Setting policy on solid waste is not something many of us dwell on, yet how society disposes of its trash has many ramifications to the environment, public health, wildlife and the quality of life of our communities.As a child growing up in the 1980s, I recall family vacations in the Adirondack Mountains where my parents would take us to visit the town dump (landfill) to observe black bears feeding on human garbage. Then one year the town dump was replaced with a transfer station. A similar policy shift in solid waste management was occurring in Dutchess County around this time as landfills around the county were similarly replaced with transfer stations. Henceforth the county garbage stream would be exported to out-of-county landfills while trash generated in a select few western towns would be burned at the new waste-to-energy plant in Poughkeepsie. That’s how the county Resource Recovery Agency (RRA) came into being.A few years later in the early 1990s, Dutchess County also adopted a policy on recycling, including mandatory curbside collection (although full implementation of recycling practices has always fallen short).Today, Dutchess County is at a solid-waste crossroads. At least that’s the message of the independent consultant that the Legislature hired to advise us. After 25 years and more than $32 million in government subsidiaries to the Resource Recovery Agency, the consultant’s report asks whether the future of solid waste in Dutchess County should continue to be under public ownership or privatized.The route of public ownership is outlined in the RRA-produced and December 2010-adopted Solid Waste Management Plan. This calls for an expanded RRA scope via a reimposition of flow control (government control of the waste-stream), imposition of a user fee revenue source (garbage tax), costly upgrades to the turbines, renovations to the recycling plant, construction of a new transfer station in southern Dutchess and possibly the development of an ash landfill. This would cost $80 to $110 million.State law requires that “planning, regulation and management” of solid waste governance resides in public hands, but whether the planning unit should remain with the RRA (a public authority) or be transferred back to the county is a question raised by the consultant’s report.The chief alternative to the expensive waste-to-energy practices as advanced by the consultant’s report is to disband the RRA, sell or renovate the waste-to-energy plant to a large-scale transfer station, and ultimately shift to waste export system to out-of-county landfills as practiced by 70 percent of New York state counties. This route is calculated to save $60 million over 16 years for which some of the savings can be spent to further develop recycling and organics diversion. Their plan seeks to enlarge recycling through strict new recycling laws and a new county recycling department at a cost of $666,000.The Legislature will be briefed by MidAtlantic Solid Waste Consultants at a special meeting of the Legislature on Monday, May 16. Then it will be up to us to determine the planning unit, mode and manner of county solid-waste collection for the years to come.Dutchess County has a heritage in which we can all be justly proud. From the county’s role in the American War for Independence to the Federalist/Anti-Federalist debates leading to the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, to the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and the 1944 Presidential election with Dutchess County at the center that pitted FDR versus New York’s governor from Pawling, Thomas Dewey, Dutchess County’s history is one in which we can be proud. Thanks to a resolution passed this month in the County Legislature, which I authored, the achievements and milestones of our legacy will be remembered annually.My resolution declares a 10-day period each fall to be commemorated as Dutchess County Heritage Days with hopes that school groups and the arts community will embrace this annual celebration with appropriate activities that foster pride and education. From the environmental movement spurred on by groups like Scenic Hudson, to industrial achievements like Wassaic’s condensed milk, IBM’s computer manufacturing, Smith Brothers cough drops or Robert Livingston’s steamboat, Dutchess County has had quite an impact on the American landscape.The 10-day heritage commemoration period is sandwiched between two significant dates: Oct. 23 and Nov. 1. On the first day of November in 1683, the Province of New York was carved into 12 counties, including Dutchess. At the time, title to property was in transition from having been transferred from Native Americans to Europeans settlers into eight patents, including Oblong (1650), Rombout (1682), Schuyler (1688), Nine Partners and Poughkeepsie (both in 1697), Rhinebeck and Beekman (both 1703) and Upper Nine Partners (1706).Much deserves to be remembered about these settlements, as well as the preceding use of the land by the Iroquois, Delaware, Mahicans and the Wappinger “Indians.”Forty years after the lands of Dutchess were so named (which at the time included Putnam County and Clermont and Germantown of Columbia County), the population had grown so much that the decision was made that Dutchess “should have officers of their own.” In this first act of democracy, in that the people were to elect their own representatives, the New York Provincial Assembly voted to allow Dutchess to elect a supervisor, treasurer, assessor and a tax collector on Oct. 23, 1713.This month the Dutchess County Legislature voted to celebrate the 300th anniversary of democracy in Dutchess County with an Oct. 23, 2013, milestone celebration, as we did Nov. 1, 1983. The chairman of the Legislature will be setting up an ad hoc committee of historians and interested citizens to help plan appropriate activities.From the first slain general in the Revolutionary War (Richard Montgomery) to the first black female judge (Jane Bolin) to the 22nd U.S. vice president (also New York governor), Levi Morton (Red Hook), and the Beekman Arms tavern to the Stanford birthplace of the game of Scrabble or the Beacon-foundry’s molding of the National Korean War monument to our leadership in psychiatric developments, including the birth of suicide hotlines on bridges, Dutchess County’s contributions have been significant to the American way of life. Beginning this year, during the 10-day period from Sunday, Oct. 23 to Tuesday, Nov. 1 — and with special recognition in 2013 — Dutchess County will take time to remember and focus on our historic past and our proud legacy. Michael Kelsey represents Amenia, Washington, Stanford, Pleasant Valley and Millbrook in the Dutchess County Legislature. Write him at KelseyESQ@yahoo.com.
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Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.
“I was a library kid. I walked to the library after school,” she said.
For Sher, the library is as much about the people as it about the books.
“Part of the job I love so much is that running the library is such a community,” she said.
She treasures the relationships she has built, whether recommending books, celebrating accomplishments or helping patrons through difficult times.
“I am thankful that our community is so supportive of the library, unlike what is happening in some other places where librarians are villainized,” Sher said.
Sher takes pride in the Hunt Library’s reputation for being “open and welcoming to everyone. People come in and see things and get pulled into things they weren’t expecting. Our library is seen as a positive force.”
Sher came to Falls Village after being awarded a fellowship at Adamah Farm, then a program of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center. She worked at pickling, in the greenhouse and later in the development office. She also worked as a nanny.
At the same time, “I was in the library all the time,” she recalled. “I’m a voracious reader. The library is where I met a lot of my first friends in Falls Village.”
She became assistant librarian at Hunt and worked in that position for almost a decade before becoming the executive director four years ago.
Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.L. Tomaino
Sher met her husband, Adam, while working at Adamah. They had their wedding there in 2012. He now emcees many events which she co-organizes with the Falls Village Recreation Commission.
Sher and her family live near the library.
“It’s an easy commute,” she said with a smile. “My kids run back and forth. I can go home to walk the dog if I need to.”
“My kids have grown up here.” Her oldest son, Eli, “loves volunteering. He helps with Augustfest and often helps set up chairs for ArtWall gatherings.” Her younger son, Noah, is often at events and was eager to taste cookies at last year’s holiday cookie swap.
When she is not at the library, Sher likes to hike with her family. Bella, their Portuguese water dog, often accompanies them.
Sher enjoys seeking out people to offer events at the library.
“I do a lot of different community programming. It is one of my favorite parts of the job.”
Augustfest, featuring food, music and an auction, is the library’s biggest fundraiser.
“This summer we had a record 152 attendees, which was pretty incredible.”
Yonah Sadeh, a filmmaker from Falls Village, inaugurated the VideoWall this year, Sher explained.
“I’ve known Yonah since he was two. It’s wonderful to work with him as an adult.”
The VideoWall complements the library’s ArtWall, which showcases a new artist each month. Sher praised the ArtWall committee for its work and highlighted December’s popular “12x12 Show,” featuring works by local artists, each measuring 12 by 12 inches and priced at $150.
Sher added that some of the artists who exhibit at the ArtWall offer workshops to students at Kellogg School, next door to the library. In September, artist Danielle Mailer worked with the children. Vincent Inconiglios taught a class last November.
Being next to the school, said Sher, is a great advantage.
“Kids are coming after school, to see friends, work on projects, find a great book. Kids that love the library end up using the library as grownups.”
This past year, in partnership with Adamah, the library and school created a garden, with excess produce made available at The Center on Main.
This year is Sher’s second year participating in the Troutbeck Symposium in Amenia with James King, director of the library at Salisbury School. The Troutbeck Symposium is “a gathering of a year of student historical inquiry across the region” in which students “uncover stories that have been overlooked, forgotten, or never recorded.”
Last year, Sher and King began a project with a group of students researching Irish immigrants in Falls Village, exploring ancestry and creating small magazines about their findings.
They continued this year, visiting St. Patrick’s Catholic Cemetery on Dublin Road, cleaning seven gravestones and even righting one with the help of stonemason and gravestone restoration expert Karl Munson. Paul Kozeazny, a representative of the Catholic archdiocese, helped secure access to the site.
A film documenting their activities will be shown at the symposium in spring 2027.
A full schedule of programs and events, ranging from tech help to ceramic mug-making, can be found on the library’s website.
Despite spending her days surrounded by books, and a busy schedule of programming, Sher still loves to settle in with a book at home.
For more information on library programs and events, visit huntlibrary.org
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Touré was born in northern Mali in 1981. His father, the renowned guitarist Ali Farka Touré, came from a family of soldiers and wanted his son to join the army. The younger Touré studied drums and the calabash and practiced guitar in secret. He earned his father’s blessing to pursue music shortly before Ali died in 2006, and they played two tracks together on Vieux’s debut album.
Touré is known for his deft, polyrhythmic playing, and his songs grow out of riffs that repeat and layer to hypnotic effect. He draws on rock, blues, Latin music and various African traditions. This distinctive blend builds on his father’s work adapting the sonic traditions of Mali’s arid north to the guitar.
Vieux’s album “Mon Pays” (“My Country,” 2013) honored Mali’s culture after Tuareg separatists and extremist groups seized the north in 2012. “Samba” (2017) was recorded before about 50 listeners in Woodstock, New York. In 2022 came “Les Racines” (“The Roots”), a return to his father’s desert blues, and “Ali,” on which he and the trio Khruangbin reworked eight of the elder Touré’s songs.
Touré leads the Ali Farka Touré Foundation, which focuses on cultural and educational work in Mali. Around the anniversary of Ali’s death, it holds a festival in Bamako, Mali’s capital. Bamako has been under blockade for much of the past year, besieged by JNIM, an al-Qaeda affiliate. Against this backdrop, Touré continues to carry the music of Mali to audiences abroad.
At the Nov. 5 concert, Touré’s desert blues will share the bill with Gnawa, the music LanGus plays, which developed in Morocco among West Africans who were brought north across the desert as enslaved people. Gnawa is religious music traditionally performed at all-night healing ceremonies called lila, intended to carry participants into trance.
Samir LanGusProvided
LanGus was born and raised outside Agadir, Morocco, and began learning Gnawa from its masters at age 8. He plays the sintir, a three-stringed bass lute made of wood and camel skin. The player strikes a low string with the thumb to create a deep, resonant pulse. Iron castanets clatter over the sintir’s bass line, and vocalists trade call-and-response refrains.
LanGus infuses the tradition with jazz and improvisation. In New York, he founded the ensemble Innov Gnawa. His first solo album, “Gnawa Love,” came out in February.
Touré and LanGus’s Nov. 5 concert is one of the last public events at Race Brook Lodge, which is for sale and ended full-service operations at the end of 2025. The lodge’s final scheduled event, on Nov. 6, is an evening of Rumi’s poetry with translator and vocalist Haleh Liza Gafori, cellist Isabel Castellvi and ceremonial bard James Bird.
For tickets, visit rblodge.com.
James FitzGerald is a student at Yale Law School, where he focuses on ecological restoration and international environmental cooperation. He splits his time between Lakeville and New Haven.
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