Shandaken parks benefit from grant

A story in the Daily Freeman from 8 June 2017 Shandaken town parks to benefit from NY state grant

Town parks are getting $12,000 worth of upgrades this summer thanks to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

The money is part of a $28,450 Smart Growth grant the state gave Shandaken last year. Besides park improvements, the money is being spent on solar-powered lighting, landscaping for town signs and maps in parks that show the locations and amenities of other parks in the town.

The $12,000 will be spread across all of the parks in Shandaken, according to town Supervisor Rob Stanley: Smith Park in the hamlet of Pine Hill will get a moon rock climber; Big Indian Park will get six new picnic tables, a park bench and a mini-disc golf set; Parish Field in Phoenicia will get a chipmunk spring jumper; and Glenbrook Park is to get a new gym climber.

Stanley said the new picnic tables and benches will be made of steel with a plastic coating.

Postal official tells Shandaken hamlets it may have to cut hours

Story from the Woodstock Times includes:

The postal service, which is not supported by taxes, faces a $10 billion deficit this year, due largely to the ubiquity of email. In order to reduce the annual shortfall, hours have been cut back at rural post offices over the past few years. In 2013, the Lake Hill and Mount Tremper post offices were cut to four hours per day of counter time, and Chichester is slated to make the same reduction. “I understand it’s a major change for some of us,” said Fitzpatrick. “We will do everything we can to make it seamless.”

Declaring Pine Hill ‘historic’

The Italianate facade of the Colonial Inn, one of the few hotels still in operation in Pine Hill.

 The sleepy hamlet of Pine Hill, at the western end of Shandaken, is poised to capitalize on its past as a significant tourist destination by obtaining legal designation as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places. Residents and businesspeople hope that signage and official listings — appearing on maps, Smartphone apps, brochures, and GPS units — will revive the hamlet by once again attracting tourists to view its many homes, hotels, library, former school building, churches, and stone bridges that were built between 1880 and 1925.