NORTH EAST — Talks regarding the proposed supermarket slated for the Boulevard District moved from the Planning Board’s domain to the Town Board’s, as the subject of water service was broached last week. The Town Board held a special meeting at Town Hall on Thursday, April 7, to conduct that discussion among supermarket applicant Southern Realty & Development, LLC (represented by John Joseph), project engineer Rich Rennia, project architect Ray Nelson, Town Engineer Ray Jurkowski, Attorney to the Town Warren Replansky and the members of the Town Board. The goal of the meeting, according to town Supervisor Dave Sherman, was to hash out a framework of how to approach the concept of water service for the as-of-yet-unnamed supermarket planned for Route 44 East, near the Connecticut border.First choice, exploring other options While the conversation focused on the 10-acre site owned by Quinmill Properties Inc., which Southern Realty & Development, LLC (SRD) is looking to develop, SRD acknowledged its first choice is still to come to an agreement with C&S Wholesalers, which runs the Grand Union supermarket in Millerton and leases that space from property owner Robert Trotta. That pursuit has thus far been unsuccessful.At last week’s meeting, Rennia gave an overview of the applicant’s second option.“The Quinmill property site, we’ll develop that site and put in an almost 36,000-sqare-foot supermarket and redo the entrance into Ken Thompson’s building, and move that [entrance] farther to the west, and have one joint entrance in,” Rennia said, adding there would be a large loop around the building for truck traffic. The engineer also said there is “plenty of room” to install a septic system.“There is room to install a private well and put together a private water system,” Rennia said, before reviewing the applicant’s water service options. “Seeing that the water district is very close, about 1,200 feet down Route 44, west to the site, [there] is the possibility of connecting to that system. There are two ways: One is an expansion of the district and one is to create, out of the district, a user contract agreement between the developer and the town.”Rennia said either way the same 8-inch water line extension would be used.Who wants in, who wants outJoseph interjected that the adjoining property owners, Ken Thompson (owner of Thompson’s Plaza) and Basil Gabriel (owner of Basil’s Auto Shop) “have no need or desire to connect” to the town’s water district. He added the supermarket would like to be an out-of-district user. It expects to use approximately 2,000 gallons of water a day, which led the developer to describe the market as “not a tremendous water user,” but added it would be willing to cooperate with the municipality as needed.“We would construct [it], and also, if the town felt at a later date it needed to form a district and bring those people in, we would be happy to contribute our share or even pay the district at that time,” he said. “But at this point we would try to keep it as simple as possible.”Rennia sent a letter dated March 3, 2011, to the town supervisor. The matter was put succinctly.“It is anticipated that Southern Realty & Development, LLC would bear the costs to expand the water district including construction, design and permitting,” he stated. “The proposed project will require an estimated 2,000 gallons per day for normal consumption purposes and fire flow needs are 1,000 gallon per minute.”It’s the details that countCouncilman Dave McGhee raised an important point, reminding those present the town’s water district receives its supply from the village.“First of all I think it isn’t going to be up too much to the Town Board — it’s up to the Village Board if they’re going to be able to make another district. They’re the ones that control the water. Secondly, I’m very interested if there’s enough pressure to sustain all that way out there. I hope you do.“I will throw in this comment,” he added. “I know you have different ideas, I’ve lived here all my life, and you should be able to hook onto a line at the state line by Thompson Plaza and Basil’s, because they’re not going to stay there. Once we’re going this far, whether we do [the supermarket] or not, we should be able to hook up. Things are going to change; once somebody offers [those businesses out by the state line money to buy them out] they’re not going to stay there.”Councilman Carl Stahovec then brought up the wetlands issue and the buffer that usually accompanies them.“The last project had a 300-foot buffer,” he said. “You obviously don’t have that here. I’d be interested to see where that’s going. We’ve been getting letters [concerning wetlands]; another issue is the bog turtles. That’s another hurdle that’s there.”The applicant has engaged a biologist to do a bog turtle survey, which will be conducted sometime this month. The developer said in more than two decades doing his work he’s never seen the turtles yet.“As long as there’s a habitat there don’t have to be turtles,” Councilman Steven Merwin rebutted.Who is SRD? At that point Sherman asked Joseph what his exact relationship to Southern Realty & Development was.“I’m it,” responded Joseph, later adding he works with another investor. “We are owners, operators, of shopping centers. We acquire land and develop on behalf of tenants and then they become our tenants and they rent from us.”Getting off track and regaining focusTalk quickly reverted to focus on water. Merwin raised concerns about whether the village could handle the load, or if another water tank might be needed. He made reference to the town’s decision in the 1990s to not build another storage tank, which caused a brief skirmish with the town supervisor. The two quickly settled back to the business at hand.“We need to look out for the village on this,” Merwin said.“You’re right,” Replansky said. “The village has to make sure it has the capacity for this. The village can look at the plans for the proposed development on the site and see what the water requirements are, but if they’re talking about a district expansion, they have to look at the other properties then to see if they have the capacity.”“I don’t want the public to pay for anything,” McGhee said, adding an escrow account must be established.Two escrow accounts will actually be created; one escrow account will be for the planning process reviewed by the Planning Board and the other will be for the professional review undertaken by the Town Board. Neither account has been created yet, nor has a dollar amount been set for either of the two accounts, according to the town supervisor.
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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 first wife, 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.”
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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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