AMENIA — During the Thursday, Sept. 15, Town Board meeting, Amenia Highway Superintendent Stan Whitehead told the board that he was going to stop applying for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant money if the town continued to put his hard-earned grant money into fund balances available to the entire town, forcing his department to go into unnecessary debt.Whitehead presented the board members with 10-page packets that detailed the history of his financial struggle with the town over the last dozen years.The issue was brought to light when Resolution No. 40 of 2011 was added to the agenda.The purpose of Resolution No. 40 was to transfer $5,000 out of the Highway Fund Balance in order to make another payment to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for a salt shed grant that the highway department received almost 12 years ago but did not use the full amount.Whitehead maintains that the grant money not used by the highway department was put into the town’s fund balance, and “all Amenia taxpayers received a benefit from it.” Therefore, said Whitehead, the grant should be repaid from the town’s contingency line instead of the Highway Fund Balance line.At the end of 2010, the highway department paid $5,000 toward repaying the unused grant money. The remainder of the balance will come due next year.Whitehead said that he spoke with the town bookkeeper and was told that since the money went into the highway department, it would also have to come out of the highway department.“But as far as I’m concerned, it already came out of the highway department when it went into the fund balance,” he said.Whitehead said that there have been two other occasions when his grant money was put into the fund balance that was available to the entire town: once while Arlene Iuliano was town supervisor and once while Janet Reagon was town supervisor.Whitehead said that revealing the issue regarding the highway department’s grant money helped oust Reagon from office in favor of Wayne Euvrard, the current town supervisor.Whitehead said that for both previous occurrences, the highway department was required to take out loans because the grant money was no longer in the highway department to be used at the department’s discretion.“If the town is going to take the money to make the board look good [by having a large fund balance], then I won’t apply for grants,” he said.Applying for grants takes a lot of time and effort, said Whitehead, but his efforts have been no help to the highway department.Whitehead said he is frustrated that his department is in debt even though he applied for sufficient funds.“Now I have to budget for [loan] payments. I watch my budget very carefully and I’ve never over-spent and I’ve never gone to the board to say I need money,” said Whitehead. “This year would have been real tough if I didn’t get that FEMA money in January.”Whitehead said he fears that the FEMA money he received in January will face the same fate as some of his previous grants.Resolution No. 40 was not voted on during the Sept. 15 meeting. The board decided that the issue warranted further inspection and will be discussed at a later meeting.
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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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