Hank Gross

NEW CITY – Rockland County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef delivered his final state of the county address to the County Legislature Tuesday night taking aim at budget and financial challenges and the county’s experiences with Hurricane Sandy.

Vanderhoef, who is retiring at the end of the year, spent a significant amount of time discussing the county’s budget woes, assuring county residents the worst of the recession was over but more structural changes were necessary.

GOSHEN – Redistricting of the Orange County Legislature’s 21 districts has been approved in committee and is expected to be approved by the full lawmaking body later this week.

The reapportionment is required to keep all districts within the same approximate number of constituents.

Rules, Enactments and Intergovernmental Relations Committee Chairman Steven Brescia said even though a public hearing is required before a vote and approval by the county executive, time is a factor in the need to approve the new plan.

NEWBURGH – Officials of the Folk Music Hall of Fame hope to break ground this spring on what is believed to be the first-of-its-kind museum in the nation, in the East End of the City of Newburgh.

The non-profit corporation planning the facility has raised half of the $125,000 need to construct the museum at 67 Liberty Street, said group treasurer James Sollami.

TOWN OF POUGHKEEPSIE – Hundreds of Vassar College students, intent on celebrating diversity, overwhelmed a brief protest by the hate-monger group Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, KS. A small group of church members came to the Mid-Hudson Valley Thursday with plans to protest at the West Point funeral of Gen. Normal Schwarzkopf as well as picket a Vassar College in Poughkeepsie.

They got nowhere near the Schwarzkopf funeral.

The college protest was aimed at damning the school for its inclusion of gay students.

WEST POINT – The war hero known as “Stormin’ Norman” was remembered with tributes, humor and emotion during an hour-long memorial service at the United States Military Academy Thursday afternoon.

General Norman Schwarzkopf graduated from the academy as a member of the Class of 1956, and went on to legendary leadership during an illustrious military career.

The highlight was his role as commander of the coalition forces in the Persian Gulf War, which ended 22 years ago, to the day, of the memorial service yesterday.. 

TOWN OF WAPPINGER – If sequestration kicks in today, aircraft operations at Dutchess County Airport could be severely impacted as Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney (D-18) said on Thursday that the control tower faces shutdown. The tower is operated by federal FAA air traffic controllers and while Dutchess has no commercial traffic, it does have corporate helicopter service as well as corporate and creational aviation users.

Maloney said sequestration will negatively impact the regional economy.

GOSHEN – Three years of funding totaling $1.2 million for public school safety and security in Orange County was approved Wednesday by the Ways and Means Committee of the county legislature.

WHITE PLAINS – Former New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton told some 300 people at a School Safety Symposium at Purchase College Wednesday parents, teachers, police, fire and other first responders need to work together to help stave off incidents of violence like the Newtown, CT tragedy.

WAPPINGERS FALLS – Republican State Assemblyman Kieran Michael Lalor announced Tuesday that he will introduce legislation to cap tax on gasoline at the national average. While standing at a Wappingers Falls gas station, the freshman lawmaker also urged residents to call Governor Cuomo’s price gouging hotline to demand Albany “stop the tax gouging at the pump.”

Lalor said a gas tax cap would save motorists 20 cents per gallon.

Orange County, New York Legislator Roxanne Donnery has officially thrown her hat into the ring as the Democratic candidate for county executive.

Donnery addressed a room of over 170 supporters in Highland Mills about what she believes to be the state of county government.

“My God, what has happened to this county? Where is the trust?” she said.

The shuttered Orange County Government Center and Valley View nursing home were key issues Donnery addressed.

“You want your government back and I’m going to give it to you,” Donnery said.