NORTH EAST — Roughly 30 residents from the town of North East and the village of Millerton attended the public hearing on Monday, March 28, on the townwide property reassessment project. The hearing was held at the American Legion Hall Post 178 in Millerton. While Assessor Katherine Johnson said she was somewhat disappointed with attendance, she acknowledged it was better than previous such meetings.“It was better than the last time,” she said, adding it provided her the opportunity to explain to property owners why the town did the revaluation in the first place and what the process has entailed throughout the past five years, including data collection, sales analysis, creating new assessments and data review. “There were some people who were really involved with the process with the first reval in 2004 and also with the new process, which was nice.”The current reassessment was done at the town’s request after the 2004 project flopped. That reval was undertaken by John Watch of MJW Consultants, of whom many property owners complained about due to his methodology and results. After two years of updates, the town severed its relationship with Watch. In 2007 the assessor’s office began anew; soon thereafter Johnson joined the team.Last week she stood before property owners, many of whom expressed concern about whether their values have increased, largely due to a perceived drop in the market. But not so in North East, according to Johnson.“I tried to explain that looking at just the sales in North East and the surrounding area, we’re not seeing the market declining,” she said. “People keep saying they’re seeing the market decrease by 30 percent and we’re not seeing that. We’re seeing it leveling off and some increases.”Johnson said since the public hearing her office has mailed off the new assessments and is now waiting for property owners’ responses. By and large she said she is “cautiously concerned” with what she will hear. “Everybody wants to know what it’s going to do to their taxes, and as much as I would like to answer that, I can’t because I don’t set the tax rate,” Johnson said. “I merely assess properties, so people need to focus on the value of their homes, not what their taxes are going to be. That’s something I can have a conversation about.”Property owner Amiee Duncan said she and her husband, Frank, received a shock when they opened their assessment on Thursday, March 31. Among their three properties (two residential and one mixed commercial and residential), a residence on Winchell Mountain, which they own and lease to renters, jumped in value 23.54 percent.“It was like, wow, I was a bit surprised,” Duncan said. “I really need to talk to the assessor’s office, but I want to do some research before I complain. My initial shock is still here, and I wouldn’t want to be in the assessor’s shoes, but given the economy I can’t understand how my property went up 23 percent. I guess in some way I should be thankful it’s worth that much, but still …”Duncan’s home increased in value 2 percent, and the couple’s mixed-use property on Century Boulevard increased by .66 percent.“The other two properties were not bad, but the other is alarming considering the economy,” she said, conceding that perhaps the assessment could be correct. “I’m going to do some research, but if I can’t find a comparable property there might be nothing I can do about it. And maybe I am wrong and underestimating the value of the property.”Overall, the assessor said the town experienced an 8 percent increase in value, which is not from last year but from the time of the last reval (which was conducted in 2004 but last updated in 2006). Johnson said when taken in context, that’s not bad.“So that’s five years of changes reflected in 8 percent,” she said. “I don’t think that’s bad, especially when in 2006 you were seeing a 12 percent increase annually.”Johnson added the 8 percent also includes the cost of new construction and all of the data discovered by her office that was previously missing. That data was assessed and added to the roll, adding value to the town.“I can’t say that every single house increased 8 percent,” she said. “But of the 1,896 total properties, everybody did get a new value.”Once property owners receive their values in the mail they are advised to review them closely. Property owners can make appointments to speak with representatives from from Equitable Assessments (who helped conduct the reval) to review their data through April 14. If there is an error, the issue will then go before the assessor for review; Johnson will be available until May 24, the day before Grievance Day, to speak with concerned property owners. Johnson recommends taking advantage of this process as there will be time for a discussion and review, rather than waiting until Grievance Day to lodge a complaint with the Grievance Board. On Grievance Day there is only a decision rendered, but no feedback. To schedule an appointment at Town Hall, call 866-255-9753.
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Dick Hermans in the Oblong Bookstore on Millerton\u2019s Main Street in 1985.
Provided
For Hermans, the award has prompted some reflection about why he has spent so much of his life involved in community projects.
“I was thinking about it this morning: Why do I do what I do?” he said. “And I think no matter what I’ve done, whether it’s been school board or rail trail, I’m trying to be useful to the communities I’m associated with.”
Hermans is perhaps best known as the longtime co-founder and steward of Oblong Books in Millerton, a business that began almost by accident. He and his former partner, Holly Nelson, were living in Millerton and looking for something to do during the winter. They had been painting houses, including the Grange Hall in Millerton, a job Hermans got through his aunt, who belonged to the Grange.
At the time, Hermans was also working in insurance for his father, doing collections.
“It was fine except I was doing collections, and it really kind of left me cold,” he said.
He and Nelson began thinking about what they might do together. Nelson was an avid reader, while Hermans had studied journalism and had worked in a record store. They noticed a chain of book and record stores operating elsewhere in the Hudson Valley and decided to follow that model.
And so Oblong was born.
Dick Hermans in the Oblong Bookstore on Millerton’s Main Street in 1985.Provided
“We really learned it by the seat of our pants,” Hermans said.
The business would eventually become a beloved and integral part of Millerton’s commercial life. But although Hermans may have learned the book business as he went, his affinity for retail — and for the connections that happen across a counter — had begun much earlier.
As a child, his second-grade teacher operated a little cardboard pencil shop in the classroom, and Hermans still remembers the satisfaction of selling a pencil for a nickel.
“I really liked selling somebody a pencil for a nickel,” he recalled. “I can remember that experience, and it was so pleasant.”
Later, while living in Arizona, he helped establish a food co-op and worked at the counter.
“I kind of knew that I liked doing that kind of thing,” he said. “It’s a nice way to be pleasant with people, but without making too much commitment to them.”
His relationship with Millerton also predates Oblong. His grandparents lived in the village, and he first came to Millerton as a baby. Over the years, he has watched the town change through several generations.
He remembers a Millerton with a much broader array of businesses, when stores such as Delson’s, the Main Street department store that stood for nearly 40 years in what is now Millerton’s Antiques Center, seemed to carry almost everything a resident might need.
“You could find everything from a set of dishes to a shotgun,” he recalled.
The rise of shopping malls changed that kind of downtown retail, he said, but Millerton has remained a lively commercial village.
“For us, it’s been a great place to have business,” Hermans said. “It’s a busy village.”
For Hermans, running a store was never simply about selling books and records. It was a way of being part of a place.
Music has remained another constant. Hermans continues to sell music at Oblong and hosts the radio program “New Harmony” on WKZE. The business of selling music has changed dramatically over the years, particularly with the rise of streaming, but Hermans has adapted.
He was initially reluctant to bring vinyl records back into the store because of their expense. But about four or five years ago, he began stocking LPs again, and they have become the main form of music the store sells.
He finds that many of the customers buying them are reconnecting with music they loved years ago.
“I do best with classic albums that people may have had when they were young,” he said. “And now that they’re retired, they want to hear it again.”
Hermans still reviews between 700 and 1,200 new music releases each week through the store’s distributor, Alliance Entertainment, carefully deciding what belongs on Oblong’s shelves.
That same commitment to place has led Hermans into a wide range of community projects. His work with the Harlem Valley Rail Trail is among the efforts he mentions when reflecting on his years of civic involvement. He has also served on the school board and has been involved with the Millerton Business Alliance and the Irondale Schoolhouse. He is now involved with The New Pine Plains Herald, which he sees as complementary to the work of The Millerton News and The Lakeville Journal.
“I really think that the important thing about this award is that people understand what a newspaper does to connect them to their community,” he said. “And if that means anything to their lives, they gotta support it.”
Hermans knew Mary Lou and Robert Estabrook and remembers them as people who were deeply conscious of their responsibilities to the community.
“They were really nice folks,” he said. “They were very conscious of what their role in the community was.”
There is, in fact, still plenty on his plate. Hermans admits he needs to scale back because he has taken on more than his current abilities can comfortably accommodate.
“To be given this award is very special,” he added. “But I don’t feel like I’m done.”
This article has been changed to reflect that Hermans and Nelson were partners. A prior version states that they were married.
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Adamah Farm crew members planning out the day’s tasks on a late September day.
Janna Siller
Over my 15 years of growing vegetables in Falls Village, I’ve exerted my will over all kinds of conditions, from drought to humidity to crows with a taste for cantaloupe. That’s what farming is all about. You zip around the field, hopping on and off tractors, moving hoses and chasing weeds, all in an effort to arrange conditions in favor of your crops. It is the crops’ job to gulp up sunlight and move water through their stems, to transform solar energy into your next pesto or ratatouille or butternut squash soup. It is the job of the farmer to irrigate just enough but not too much, to slice dandelion leaves without damaging delicate cabbage roots, to pander and pamper and stay in tune with what plants need to thrive.
The easy part of farming is trusting plants’ resilience. I have seen bright green shoots barrel ahead out of a plant torn to shreds by hail. I’ve watched wilty, heat-stressed seedlings turn rigid overnight and greet the next morning with vigor. The hard part is letting go of what you can’t control. As our crops lapped up Friday’s gentle sunshine and I considered the weekend forecast, I imagined roots holding tight to wet earth and branches supporting each other in sideways, pelting rain. I made sure all of our storage crops were already harvested and tucked away. I battened down the sides of our greenhouses and wished the remaining field crops good luck.
The nor’easter didn’t materialize too dramatically in our corner of New England. A few broken branches and debris blown about, nothing like the July Fourth storm that sent half a tree crashing onto the deer fence and left crates of fresh veggies in coolers without power.
Fall storage crop harvests amid soil building cover crops at Adamah Farm in Falls Village. Janna Siller
Farming is an exercise in acceptance. To do it well and return year after year, you have to balance hubris and humility. The prize can often be a certain equanimity, a training in the art of moving into the next day even when the last one scrambled all your plans.
Epic change is not always about the unexpected. It also comes like clockwork on the seasonal calendar. As I type, the last of summer’s watermelons wait naively on the vine for a few hot days to finish ripening. Broccoli are holding their leaves wide as they did in June and July, only to find that the hours of sunlight decrease with each earlier sunset. Plants can’t pick up and go south or call the manager to order a bonus round of sunshine. Their growth slows and they get a resigned look to the hue of their leaves, so different from the frenzied growth of summer.
The release of fall is not tragic or gloomy. It is not an ending because so many fall tasks are about setting up for the new beginnings in spring.
We turn the vines that yielded thousands of pounds of fruit into the soil, where healthy microbes feast on their rotting stems. Then we plant cover crops — a mix of cereal grains like rye and oats and legumes like peas, vetch and clover. Cover crops hold the soil and its nutrients in place over winter, feeding the soil food web and adding organic matter that next season’s crops will need to grow.
We sort sprinklers and repair hoses. We inventory tarps. We take notes about which plants did well where and how we might try a new approach for this or that. We stack crates of cured garlic and onions and winter squash in a cool, dark room.
We save seeds from tomatoes and beans and lettuce, carefully labeling each variety for next season’s long, sunny days.
Janna Siller is the farm director at Adamah, a community farm in Falls Village offering CSA shares, educational programs and a food access program.
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