Here’s a look back, in chronological order, at major Mid-Hudson news stories of 2016.
January
1: Democrat Steve Noble is sworn in as Kingston’s new mayor in front of a standing-room-only crowd at City Hall.
6: Macy’s announces it will close its store at Hudson Valley Mall in the town of Ulster by the spring.
7: Newly elected Ulster County Legislature Chairman Ken Ronk tells fellow lawmakers that the “time is ripe” for the Legislature to come together as a body and “become the check and balance the taxpayers of Ulster County deserve.”
TIMELINE: An interactive recap of the year’s top local stories
8: Michael Denardo, 39, of Wallkill, the former chairman of the Wallkill Fire District board is sentenced to 2-1/3 to seven years in state prison for stealing nearly $240,000 from the district, according to according to state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.
11: Kingston Mayor Steve Noble announces the hiring of Lynsey Timbrouck, a former Kingston School basketball star, as his confidential secretary.
14: A fire in a small plaza at 900 Ulster Ave. in the town of Ulster damages three businesses, one of them seriously.
14: Ametek Rotron says it will shut down its Saugerties operation by midyear and move the work that’s done there to North Carolina.
18: Andrew Casey, 22, of Staten Island, is sent to the Columbia County Jail without bail, charged with manslaughter in connection with a drunken-driving crash in Clermont that killed a Red Hook man.
20: Kingston Mayor Steve Noble says Chris Rea, who was fired from the city fire department by former Mayor Shayne Gallo, will be rehired as assistant fire chief.
22: Ulster County Executive Michael Hein allows pay raises for the county’s 23 legislators to take effect, but he declines to sign the local law authorizing the salary hikes.
February
3: A judge orders Al Higley and his son, Michael, to pay $126,200 in fines to the town of Shandaken for illegally operating a farm stand on state Route 28 in the hamlet of Mount Tremper.
3: The Kingston Common Council restores the position of assistant fire chief to the city budget, paving the way for Chris Rea to be rehired.
9: In his eighth State of the County address, Ulster County Executive Michael Hein calls for a sea change in the way services are delivered to county residents, saying the current system is “unsustainable” and bound to collapse without a major overhaul.
10: An Ulster County grand jury clears Meredith McSpirit, 20, the driver in the August 2015 one-car crash in Saugerties that left four young men dead. District Attorney Holley Carnright says the grand jury found no evidence that McSpirit committed a crime.
11: Michael Lang, one of the organizers of the original 1969 Woodstock music festival and the two that followed, says talks are underway to stage a 50th anniversary concert in 2019 at one or more yet-to-be-determined locations.
15: Kingston Mayor Steve Noble halts, at least temporarily, the planned demolition of a vacant 19th-century house at 116 Wilbur Ave. in the wake of concerns raised by the local historic preservation community about the structure known as the Nathaniel Booth House.
25: The Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency says it has become difficult to budget revenue from the sale of single-stream recyclables because market factors are unpredictable.
26: Kingston High School is removed from the state Education Department list of schools “in need of improvement,” and school district officials say a rising graduation rate is the main reason.
26: The New Paltz Town Board creates two water districts to provide a backup water supply to the village of New Paltz when New York City takes its service periodically offline for repairs.
March
2: The Kingston Common Council unanimously adopts a resolution approving the “Kingston 2025” comprehensive plan.
3: Ulster County says a ban on the use of polystyrene containers will begin in May for the owners of independently owned restaurants and other food-service establishments in the county.
4: HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley is awarded $88.8 million in state aid to build a new emergency room and make other improvements at its Mary’s Avenue Campus in Kingston and turn the company’s nearby Broadway Campus into a “medical village.”
7: Chris Rea, suspended in early 2012 by then-Mayor Shayne Gallo, returns to work at Kingston’s Central Fire Station.
9: Hooley, a 4-year-old steer at the Forsyth Nature Center in Kingston, dies.
10: An 18-year-old Poughkeepsie High School senior and standout athlete dies about 17 hours after being shot on a city street. Police say he was not the intended target.
14: Off-duty city of Kingston Police Officer Nicholas P. Kozack, 36, of Stone Ridge, is charged with drunken driving after he flips his vehicle on Lucas Avenue in the town of Ulster.
21: The state Thruway Authority announces the bridge that carries Sawkill Road over the Thruway in the town of Ulster will close for more than seven months starting in early April due to a repair project.
22: By an 19-6 vote, Dutchess County legislators vote to spend $192 million to build a new 569-bed Justice and Transition Center to replace the existing county jail.
26: Jill Hamilton, 63, of Gardiner faces animal cruelty charges after five dogs are removed from her home on Dusinberre Road due to unsafe conditions, according to the Ulster County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
30: Westchester Medical Center Health Network formally takes over HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley, which operates the two hospitals in the city of Kingston.
April
5: Devin A. Gray, 22, a Port Ewen man serving time in the Attica Correctional Facility for a shooting in Kingston, is one of three people indicted by a Wyoming County grand jury for murder and conspiracy for the May 8, 2015, stabbing death of fellow inmate Rodney Calloway, 26.
6: Three days into its effort to reach a verdict, the Ulster County Court jury in the Nicholas Pascarella Jr. murder trial tells the judge it is deadlocked and wants to “cease deliberations.” Judge Donald A. Williams urges the jury to give deliberations another try. Pascarella is on trial for the December 2014 beating death of his father, Nicholas Sr.
6 : The Kingston Common Council approves transferring ownership of the 18th-century Nathaniel Booth House to an organization called Kingston Preservation Inc., which is expected to stabilize the crumbling vacant structure on Wilbur Avenue.
8: Ulster County Judge Donald A. Williams declares a mistrial in the Nicholas Pascarella Jr. murder case after the jury, in its fifth day of deliberations, declares an “absolute deadlock.”
8: Thomas D. Murray, 17, Angel J. Stokes, 16, and Shaquan E. Stokes, 18, all of 156 W. Bridge St. in Saugerties, are charged with felony gang assault and misdemeanor criminal mischief. Police say the three stabbed a 20-year-old man numerous times in the torso outside his home in the village.
12: Kingston Third Ward Alderman Brad Will resigns from the Common Council, citing the city ethics law that he was fined for violating.
12: Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks to a capacity crowd in the McCann Arena at Marist College in the town of Poughkeepsie. Nearly 3,500 people fill the arena, while more than 500 others are in an overflow gym and another 400 or so are outdoors.
17: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to a packed house at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center in the city of Poughkeepsie. He vows to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, defeat ISIS and make America great again.
19: The Catskill Mountain Railroad drops its lawsuit against Ulster County as part of an agreement that ends a longstanding legal battle between the two.
22: An Ulster County grand jury has clears the police officer involved in the October 2015 shooting of a man who had fired at police on state Route 32. (The man, John Tozzi, died four months after the shooting.)
25: More personnel are deployed to battle a spreading wildfire that has raced through Sam’s Point Preserve in southern Ulster County and consumed 800 acres.
25: Ulster County Executive Michael Hein and Kingston Mayor Steve Noble announce they have reached a “comprehensive sales tax revenue-sharing agreement that integrates shared-service initiatives” while ensuring revenue for the county, the city and Ulster County’s towns.
May
2: U.S. Rep. Chris Gibson, a Kinderhook Republican who previously announced his impending retirement from Congress, says he “will be leaving politics” and has accepted a position as a college lecturer in western Massachusetts. Many political observes had expected him to run for New York governor in 2018.
3: The Kingston Common Council approves a request to borrow an additional $575,000 to pay for construction and consultant services associated with the Washington Avenue sinkhole repair project.
4: An effort to keep the Catskill Mountain Railroad chugging past the end of the month is derailed when members of an Ulster County Legislature committee postpone action on a resolution to extend the lease between the county and scenic train operator.
9: Water in 17 buildings owned or leased by Ulster County tests positive for elevated levels of lead. As a result, Ulster County Health Commissioner Dr. Carol Smith issues an advisory that warns all county employees to avoid using tap water for drinking or cooking in the buildings where they work.
11: Ulster County Judge Donald A. Williams rules the bulk of statements murder suspect Gilberto Nunez made to police during a seven-hour interrogation cannot be used by the prosecution as evidence during the Kingston dentist’s upcoming trial for allegedly killing his lover’s husband, Thomas Kolman.
11: A retired Kingston police sergeant is awarded more than $2.5 million in damages for injuries she suffered when she slipped on urine on the police station floor after a drunken-driving suspect relieved himself there.
17: Ulster County lawmakers overwhelmingly approve a new sales tax revenue-sharing agreement that alters the payout of revenues shared by the county with the city of Kingston and towns within the county.
18: Onteora High School Damein Kovacs, 16, is killed and his 8-year-old sister is injured when the vehicle the teen is driving strikes a utility pole on state Route 28 in the town of Olive.
23: Jury selection begins in the murder trial of Gilberto Nunez, the Kingston dentist charged in the death of his lover’s husband more than four years earlier.
23: The section of Washington Avenue in Kingston that’s been closed for more than five years due to a sinkhole reopens to traffic after repair work is completed.
25: Defense attorney Gerald Shargel and Orange County Assistant District Attorney Maryellen Albanese deliver their opening statements to the Ulster County Court jury that will decide the fate of Gilberto Nunez, the Kingston dentist charged with murdering his lover’s husband.
26: Rameen L. Perry, 40, of Port Ewen, is found stabbed to death in a home on Malden Avenue in Saugerties. The suspect, Earl T. Edwards, 26, of Saugerties, is arrested several hours later on a train in Washington, D.C.
31: The woman who was having an affair with Kingston dentist Gilberto Nunez while married to the man Nunez is accused of killing spends most of the day on the witness stand in Nunez’s murder trial. Testifying for the prosecution in Ulster County Court, Linda Kolman testifies that throughout the affair, she repeatedly told Nunez she loved him but wasn’t going to leave her husband because he was her “best friend” and she loved her life.
31: Saugerties has its second homicide in less than a week when Amy L. Burger, 24, is fatally shot in an apartment on Randle Court. Her estranged boyfriend, Karon Bowden, 41, of Saugerties, is charged with murder.
June
1: A contract between Empire BlueCross BlueShield and HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley expire without a new deal being reached, meaning people covered by the medical insurance company can no longer receive certain services at HealthAlliance’s hospitals in Kingston.
6: In the murder trail of Gilberto Nunez, the Kingston dentist accused of killing his lover’s husband, Ulster County Court jurors see a videotaped police interview of Nunez in which he talks about his affair with Linda Kolman, his friendship with Thomas Kolman and his interactions with the two around the time of Thomas Kolman’s death.
7: The Onteora Board of Education votes 5-2 to retire Indians as the name for school district sports teams and replace it with Eagles.
8: At the Gilberto Nunez murder trial, Bruce Goldberger, president of the American Board of Forensic Toxicology, rejects acute midazolam poisoning as the cause of Thomas Kolman’s death in 2011.
13: Kingston Mayor Steve Noble says he wants stricter requirements for indoor shooting ranges to operate in Kingston.
14: Kingston dentist Dr. Gilberto Nunez is acquitted of second-degree murder in the November 2011 death of his lover’s husband, Thomas Kolman, though he’s convicted to two lesser charges.
20: Saugerties Police Chief Joseph Sinagra warns residents to use common sense if they encounter a large black bear that has been seen wandering on village streets and in nearby neighborhoods.
21: Train supporters and members of the group Save the Rails rally against Ulster County’s plan to take up the tracks on a portion of the former Ulster & Delaware rail corridor to make way for trail-only recreational uses.
27: The city of Kingston moves forward with the removal of tenants from a West Chestnut Street home that a judge ruled cannot not be used as a boarding house.
28: Minnewaska State Park and Route 44-55 near the park reopen after being shut down for several days due to a wildfire.
29:The West Chestnut Street building in Kingston that’s been ruled an illegal boarding house appears to be empty a day after the deadline for tenants to vacate the property, according to the city’s attorney.
July
5: Town of Woodstock Supervisor Jeremy Wilber cheers the state’s plan for swimming to be allowed at the Kenneth L. Wilson Campground on Wittenberg Road for the first time in a dozen years.
7: Katlin Wolfert demonstrated “depraved indifference” and “an utter disregard for the value of human life” when she failed to stop the severe abuse of her 2-year-old child that led to the boy’s August 2014 death at the hands of Wolfert’s boyfriend, a unanimous appeals court decision says. The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, Third Department, says in the decision that Ulster County Family Court was wrong in 2015 when it dismissed “severe abuse” allegations against Wolfert, whose son, Mason DeCosmo, was fatally beaten by Kenneth Stahli.
7: Court records show the company that owns Hudson Valley Mall in the town of Ulster has defaulted on a debt of nearly $50 million related to Ulster Avenue property.
9: The planned opening of the Kingston Food Exchange, a project that has drawn special attention in the city’s Uptown business district, is pushed back from October 2016 to May or June of 2017, a partner in the project says.
10: Kayla M. Pagan, 25, of Marlboro, is charged with criminally negligent homicide after her 10-month-old daughter drowns in a bathtub.
12: The Kingston Common Council approves stricter of two proposed amendments to a 1978 law that prohibits the discharge of firearms in the city. The 6-2 vote sets specific criteria and requirements for indoor shooting ranges to operate in Kingston, including where they can be located, essentially killing a proposal for an indoor shooting range on Prince Street in Midtown.
13: Contractors’ bids for the Greenkill Avenue bridge replacement project in Midtown Kingston come in significantly lower than expected. The city estimated the Midtown job would cost $3.5 million, but the highest bid is just under $2.8 million.
14: Kingston officials mourn the death of Raymond Hull III, 42, of Hurley, an employee of the city Parks and Recreation Department who died in a motorcycle accident the day before.
15: Ulster County District Attorney Holley Carnright says Karon Bowden has been indicted for second-degree murder in the May fatal shooting of his girlfriend, Amy L. Burger, in Saugerties.
19: The Kingston Planning Office says RUPCO, an affordable housing agency, will need to secure a zoning change in order to turn the former Alms House property on Flatbush Avenue into an apartment campus for the homeless and senior citizens.
20: A man robs the Rondout Savings Bank branch on Schwenk Drive in Kingston and flees on foot.
23: A woman whose daughter was found dead on Long Island five years ago as authorities investigated the slayings of several sex workers is killed in an Ellenville apartment, and a younger daughter of hers is charged with murder. The body of Mari Gilbert, 52, is found in Apartment 2 at 9 Warren St., and Sarra Elizabeth Gilbert, 27, a resident of that address, is arrested a short time later and charged with killing the older woman.
27: The Midtown Kingston building that was to be turned into a shooting range is listed as being for sale.
29: Kingston Mayor Steve Noble signs a new firearms law that restricts the allowed locations of shooting ranges in the city and sets requirements for their operation.
August
7: Smorgasburg Upstate has its grand opening at the former Hutton Brickyard in Kingston and is a hit with visitors to the new outdoor marketplace.
13: At a preliminary hearing in Ellenville Village Court, Sarra Gilbert pleads not guilty by reason of insanity in the July fatal stabbing of her mother, Marie.
15: The Artists Soapbox Derby draws a large crowd to lower Broadway in Kingston despite temperatures into the 90s.
17: Kingston Police Officer Nicholas P. Kozack pleads guilty to misdemeanor drunken driving in connection with a rollover automobile accident in March on Lucas Avenue in the town of Ulster.
20: A 15-year-old Kingston resident dies a day after being hit by CSX freight train in the city.
24: Fowl at the fair: The Dutchess County Fair opens its six-day run with the return of birds a year after the avian flu forced a ban.
27: Algae blooms in the Wallkill River prompt environmental groups to warn residents not to come into contact with the river from Rifton to Gardiner. .
28: Alison A. Carey, 55, sister of singer Mariah Carey, is arrested in Saugerties for prostitution.
29-30: A massive fire ravages a million-square-foot building at the Gap Inc. distribution warehouse in Fishkill.
September
12: Joseph Chenier, a Kingston resident who has worked for the city of Poughkeepsie for 15 years is appointed the new superintendent of public works for Kingston.
13: The Kingston Common Council approves a $1-per-month lease of a vacant city-owned lot on Broadway where the King’s Inn once stood, intended to be used for special events.
15: The parents of fallen Mount Marion Fire Department Capt. Jack Rose file a lawsuit alleging negligence on the part of the owner of the home where Rose succumbed while fighting a fire in December 2015.
16: Former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders comes to New Paltz to stump for Democratic congressional candidate Zephyr Teachout.
20: A 23-year-old Kingston woman, Ashlee C. Crescione, is seriously injured in a hit-and-run accident on Bruyn Avenue in the city and dies the next day. In February 2015, Crescione was struck by a CSX freight train as she walked next to the tracks just south of the Boice’s Lane crossing in the town of Ulster.
20: Amy McCardle-Rausenberger, 41, and Scott Rausenberger, 36, the Hyde Park school district athletic director and her husband, are charged with stealing a variety of items, including athletic equipment, from the district.
21: Sgt. Kerry Winters, a member of the Ulster County Sheriff’s Office dive team, dies in an in-water training exercise at the Ashokan Reservoir.
22: Milan resident Brandon Riccobono admits in Dutchess County Court that he ran over a 20-year-old Pleasant Valley man in what authorities said was a drug deal gone bad, pleading guilty to criminally negligent homicide in the July 6, 2015, death of Dylan Feller.
25: UnitedHealthcare announces it will hire 70 people to work as full-time customer service representatives, customer service advocates and claims representatives at the company’s office on Boices Lane Extension in the town of Ulster.
29: More than 1,000 law-enforcement personnel and other emergency responders line Route 9W in Saugerties to pay last respects to Ulster County Sheriff’s Sgt. Kerry Winters, who died during a Sept. 21 dive team exercise.
October
1: Thousands of diehard fans ignore ominous skies to heed the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival‘s clarion call to Cantine Field in Saugerties.
1: An overzealous employee hoping to do an exemplary job cleaning at Cheese Louise on state Route 28 in thee town of Kingston, winds up mixing bleach and another cleanser, accidently creating a toxic and potentially explosive stew.
3: Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, comes to John A. Coleman Catholic School in the town of Ulster to help rededicate its renovated chapel.
7: Khalil Waheed 24, of Kingston, is charged with manslaughter in the Sept. 20 hit-and-run accident that claimed the life of Kingston resident Ashlee Crescione, 23.
11: Months after his first trial ended with a hung jury, Nicholas Pascarella Jr. is convicted in Ulster County Court of second-degree murder for the December 2014 bludgeoning death of his father, Nicholas Sr.
13: Forty-six people are arrested in the Kingston and Poughkeepsie areas in a crackdown on Hudson Valley drug trafficking.
15: The film “Shepherds and Butchers” is the big winner at the Woodstock Film Festival’s Maverick Awards ceremony.
19: About 25 people gathered outside the Inquiring Minds bookstore in the village of Saugerties to protest an anti-Donald Trump sign in the store’s window that has the candidate’s name and the words “Make America hate again” superimposed over a swastika.
25: Kingston dentist Gilberto Nunez, acquitted earlier this year of murdering his lover’s husband, is convicted on all counts at his trial for insurance fraud and theft for stealing insurance money related to a fire at a Kingston building he owned.
26: The parents of fallen Mount Marion Fire Department Capt. Jack Rose, who died battling a blaze in late 2015, decide against suing the Centerville Fire District and the village of Saugerties, the family’s lawyer says.
28: Kingston civil rights activist Ismail Shabazz pleads guilty in Ulster County Court to one count of attempted criminal sale of a weapon to resolve a case in which he was accused of selling numerous illegal weapons to undercover federal agents.
November
7: Work begins to demolish the Greenkill Avenue bridge over Broadway in Midtown Kingston, clearing the way for a replacement project expected to take about a year.
8: In local elections, Republican John Faso defeats Democrat Zephyr Teachout in the race to fill the state’s open 19th Congressional District seat; state Sen. Sue Serino, a Republican, defeats former Democratic Sen. Terry Gipson in New York’s 41st Senate District; Democrat Sara McGinty is elected Ulster County Surrogate’s Court judge over Republican Peter Matera and third-party candidate Sharon Graff in a race that takes more than a month to decide; and Ulster County voters approve a proposal to move the county’s Family Court from the city of Kingston to the town of Ulster.
12: Anthony Miele, 30, of Newburgh, falls to his death at the Kaaterskill Falls in Haines Falls.
14: The city of Kingston declares a “drought warning” in response to its Cooper Lake reservoir dropping to 65 percent of capacity. The warning is a step up from the “drought alert” issued in mid-October.
14: Ulster County Executive Michael Hein announces the county’s environmental initiatives and achievements will be featured in the December 2016 issue of National Geographic magazine. A pull-out supplement, called “Dreaming Green” and including a full-color map, focuses on the county’s efforts to set a positive example of environmental stewardship.
15: The Kingston Zoning Board of Appeals rules the proposed Irish Cultural Center in the city’s Rondout district would be permitted to operate under the city’s zoning code, reaffirming a previous decision by the city’s zoning enforcement officer.
16: The new bridge carrying Sawkill Road over the Thruway in the town of Ulster opens after a seventh-month demolition and replacement project.
16: The Kingston Board of Education endorses a proposal for the Ulster Performing Arts Center to receive tax relief if it temporarily becomes a for-profit operation amid $4.7 million in proposed renovations. (The tax plan also needs, and secures, approval from the Kingston Common Council and Ulster County Legislature.)
17: Kingston dentist Gilberto Nunez, earlier acquitted of murdering his lover’s husband, is found guilty of perjury and other charges in connection with false statements he made on a pistol permit application.
20: Solane H. Verraine, 62, of Phoenicia is charged with second-degree murder after allegedly poisoning her husband, John W. Owings, with a combination of alcoholic beverages and prescription drugs.
22: Plattekill Police Chief Joseph Ryan is put on paid leave in the wake of being charged with three misdemeanors stemming from a “verbal altercation” in his Newburgh home with two children under the age of 17.
22: The Ulster County Legislature unanimously adopts a resolution extending medical insurance for 18 months for the family of Ulster County Corrections Sgt. Kerry Winters, who died during a dive team exercise in September.
23: The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, Third Department, rules evidence from a 1997 homicide that was used to convict Shawangunk resident Vincent Zeh of murdering his estranged wife should have been the subject of a suppression hearing before his trial. The ruling means such a hearing must be held in Ulster County Court.
24: Pauline Oliveros of Kingston, the internationally celebrated multi-instrumentalist, avant-garde composer and founder of the concept of “Deep Listening,” dies at 84.
29: Alan Blanchard, 55, of Gallatin is charged with felony assault and sent to the Columbia County Jail without bail after accidentally shooting a state Environmental Conservation Officer James Davey, 39, while hunting in woods off Silvernails Road in Gallatin.
December
1: The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, Third Department unanimously affirms the May 2015 conviction of Kaj-Erik Erikson, also known as Richard Lewis, on four counts of criminal sexual act and single felony counts of predatory sexual assault of a child and course of sexual conduct against a child. Erikson, formerly of Kingston, was convicted of sexually abusing three boys, ages 13 through 17, after befriending the boys and their families.
6: Two men from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. lead police on a chase from the town of Ulster to Uptown Kingston, at one point driving the wrong direction on the divided portion of U.S. Route 209. The suspects, Darryl Dixon Jr., 30, and Devada Hines, 29, are charged with numerous felonies, misdemeanors and traffic violations after being taken into custody near the Bank of America building at Washington and Hurley avenues in Uptown.
6: The Kingston Common Council adopts a $41.47 million budget for 2017. The budget slightly reduces property tax rates from their 2016 levels, while keeping the total property tax levy unchanged.
8: Former town of Ulster Police Chief Anthony Cruise dies at the age of 48 after battling cancer for more than a year.
8: The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, Third Judicial Department, upholds the city of Kingston’s position that a West Chestnut Street building cannot be used as a boarding house under the municipality’s zoning code.
11: Family members of the late Army Pfc. Douglas Cordo, state lawmakers and members of Rolling Thunder, a veterans support group, gather to dedicate a stretch of state Route 32 from the town of Ulster to Saugerties as the “Private First Class Douglas Cordo Memorial Highway.” Cordo was killed in Afghanistan more than five years ago.
12: Hudson Valley Mall in the town of Ulster, in receivership due to a debt default of nearly $50 million, appears likely to be sold to a Georgia company, the mall’s manager says.
13: A fire temporarily closes the Wells Fargo bank branch at 235 Fair St. in Uptown Kingston, across from the Ulster County Office Building. No one is injured in the blaze on the building’s second floor.
14: The Ulster County Industrial Development Agency approves tax breaks for planned renovations at the Ulster Performing Arts Center on Broadway in Midtown Kingston. The Industrial Development Agency also reduced the fee for UPAC to receive the breaks from $47,590 to $4,759.
15: The Catskill Mountain Railroad fails to have its equipment off the county-owned tracks in Shandaken by the deadline set in the railroad’s agreement with Ulster County.
16: Nicholas Pascarella Jr., the man convicted of murder for beating his father to death with a baseball bat, is sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison. Pascarella, a 41-year-old Clintondale resident, killed his father, Nicholas Sr., 67, outside the older man’s Marlborough home in late 2014.
23: Detrell Pittman, 37, of Kingston is killed when the pickup in which he was a passenger veers off Quaker Street in the town of Newburgh and strikes a tree. The driver, James Black, 29, also of Kingston, is injured in the crash and flown by helicopter to Westchester Medical Center.
28: The planned purchase price of Hudson Valley Mall in the town of Ulster is revealed to be $8.1 million, just 12 percent of the property’s assessed value.
