A little bit about last night's B4A Zoning Amendment Public Hearing..... thank you to all who attended!

Many thanks to the Village and Town residents (as well as some out-of-towners!) who turned out in last night’s drizzle to participate in the Public Hearing on the B4A Zoning Amendment.

Thanks are also due to Paul Guillaro and his team of professionals for being so ready to answer some of the questions that were asked, and for his preparation of a 3-D model of the site (finally!).  During the hearing in the Music Room, the 3-D model was available for viewing – but unannounced – in the Cafeteria.   I’m not certain of the number of people who were able to view the model before the hearing was closed.  I did not see it until after.

We heard comments from 31 people last night.  25 of them were Village residents. All but one spoke in favor of development at Butterfield.  

Among concerns and questions directed at the Village Board the following topics were heard:

Spot zoning and legal defense, a call for 3-D renderings, size of building footprints, a call for affordable senior housing, ongoing medical use at Lahey Pavilion, the length of time this legislative process has taken, compliance with the comprehensive plan, desire for a new, large senior center that serves food prepared on-site, a call for an independent financial analysis of the developer’s  projected revenues/costs, impact on other districts of adding a food-service use to the site, eventual tipping point at which additional police staffing is required, impacts of STAR rebates on net tax revenue, likelihood the County Legislature will appropriate funds for a new senior center, probability of hidden costs to the Village, a call for the Village Board to have a plan in place to pay for unexpected costs, loss of tax revenue resulting from county ownership of any portion of the site, impacts of food-service use added after the EAF was completed, fate and longevity of the Cooper Beech tree, establishment of a conservation easement for the green lawn,  height of buildings and impact on view-shed, addressing risk of future tax grievances, planting the site with native plants, absence of designated location for the County Senior Center on existing concept plan.

The Public Hearing was closed last night. 

I’m looking forward to discussing prospective adjustments to the B4A Zoning Amendment at next week’s Village Board workshop (it wasn't clear until quite late in the meeting that such a discussion would occur), and I hope we have an equally healthy turnout of support for this important work of the Village Board.    

Thank you again to all who turned out last night.

Correcting the Record.... The Village Board did not vote on open session interviews for HDRB

On April 22nd, the Village Board interviewed Historic District Review Board candidates Peter Downey and Dana Bol in open session, with the public present. 

Contrary to reporting in the PCN&R on April 23, the Village Board did not vote to conduct interviews “in public".

Mayor Falloon expressed his interest in conducting the interviews in Executive Session, and Trustee Fadde made a motion that the Village Board interview the candidates in Executive Session.  The motion was not seconded; subsequently the Village Board did not vote.

Why are electrical bills so high? I asked some knowledgeable folks at the Public Service Commission.....

According to the New York Public Service Commission pricing for electricity is directly tied to the price of natural gas.  Because of the long and very cold winter we just spent, both demand for electricity and the price of natural gas has been very high state-wide.  This has been the case for the past several months. As a result of the high price of natural gas, and the high demand for electricity, prices for electricity have been high.

Some good news: The price of electricity is forecasted to decrease with coming of spring's more moderate temperatures, and the subsequent reduction in demand for electricity (and the natural gas that is used to create it).

Small help:  Central Hudson is said to work out payment plans with customers overwhelmed by recent price increases. Those customers should call Central Hudson's Customer Service to discuss that option.  That number is: (845) 452-2700.

If Central Hudson is not responsive to those requests, Customers are encouraged to contact the New York State Public Service Commission as follows:

On-line: You can: file a complaint or comment on Commission proceedings, or Ask-A-Question by sending an email  about your utility service to: web.questions@dps.ny.gov

By Telephone: Helpline (general complaints and inquiries): 1-800-342-3377 (8:30 am - 4:00 pm) Competitive Energy Hotline complaints about Energy Service Companies: 888-697-7728 (8:30 am - 4:00 pm) Hotline for terminations of gas or electric service: 800-342-3355 (7:30 am - 7:30 pm)

By Mail: Office of Consumer Services, NYS Department of Public Service, 3 Empire State Plaza, Albany, NY 12223

Among other issues of note, the Village Board interviews for Historic District Review Board membership.

After a long dry spell of no interest, we have a handful of prospective volunteers for our Historic District Review Board:  Pete Downey, Dana Bol, Mike Junjulus & Pam Colangelo.   We're glad they've thrown their hats in the ring!

Many thanks to Pete and Dana who interviewed with the Village Board in public session last night before our Village Board workshop!  Pete and Dana had previously been vetted by the Historic District Review Board and were nominated for appointment by that board unanimously.

Pete offers to return to the Historic District Review Board after 8+ previous years of service. He has a common sense approach to preservation, a strong work ethic and solid track record of productive collaboration with his former colleagues. He also has an encyclopedic knowledge of Cold Spring's historic architecture.

Dana brings professional design expertise, as well technological tools and collaborative problem solving experience to assist the Historic District Review Board in the review of applications. Her skill-set would be particularly useful to the upcoming revision and update of our Historic District Code and Design Standards.

Mike Junjulus & Pam Colangelo will be interviewed by the Village Board and considered by the Historic District Review Board as well, dates & times To Be Determined! 

Please join that Village Board session and learn about their qualifications, as well! 

...and while we're all focused on questions of land use...

Who do you believe is the most entitled to property rights?  The homeowner? The property developer?  Neither more than the other?

Within the next week our Village will hold two (2) public hearings, asking our community to consider issues of zoning and land use. Tomorrow, we'll hear from residents about a garden shed in the back yard of a local family's home; next Tuesday we'll hear from residents about rezoning to allow prospective development of an old hospital property.

Beth & Paul's garden shed and Paul Guillaro's Butterfield property have been made infamous - each for different reasons.  Most interesting (to me) about their political magnetism is the fact that some of the most vocal detractors of the garden shed are the most vocal proponents of the rezoning for hospital redevelopment.

I thought I'd see the same dyslexia in support for the garden shed (i.e. an equal antipathy toward the rezoning) but I don't see such an extreme opposite.  I have seen garden shed supporters generally interested in more information about the rezoning.

Arguments about land use and property rights have informed many months of public discourse prior to the recent Village election. Examining that language used to discuss these two projects and derivative issues in both newspaper coverage and online social networks reveals interesting and inconsistent positions on property rights.

So who do you believe is the most entitled to property rights?  And do you think your answer is the same today as it was 3 years ago?

Check out the B4A Zoning Amendment .... Attend the Public Hearing :: 4/29 7:30 at the Haldane Music Room!

Take some time to read the draft B4A Zoning Amendment and check out the the Concept Plan located on the Village website, carefully consider what the text of this amendment will mean for the village, prepare your thoughts about it and come to the PUBLIC HEARING on Tuesday, April 29th at 7:30PM held at the Haldane Music Room.

Roger Ailes demands NY village official take down ‘Facebook’ post. She says no by Philip Weiss, reprinted from Mondoweiss.net

Stephanie Hawkins

Here’s a crazy story happening in my town in New York that shows what it means when we say that free speech is a fighting right– a principle that folks have to stand up for in real embattled situations or it evaporates. Roger Ailes, the Fox News chairman who has media holdings across the country, has been slamming a small-town official here with legal letters threatening to sue her pants off for libel and defamation because in the midst of a political campaign she shared a Facebook post he didn’t like.

And that small-town official– gritty Stephanie Hawkins– has stood up to him for weeks, even as others quailed.

The story came out last week– in New York magazine and Philipstown.info– and Hawkins has been overwhelmed by public support.

So what happened?

A month back, there was a hard-fought election campaign in the Hudson River village of Cold Spring, N.Y., (population, 2000) for two of five seats on the Board of Trustees. Hawkins is a sitting village trustee and an active Democrat. During the campaign, she backed a slate that sought greater accountability from local developers: Matt Francisco, an incumbent trustee, and Donald MacDonald.

Francisco, l, and MacDonald

The two men were up against a slate that got active support from the local paper, The Putnam County News & Recorder, or PCN&R. Ailes and his wife Elizabeth Ailes, who live in nearby Garrison, bought the paper in 2008, according to Gabe Sherman’s new book on Ailes, The Loudest Voice in the Room. Elizabeth Ailes is the publisher. (And, she says, the owner.)

As Sherman says in his book, Roger Ailes has used the paper to stoke the kinds of political/cultural battles that marked Ailes’s entry into politics, when he served Richard Nixon in the glorious years, 1968-1974 (till Watergate hit him “like a stomach punch”).

In the last week of the election campaign, the PCN&R accused the Hawkins side of dirty tricks in a report on a letter written in support of Francisco/Donald by the folksinger Dar Williams and her husband Michael Robinson, who have a house in the village. The two had offered to dish “dirt” on the Ailes candidates, and the paper’s front-page story, “Nasty Campaign Letter Surfaces,” sought to link the politicians to Williams and Robinson:

Francisco was outside their home Monday morning. And the PCN&R has confirmed that Mac Donald has attended meetings with Stephanie Hawkins, a current trustee, at Williams’ and Robinson’s house.

And this gem:

Francisco was recently seen in a restaurant on Main Street having a lengthy conversation with James Geppner [a critic of local development].

These reports on his movements in the last week of a campaign understandably upset Francisco.

Outraged, Francisco took to Facebook later that day and alleged that he was being trailed. “The Ailes newspaper and their candidates have gone too far. It is clear I’m being followed; My movements are being tracked and reported in their newspaper,” he wrote.

Then Hawkins shared Francisco’s Facebook post on her page, simply telling folks to read it. So did MacDonald. Writes Sherman:

That’s where things got weird. The next day, Peter Johnson, Ailes’s lawyer and a regular Fox & Friends guest-host, sent threatening legal letters to Dar Williams and her husband. The three Democratic politicians received legal letters as well.

Francisco and MacDonald took the post down. Stephanie Hawkins did not.

On March 18, Francisco and MacDonald lost to the Ailes-backed slate by 397-370 (on average).

But Ailes’s lawyer, who wears a second hat as an on-air analyst on Fox News, continued to pound Hawkins with legal threats. Philipstown.info has published the letters. The first. The second. The third.

Read them for yourself. You’d think that Hawkins had accused Ailes and his wife of Satanic acts on the Hudson River.

“You have intentionally, wrongfully, and maliciously defamed and disparaged our clients, and have encouraged others to defame and disparage our clients…. [T]hese false and fabricated statements were made and then republished by you with malicious intent to injure our clients in their trade, office and profession.”

The Aileses stated their innocence to a nearly comic degree:

Mr. Ailes and Mrs Ailes are not having you followed and are not tracking your movements or the movements of others…
Mr. Ailes and Mrs. Ailes have not, and have no interest in, spying on their neighbors.
Mr. Ailes and Mrs. Ailes have not, and have no interest in, “manufacturing phony scandals” in their home town or any other small community in the great United States of America.”

The letters went to Hawkins’s home and place of employment, Simon & Schuster (where she works in contracts). Ailes’ lawyer demanded a retraction and written apology from Hawkins

“acknowledging the impropriety of attempting to interfere with the PCNR’s First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and freedom of the press.”

Most of us would be terrified to get three letters like that. We’d think, does it really matter that I shared that post? Hey, it was just a line, telling folks to read something. What does it matter if I pull it? I’m up against a rich media emperor who is really angry at me. I have better things to spend my energy on than a goddamn Facebook post.

But Hawkins didn’t eat her words. She felt she had a right to comment on an ongoing political campaign. She got First Amendment lawyers, Norman Siegel and Steven Hyman, who wrote to Ailes’s firm that she had a right to comment on matters of public interest and the onslaught of letters was a “calculated effort to intimidate” her.

Then the Ailes paper broke the story on April 2. “Hawkins Continues Divisive Actions.”

Trustee Stephanie Hawkins faces imminent legal action as she continues to have false information about the PCN&R and its owner’s family on her “Stephanie Hawkins, Trustee” Facebook page.

Hawkins has been served with three separate Cease and Desist notices but has failed to remove the libelous material…

This is delicious:

the attacks on the PCN&R are simply an effort to chill the newspaper’s reporting…

Hawkins appears resolute to force a legal confrontation for herself and possibly the village.

Since then, the story made it to New York Mag and Philipstown.info, and Hawkins has been flooded with support from all over, but Ailes has yet to back down on his threats.

New York Magazine reports that he did send a letter to Dar Williams saying he’d let it go.

“Roger wrote this letter. He forgave us as a Christian for the pain we’ve caused his family,” Williams told me. “He said we had lost the election for our candidates with our letter, and that was punishment enough.”

Hawkins has reminded people of what matters in a blogpost titled, Impressed & Grateful:

The majority of people I’ve been in contact with have expressed concern for me personally, but inevitably they’ve expressed deeper concerns about attempts by money and power to thwart individual Constitutional rights, to corrupt our local political experience, degrade our civic involvement and ultimately, reduce the quality of our lives in community with others.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Public trees worth $1.8+ Million .... an asset worthy of careful planning and investment!

Thank you to the Tree Advisory Committee for its presentation of the Draft Tree Management Plan at last night’s Village Board workshop.  Our Village is home to public trees estimated to be worth over $1.8 million.  It is our good fortune that the Village is also home to many energetic and interested residents and business owners who have much to contribute to the cultivation and maintenance of our Village arboretum.  An organized approach as recommended in the Draft Tree Management Plan can help the Village harness the power of these human resources and encourage future investment by residents and Village alike.

Thank you to Jennifer Zwarich, Kory Riesterer, Tony Bardes, Kathleen Foley, Dana Bol, Donald Mac Donald, Chuck Hustis, Kathleen Foley, Rich Franco, Dick Weisbrod and Mary Saari for all the good work you invested in materials presented to the Village Board last night!  

For information about the Draft Tree Management Plan and how you can get involved with the Village’s efforts to improve upon our public street trees and park trees, please contact the Village Clerk at 845-265-3611 or vcsclerk@bestwebnet.    :)

Reminder from Village Hall.... tonight's workshop...

"The Village of Cold Spring Tree Advisory Committee will be presenting their draft tree management plan at the Village of Cold Spring Board of Trustees meeting this evening. Presentation is scheduled for 8:00 pm."

Announcement from the Chief of Community Engagement in the Public Affairs Office at West Point

"Hudson Valley neighbors,  There will be cannon firing and helicopter operations on West Point throughout the week from April 15-20."

Tree Management Plan & Village Tree Farm

Reminder that tomorrow night's Village Board workshop (Tuesday, April 15th) will include a public hearing on the Village's 2014-2015 budget, and a presentation of the Tree Advisory Committee's Tree Management Plan for public input and feedback by the Village Board!

Worth noting -  A year ago, former Mayor Anthony Phillips secured for the Village the site of the Village Tree Nursery.  At the time the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed that planting trees for eventual relocation throughout the Village is a suitable and EPA-supported use of the Tree Farm location.  Many thanks to former Mayor Phillips and property owner Ken Kearney for helping the Village start this volunteer project!

Power of the press turned upside down by Dave Danforth, Aspen Daily News Columnist reprinted from the Aspen Daily News

People sue newspapers, right? Newspapers don’t sue people. Or do they?

The power of the press has been turned upside down in the hamlet of Philipstown, 60 miles north of New York City, ever since Roger Ailes, chief of the Fox News outlet, and wife Elizabeth bought a tiny weekly paper there in 2008.

The Aileses own a 9,000 sq. ft. estate home in nearby Garrison. But all eyes last month were focused on the election of trustees in the village of Cold Spring. You’d think everyone would get along peaceably in these comfortably Republican Putnam County outposts.

Instead, a heated war of words has broken out. The Putnam County News & Recorder is owned by the Aileses and edited by Elizabeth. Local critics say the Ailes duet runs the paper exactly the way Roger operates Fox News — hardly “fair and balanced.”

Last month, the couple threatened to sue a group of political allies known as the “Cold Spring Five,” according to New York magazine. The cause of Beth Ailes’ ire was, according to a reader of the Philipstown.info blog site, “that little thumbs up button you hit after reading a Facebook post.”

The target of the Aileses’ legal machine was Stephanie Hawkins, a Cold Spring village trustee who declined to remove a link to a comment by ex-trustee Matt Francisco, who’d lost his electoral bid March 18 and posted this note:

“The Ailes newspaper and their candidates have gone too far. It is clear I’m being followed; my movements are being tracked and reported in their newspaper.”

Francisco removed his post from his campaign’s Facebook page, but Hawkins did not remove her link to it. For this, she drew a flurry of cease and desist letters from lawyers including a frequent guest on the ‘Fox and Friends’ show on the network owned by News Corporation and its chief, Rupert Murdoch.

The local battles involved a familiar issue: development. But the strange twist is a series of aggressive “editorial” reporting by PCNR’s editor, Doug Cunningham and reporter Tim Greco.  Cunningham, the paper’s editor, accused trustee Hawkins of trying to suppress the paper’s freedom of speech.

How can a lowly trustee stifle speech in a newspaper owned by a wealthy conservative media baron? Let us count the ways.

It would seem somewhere east of Kafka for a political candidate, Francisco, to accuse Ailes & Friends of following him. But there’s a history. In April 2011, Gawker reported that two reporters and an editor at the Aileses’ paper defected after the editor caught Roger Ailes using a News Corp. security employee to track him. Joe Lindsley was once close to the both Aileses. But after falling out with Roger, Lindsley noticed a black Lincoln Navigator following him. He recognized the driver as a News Corp. security man he knew socially. Lindsley claimed he called the driver, who confirmed that Ailes had put a tail on him, possibly fearful of what his news staff were saying about him at lunch.

Last month, Greco, the PCNR reporter, wrote that two political critics were in touch to orchestrate a “smear campaign” against PCNR’s favored candidates. Greco reported that ex-trustee Francisco was outside the pair’s home Monday morning. He’d earlier reported that Francisco was recently seen in a “restaurant on Main St.” having a long talk with a key development critic.

But Hawkins remained the Aileses’ key target. A March 26 PCNR “staff” report under the headline “Hawkins Continues Divisive Actions” noted that Hawkins had failed to remove “libelous material” from her Facebook page.

The Ailes-backed candidates won the Cold Spring trustee election, but editor Cunningham appeared before the trustees so say the paper was “appalled” by Francisco’s allegations.

Hawkins claimed she was legally free to discuss “matters of public concern” and that the material that gave the Aileses & allies indigestion was clearly opinion, also protected.

Roger Ailes was said to be ramping down his legal threats, boasting that his candidates won and that was what mattered.

Meanwhile, an underground movement was gathering. The blog site Philipstown.info ran uncomfortably detailed stories about the Ailes and PCNR. Its readers were sympathetic. In seven comments all identified by writer, they took aim. One characterized the Ailes paper as “targeting and attacking individuals,” while another suggested readers should “like” Hawkins and Francisco.

Hawkins thanked the “Dot.info” for its coverage, adding, “having aspects of Fox News disturbing our peace is unpleasant.” Another commenter suggested that PCNR was employing favorite Fox News practices, including fabricated scandals, bullying and opinion masked as journalism — “standard operating procedure” since “before the birth of Roger Ailes.”

But a new site is sure to get under the Aileses’ skin: “Pretend PCNR.” Using parody, it has been having a field day with the Aileses’ stewardship of PCNR, questioning how the paper could support two unmarried candidates against an opponent who is. It also quoted a “person on the street” as having heard that “someone doesn’t like Fox News!”

“How dare they?” the comment concluded, mixing satire into hamlets that take small-town news entirely too seriously.

The writer (ddanforth@aol.com) is a founder of the Aspen Daily News and appears here Sundays.

Impressed & Grateful

Since the PCN&R first reported its legal threats against me, I've been impressed by an outpouring of support from neighbors, friends and complete strangers (who are now, no longer strangers !).

The majority of people I've been in contact with have expressed concern for me personally, but inevitably they've expressed deeper concerns about attempts by money and power to thwart individual Constitutional rights, to corrupt our local political experience, degrade our civic involvement and ultimately, reduce the quality of our lives in community with others.

Of course, I am grateful to these people for there expressions of support and solidarity, but moreover I am encouraged and strengthened by their sensitivity to the long-term implications of this bullying by the PCN&R and their determination to stand against it.

Of course, I've experienced different responses as well.  Just today PCN&R columnist Tim Greco described me as a "sore loser" over on the Facebook page he cultivates, but to be 'fair & balanced', he appears to have reconsidered the post after a short time - deleting it as well as a comment asking why the subject matter was still "circling the drain".

In any event, no matter what happens next, I'm very grateful to live in the Village of Cold Spring, in the Town of Philipstown, in the State of New York in the United States of America.

Summer is coming!

:)

Trustee Hawkins Receives Legal Threats: Ailes lawyer demands retraction and written apology for Facebook post by Kevin E. Foley, reprinted from Philipstown.info / The Paper

The Putnam County News and Recorder and its publisher, Elizabeth Ailes, have threatened to sue Cold Spring Village Trustee Stephanie Hawkins for libel because she refuses to remove a post on her Facebook page. Hawkins did not write the post but instead “liked” a comment by then-Trustee Matt Francisco, who accused someone of “following” him during the recent campaign.

In the first of a series of letters a lawyer for the Aileses stated: “These statements and comments also constitute tortious interference in the business and contractual relations of our clients. As such they are actionable and expose you to the imposition of compensatory as well as punitive damages.”

In the Facebook post that prompted the dispute, Francisco wrote: “The Ailes newspaper and their candidates have gone too far. It is clear I’m being followed; my movements are being tracked and reported in their newspaper.”

Elizabeth Ailes

The New York City law firm representing the Aileses and the newspaper has also sent cease-and-desist letters to Francisco, demanding he remove the original post, and to Cold Spring residents Dar Williams and Michael Robinson, who sent out a letter to friends [page 1 / page 2] who have weekend homes in Cold Spring, asking them to vote absentee for Francisco and his running mate, Donald MacDonald, and citing what they feel is the negative influence of the PCNR and Elizabeth Ailes and her husband, Roger Ailes, chairman of Fox News, on local issues.

Francisco, who with MacDonald lost a close race to Cathryn Fadde and Michael Bowman, told The Paper his attorney had advised him to ignore the letter. Francisco did, however, remove the post from his campaign Facebook page.

“It has become alarmingly clear to me how threats of litigation from very powerful people can inhibit public participation here in our small village,” Francisco said April 10. “Maybe our newly elected Trustees Cathryn Fadde and Michael Bowman can be of help here. Due to the nature of the original story maybe they could intercede here to help clear all of this up with the PCNR? It certainly would go a long way towards healing the divides that they speak of with great frequency.”

The law firm representing the Aileses, Leahey & Johnson, has sent three letters to Hawkins since March 14 threatening legal action over multiple charges, including libeling and defaming Elizabeth Ailes, Roger Ailes and the PCNRstaff. Ailes’ lawyer also demanded a retraction and written apology from Hawkins.

At the same time, the PCNR‘s editor, Doug Cunningham, published articles, a column and a quasi-editorial accusing Hawkins of damaging actions against thePCNR organization and of attempting to suppress the PCNR’s freedom of speech and its reporting.

The Facebook posting by Francisco followed a PCNR article on March 12 by reporter Tim Greco in which he reported on the letter written by Williams and Robinson, which the newspaper characterized as a “smear campaign” against Bowman and Fadde. Francisco and MacDonald said they had no knowledge of the email, which disparaged the Aileses.

Greco wrote: “Despite the denial, the Francisco and MacDonald team is clearly in touch with Robinson and Williams. Francisco was outside their home Monday morning. And the PCNR has confirmed that MacDonald has attended meetings with Stephanie Hawkins, a current trustee, at Williams’ and Robinson’s home.” Greco did not say how he or the newspaper obtained the information. He also had reported on Dec. 18 that “Francisco was recently seen in a restaurant on Main Street having a lengthy conversation with James Geppner,” a persistent critic of the Butterfield development.

The day the March 12 story appeared, Francisco complained on Facebook that his movements were “being tracked and reported” in the PCNR, without specifying who might be doing the tracking. Hawkins, a supporter of Francisco and MacDonald, then “liked” and consequently linked to Francisco’s post.

Stephanie Hawkins

The first letter sent to Hawkins by Leahey & Johnson denies that Elizabeth Ailes or anyone at the PCNR was involved in following or tracking Francisco, MacDonald or Hawkins. It further states that the newspaper had no obligation to reveal its sources. The letter demands a retraction of the “malicious, false and libelous statements” along with “an apology for the outrageous and patently false statements made against our clients.”

The second letter arrived on March 18, the morning of the village election, and a thirdon March 26. The latter was sent to her home, the Cold Spring Village Board office and Simon & Schuster in Manhattan, where she works. The letters were identical except for the most recent, which also demanded an apology including “acknowledging the impropriety of attempting to interfere with thePCNR’s First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and freedom of the press.”

In a response on March 28, two Manhattan attorneys representing Hawkins, Steven J. Hyman of McLaughlin & Stern and Norman Siegel of Siegel, Teitelbaum & Evans, called the PCNR’s allegations of libel “baseless as a matter of fact and law,” stating that Hawkins “has every right to comment on matters of public interest and concern,” and to “voice her opinion with regard to individuals and entities that are subjects of or otherwise part of the public debate” and that “sending repeated letters to Ms. Hawkins at various addresses containing the same threats and meritless claims” is a calculated effort to intimidate and “must cease.”

Hawkins, who says she is undecided about plans to run for re-election to the Village Board in March 2015, said April 7 that she does not expect the Aileses to sue her. Instead, she said, “They are seeking my censure. They will try to work people up through proxies on social media.”

Doug Cunningham

In addition to the legal threats, PCNReditor Cunningham appeared on March 25 before the Village Board to read astatement in which he said the publication was “appalled by these outrageous allegations … I believe these attacks are an effort to chill, regulate and tamp down our reporting. For the record, we will not be dissuaded. A free press is vital to democracy.”

Cunningham’s remarks were posted on thePCNR website and appeared in the April 2 edition of that newspaper. The March 26 edition of the publication included a news report attributed to the “staff” and headlined “Hawkins Continues Divisive Actions” that reported she had “failed to remove the libelous material.” The article said “Hawkins appears resolute to force a legal confrontation for herself and possibly the village.” The article did not state how the village government could be tied to or be responsible for a Facebook post.

Draft B4A Zoning Amendment .....

At last night’s Village Board workshop, the Village Board reviewed proposed changes to the Draft B4A Zoning Amendment. 

Among other details, flexibility in location and orientation of buildings was interjected into the proposed law, as well as new use: lunch counter/coffee shop (750 sq ft but not to seat more than 15 people); the height of the buildings will be restricted to 2.5 stories not to exceed 35 feet.

Thank you to the residents who contributed to public comment.

Noteworthy and helpful contributions were requests that off-site parking (ie, within 500 feet of the site) be removed from the proposed law, and multiple requests from residents that the developer provide the community with a three-dimensional rendering of the site so that residents can understand the scale and mass of the building proposed as part of our collective consideration of this B4A Zoning Amendment.

Also of note: Planning Board member Anne Impellizeri encouraged the Village Board to reduce the residential units permissible and increase the amount of commercial/retail/professional space, expressing concern with the prospective tax positivity of the development as it is currently envisioned.

Mark your calendars. The Public Hearing on this proposed Zoning Amendment is to be Tuesday, April 29th. Location TBD.

‘The Cold Spring Five’ Are the Latest Players in Roger Ailes’s Upstate Newspaper Farce -- by Gabriel Sherman, reprinted from nymag.com

Roger Ailes is the proprietor of the most polarizing media organization in the country — but lately that title has belonged more to his family's Putnam County News & Recorder than it has to Fox News. Since 2008, when the Fox News chief and his wife, Elizabeth, purchased the sleepy local newspaper near the town where they own a sprawling weekend estate and transformed it into an aggressive, agenda-driven organ, it has been embroiled in civic controversy and journalistic competition. A couple of years ago, an anonymous blogger even set up a parody website skewering Ailes's paper, a move which has particularly inspired his ire. At a community meeting a few weeks ago, Ailes accused a local resident of being the blog's author. "You would be better off spending your time masturbating than writing it!" Ailes said, according to a person who heard the conversation. Beth Ailes approached the man and complained he was making fun of their dog, Champ. 

Last month, what had been mostly a newspaper war became a legal one. Roger Ailes’s country newspaper has threatened to sue five citizens of Cold Spring for libel, defamation, and "tortious interference." Fighting back, the residents, known in town as “The Cold Spring Five,” have sought legal counsel, even bringing in the former head of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

It all started when the folk singer Dar Williams and her husband, Michael Robinson, mailed a letter to a handful of young residents encouraging them to vote for Democratic candidates who were running in the village trustee elections scheduled for March 18. Ailes and Williams had history. Several years ago, she was at the center of a group of aggrieved liberals who were mobilizing to launch a news website to compete with Ailes's paper. Williams had a run-in with Ailes after she was quoted in a New Yorker article by Peter Boyer about Ailes’s upstate newspaper war. “Roger and Beth were both angry,” Williams told me. Because of the PCNR, “wherever there are divisions in our town, they’re much more starkly drawn.”

Related Stories: Citizen Ailes: What Happened When the Head of Fox News Bought a Small-Town Newspaper

The central issue in this year's Cold Spring trustee elections was development, and Williams’s letter called out the PCNR for portraying Democratic trustee Matt Francisco as hostile to a proposed real-estate project in town. “I don’t know if you are too young to remember what Fox News did ten years ago to the war hero, John Kerry,” Williams and Robinson wrote. “[T]hey managed to turn him into a coward (the ‘Swiftboat attack ads’) even as their stories were completely debunked. They’re using the exact same tactics here in our tiny village.” She and her husband concluded their letter with a post-script.  “We are happy to give you any more information on any of the current issues … as well as dishing more significant dirt on their opponents, but we’ve tried to keep it brief for the time being. Just ask.”

On March 12, a week before voters went to the polls, the PCNR published a front-page story headlined “Nasty Campaign Letter Surfaces.” In the article, Francisco and another Democratic candidate, Donald MacDonald, denied any involvement with the mailing, but the PCNR noted that Francisco had been seen outside the folksinger's house. "They’re able to know my whereabouts when it’s useful for their story," Francisco told me. "It's the typical Fox News tactic — guilt by association. If you’re seen at their house, then of course you’ve read every letter in their home!"

Outraged, Francisco took to Facebook later that day and alleged that he was being trailed. “The Ailes newspaper and their candidates have gone too far. It is clear I’m being followed; My movements are being tracked and reported in their newspaper,” he wrote. Francisco’s Facebook post was also put up on the Facebook pages belonging to MacDonald and sitting trustee Stephanie Hawkins.

That's where things got weird. The next day, Peter Johnson, Ailes’s lawyer and a regular Fox & Friends guest-host, sent threatening legal letters to Dar Williams and her husband. The three Democratic politicians received legal letters as well. Francisco and MacDonald took the post down. Stephanie Hawkins did not.

Francisco and MacDonald’s capitulation in the face of Ailes’s legal threat did not advance their electoral fortunes. On Election Day, March 18, they lost. 

Francisco was particularly unnerved by the experience. He called the printing of Williams's letter on the eve of the election, when the newspaper was supposed to observe a news blackout, an "October surprise." Other strange things happened to him in town after he posted his Facebook comment. On the afternoon of Election Day, a mysterious television camera crew in a white unmarked van was seen filming outside his home. Francisco said he did not know if they were sent by Ailes, but he found the incident chilling. 

"I don’t know what footage of my house would do. It’s probably to intimidate me," Francisco said. "It's like, 'if you think I can’t follow you, I can film you.' There’s the chilling effect of I know where you live. I find it all disgusting." (Irena Briganti, Fox News's spokeswoman, did not respond to a request for comment.) 

Stephanie Hawkins refused to heed Ailes’s demands that she remove Francisco's Facebook post from her page. On March 14, Johnson sent Hawkins a threatening letter. He insisted that Hawkins's “retraction and correction be accompanied by a repudiation of the libelous statements and an apology for the outrageous and patently false statements made against our clients.” If she failed to act, they would sue. "You have intentionally, wrongfully and maliciously defamed and disparaged our clients," he wrote, and "you will be held to account for all damages which flow therefrom ... If our clients are forced to file suit to stop your wrongful conduct, they will also seek an award of attorney fees and litigation expenses." He stressed that the Aileses "have not, and have no interest in, 'spying' on their neighbors," adding: “Mr. and Mrs. Ailes have not, and have no interest in, ‘manufacturing phony scandals’ in their home town or any other small community in the great United States of America.”  

Like Dar Williams, Hawkins had history with the Aileses. She had moved to Cold Spring in 2006 and had gotten involved in community politics a few years later. Last summer, Beth Ailes confronted Hawkins at a public event after Hawkins had questioned whether the Aileses' sponsorship of the July 4 fireworks gave them outside influence with Cold Spring politicians. "Beth was in a lather about that," Hawkins told me. "She demanded to know what I meant by my comment that the money the PCNR was giving to the village was 'costing too much.'" 

Johnson sent Hawkins two additional letters on March 18 and 26. He accused her of colluding “with others to impinge upon the First Amendment rights of our clients.” (Johnson did not respond to messages seeking comment.)

Hawkins decided she needed help. “I’m not an attorney, but I recognized that there’s a certain standard for a defamation or libel claim and this didn’t meet it. This was a category of protected speech,” she told me. Late last month, she enlisted a legal team that included litigator Steven Hyman, the former president of the Board of Directors of the New York Civil Liberties Union, and Norman Siegel, the former executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “I’ve never heard of a newspaper suing for libel before,” Hyman told me. On March 28, Hyman and Siegel sent Johnson a response saying Hawkins had "every right to comment on public interest." They added: "Sending repeated letters to Ms. Hawkins at various addresses containing the same threats and meritless claims is clearly calculated to try and intimidate and harass Ms. Hawkins and must cease."

As of April 9, Ailes had yet to back off his threats to sue Hawkins. But a couple of days after the March 18 elections, Dar Williams received a letter from Ailes saying he was letting the matter slide. “Roger wrote this letter. He forgave us as a Christian for the pain we’ve caused his family,” Williams told me. “He said we had lost the election for our candidates with our letter, and that was punishment enough.”