copake connection

October 2013

High Wheelers Return to Copake

On Saturday October 19,  the Copake Auction will  hold an auction featuring antique bicycles from the Pedaling History Bicycle Museum Collection.  The Auction is the third and final session in the sale of the Collection and is the last opportunity to view and purchase items from this historic collection.

On Friday October 18, antique bicycle enthusiasts who are visiting Copake for the Auction will set off on a ten mile bicycle ride through Copake.  The ride, which has become a tradition in Copake, will feature numerous penny farthings and other antique bicycles.

As part of its initiative to promote bicycling in Copake, the Copake Hamlet Revitalization Task Force is inviting spectators to view the ride, and local bike riders to join the ride.  

The ride will leave the Copake Auction at 3:00 p.m.  Members of the Task Force will help direct riders as they bike down Main Street to the Clock, and then onto Church Street.  The ride will proceed south on Route 7A to West Copake and will take a left onto Four Corners Road.  From there the riders will ride to Wiltsie Bridge Road and  up Wiltsie Bridge to Empire Road.  The ride will return into Copake on Empire Road.  The ride  passes by the Clock and returns to the Auction.

Your vote makes a difference!

Election Day is approaching.  These "off-year" elections may seem unimportant, but your town government can have a direct impact on your life.  Candidates for election are listed below.

Town Councilperson

Matt Cain - Democrat, running on the Democrat line.

Jeanne Mettler - Democrat,  running on the Democrat, Republican, Working Families, Independence and Conservative lines.

David Pacencia - Republican,  running on the Republican, Conservative and Independence lines.

Town Justice

Brian Herman - Democrat,  running on the Democrat and Working Families lines.

Glenn Schermerhorn - Republican, running on the Republican, Independence and Conservative lines.

Referendum

Chapter 414 Proposition to establish a Town Budgetary Allocation for the Roeliff Jansen Library.  For more information, please go to www.roejanlibrary.org

For more information on the elections, please go to www.columbiacountyny.com

Back by Popular Demand, Slide Show on Copake's History at the Roe Jan Library

If you missed author and local historian Howard Blue's standing room only and widely talked about slide show presentation on Copake's history in July, you have another chance to experience it.

Blue will do a repeat performance, again at the Roe Jan Library, on Saturday, Nov. 2 at 4 PM

The program is based on interviews with local residents, many of whom shared old photos of the town and its residents from their family albums. Blue's talk will include such history gems as the 1840's agrarian revolt in Copake, the town's unusual aeronautical history, three local former horse racetracks, and ice harvesting in town. He will also discuss some of Copake's colorful and fascinating residents: from a rattlesnake hunter to the wealthy Henry Astor, who lived in West Copake in the late 19th century. The Great Blondin's 1858 high wire walk across Bash Bish Falls and the Copake-related artistic productions of Depression-era

photographer Walker Evans and Hudson River School painter John Frederick Kensett are also on the program.

Blue is the author of Words at War (Scarecrow Press, 2002), a book about World War II-era radio broadcasting. For that and other projects he interviewed Arthur Miller, Art Carney, John Eisenhower, Bud Lewis (the copilot of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima), and two Nobel Prize winners.  Howard wrote his M.A. thesis in History on the power position of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev; decades later he interviewed Khrushchev's son, Sergei. In the 1970's he produced a slideshow about a tiny village in the Rhineland in Germany, and several years ago in Hudson he produced a dramatic program on the theme of his book. He has an active Copake history Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/Copakehistory

 Photo Credit:  Chris Quinby

Roe Jan Ramble Shirts for Sale

Shirts from the First Annual Roe Jan Ramble Bike Tour are available for sale at Bash Bish Bicycle for just $6.00.   

Report from the Farmland Protection Committee

By Edgar M. Masters, Co-Chair

The Farmland Protection Committee continues to meet the fourth Tuesday of each month at the Town Hall at 7 PM. The public is encouraged to attend these meetings. A survey of farming in our Town, prepared by our consultant, Nan Stolzenburg of Planning Better Places, has been mailed to our farmers and agricultural land owners, and we encourage all recipients to please respond as soon as possible in the stamped envelope provided. As our Committee studies farming in Copake, we need your input and recommendations. Your response is vital.

    At the request of the Town Board and the Land Use Committee, we have been discussing the issue of processing poultry and small animals on farms in our Town. This is a complicated issue with Federal and State regulations, residents' concerns, and farmers' needs. While these matters are still in open discussion, it appears that our Committee will recommend a limited processing change to zoning for fowl and small animals.

Co-chairs of the Committee are Dr. George Beneke and  Edgar M. Masters.  Members of the Committee are:   Lia Babitch, Marcia Becker, Ejay Eisen, Christie Hegarty,  and William F. Kiernan, Jr.  The Town Board Liaison is Jeanne E. Mettler.

Report from the Copake Board of Ethics

All residents of Copake should be aware of the town's Ethics Code and the Board of Ethics.  The entire code is available on the town's website*, www.townofCopake.org.  Standards of behavior and specific ethical violations, such as complaints of nepotism, discrimination, or conflicts of interest, are described in the Code.  All elected officers of Copake, all salaried employees, and all individuals appointed to positions by the Town Board are obligated to act ethically, in a manner consistent with the Ethics Code.

Any citizen of Copake may make a complaint to the Board of Ethics.  Such complaint must be in writing and may be left in the box in the entryway to Town Hall or in the Board of Ethics' mailbox in the town clerk's office:            

Remember: it is your Code and your Board.

Leonard Barham, Chair, Board of Ethics

*Ed. Note:  At the time of publication, the Town's website is still under construction.  When the new site is up, which is expected in early November, the Code will be available there.

Final Leaf Peeper Concert for 2013

String Music from Three Centuries    

October 19, 2013                            

7:30 p.m.                                 

St. James Church, Chatham

All six, three-part Preludes and Fugues of Bach, KV 404a  as composed by Mozart, the        

Trio in B Flat Major by Franz Schubert,  the Serenade in C Major for Violin, Viola and Cello by Ernst von Dohn�nyi  will be performed by Sanford Allen, violin; Daniel Panner, viola; and Fred Zlotkin, cello.

Tickets for Leaf Peeper Concerts are $20 per performance or $70 for a series pass. Students and children get in free when accompanied by an adult. Tickets may be purchased at the door or online at www.leafpeeperconcerts.org. They may also be reserved by emailing LeafPeepers@fairpoint.net or calling 518-329-5613. 

The performances are made possible (in part) with public funds from the Decentralization Program of the NYS Council of the Arts, administered through the Community Grants Program by the Greene County Council on the Arts, and in part with funds from the Alexander and Marjorie Hover Foundation, Inc. 

Thank you