Mid Hudson Times Oct. 07 2015

TIMES MID HUDSON Vol. 27, No 40 3 OCTOBER 7 - 13, 2015 3 ONE DOLLAR Newburgh boy Making meets a splash the Pope Page 22 Page 44 SERVING NEWBURGH AND NEW WINDSOR Town of Newburgh stays within tax cap By ALLAN GAUL [email protected] Taxpayers will be looking at a modest tax increase in 2016, Town of Newburgh Supervisor Gil Piaquadio said Tuesday. Columbia University begins city urban design lab The owner of an average house assessed at $68,000 will pay an additional $46.87 over what he or she paid this year, according to figures supplied to the Mid Hudson Times by Piaquadio. Owners of a house assessed at $200,000, for instance, will pay an extra $137 while those owning a home assessed at $300,000 will pay an extra $206, he said. In order to stay within the 0.73 percent tax cap being required by New York State, the Town of Newburgh can’t exceed $18,377,822 in combined tax levy for general and Continued on page 4 How to create a thriving Main Street? Feast of Saint Francis By SHANTAL RILEY [email protected] By SHANTAL RILEY [email protected] “How can we improve the environment with all the social and economic issues in the city?” asked Columbia University graduate student Yuri Kim, offering a possible starting point for a study focused on the City of Newburgh. Kim and about 40 other students visited the City of Newburgh last week as part of the Urban Design Studio at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. The studio is designed to provide hands-on learning in areas of housing, infrastructure, the environment and other urban design-related subjects. “All of these black sections are vacant Continued on page 3 Allan Gaul The Rev. Dustin Trowbridge of St. George’s Church blesses Jackson Kendall and Jackson’s human, the Rev. Jerry Brooks, Sunday with the assistance of the Rev. Deacon Mauvoureen (Vonnie) Hubbard. St. Francis is the patron saint of animals and many churches offer animal blessings on the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi on Oct. 4. Story on page 3 WWW.MIDHUDSONTIMES.COM You reap what you sow. It was a message that emerged again and again at a panel discussion of Hudson Valley business owners held at Space Create Monday. “When you’re in a community and you’re not connected or committed to the community, it probably won’t work,” said Maria Luisa Whittingham. “You have to take ownership of it.” Whittingham, owner of the Maria Luisa Boutique in Nyack, spoke along with other longtime business owners at the “Downtown Turnaround: Creating Thriving Main Streets in a Changing Economy” event exploring the successes and challenges of small, Main Street businesses in the Hudson Valley. “Every vendor that we work with … we know who they are,” said Whittingham, and vice versa. No wonder. The environmentally friendly boutique created a scholarship for female high school students and donates a certain percent of its profits to charity each year. Whittingham even started a “Say No to the Bag” initiative Continued on page 4