Mid Hudson Times Feb. 28 2018 | Page 4

Five arrested in City of Newburgh drug , weapons raid
Newburgh man charged with handguns posession
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Mid Hudson Times , Wednesday , February 28 , 2018

City pursues 5th GIVE grant to reduce gun violence

The City of Newburgh is applying for a fifth Gun Involved Violence Elimination ( GIVE ) grant to continue its efforts to reduce gun violence . Among other programs , the $ 410,000 grant would go to pay for the city ’ s Group Violence Initiative , credited for helping to reduce gun violence in the city in the last year .
“ The GIVE grant is one of our larger funding sources to help with crime reduction ,” said city police Lieutenantin-Charge Aaron Weaver . “ This year , we ’ re looking to put in some different programming to really ( tailor ) the Group Violence Initiative to Newburgh ’ s specific needs . This is one of the driving forces , we feel , that has been driving down our crime rates .”
In an interview with the Mid Hudson Times earlier this week , Weaver said the city saw a 14-percent decrease in violent crime in 2017 , and bullet-to-body shootings were reduced by 65 percent in the same year .
One of the ways in which the City of Newburgh Police
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for PFOS and PFOA from 200 parts per trillion to 70 parts per trillion in 2016 . That year , the state took samples of elevated levels of PFOS throughout the city ’ s watershed , including Recreation Pond where PFOS was found at 5,900 parts per trillion . The pond has yet to be cleaned up by the state or the federal government .
At a community forum on the water crisis held at the Activity Center earlier this month , Martin Brand , deputy commissioner of remediation and materials management at the state Department of Environmental Conservation , said the state was looking into possibly treating the discharges at the pond , which empties into a main tributary of the lake .
“ The ( Department of Transportation ) and the DEC have been working at Rec Pond , taking samples , looking at flow rates , looking at design parameters in order to design a system that is going to cut those discharges off ,” Brand said .
The state has paid for a range of water-infrastructure improvements related to PFOS contamination in city water . It is currently conducting tests on the city ’ s new carbon-filtration system , designed to remove PFOS and
Department would like to use the grant money is for “ custom notifications ” in cases of gang-related violence , Weaver said at Newburgh City Hall this month .
“ We ’ ll actually go to the hospitals do custom notifications to the people involved , to curb any kind of retaliatory act ,” he said . “ We ’ ll actually go out on the street close , or right after the incident , to find members of that group to try to explain to them what retaliation could cause them and their families , what kind of charges they could be facing , to try to slow down the violence .”
The money would also be used to allocate more police officers to monitor parties , illegal or not , he said . Often parties are held late at night , when few police officers are on duty , Weaver said . “ This way we can actually get a police presence there ,” he said , instead of responding on a call-to-call basis .
The funds would cover a period of July 1 , 2018 , to June 30 of next year .

City intends to file civil suits re : water contamination

other water contaminants at the water treatment plant . “ We ’ re working on a comprehensive agreement in which the state will continue to operate the system ,” Brand told residents at the meeting . “ Obviously , we want the DoD to pay for it , but until that happens , we aren ’ t going away .”
The state also pays for the city to draw water from the Catskill Aqueduct . However , the city is scheduled to switch back to using water from Washington Lake sometime this spring .
Governor Andrew Cuomo expressed irritation at news of the legal filings in an article posted to the Politico website last week . “ Why they would threaten litigation , you know , they have to feed the lawyers ,” he said in the Feb . 22 story . “ But , whatever we can do , we will do and we are doing , by the way .”
The Town of New Windsor filed a notice of its intent to file a law suit against the Department of Defense related to PFC contamination of its public-water supply last year .
Editor ’ s Note : Mid Hudson Times Publisher Carl Aiello is among the plaintiffs in a class-action suit filed on behalf of residents exposed to the chemical PFOS .

In Brief

Five arrested in City of Newburgh drug , weapons raid

Five men are under arrest following execution of a search warrant at an apartment at 222 Broadway in the City of Newburgh on Wednesday .
The warrant resulted in the seizure of a loaded . 22 caliber semi-automatic handgun , approximately 78.5 grams of cocaine , 152 bags of heroin , several pills , approximately $ 8,400 in cash and drug packaging materials .
Arrested were Taureen Mayshack , 35 , of Newburgh ; Anthony Daley , 38 , of New Paltz ; Paul Vega , 21 , of Newburgh ; Ahquan Stevenson , 29 , of Newburgh ; and Keith David , 60 , of Newburgh .
They were all charged with felony and misdemeanor counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance and criminal possession of a weapon as a felony .
Mayshak , Davis , and Stevenson were sent to the Orange County Jail without bail . Daley and Vega are held in lieu of $ 100,000 cash bail or bond .

Newburgh man charged with handguns posession

A 24-year-old Newburgh man is in the Orange County Jail without bail after he was arrested on gun possession charges .
Orange County Sheriff ’ s deputies were on patrol in the area of Benkard Avenue in the City of Newburgh at around 5 p . m . on Thursday , February 22 when they pulled over a vehicle driven by Tyrek Jones of Newburgh .
A search of his vehicle revealed cocaine in the driver ’ s door and two handguns in the trunk . One was loaded and both had their serial numbers removed .
Jones was charged with criminal possession of a weapon , willful defacement of a weapon and criminal possession of drugs , all as felonies . He was also charged with the violation of unlawful possession of marijuana and driving with no headlights .
Norwegian doubles Dublin flights
Norwegian Air announced it is doubling service from Stewart International Airport to Dublin Airport beginning April 26 . Service will increase from one to two daily flights .
The first flight will depart Stewart at 12:25 p . m . and the evening flight will depart at 8:30 p . m .
“ More than 130,000 passengers have flown Norwegian between the United States and Ireland since we launched the service last July , and today marks our continued expansion by introducing twice-daily flights between New York and Dublin ,” said Thomas Ramdahl , chief commercial officer at Norwegian .
Norwegian also flies to Belfast , Bergen , Edinburgh and Shannon from Stewart .