CMYK
The Daily Mail Copyright 2021, Columbia-Greene Media Volume 229, No. 86
WEEKEND
Serving Greene County since 1792
All Rights Reserved
Price $2.50
Saturday-Sunday, May 1-2, 2021
Legislature to honor Stabile
nFORECAST WEATHER FOR HUDSON/CA TODAY TONIGHT SUN
By Sarah Trafton Columbia-Greene Media Clouds and sunshine
A shower in Warmer with a shower places late
HIGH 60
74 49
LOW 47
Complete weather, A2 Saturday - Sunday, May 1-2, 2021
- C1
COLUMBIA-GREENE MEDIA
7 films that prove
Octavia Spencer is a great character actor
Rain” as the Prince performs “Purple the 46th annual opening act during on Feb. 8, 2004, Grammy Awards show Los Angeles. Richard at Staples Center in Hartog/Los Angeles
Octavia Spencer in her
career-making role
as the maid
Her latest role is in the
Help.” DreamWorks Minny Jackson in “The
Pictures
superhero comedy “Thunder
force” on Netflix
debuts today Her latest, “Thunderforce,” but also a comedy instead of a bigger on Netflix. It’s another up a whole new which went to her superhero movie, opening best films show name. uncomfortable asThe role came with genre for Spencer, whose character actors. is a comment long, maids were nest “Wait. She was in that?” if you take a sociations — for too offered to Black why she’s one of our fi to make among the only parts you’re almost certain ‘MA’ (2019) brought deep hucredits. look at Octavia Spencer’s in “Being John actors — but Spencer if we don’t know Taylor, the horror Directed by her pal manity to Minny, even You may not recall her it was designed to let Congeniality 2” be- much about her non-work life. Maybe comedy plays like it roles Malkovich” or “Miss her trying to fill in Spencer do all the things her other of the most unwas all those years of use she has had one are-for-
By CHRIS HEWITT Star Tribune
Times/TNS
How the Purple One lives on
at Prince Music critic looks back death 5 years after musician’s
INSIDE TODAY! By JON BREAM Star Tribune
for this music critHere is how it works written in real time. ic: Album reviews are or four spins over Give the record three en publish your
n SPORTS
CATSKILL — The Greene County legislative chambers may soon have a new name, honoring former lawmaker and long-time legislature chairman Frank Stabile Jr. of Catskill. Stabile, who lived in Palenville, was a Catskill legislator for 21 years, 18 of which he served as the legislative chairman. He held the chairman’s post from the mid-1980s until his retirement from politics in the mid-2000s. He also served on the Catskill Town Board for eight years.
Stabile died April 15 at the age of 78. Stabile was the first legislative chairman to preside over a meeting at the new Greene County Office Building in 2004, his friend and colleague, Legislator William Lawrence, R-Cairo, said. “He was a natural public servant,” Lawrence recalled. “It showed in the way he treated people and the way he took on issues.” Lawrence remembered Stabile fondly. “We became very, very good friends and ran together many times,” he said. “His passing was a very severe
blow to me. He was a good friend and a good person in general.” L a w rence fully supports Frank Stabile Jr. naming the chambers in memory of Stabile. “I’m wholeheartedly behind the idea and to see it come to fruition before I leave myself at the end of the year,” he said. Greene County Legislative Chairman Patrick Linger, R-New Baltimore, said the
renaming could happen in time for June meetings. “I think it’s a respectful thing to do,” Linger said. “We have a portion of Route 23 named for Chairman [Wayne] Speenburgh and I think it is a good point, for the amount of time Chairman Stabile served as chairman, it’s fitting to memorialize that room.” Legislator Matthew Luvera, R-Catskill, proposed renaming the chambers at the last meeting. “Frank Stabile is another local legend of Catskill and Greene County,” Luvera said. “He served honorably in the legislature from 1985
See STABILE A2
NY localities spend $300M annually on parole By Kate Lisa Johnson Newspaper Corp.
Junior hunters win big New York sportsmen and women won a huge legislative victory recently. PAGE B1
n REGION
Holcim, state settle case LafargeHolcim and the state agree to settle allegations of environmental violation by the company PAGE A3
n INDEX Region Opinion State/Nation Obituaries Sports Classified Comics/Advice
until 2006. I remember Chairman Stabile when I was a kid growing up in Catskill, from working at Brandow’s Alley, and the times I would visit his brother Bob and my cousin Margie because Frank lived right next door to them. He always had a smile on his face when he greeted you.” Robert Stabile is Frank’s twin brother. He is a retired state police investigator. Stabile continued to have an impact on Luvera throughout his life, he said. “When I graduated from Columbia-Greene
A3 A4 A5 A5 B1 B4-B5 B7-B8
Localities across the state spend nearly $300 million each year incarcerating people on technical parole violations, a recent analysis shows, as state officials clash over proposed changes to New York’s parole system and releasing people from prison. Lawmakers are split as progressive Democrats push before the end of session to enact parole reform, which could lead to the release of hundreds of incarcerated people in the state’s prison system, with the passage of two proposed bills this session: The Fair & Timely Parole Act and Elder Parole. The bill reforming elder parole, if passed, would require incarcerated New Yorkers over age 55 who have served 15 or more consecutive years be considered for parole regardless of their crime or sentence. New Yorkers United For Justice examined the local costs for incarcerating people on parole on technical violations, which include any violation of a condition of parole outside a felony or misdemeanor offense, according to state Penal law. The state spends approximately $359 million incarcerating people, or returning them to state prison, for technical parole violations, including offenses such as missing curfew, a meeting with a parole officer, failing a drug test or not securing employment.
“New York’s parole system is broken ... [it] does not serve its function, it does not do its job,” NYUJ Executive Director Alexander Horwitz said. “Parole was originally devised to be a statesponsored system of re-entry to bring people home from incarceration permanently and safely. Instead, New York’s parole system is a reincarceration machine.” The main driver of reincarceration of a person on parole
are technical parole violations, Horwitz said, citing anecdotes of people who returned to imprisonment for missing an appointment with a parole officer, consuming alcohol or spending time with someone with a prior criminal history. “Technical parole violations are not crimes — they are the breaking of administrative rules,” Horwitz said. “For breaking any of these types of rules, breaking the parole system can
send you back to jail or prison without ever having committed a new crime. They can send you back to jail before it’s substantiated you have broken one of these rules.” Parolees can be confined to local jails for 100 days while the state makes a determination about their case after breaking a rule. On March 31, the state had 112 people held in local jails on technical parole violations,
according to the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. “This number does not include those individuals in local custody for a new criminal charge or for absconding from community supervision,” DOCCS spokesman Thomas Mailey said in a statement. Absconding refers to a person who intentionally avoids community supervision by failing to maintain contact or communication with his or her assigned community supervision officer or area bureau office. The state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision does not comment on proposed legislation. Incarcerating one person in the state for one year costs about $60,000. Decreasing the number of people imprisoned for parole violations would reduce costs to counties and state taxpayers, activists said. But others caution changing parole rules before examining how it would impact public safety. The state Public Employees Federation, which represents 52,000 professional, scientific and technical state workers, ruled April 21 to oppose similar proposed legislation (S.1144/A.5576) that would broaden terms to revoke a person’s parole, or community supervision. The law would hinder parole officers to sanction parolees See PAROLE A2
As PILOT ends, C-D taxpayers feel impact — in a good way By Melanie Lekocevic Columbia-Greene Media
On the web www.HudsonValley360.com Twitter Follow: @CatskillDailyMail Facebook www.facebook.com/ CatskillDailyMail/
FILE PHOTO
Students leaving Cairo-Durham High School in a February 2018 file photo.
DURHAM — With the expiration of a tax incentive agreement signed 10 years ago, taxpayers in the Cairo-Durham school district are feeling the impact — but in a good way. The proposed $32,212,222 budget for the 2021-22 school year is slated to include a 4.45% tax levy increase, which is at the district’s tax cap under New York state law. But while the tax levy will rise, individual tax rates are expected to go down, according to the proposed district budget. The tax rate decline is due to the expiration of a Payment in Lieu of Taxes, or PILOT, agreement with GlaxoSmithKline
Voting Ends Saturday! Find out which Greene County Businesses made it to the finals, and vote for your favorites!
Log on to www.hudsonvalley360.com/bogc ™
— a pharmaceutical company that operates a plant in East Durham — that expired last year. “The way the PILOT works is the company comes to an agreement with the Greene County IDA (Industrial Development Agency) to have a separate payment instead of taxes,” District Superintendent Michael Wetherbee said Friday. “We have been getting that separate payment instead of taxes. With the expiration of the PILOT, we will no longer get that payment from GlaxoSmithKline and they will go on the tax rolls just as any other taxpayer would be.” The result is lower school See PILOT A2