The Race for District 17

Bail Granted in Philipstown Retrial

Grigoroff accused of 2008 Route 9 killing A Putnam County judge on Tuesday (June 16) granted a request from a former Lake Peekskill man to be released on bail while he prepares for a third trial in the 2008 killing of Philipstown resident John Marcinak. Over the objections of Putnam District Attorney Robert Tendy, Judge Joseph Spofford set bail for Anthony Grigoroff at $300,000 bond. Grigoroff agreed to wear an ankle monitor; only leave the house in Ossining, where he will be staying for legal and medical appointments; and to call Putnam's Probation Department at least twice a week. With those conditions, Grigoroff will be free for the first time since June 2009, when Putnam County sheriff's deputies arrested and charged him in the shooting death of Marcinak at his Garrison Garage on Route 9 on Dec. 31, 2008. Relying largely on a confession that Grigoroff alleges was made under duress, a jury convicted him of second-degree murder in 2010, and found him guilty again in 2017 after an appeals court overturned the first verdict. In 2025, the same appeals court overturned the second conviction and ordered a new trial. Grigoroff was transferred in January from Sing Sing to the Putnam County jail, where he has been held since Spofford denied his initial bail request. Jury selection for the third retrial is scheduled to begin Oct. 14. "We're very pleased that he's going to be released and can help prepare for the trial," said Bruce Barket, one of Grigoroff's attorneys. "Him getting an acquittal is all we're focused on." Tendy argued against bail, saying that Grigoroff again faces a sentence of 25 years to life if convicted, and "life is an incentive to flee." Tendy also said he intends to seek a DNA sample from Bryon Mountain, a friend of Grigoroff's at the time of the killing, so it can be compared to DNA found on Marcinak's clothing. According to Grigoroff's confession, he drove with his brother and Mountain to the garage so they could steal a few hundred dollars to party in Manhattan. He insisted that it was Mountain who shot Marcinak while he waited in the car, and Erick served as a lookout. He also alleges that investigators convinced him to falsely confess during a 12-hour interrogation by promising leniency. Both Erick Gringoroff and Mountain were questioned by investigators but claimed they were elsewhere at the time of the killing. DNA did not factor into the two previous trials, but parts of Marcinak's clothing were tested for genetic material in 2009, said Tendy. While preparing for the new trial, his office "worked with law enforcement and the laboratory to determine whether more testing could be done" and requested additional tests, he said. If Tendy also seeks DNA from Grigoroff, he would "readily consent," said Barket, "because we know it's not his." Another key to the case, said Barket, would be to find cellphone records that were supposed to have been analyzed during the initial investigation but were allegedly never turned over to prosecutors or defense attorneys. If they exist, that could add another twist in the case revived, ironically, on New Year's Eve 2025, when the state Appellate Division overturned Grigoroff's second conviction. The appeals judges found that Judge Edward McLoughlin, a Dutchess judge who had been assigned the case, deprived Grigoroff of a fair trial by limiting testimony from an expert witness who determined that Grigoroff "is more vulnerable than the average person to falsely confessing." That expert wanted to cite research from the Innocence Project, which at the time found that 25 percent of people exonerated through DNA had confessed, along with another study by the University of Michigan Law School on the prevalence of false confessions, particularly by people with intellectual disabilities or mental illnesses. But McLoughlin "improperly concluded that those studies were not relevant to the defendant and the interrogation" because Grigoroff's case did not involve DNA and despite Gri...

Garrison's Landing to Get New Meters Food pantry Memorial garden Grant resolutions Road paving

Philipstown to begin billing for water usage Philipstown moved forward on Wednesday (June 10) with replacing broken meters installed at the homes and businesses supplied by the Garrison Landing Water District. A resolution approved by the board authorizes the town to solicit bids for the purchase and installation of 30 meters. The previous ones failed in 1999 after the source "went from a ground/surface-fed system to a well-fed system" and the pressure increased, according to Supervisor John Van Tassel. Philipstown officials said the town did not have the funds to buy new meters until the board last year authorized borrowing $500,000 to cover capital upgrades. To begin repaying the loan, the town added this year a $2,500 levy to the tax bills of the water district's users. Once the meters are installed, the town will calculate a per-gallon usage fee, Van Tassel said. "We want to fairly charge people for the water that they're using, so you will be metered just like you are in the Village of Cold Spring," he said. A state audit released in May 2025 calculated that Philipstown spent $2.4 million between 2018 and 2023 to truck in water for Garrison Landing's, shrinking its general-fund balance from $1 million to $53,137. Annual expenses for the district rose during the same period from about $85,000 to $975,000, "the most significant factor of the town's financial decline," the audit said. Kiko Lattu, director of the Philipstown Food Pantry at First Presbyterian Church, said the first quarter is normally its slowest period, but from January to March, it saw a 41 percent uptick in visits compared to the same period in 2025. A handful of new people began using the pantry, which distributes food from 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Saturdays, after the Meals on Main mobile food pantry operated by Cornell Cooperative Extension Putnam County shut down, said Lattu. The mobile pantry had delivered free produce weekly to the Chestnut Ridge Apartments and Philipstown Friendship Center in Cold Spring, and the Brookside Senior Citizen Co-op in Philipstown before it ran out of funding. (In May, the Regional Food Bank Hudson Valley added a monthly mobile stop at Brookside.) "Many pantry guests visit frequently, even weekly, indicating ongoing, not temporary, food insecurity," said Lattu. "For food-insecure households, especially seniors and single-family or single-parent families, any disruption can cause a chain reaction." The board approved a resolution to allow a memorial garden with a plaque and benches to be installed in a southwest area of the town park at Glassbury Court by the Nicole Ettere Memorial Gardens Foundation, which supports the families of people who have committed suicide. "It's a beautiful area; it's a beautiful spot," said Van Tassel. Lucille Ettere co-founded the nonprofit with her husband, Roy Ettere, after the death of their daughter, Nicole. During a Town Board meeting in March, she said the gardens they have installed in other municipalities, including the Putnam Trailway in Carmel, are meant to be a "serene space" for families "to visit and honor and remember their loved ones." The board agreed to have the town administer a grant the Cold Spring Chamber of Commerce is pursuing to expand the town's residential food-scrap recycling program to include businesses. Jeff Mikkelson, advocacy chair for the chamber and a member of the town's Climate Smart Task Force, said a $6,000 grant from Williams College enabled a startup commercial program that launched this year with the Cold Spring Farmers' Market, The Garrison on Route 9, the Garrison Institute, the Haldane school district and Marbled Meat. He told the board in April that a larger grant — $10,000 to $30,000 — was available through the office of Assembly Member Dana Levenberg, whose district includes Philipstown. The board also voted to support a grant application by the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference to state parks. If successful, the conference will use the grant t...

Notes from the Cold Spring Village Board Reservoir permit In other business…

Voltpost addresses EV charging station safety At the Wednesday (June 10) meeting of the Cold Spring Village Board, James Everley, a representative of Voltpost, the company contracted to install an electric vehicle charging station in the village-owned parking lot on New Street, addressed concerns raised about flooding, electrocution and fires. The Voltpost system includes a dual-charging unit mounted 10 feet off the ground on a wooden pole. When a driver activates the system using a QR code, a 25-foot cable lowers from the unit and retracts when charging is complete. Intense storms have historically caused flooding in the lower village. When Mayor Kathleen Foley pointed out that a number of sources can cause electrification of flood waters when houses are inundated, Everley responded, "Yes but our charger is very unlikely to be one of them." He emphasized that the charging unit will be mounted at a height of 10 feet, well above any flood waters, and that it will be powered by an overhead cable. John Pavlik, a resident of the lower village, asked about potential hazards caused by flood waters reaching as high as the charging port in a vehicle. "Electrocution has always been the main fear when people talk about batteries, so the engineering that has gone into safety is incredibly high," Everley said. "If there were a flood, either the vehicle and/or the charger would turn itself off." He added that Voltpost's unit has been certified by Underwriters Laboratories, which he described as "not an easy feat and a very rigorous process." UL certification is an independent safety verification that ensures products have been rigorously tested and meet national and international safety standards. Everley said that, in his 11 years in the industry, he has never heard of a fire at an EV charging station. He said that while gas-powered vehicles average 1,500 fires per 100,000 vehicles sold, EVs have 25 fires per 100,000 vehicles sold. "The only time you're likely to see a battery fire would be as the result of an accident, the same as a gas car," he said. Paul Thompson, who lives on New Street, said he had no concerns. "I'm just very satisfied as to the safety of this charging supply equipment," he said. The cost of the charging station, including hardware, installation, operations, software, driver support and maintenance, will be covered by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). Hudson House Inn leases the parking lot from the village for its guests and has agreed to the installation. Although Cold Spring's reservoirs have been providing residents with drinking for nearly 100 years, the village must apply to the state Department of Environmental Conservation for a permit to draw water from them. "We've been drawing water from our reservoirs since 1929 and have never had a permit; we've never been asked to apply for one," Foley said, noting the situation is not a violation and that the village will provide an annual report to the DEC summarizing water usage. Hahn Engineering will assist the village in acquiring the state permit. The situation may have come about because the reservoirs were established decades before the DEC was created in 1970. The board approved a $5,000 payment to LaBella Associates of Glens Falls for grant-writing services to assist the village with its application to the DEC Water Quality Improvement Program, which funds land acquisition for surface water protection. The application is part of multimillion-dollar repairs to the upper reservoir dam in North Highlands. Trustee Laura Bozzi said the grant application is "one of the last pieces of protecting the reservoir," will be in the $1 million range, and is highly technical. Foley pointed out that the state doesn't open Consolidated Funding Applications, including funding for WQIP, until June, with a deadline at the end of July. "We want to make sure that we land this grant," she said. The board also approved paying $11,950 to Tecton...

Looking Back in Philipstown 250 Years Ago (June 1776) 150 Years Ago (June 1876) 100 Years Ago (June 1926) 50 Years Ago (June 1976) 25 Years Ago (June 2001)

Gen. George Washington returned to New York City from a visit to Philadelphia to consult with the Continental Congress. On June 7, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced a resolution to Congress: "Resolved, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." Concerned about the strength of Loyalist sentiment, the provincial congress in New York advised its delegates in Philadelphia to abstain from voting on the resolution, which was tabled until July 2. On June 28, a five-man drafting committee in Philadelphia asked Thomas Jefferson to present the Declaration of Independence for debate. It was read aloud and tabled. On June 30, British Maj. Gen. William Howe and his 9,000 troops began disembarking on Staten Island. The case against Fanny Hay, 8, accused of stealing a breast pin from Mrs. Butterfass, was dismissed by Justice Coe because he felt the girl did not understand the nature of an oath. The Cold Spring Recorder's editor called it "a sad commentary on our Christian institutions that this child did not know how to read, was ignorant of the sin of and the penalty for lying or stealing; had not been taught that there was any future state, that she had an immortal soul; or that there was a Supreme Ruler, the source of all things and the judge of mankind!" A new street near the depot, Railroad Avenue, was completed; Stone Street was furnished with a paved gutter on its west side; and a "great improvement" was made to Kemble Avenue on the slope south of the Rock Street corner. The Recorder editor noted complaints about a Putnam Valley man who, once or twice a week, left his team of horses in the heat near the post office for hours without food or drink. James Finnin of Garden Street was working in the boiler shop at the West Point Foundry when a piece of steel from his hammer pierced an artery in his left wrist. The bleeding was stopped with difficulty by compression with a handkerchief. Assisted by a comrade, Finnin walked to Dr. Murdock's office on Fair Street. A company of Republicans visited Philipstown on a Saturday night to congratulate Rep. William Wheeler, who had been nominated to be the vice-presidential candidate alongside Rutherford Hayes in the 1876 election. Wheeler was staying with his brother-in-law, Henry Belcher, at Garrison's Landing. About 11 p.m. on a Saturday, an intoxicated laborer, said to be employed at the Garrison quarry, stumbled down Main Street. He was warned that the dock was unlit and dangerous, but several bystanders soon heard the splash. Jerry Delany jumped in after him, and a boat was rowed to the rescue. Because the cadets would be in Philadelphia for the Fourth of July centennial, the West Point fireworks were shot off on a Wednesday night in mid-June. Soon after 1 p.m. on a Monday, four young men marched up Main Street wearing what appeared to be baseball uniforms with knapsacks and tin drinking cups. "No one seemed to know where they came nor what place was their destination," The Recorder observed. Three young men from a New York canoe club drew a crowd when they stopped at the wharf on a Sunday afternoon wearing strange outfits. They left at 7 p.m., saying they planned to travel to Poughkeepsie, about 22 miles. The trip took longer than expected, as the Poughkeepsie News reported the men didn't arrive until Monday night and immediately booked hotel rooms. Workers excavated the rocky ground near the District 3 schoolhouse to install a much-needed outhouse. The flagging stones arrived for an "experimental" sidewalk between Kemble Avenue and Furnace Street. The Recorder said a newly constructed railroad fence that followed the rocks and curves "reminds one of the Great Wall of China." At 10 a.m. on a Friday morning, a crowd on Market Street armed with sticks, stones ...

The Race for District 17

Five Democrats compete to face Lawler A lot has changed since the November 2024 general election, when Republican Mike Lawler defeated Democrat Mondaire Jones to win a second, 2-year term representing U.S. House District 17, which includes Philipstown. The Democratic president, Joe Biden, was unpopular, a regular gallon of gas in New York state averaged $3.09, inflation stood at 2.7 percent and 39,000 people were being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, nearly two-thirds of them arrested at the borders with Canada and Mexico. Less than two years later, Republican Donald Trump is the unpopular president, a regular gallon of gas averages $4.38, inflation hit 4.2 percent and 60,000 people were being held by ICE as of April, 85 percent of them arrested at their homes and workplaces, on the street and during routine check-ins with the agency. A Marist poll released in May found that more than half of 1,322 adults surveyed rated their cost of living as "not very affordable" (44 percent) or "not affordable at all" (12 percent); 63 percent did not believe the economy benefited them; and 81 percent felt either a "major" strain on their household budget (33 percent) or a "minor" one (48 percent). Trump's unpopularity, higher gas prices and other costs, and the unpopularity of the conflict with Iran and the president's immigration crackdown are some of the factors bolstering five Democrats competing in a June 23 primary to take on Lawler in November. The district is one of the most scrutinized in the country amid the Democratic Party's efforts to flip the House to its control. The Republicans have a 218-212 majority, with four seats vacant and one independent. Cait Conley has received high-profile endorsements and raised the most campaign funds. A graduate of West Point who earned master's degrees from Harvard and MIT, she spent 16 years on active duty in the U.S. Army before directing counterterrorism for the National Security Council and joining the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Both the Dutchess and Putnam Democratic Committees have endorsed her. Beth Davidson has also received notable endorsements, including from the Rockland Democratic Committee, where she is a county Legislator. Davidson, whose fundraising totals are only bested by Conley's, spent two years on the Nyack school board and has held board seats on local organizations such as Leadership Rockland and the Children's Shakespeare Theatre. A third candidate, Effie Phillips-Staley, is serving her third term as a Tarrytown village trustee. She has also held roles as vice president of strategic advancement at the Hispanic Federation in New York City, where she led a fundraising effort that netted more than $30 million for Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria; executive director of the Foundation for the Public Schools of the Tarrytowns; and director of capital and institutional advancement for The Kitchen, an art space in the city. Questions for Candidates Ahead of the Democratic primary on June 23, we gave each candidate 500 words to answer three questions. Their responses are posted at highlandscurrent.org/house-primary-17. John Cappello and Mike Sacks are the final two candidates. Cappello is an Air Force Academy graduate and bomber pilot who retired from the service and is president of the Halyard Mission Foundation, which commemorates the rescue of more than 500 U.S. airmen from Serbia during World War II. Sacks is a lawyer and journalist who covered law and politics for the MeidasTouch media network and Fox 5 in New York City, where he won an Emmy for his coverage of the protests following the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis. There have been four polls, but each was commissioned by a candidate or supporter, surveyed a relatively small sample and found large swaths of likely voters undecided. VoteVets, a political action committee backing Conley, commissioned a poll of 500 people in May showing he...