The death of Fleming Taylor has put Nyack’s Starbucks (store #7449) on the map.  Marketing guru Tim Manners wrote a nice piece about our Starbucks, and how it serves as a model for the chain for future success.  There is a sense of community at the coffee house, and it’s more than just the “7-Eleven of caffeine”, which has become the common perception for the company as it grew too fast and lost its sense of “cool”.

Starbucks was controversial when it came to the community, which has tried to shy away from national chains.  But it does seem to be a hub of activity for the community, and is often bustling while most of the locally owned stores are closed.

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There’s alot of money for improving America’s infrastructure in the Obama Administration’s stimulus package. But instead of bucks there’s bupkiss for building a new Tappan Zee bridge.

The Tri-State Transportation Campaign says the TZB gets its some funds ($234 million) but those dollars are for decking and maintenance.

MTA improvements count for $1.5 billion , including

• Bringing the Long island Railroad into Grand Central Terminal
• Improving ten Brooklyn elevated subway stations
• Adding raised grates with attached bike racks.
• Behind the scenes projects like replacing power substations.

Source: TSTC.org

The long wait for Nyack’s newest restaurant is over.  Main Essentials, located on Main Street between Midland Ave. and the Wachovia bank, opened a couple weeks ago.  It is Enrique Almonte’s second restaurant, who grew up in Haverstraw and started a vegan, Caribbean restaurant there.  The food is tasty, affordable and quick.  Definitely worth a try, even if you’re not a vegan.

Check out the YouTube video about their opening (see below).

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Early retirement buyouts for county employees will cut $3.75 million from Rockland County’s budget in 2009. About two in ten employees of the 610 employees eligible for early retirement elected to take the buyout offer.

County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef told the Journal News “we’ve met our financial objectives [and] we did what we needed to do. Now it’s a question of rearranging government to respond to the changes in staffing levels and the public’s needs.”

When the cuts are completed, Rockland county will have the smallest workforce at any time in the last 25 years. However, some of the 95 currently vacant positions will need to be refilled.

Sources: Rockland County,  Journal News

Irving Feiner, a legendary Nyack school/property tax reform advocate,  died January 23 at age 84.

Feiner has a long history of activism, and actually is mentioned in Wikipedia for his court case against New York State on his claim that his First Amendment rights were violated when he was arrested.

A memorial service will be held Sunday Jan 25 at 4pm in the Nyack Center, located at the corner of the corner of Broadway and Depew Ave in Nyack.

See also: LoHud blogs

All registered Democrats in that reside in the Village of South Nyack are invited to attend a Democratic Caucus for the purpose of nominating candidates for office in the South Nyack election to be held on Wednesday, March 18, 2009.

The following offices are up for election:

Mayor: 2-year term
Trustee: 2-year term
Trustee: 2-year term

Those registered Democrats interested in being part of the candidate nominating process should attend the caucus on:

Sunday, January 25, 2009 @ 2 pm
125 Piermont Ave.
South Nyack, NY
(Riverside of Piermont Ave., 5 houses south of Cedar Hill)

There will also be a discussion period where individuals can ask questions and voice their concerns on Village matters.

Local officials will speak out against the MTA’s proposed June increase in fares for trains, tolls, buses and subways on Friday morning at the Metro-North station in Pearl River.

Rockland legislators including Sen. Thomas Morahan, Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffee,  Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski and officials from Orange County to draw the public’s attention to the possible 29 percent commuter fare increase. Tarrytown commuters would see a 27 percent increase in monthly passes, from $221 to $281.

More information on the February 2 public hearings in West Nyack is available at www.mta.info.

Source: Times-Record, MTA

Photo Credit: J Glibert, RailPictures.net

The Village of Nyack and the Nyack Parks Conservancy host a public meeting on Wednesday  January 21 at 6pm in the Nyack Center to discuss plans for Memorial Park.

The Nyack Parks Conservancy will present plans to rework the present site to make better use of the recreational space for both sports and leisure activities and better incorporate the Hudson into the park. The draft plan, created by renowned landscape architectural firm Quenell Rothschild, was created with input from a committee of public officials and volunteers over the past eight months along with public input from several meetings.

Initial plans include adding a bridge between the existing park and the Nyack marina (Village property officially declared park land) to permit parking and park access from the North.   Additional ideas include reworking the existing locations for the gazebo, the basketball court and the baseball fields and adding an option of a seasonal skating rink to the park area. Kayak/canoe rentals and a concession area in the park will also be under consideration.

The Nyack Center is located on South Broadway at 59 Depew Avenue in Nyack.

Nyack News and Views has dedicated a page for the park planning, and post documents starting tomorrow.

Photo Credit: Nyack Daily Snapshot

The need to be part of todays remarkable events in some way brought me to the little barn on Mill Street in Nyack late this afternoon. The old stable slowly, but issistently, being converted to an exhibit celebrating  the 19th century Underground Railroad seemed like an appropiate place to be on this day in America. Call it history, call it symmetry, call it a miracle. The notion somehow astounds that as I stood there today, on the very ground  where Black men and women once sought temporary refuge on their flight from slavery, one of their African brothers was becoming the President of the United States. I took the opportunity, on this very special innaugaration day to work for a while on the placement of the descriptive sign explaining the Underground Railroad  to future visitors. Maybe it wasn’t much, but for today it was History in the making, for tomorrows, history in the telling.  Photo attached

Happy Martin Luther King Day! Nyack is a pro-Obama town and between MLK day and the inauguration, there will be plenty to do this week.  It is time to celebrate being an American.

Riverspace has a two day celebration starting today at 10am.  To follow Obama’s call to action today, you can give blood at Riverspace during its blood drive and health fair.  At noon in the theater you can see “The man and the Dream”.

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