Amenia — The Amenia Town Board met on Thursday, Jan. 3, for the annual task of appointments during its organizational meeting.Dawn Marie Klingner was sworn in as the new town clerk after winning the election on Nov. 6, 2012, to fill the position left vacant after Maureen Bond’s resignation.The board began by discussing a change in monthly meeting dates to the second and fourth Thursday of each month at 7 p.m. The board then voted unanimously on elected officials’ salaries, which included the supervisor, four councilmen and councilwomen, sole assessor, two town justices, highway superintendent and town clerk.After making a motion to re-appoint Ian MacDonald, attorney to the town, to his position, the board members discussed hiring a new attorney.“We haven’t really talked about that process. We’re not going to do that tonight, so can we do a 90-day appointment?” asked town Supervisor Bill Flood.The board members agreed and MacDonald was appointed for a 90-day position. MacDonald was not in attendance at the meeting.Board members then took turns reading through the list of appointments with salaries before unanimously voting to approve the salaries.The board then appointed several residents to positions without salaries, including Town Historian Arlene Iuliano; Records Management Officer Dawn Marie Klingner; Deputy Highway Superintendent Andy Wheeler; Deputy Town Supervisor Victoria Perotti; and All-Hazards Mitigation representative Bill Flood.The mileage reimbursement rate was approved at the federal rate of 56 cents per mile.M&T Bank Corporation, Bank of Millbrook and Salisbury Bank were named the official depositories for town funds.The Millerton News and Poughkeepsie Journal were named the official town newspapers, garnering questions about The Amenia Hometowner by Councilwoman Vicki Doyle.“Can we add The Hometowner as an official paper?” she asked.“They aren’t really a newspaper. This is for legal [notices] and they don’t do legals,” said Flood.Amenia resident Cheryl Morse spoke up adding, “They’re technically a newsletter, not a newspaper. They can’t be an official paper,” she said.The discussion closed, and the board unanimously voted the two proposed papers as the official newspapers.The supervisor and council members divided up appointments to several different town committees, each member choosing to work with the same committees they had in the previous year.The board also accepted the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) and Planning Board schedules for 2013, noting that the ZBA would change to the first and third Thursday of each month, eliminating conflict with the new Town Board schedule.
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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