Once again, the town and village of New Paltz are considering the idea of forming a single government. The idea, first raised in the 1940s and last discussed in 2013, has never made it through a referendum, and when it was first brought up in 2024 at January’s joint board meeting—the first such meeting post-pandemic—community members in attendance had plenty of questions and the conversation was lively. The vote was in favor of applying for a grant that would fund a study of the question; as of October, the town was soliciting volunteers to form a steering committee to flesh out details of a plan, an eight-month process that will lead to a 2025 referendum.
New Paltz Village Mayor Tim Rogers believes that the community is in a stronger position to consolidate than it was when he first took office in 2014. “We’re already sharing the assessor, the court, the fire, and the police department. We have two separate building departments, but they have a good working relationship now,” he says. “Optimally, you would do something as simple as having those same staff just sit next to each other, and then they can share a copier, and then you see efficiencies just for doing simple things like that.”
Rogers is looking forward to seeing what the public has to say. “You need to get them very aware,” he says, “and have a detailed conversation so that people are satisfied that no stone is left unturned. It would make us eligible for a million dollar tax credit, 70 percent of which must be used to bring taxes down and 30 percent toward a new project, maybe a new municipal building.” Rogers feels that since 2013, things have fallen into place that make consolidation more attainable. “We know where the fire department and the police and court will be for the next 50 to 100 years. I don’t want to leave future leaders with the same inefficient structure we currently have—I mean, we make it work, but if you were designing a government from scratch, never in a million years would you end up with this.”
Meanwhile, Rogers—re-elected in 2023 to another four-year term—is hard at work on other major projects, including water, sewer, and sidewalk upgrades, new pickleball and basketball courts, a solar array on the firehouse, and the completion of the Henry W. Dubois bike path, “a big, disruptive project that will be fantastic once it’s done, and people will forget the disruption and just enjoy,” he says. “If we could make these things happen by magic in the dead of night, we would.”
Zero Place
Housing, he says, is being tackled on a number of fronts, from tenant protection, short-term rental, and affordability requirements for developers to three apartment buildings totaling 165 units now at the site preparation stage and a 250-unit development currently in front of the planning board.
Sixty-eight of the planned units, including seven affordable ones and 7,500 square feet of commercial space, are planned for the Route 32 North corridor on what was once the site of the Agway building. The build-out of that neighborhood began in 2019 with the creation of Zero Place, a multi-award-winning 46-unit four-story sustainable structure completed in 2022. There are five affordable units; others start at $2,047 a month, all utilities included.
On the ground floor of Zero Place, Noah Michaels operates Dry Fly Coffee Company, serving pastries and what some claim is the finest avocado toast anywhere. “We originally put it on the menu as a placeholder, and sort of ironically, but now I guess it’s locked in,” Michaels says. “The opportunity to be part of Zero Place has been really nice; they mirror our values.” Sustainable tactics at Dry Fly include a zero-emissions roaster, counters and tabletops of reclaimed heartwood pine from Kingston bowling alleys, and mindful sourcing.
Michaels, who grew up on Long Island, went to the Culinary Institute of America and had been “looking for a reason to move back here ever since,” says things are going beautifully. “A lot of people come in multiple times a week, a lot of people work from here. We do lighter roasts, we pay attention to the source the way wine folks pay attention to terroir, and a lot of people are responding to that.”
Artist and arts educator Ally Bell came to New Paltz for college and never left. Now she’s hoping the community will take to her new space, We Did It Boys Studios on Main Street, organized like a co-working space but “more arts-oriented. I used to work in the [coffee bar] Cafeteria downtown and I loved the vibrancy. You can bring your own coffee or whatever. There’s space for about 10 people to work, side-by-side or collaboratively, and we can plan and host small events like singer-songwriter evenings. I love the synergy that happens among artists. I think it’s a big part of what makes New Paltz special. People come here and realize, ‘Oh, you mean I can actually live this way?'”
Tourist Season
Down the hill at Water Street Market, New Paltz native Theresa Fall has been running Jar’d Wine Pub for 12 years and the Parish Restaurant for nine with coowner Matt Sweeney. For several years, she served as a coordinator for the whole market, organizing community events to help locals discover its possibilities, an effort she feels was and is successful. “I love rolling through here on a Saturday or Sunday morning and seeing all the tourists and cyclists and locals, the familiar and the brand new,” she says. “Some say New Paltz is overrun with tourists, and in October it does get especially hectic, but people are in high spirits. They’re heading out hiking, or off to a farm; they’re leaf-peeping—it’s lovely, really. They’re here for some fresh air and a hometown experience, and tourists become regulars in their own right. I love my work, I love the vibe we’ve created here—real people, having real conversations.”
Fall is looking forward to the Turkey Trot, a Thanksgiving morning 5K run that attracts over 1,000 participants and benefits Family of New Paltz. “It starts here at the market, and they have a band, and people come just to hang out and watch the fun,” says Fall. “I always open Jar’d on Thanksgiving morning, and we get busy starting at 8 am.”
On December 15, another community festival will touch down on Water Street, this year’s Holiday Hoopla, starting with an afternoon Winter Carnival, will feature a “Peace ands Light” parade down Main Street to the market, which will be styled as “Water Street Wonderland.” The Hoopla is one of a great many initiatives coordinated by the town’s Office for Community Wellness under the leadership of social worker Phoenix Kawamoto, who became community education coordinator after a four-year Drug Free Communities grant ended in 2016 and the town saw huge potential in continuing the work of public healing and positivity.
“I started as a department of one,” says Kawamoto, “and in 2023, we worked with over 100 community partners. I’m an old-school community social worker—you meet the client where they are—and my client is the whole community. I work very hard to find the gaps and help provide opportunities for connectivity, bring resources in, and help people know what’s available to them.”
To bring about reconnection in these trying times, the game plan includes determining where people find passion and purpose, the better to connect them to opportunities and serve needs. “It just continues to expand,” says Kawamoto. “We do everything from outdoor movie nights and barbecues to overdose and suicide prevention, and everything in between. The Holiday Hoopla started in the depths of the pandemic, with me in a polar bear suit and [Youth Center director] Jim Tinger in a Santa suit, a couple drummers from Rosendale, and a couple of hula hoopers, going all over town giving out individually wrapped candy canes and resource cards, and that turned into a winter carnival and a parade, and now it’s four events. New Paltz cares. The heart, the commitment, the generosity of spirit is overwhelming. We just ask everyone two things: What lights you up, and how can we help you get there?”
In 2020, Kevin Case became the executive director of the Mohonk Preserve, an 8,000-acre nonprofit nature preserve. “During shutdown it was the uncertainty around keeping the lights on, and then we were just inundated with off-the-charts numbers of people,” he says. “I think we learned a lot from managing that. Now, it’s great but not crazy, and it feels like we’ve gotten to a good place.” Projects underway include everything from adaptive climbing and wheelchair-friendly carriage roads to smarter signage, the possible replacement of the failing Duck Pond dam with a flowing stream managed by beavers—and a fresh emphasis on making sure everybody feels included.
“We handed out 4,000 free six-week passes to county residents as part of healthy Ulster last year,” says Case, “and we’re doing free passes for clients of Family of Woodstock. You can go to the library, 60 different libraries this year, and borrow a three-day pass. There’s a big focus on welcoming and belonging.”
Linda Ferrante has been working at Wallkill View Farm on the flats just west of the Wallkill River for over 40 years, since she began dating second-generation owner Sandy Ferrante at 14. This time of year, the Rotary Club she helps direct is busy making sure families in need will get some holiday gift cards for food and a couple of extra gifts. Year round, they operate the Backpack Program that keeps kids fed on weekends. “Of course it’s changed since I grew up here, and changed some more since the pandemic,” she says. “Our regulars, both the locals and the tourists, are amazing, and that’s never changed. We’re a strong community. We have to embrace growth, and visitors, and people who come here to find a home. I’d love to see people hold onto the spirit of connection and gratitude that was in the air right after the pandemic—listen to each other, work together gracefully.”
This article appears in November 2024.
