Vol. 36, No. 31 3 WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2018
Concert
at
The Wall
Page 12
3
ONE DOLLAR
Montgomery
to honor
champs
Page 32
w w w .W a l l k i l l V a l l e y T i m e s . n e t
VC ponders parking and traffic upgrades
By TED REMSNYDER
The Valley Central School District
opted not to place a public referendum
on the ballot this May for renovations of
the parking lot at the Middle School/High
School complex. It instead chose to focus
on garnering taxpayer support for the
2018-2019 school budget while continuing
to formulate the potential referendum.
The district is still moving forward with
the proposed project, which would seek
to alleviate traffic problems at the school
site by reconfiguring the lot. The district
also wants to see a traffic light installed
on Route 17K outside the school complex
in order to help with traffic circulation
and to make it safer for children to cross
the street.
The district has hired the CSArch
architectural firm to design the project
and officials from the company recently
met with representatives from the New
York State Department of Transportation.
State officials informed the group that
they will install the traffic light and make
improvements on Route 17K. But the state
agency can’t provide the school district
with a timeline for when they’ll have the
funding for the project or when it would
theoretically be completed.
Valley Central Superintendent John
Xanthis said during a Board of Education
meeting on July 23 that CSArch has
continued to design the potential parking
lot upgrades with the hopes of presenting
the board with a referendum proposal
before the end of the summer. If the
school board approved the proposal,
a public vote could be held in October
Continued on page 23
T he W all T hat H eals
Laura Fitzgerald
Community members gathered to pay their respects to The Wall that Heals as it passes through Montgomery on Tuesday night. The Vietnam
Veterans Memorial replica mobile education center has passed through more than 600 communities throughout the U.S., educating the public
and allowing veterans to begin the healing process in the comfort of their own communities. The Wall will be on display at the Riverfront
Marina in Newburgh from Aug. 2 to Aug. 5.
Living
with loss
The Opioid Epidemic
in the Wallkill Valley and
one family’s struggle
By LAURA FITZGERALD
[email protected]
Robert Knapp loved building things.
As a child, he played with Connex toys.
He pieced together a Jeep as a teenager.
Later, he started his own mobile mechanic
business out of a shed and worked for
used car lots. His
favorite cars were
Jeeps.
At a 6’7”, he
stuck out in a
crowd, but he
always had a
gentle demeanor,
his family said.
He had a giving
personality and
was always there
to help a friend at Robert Knapp was
any time of the
known for his wide,
day or night.
“He was always joyous smile.
fixing something
for somebody,” his grandfather Albert
Valk said.
He liked hiking with his father, four-
wheeling and airsoft. He participated in
baseball, soccer, karate, cub scouts and
boy scouts as a child, a typical middle-
class upbringing.
He complained of back pain since
Continued on page 5
SERVING CRAWFORD, GARDINER, MAYBROOK, MONTGOMERY, PINE BUSH, SHAWANGUNK, WALDEN AND WALLKILL