Swift House left out of funding round

KENT — The recent allocation of STEAP grants across Northwest Corner municipalities did not include Kent’s $1 million proposal to fund its renovation of the historic Swift House into an updated and ADA-compliant facility for daily town use.

The Swift House has been largely vacant in recent years, and its utility to the town has become a long term subject of debate amongst officials and residents. The selectmen applied for the STEAP (Small Town Economic Assistance Program) with aspirations of moving the town’s food bank from the Community House on North Main Street to the first floor of the Swift House, which it would share with a large event and meeting space and the permanent offices of the Social Services department.

At the May 30 town meeting, resident Matt Starr singled out the Swift House as a large project that takes up space on the Capital Plan, sees little progress and doesn’t get enough public input.

First Selectman Marty Lindenmayer said the Board of Selectmen would be looking to community collaboration to plan for next steps.

“The board and town will be taking up the conversation… to figure out what the heck we do next,” said Lindenmayer to the assembled residents.

Latest News

Angela Derrico Carabine

SHARON — Angela Derrick Carabine, 74, died May 16, 2025, at Vassar Hospital in Poughkeepsie, New York. She was the wife of Michael Carabine and mother of Caitlin Carabine McLean.

A funeral Mass will be celebrated on June 6 at 11:00 a.m. at Saint Katri (St Bernards Church) Church. Burial will follow at St. Bernards Cemetery. A complete obituary can be found on the website of the Kenny Funeral home kennyfuneralhomes.com.

Revisiting ‘The Killing Fields’ with Sam Waterston

Sam Waterston

Jennifer Almquist

On June 7 at 3 p.m., the Triplex Cinema in Great Barrington will host a benefit screening of “The Killing Fields,” Roland Joffé’s 1984 drama about the Khmer Rouge and the two journalists, Cambodian Dith Pran and New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg, whose story carried the weight of a nation’s tragedy.

The film, which earned three Academy Awards and seven nominations — including one for Best Actor for Sam Waterston — will be followed by a rare conversation between Waterston and his longtime collaborator and acclaimed television and theater director Matthew Penn.

Keep ReadingShow less
The art of place: maps by Scott Reinhard

Scott Reinhard, graphic designer, cartographer, former Graphics Editor at the New York Times, took time out from setting up his show “Here, Here, Here, Here- Maps as Art” to explain his process of working.Here he explains one of the “Heres”, the Hunt Library’s location on earth (the orange dot below his hand).

obin Roraback

Map lovers know that as well as providing the vital functions of location and guidance, maps can also be works of art.With an exhibition titled “Here, Here, Here, Here — Maps as Art,” Scott Reinhard, graphic designer and cartographer, shows this to be true. The exhibition opens on June 7 at the David M. Hunt Library at 63 Main St., Falls Village, and will be the first solo exhibition for Reinhard.

Reinhard explained how he came to be a mapmaker. “Mapping as a part of my career was somewhat unexpected.I took an introduction to geographic information systems (GIS), the technological side of mapmaking, when I was in graduate school for graphic design at North Carolina State.GIS opened up a whole new world, new tools, and data as a medium to play with.”

Keep ReadingShow less