind of one night a week we get to go out, enjoy being outside in the nice weather. We’re down by the water. And it’s just a good group of girls. We get along and enjoy hanging out with each other. We know each other’s boyfriends or husbands. Some of them have kids, and the kids come. It’s just something good to do in the community. The other teams are also friendly. It’s not hyper competitive. A is competitive.”

There are three different divisions in Kingston Rec women’s softball, with the four-team A division its most competitive. The Upper B division has nine teams, four of which — The Diamond Vets, Spinnenweber, The Wine Hutch, and Hickory BBQ — are battling it out for first place. 

There’s a similar logjam atop the Lower B division, with Ulster Savings Bank and Miss Shannah’s Place within a half-game of one another. They’ll meet again on Monday, Aug. 6 in the final game of the regular season. Their last time out, a game played on Monday, July 2, Miss Shannah’s Place beat Ulster Savings 15-7, with Tina Burris (home run, three singles), Becky Brocco (double, two singles), Abby Brocco (double) and team captain Shannah Drake (three singles) all contributing. 

Drake, a 2005 graduate of Rondout Valley High School, has been in the league for the past six seasons, but she started Miss Shannah’s Place — named after her daycare business — prior to this season.

“The team I was playing on the previous year decided they were not going to put a team,” she said. “I took some of the girls from that team, brought in some new girls, and we put a team together overnight.”

It was an uncharacteristically stressful introduction to a team, like Ulster Savings Bank, that’s in it to win, as long as everyone is having fun.

“It’s just laid back,” said Drake. “A lot of my girlfriends play in Upper B and A, and it’s way more competitive. We do it for fun. Everybody’s not freaking out if we’re losing. In other leagues they take that stuff seriously.”

Also like Ulster Savings, the players on Miss Shannah’s Place are very familiar with one another. “I’ve played with all of them in the past,” said Drake. “Two of the girls work for me. It’s basically close friends and family.”

Fuoco, who is also the Lower B representative for the Kingston Rec Softball League, said teams can play their way into higher divisions, but it’s not necessarily the ultimate goal.

“I could decline, for sure,” Fuoco said. “There was one year there was talk of us moving up, partly to make numbers. Last year we finished pretty high up in the standings as well. And in my opinion we’re not ready to move up.”

Each of the three women’s divisions has a cluster of teams near the top, along with one team that hasn’t won a single game. In A, that team is Perferizone Painting II, with an 0-11 record as of press time. In Upper B, AFCO is 0-10. And in the Lower B division, it’s Safe Shoot LLC with an 0-9 record. Safe Shoot has been in a few games here and there, though a pair of losses to Sawyer Motors this season symbolize their overall struggles, with 9-3 and 18-13 results.

The most lopsided result of the season came in a game between Ulster Savings and Safe Shoot on Monday, July 9, a 41-5 result that saw numerous players on the winning side rack up multi-hit games. Fuoco (triple, four singles, three RBI), Jess Sass (two homers, three singles, eight RBI), Erin Murphy (home run, three singles, six RBI), Taylor Carpino (double, four RBI), Alex LoBianco (two doubles, single, three RBI) and Erin McDermott (three singles) all contributed.

The Lower B division’s final regular season games are scheduled for July 30 and August 6, Monday evenings at Block Park Field. The postseason gets underway on Monday, Aug. 13, with the finals slated for Monday, Aug. 27. 

Stallions pitcher Noah Stone (photos by Josh Arsenault)

Despite a noble effort down the stretch, the Saugerties Stallions saw their 2018 season end just shy of the playoffs. With a 24-24 record, the Stallions finished in the middle of the East Division, six games behind the Amsterdam Mohawks. 

Saugerties finished the season with a 9-3 loss at Watertown this Tuesday, July 31. The Rapids struck early, scoring four runs in the home half of the first against Stallions starter Anthony Germinerio. Watertown broke the game wide open with five more runs over the fourth and fifth against reliever Dalton Senger. Senger gave up five hits and six walks in an inning and two-thirds of work. 

The Stallions outhit Watertown 10-9, but they couldn’t get the runs across the plate. Herman Alvarado (two singles), James Gargano (double) and Cam Coakley (double) all contributed offensively. 

Saugerties fared better in their home finale one night earlier, blanking Amsterdam 4-0 before an announced crowd of 3121 at Cantine Field. Though the Mohawks compiled eight hits in the game, the Stallions’ stingy defense didn’t allow a single base runner across the plate. 

The Stallions first run came in the bottom of the third when right fielder Noah Searcy scored on an overthrown ball by Amsterdam catcher Joe Genord. In the sixth, Searcy, Nick Pastore and Gargano all singled to open the inning, and all would come home. Brian Picone’s RBI single helped seal the deal. 

Kingston High alum Avery Short scattered seven hits and gave two free passes while striking out five over seven innings in his first start on the mound for Saugerties. Hinkle allowed one hit over two innings of relief to preserve the win. 

Stallions catcher Danny Martin

The previous Saturday, July 28, Saugerties hosted the Glens Falls Dragons, winning 13-5 in a wild affair. The home team came out strong in the first, with Gargano’s single and Jordan Kozicky’s double turning into runs thanks to a triple by Brian Picone. In the second, Easton Bertrand completed the shared cycle, smashing a home run over the left field wall. Kozicky drove in a pair of runs with a double, scoring himself on a sacrifice fly by Picone. After two innings, the Stallions led 6-0. 

The Dragons spoiled the shutout in the third, with Zach Fritz singling and eventually scoring on a wild pitch. But Saugerties pushed ahead in the home half of the inning with RBI singles by Bertrand, Alvarado, Gargano and Kozicky, giving the fans the comfort of a 10-1 lead. 

Glens Falls inched their way back into the game, scoring four runs between the fourth and seventh innings, punctuated by an RBI double by Matt Hamel in the latter. But that was as close as the visitors would get. Saugerties tacked on a pair of insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth on back-to-back doubles by Kozicky and Cameron Comer. 

Stallions starter Noah Stone went five innings for the win, giving up six hits, four walks, and two earned runs while striking out five. Joel Bartoni pitched four innings of relief. 

Saugerties had hit the road against the Oneonta Outlaws on July 27, winning 4-2 after falling into an early hole. The home team did all its offensive damage in the first inning, with Logan Thomason and Steve Minter recording RBI singles against Stallions hurler Dillon Good. Good settled down after the first, striking out six in five innings of work. 

The Stallions spread their four runs out over the fifth, sixth and seventh innings to earn the win, with Carlos Pino (RBI double), Nick Pastore (RBI single), and Derek Ripp (single, run) pitching in. 

If there was a single game upon which the Stallions’ playoff fate rested, it was a 6-5 home loss to the Albany Dutchmen on July 26. Saugerties took a 2-1 lead in the fifth inning when Picone came home on a Danny Martin single, and Ripp scoring on a deep fly out by Coakley. 

After Albany regained the lead in the seventh, Saugerties mounted a wild comeback in the home half of the ninth, with Picone coming home on a based loaded groundout by Coakley. Alvarado brought the Stallions to within a single run, scoring on a passed ball. But that was the end of the line, and indirectly the end of the season. Though there were still games to be played, including a thrilling home finale before a huge crowd, the playoffs were by then just about out of reach. 

The Saugerties Stallions will be back in 2019 for another season in the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League.