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Sharon voters reject controversial school budget, 114-99
Alec Linden
May 09, 2026
The town meeting and budget vote were moved from Sharon Town Hall to Sharon Center School to accommodate a larger crowd.
Alec Linden
SHARON – More than 200 residents packed the Sharon Center School gymnasium Friday, May 8, where voters narrowly rejected the Sharon Board of Education's proposed 2026-2027 spending plan, by a vote of 114-99.
The vote followed a heated month of debate after the Board of Finance ordered the BOE in early April to remove nearly $70,000 from its spending plan to keep the bottom line flat. The rejected proposal – the ninth version of the budget since deliberations began months ago – carried a bottom line of $4,165,513 for the elementary school, unchanged from last year.
The venue for the town meeting and budget vote was moved in advance from Sharon Town Hall to Sharon Center School to accommodate the anticipated crowd.
By 5:50 p.m. Friday evening, cars were already circling the full Sharon Center School lot looking for a spot. First Selectman Casey Flanagan held the door as residents, many with small children in tow or propped up on shoulders, streamed through the SCS door.
Friday’s vote drew by far the largest turnout for a Sharon budget meeting in recent years. By comparison, about 50 members of the public attended the 2023 vote, when both budgets passed unanimously. Attendance rose slightly to 60 in 2024, while fewer than 40 residents showed up last year.
The current 2025-2026 budget also faced a last-minute order from the BOF to reduce its proposal by $70,000, but it did not generate the same level of pushback that this year’s flat proposal brought.
Josh Holden, a Sharon resident of over a decade, stood outside in the late afternoon light as he bounced his two-year-old on his arm. He said he had shown up to support funding the school, a sentiment shared by many other young families in town.
“It seems like there’s a wave of families in the daycare that are taking more interest in the school and want to send their kids there,” he said. “I want it to be a good school.”
Many of those young families turned out Friday night, and, in a break of tradition for a town meeting vote, were permitted to speak out during the proceedings for a short public comment period before the formal tally. Many described frustration with what they viewed as inflexibility from the Board of Finance, which has pushed for flat budgets for years while attempting to correct a past accounting error that mistakenly placed capital expenses in the operating budget.
Due to a state law known as the minimum budget requirement, municipalities may not reduce education spending from the previous year, which the BOF has stated has left the BOE with an “inflated” budget.
Emily McGoldrick, who has two children at Sharon Daycare and one entering kindergarten next year, said SCS is primed for success, but it "can’t improve with its hands tied behind its back.”
Anne Vance, former BOE member, echoed McGoldrick’s frustration. “My experience is the Board of Finance does not listen and does not negotiate,” she said.
Others, including BOE Chair Philip O’Reilly, pushed back against claims the school would be underfunded with the current budget. O’Reilly said he planned to support the proposal because he believes the school to be well funded under its current financial planning, largely due expected year-end surplus funds and other reserves, totaling close to a quarter million dollars.
“I choose yes because I support the $4,165,513 budget approved by the Board of Education and the Board of Finance,” he said.
Meghan Flanagan, an SCS parent, supported O’Reilly’s position. “I am 100% yes,” she said. “There is money in the school, and the kids are okay,” she affirmed, but noted that she was happy to see the display of community engagement and school support that night. “There are bigger problems that I would like you all to get involved with” regarding the school, she said, but “it’s not a money issue.”
Chip Kruger, another BOE member, also announced his support for the proposal, though Nancy Hegy-Martin, BOE vice chair, stated that “the whole Board does not vote yes,” and that she did not support the plan.
She gestured to the packed gym as testament to the importance of the issue of school funding. “Look around!” she said, “Do you know what a joy it is to see this many young people at a meeting around here?”
After the comment period, the registrars tallied the votes, which were cast by paper ballot due to the unusually large crowd. Usually, the budget vote is conducted via an oral “yea or nay” or a show of hands.
As votes were counted, residents milled and mingled about the room. Recent Sharon arrivals Jonathan Kupferer and Lara Ditkoff said they entered the meeting undecided, but swayed toward rejecting the proposal after hearing arguments that the denial of $70,000 reflected stubbornness from the Board of Finance. “If it’s such a small amount, why is it such a big deal?” Kupferer said, but noted, “I’m still on the fence.”
Ditkoff agreed, but said she supports funding education as a fundamental value. “Every little bit towards the kids is money well spent,” she said.
Eventually, the announcement came that the budget had been voted down, but many noted that the margin of 15 votes was tight.
“This is still a very tight issue to debate,” said Flanagan as the crowd filtered back out into the evening air.
BOF member John Hecht said that he was disappointed with the outcome – ”unfortunately this was a vote of facts versus emotion.”
“When Philip O’Reilly stood up,” Hecht said of the BOE Chair’s testimony, “that was proof that this budget fully supported Sharon students…no student would be harmed at all by this budget.”
He said, though, that he prioritizes working together with the BOE, and the town, as this budget process and future budget negotiations continue.
BOF Chair Tom Bartram said his takeaway was that “everybody got the message that [the townspeople] really don’t care if it adds to our minimum budget requirement and they want to see more funding get to the school.”
“But I’m just one of six,” he added.
The Board of Finance now must reconvene to find a solution, with discussions expected to continue at its next regular meeting on May 19. If a new budget is not approved by July 1, the town will revert to the current year’s spending plan until a new budget passes – effectively keeping the proposed flat education budget in place for part of the next fiscal year.
Regardless of the outcome, many officials were pleased at the robust display of local politics Friday evening. Walking back to his car after the meeting, Chair O’Reilly said that no matter the vote, “the result is that we have an engaged public… that’s a win for the town.”
“I love it,” said First Selectman Flanagan. “It’s wonderful to see people engaged and I hope that it continues.”
The total town of Sharon spending plan – the combination of the municipal, elementary school and high school budgets, as proposed on Friday night totaled $11,502,187. With Sharon’s contribution to Region One high school expenses, total education spending in town totals $6,056,000. These figures could change as the BOF revisits the budget following Friday’s vote.
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Liane McGhee
Lakeville Journal
May 06, 2026
Liane McGhee
Liane McGhee
Liane McGhee, a woman defined by her strength of will, generosity, and unwavering devotion to her family, passed away leaving a legacy of love and cherished memories.
Born Liane Victoria Conklin on May 27, 1957, in Sharon, CT, she grew up on Fish Street in Millerton, a place that remained close to her heart throughout her life. A proud graduate of the Webutuck High School Class of 1975, Liane soon began the most significant chapter of her life when she married Bill McGhee on August 7, 1976. Together, they built a life centered on family and shared values.
Liane was a woman of many passions. She found peace in the outdoors, whether she was taking scenic country rides, fishing, or walking her dog. An avid reader and a talented painter, she possessed a creative spirit and a caring heart that extended to all animals. Above all, Liane was most at home when surrounded by her family.
Liane is survived by her devoted husband of nearly 50 years, Bill McGhee. Her legacy continues through her three children: Joshua (Tanya) McGhee, Justin McGhee, and Jaclyn (Joe) Perusse. She was the proud grandmother of Connor, Calia, and Kennedy McGhee, as well as Lillian and Tillman Perusse. She is also survived by her siblings, Larry Conklin and Linda Holst-Grubbe. Liane was predeceased by her parents Martin and Lillian Conklin, and her brother, Robert “Bob” Conklin.
In keeping with Liane’s generous nature, the family requests that, in lieu of flowers, memorial donations be made to Hudson Valley Hospice (by mail to 374 Violet Ave, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601 or online at https://www.hvhospice.org/donate) or to the Millerton Fire Company at PO Box 733, Millerton, NY 12546.
A celebration of life will be held on Friday, May 8, from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. at Conklin Funeral Home, 37 Park Avenue, Millerton, NY.
Her family will remember her as the strong-willed and caring matriarch who always put them first. She will be deeply missed.
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By any other name: becoming Lena Hall
Natalia Zukerman
May 06, 2026
In “Your Friends and Neighbors,” Lena Hall’s character is also a musician.
Courtesy Apple TV
At a certain point you stop asking who people want you to be and start figuring out who you already are.
— Lena Hall
There is a moment in conversation with actress and musician Lena Hall when the question of identity lands with unusual force.
“Well,” she said, pausing to consider it, “who am I really?”
Born Celina Consuela Gabriella Carvajal into a San Francisco family steeped in performance — her father a choreographer, her mother a prima ballerina — Hall was, by her own account, “born to be onstage.”
“Like a show pony,” she joked.
She trained first as a ballet dancer, studying in France on scholarship before abandoning that path for musical theater after seeing her sister perform in “42nd Street.”
Even then, identity was something inherited before it was chosen.
The Tony Award-winning, Grammy-nominated performer has spent much of her career moving between worlds: Broadway and television, rock clubs and film sets, musical theater precision and raw, unvarnished songwriting. Her latest solo album, “Lullabies for the End of the World,” is an intimate, autobiographical work that explores co-dependency, heartbreak and self-reckoning.
But for Hall, whose career includes a Tony-winning turn in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” a starring role on Apple TV+’s “Your Friends and Neighbors,” and acclaimed performances in film and television, the search for artistic identity has been unfolding for decades.
The record’s central themes — identity, authenticity, reinvention — are the same ones Hall has been sorting through for much of her adult life.
“It wasn’t until later that I started asking those questions,” she said from New York City, which she splits her time between and West Cornwall, Connecticut. “What do I want to represent? Who do I want to be? I was trying to find the authentic self instead of just going with the flow.”
The search began, in part, with an unlikely catalyst: a tonsillectomy.
When Hall was 26, surgery altered her voice just as she had joined the rock band The Deafening. “They would just play really loud and never change the key,” she said, laughing.
At the same time, Hall found herself confronting larger questions about purpose and artistic direction.
“I was going through that moment of, what do I really want out of this industry?” she said. “If I’m going to keep doing this, I need to have a purpose.”
Until then, Hall said, she had largely been defined by external expectations.
“I was always who I was told to be,” she said.
The surgery became a kind of reset, both vocally and personally. It also coincided with another form of reinvention: the decision to change her professional name.
“My real name is a lot,” she said.
People stumbled over its pronunciation. It was harder to remember, harder to place. “Lena Hall” felt streamlined, memorable. “It also just sounds like a rock star,” she laughed.
Hall, who is one-quarter Filipino with Spanish and Swedish ancestry, later grappled with whether changing her name obscured an important part of who she is. At one point, she said, she was advised that reverting to her birth name might improve her casting prospects as representation standards shifted.
She declined.
“That didn’t feel authentic,” she said.
Instead, Hall came to see the name change as less a departure than a continuation.
After making the change, she discovered that Carvajal itself was a family alteration, adopted generations ago in the Philippines.
“I’m still honoring my family, even in the name change,” she said. “I’m continuing that tradition.”
Her Filipino heritage remains central to how she understands herself, even as some parts of that history remain difficult to trace.
“I’m very curious to keep searching,” Hall said. “That side of my family is where all the artistry came from.”
Hall’s refusal to flatten herself into a single story or cultural identity is mirrored in her journey as a multi-hyphenate artist. She is, depending on the moment, a Broadway belter, a screen actor, a rock frontwoman, a conceptual songwriter.
Her current side project, the all-female Radiohead tribute band Labiahead, gleefully complicates the picture further, reframing familiar songs through a new lens.
“When women perform something written and performed by men, it changes it completely,” she said. “Nothing even needs to be said. It just happens.”
The same could be said of Hall’s own work.
Across mediums, she is an artist interested less in performance as display than performance as revelation.
Onscreen, she said, that often means doing less.
“The camera is literally on your nose,” she said. “You just have to think, and it picks it up.”
Between Celina Carvajal and Lena Hall, between ballet and rock, Broadway and Cornwall, Hall is making peace with multiplicity.
“At a certain point,” she said, “you stop asking who people want you to be and start figuring out who you already are.”
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Sharon Playhouse debuts new logoahead of 2026 season
Matthew Kreta
May 06, 2026
New Sharon Playhouse logo designed by Christina D’Angelo.
Provided
The Sharon Playhouse has unveiled a new brand identity for its 2026 season, reimagining its logo around the silhouette of the historic barn that has long defined the theater.
Sharon Playhouse leadership — Carl Andress, Megan Flanagan and Michael Baldwin — revealed the new logo and website ahead of the 2026 season. The change reflects leadership’s desire to embrace both the Playhouse’s history and future, capturing its nostalgia while reinventing its image.
After attending the closing performance of the Playhouse’s production of The Mousetrap last September, Christina D’Angelo told Playhouse leadership she was “completely changing her design direction” for the new logo after experiencing the work and atmosphere of the Sharon Playhouse firsthand. She incorporated the barn silhouette to capture the theater campus’s history and evoke the warmth and magic of the Playhouse.
“The barn gives a fixed image of how we all feel about the Playhouse,” said Megan Flanagan, managing director. “The new branding presents the story of the great history of Sharon Playhouse — who we were, who we are today, who we are becoming — and the barn is that unifying element.”
The design was one of several options presented and was selected unanimously by Playhouse leadership. D’Angelo also designed this season’s branding, creating a visual throughline for the 2026 season.
The Playhouse remains committed to its taglines and mission statements, “Create. Community. Together.” and “Your destination for the arts.” While those phrases are no longer reflected in the logo itself, Carl Andress, artistic director, said the organization is not moving away from them and that they will continue to appear in publications and on the updated website.
“The refreshed brand aims to shift the narrative in the community, reinforcing the Playhouse’s role not only as a theater but as a vibrant gathering place and artistic home,” Playhouse leadership said in a press release.
For more information, including a video about the updated logo and details on the upcoming 2026 season, visit sharonplayhouse.org
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A Tangled First Foray to New York in 2026
Patrick L. Sullivan
May 06, 2026
Gary Dodson demonstrated the two-handed switch rod cast on the Schoharie Creek on April 18. The author failed to learn said cast.
Patrick L. Sullivan
The last time I tried fishing in the Catskills, in the fall of 2025, I had to stop pretty abruptly when it became apparent my hip was not going to cooperate.
So it was with considerable trepidation that I waded across a stretch of the “Little Esopus” that turned out to be a little bit deeper and a tad more robust than I thought.
This was on Thursday, April 16.
The Esopus is a tailwater, meaning cold water comes out of a dam and supplies the river with regular infusions of cold water that is good for trout.
But it is an unusual tailwater, in that the added flow comes out of the Schoharie Reservoir in Greene County and travels 18 miles through a pipe running under a considerable chunk of mountains and empties into the Esopus in the hamlet of Allaben.
This is officially known as “Diversion from Schoharie Reservoir” or the “Shandaken Tunnel.” In practice it is called “the Portal.”
Between the Portal and the Ashokan Reservoir about 13 miles downstream the Esopus is a big brawling trout river, roughly the same size as the Housatonic. Upstream of the Portal the Esopus is a medium-sized to small freestone stream. Hence “Little Esopus.”
My compatriot Gary Dodson and I were messing around on the “Little” section a couple weeks ago.
The weather was summery. The water temperature was 58 degrees F, about ideal.
The forsythia was blooming everywhere, and that usually means the first significant mayfly hatch of the year, the one imitated by the Hendrickson fly, is going on.
And I did see some Hendricksons floating around here and there.
But mostly I saw zip, except for when I spooked a couple of suckers.
Old joke: Suckers are often mistaken for brown trout. They tend to dive and tug like browns when hooked, adding to the illusion.
It’s only when one comes to the net that the angler feels like a sucker for being taken in. Again.
The day before, with high winds complementing the summer feel, we tried the Batavia Kill impoundment in Windham, where I attempted to crack the code on the two-handed rod cast.
I failed there and blamed it on the wind. So we went to the Schoharie, where legions of recently-stocked trout should have been eager to eat anything, and the wind wasn’t quite as bad.
I failed there too. This is going to take a while.
Meanwhile the usual Harry Homeowner opening up experience included a highly satisfactory lack of mice and their droppings, and a leaky hot water heater.
We’ve had the thing for about 50 years, so it’s hard to complain too much. Phil the Plumber installed a new one and we’re good for another 50 years.
The wading adventure described above felt a little hairy but I managed, and I found an easier place to cross on the return trip.
The new hip didn’t bother me at all. My thigh muscles were pretty sore the next day, though. Too much couch time over the bleak winter.
And while our rabbit population seems to have moved on, the resident deer were messing around on the lawn in the evenings. I like to sit outside reading and occasionally chirrup to them. They like to ignore me until they take fright for a mysterious deer reason and go bounding off into the woods.
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A savory onion pie recipe from Dugazon
Bobby Graham & Matthew Marden
May 06, 2026
Savory onion pie
Bobby Graham
Each month, Dugazon owners Bobby Graham and Matthew Marden share a recipe inspired by the traditions, stories and sense of welcome at the heart of their shop in Sharon, Connecticut. Visit Dugazon at 19 W. Main St. Wednesday-Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and online at dugazonshop.com.
This savory pie is a delicious alternative to quiche or tomato pie (which we’ll share in the future). Bobby’s mother made a similar recipe, and it was a huge hit.
Ideal for breakfast, brunch or lunch entertaining. Serve hot with a crisp white wine and a crispy green salad. Great for groups. Yum!
Savory Onion Pie
Inspired by a recipe from Barbara Dugazon Graham
Yield: 6 to 8 servings
Ingredients
For the crust:
•1 cup crushed saltine crackers
•1/4 cup salted butter, melted
For the filling:
•2 cups thinly sliced onions
•1 clove garlic, finely chopped (optional)
•2 tablespoons salted butter
•1 cup milk
•2 large eggs
•1/2 teaspoon black pepper
•1 1/2 cups grated cheddar and Parmesan cheese
•5 dashes Tabasco sauce
•1/2 teaspoon Tony Chachere’s Cajun seasoning
•Leaves from 1 fresh thyme sprig, or 1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
•1 to 2 green onions, finely chopped, for garnish
Preparation
•Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place rack in center of oven.
•Make the crust: Combine cracker crumbs and melted butter. Press firmly into a 9-inch metal pie pan to form an even crust.
•In a skillet over low heat, melt 2 tablespoons butter. Add onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and lightly caramelized, about 5 to 7 minutes. Add garlic, if using. Let cool slightly, then spread evenly over crust.
•In a large bowl, whisk together milk, eggs, black pepper, Tabasco, Cajun seasoning and thyme. Stir in cheese until well combined. Pour mixture over onions.
•Bake uncovered until golden and set, 45 to 60 minutes. Watch closely during final baking.
•Let cool 5 minutes. Sprinkle with green onions, slice and serve hot or at room temperature.
Notes: Pie can be frozen after assembly and baked later. A metal pie pan is recommended for best results.
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