Yorktown and Cortlandt region

Medical staff at Hudson Valley Hospital Center and regional paramedics practiced their procedures on how to receive, treat and decontaminate patients who may have been involved in a radiation accident.
The event on Thursday, carried out in cooperation with Entergy, involved 50 people. The drill is carried out every year. Entergy runs the nuclear facility in Buchanan.

Dr. Ron Nutovitis, chair of Emergency Services at HVHC, (foreground) alerts the team that a patient contaminated with radiation is about to arrive. Suited up in protective gear are (from left to right) Derek Grisanti, PCT; Ginger King, RN and Entergy Radiation Protection technician Jerry Tully.

Monteverde At Oldstone Manor is for sale by bid by NAI Friedland Realty.  The restaurant and property was owned by Richard Friedberg, who put a ton of money into refurbishing the inn and its gardens. He also owned Allen & Delancey, the restaurant in the East Village, and had hired chef Neil Ferguson to head up both kitchens. (Neil quit to go to the SoHo House and is now a co-chef at Thyme in Yorktown Heights.) Both Allen & Delancey and Monteverde are closed after Friedberg filed for bankruptcy.

Robert Marchant/TJN

Here’s a link to the listing.

After the jump, a look at what the real estate agency says the property offers for potential buyers.

If you missed it, check out today’s TJN/lohud.com story on the town of Ossining contracting with Westchester County for police services.

The decision comes after months of deciding what to do with the town’s Police Department. Town officials had an option of going with the county or with the village of Ossining’s force.

The vote was considered historic since Ossining is the first Westchester municipality to utilize Westchester County police, full-time. All of the town’s police officers will become Westchester County cops. The town force has 15 members, most of whom will continue to cover the unincorporated area of  Ossining and work out of the town’s North State Road headquarters.

Ossining town Police Chief Mark Busche will become a captain. It is unclear at this point whether he will stay on in Ossining or be re-assigned elsewhere in the county.

On becoming a captain, Busche said: “If they would have asked me to retire I would have because I believe in the county’s policing ability for the town of Ossining.”

Read more about this story here.

At a time when many school districts are scrambling for talented, qualified principals and administrators, the Future School Leaders Academy at Putnam/Northern Westchester Board of Cooperative Education Services is turning them out by the dozen.

The two-year program, which leads to both a state certification as a school building and district leader and a master’s in education, kicked off its 12th year with a reception at P/NW BOCES campus in Yorktown Thursday night. The innovative program is co-sponsored by P/NW BOCES, the Bank Street School of Education and the school districts of Westchester, Putnam, Dutchess and Sullivan counties.

Since its inception in 1999, the program has graduated 121 aspiring leaders from 33 school districts, with 90 percent currently serving in leadership positions. Of those, the majority are serving as assistant principals or principals and deputy superintendents and in other central district roles, many remaining in their original districts.

Don’t be alarmed if you see HAZ-MAT teams at the Hudson Valley Hospital Center (HVHC) on Thursday. The hospital and Entergy, the company that runs the Indian Point nuclear facility in Buchanan, are planning to carry out a regular training exercise. The drill helps train hospital staff on how to receive, treat and decontaminate patients who may have been involved in a radiation accident. The hospital is the closest one to the plant and would be called on for medical assistance in the event of an emergency. The hospital administration notes that proper planning and training are useful to ensure smooth operation in dealing with real emergencies.

Fire and emergency medical personnel from around the region will also be taking part.

James Mackin, the principal of Hendrick Hudson High School, Montrose, has announced that six seniors scored in the top rank of the Preliminary SAT. The six semifinalists taking the test represent less than one percent of the United States’ high school population.
Pictured are: Jonathan Cohen, Miranda Kephardt, Jeffrey White, Ashley Augustine, Tara Kutzbach and Anna Walsh.

HART Fall Sked

Misconceptions, a new book by Doris Nieves of Yorktown is a conclusion to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

Nieves self-published it through Xlibris, though she was originally offered for it to be published through a publishing house a few years back when she was a physical therapy student at Mercy College. Due to her busy schedule she was unable to make requested changes, including to the novel’s voice and to make it sound more like old English.

Dejected by the requests, she put the book on the back burner until recently, when she found Xlibris, a  company that allowed her to publish her book without drastic changes.

She wrote the book for her sister Rosemary, an Austen fan. The book picks up where Austen left off and entails Mrs. Bennet marrying off her remaining daughters. The book is true to Austen’s original characters but introduces new characters to fit the love story.

A free excerpt is available at the book’s website, where copies can also be ordered. The book can also be ordered through major bookstores, as well as at Amazon.com. It is available in hard cover, paperback and e-book.

Brendan Tully, the Democratic candidate for state Assemblly in the 99th District, is proposing to close a loophole in state’s DWI law he says puts drunk drivers “back on the road with nothing more than a slap on the wrist and a few fines.”

Right now, Tully said, many drunk drivers are allowed to plea bargain down to a traffic infraction, such as rolling through a stop sign or parking on the pavement, keeping their licenses in the process. Tully is calling for barring such pleas where a driver’s blood alcohol content exceeds the legal limit of 0.08 percent and where the charge is driving while intoxicated.

“My plan will give New York some of the toughest DWI laws in the country,”  he said, “and more importantly, it will get drunk drivers off the streets and make our communities safer.”

He also calls for a lifetime “look back” period, “so drunk drivers don’t get a clean slate every five years as they do now,” and for a mandatory one-year license suspension for those convicted of DWI.

Tully and his Republican opponent, fellow Yorktowner Steve Katz, faced off in a debate in Mahopac Tuesday night. Contrasting his small business experience — he owns a Bronx veterinary practice — with Tully’s background as an attorney, Katz has unveiled a six-point plan for economic recovery.

Its tenets include transparency of government, pension reform for state legislators and term limits for legislative leaders.

“I have the experience of building a successful business from the ground up,” Katz said in a statement today. “If ever there was a time to tear Albany down and rebuild it again that time is now.  The sooner we start treating government as a business, the sooner it will start working for us.“

Former Southeast Town Justice James Borkowski is running for the seat on the Conservative line. The 99th District covers Yorktown, Somers and North Salem in Westchester County; Carmel, Southeast and Patterson in Putnam County; and Pawling in Dutchess County.

Although fall was definitely not in the air, members of the Yorktown Leo Club lent a helping hand at this weekend’s Fieldhome Fall Festival.

Temperatures reached the high 70s, but the Leos came out in full force. Almost 30 members made it out to the event early Saturday morning to help set up, and assure that the yearly event ran smoothly. They face-painted, helped children paint pumpkins, decorated Halloween cookies and made sure the youngsters stayed safe while enjoying themselves on various bouncy castles.

Delicious food was served by the fabulous Seabury Café chefs and music was by Johnny Jake and Bob Martinson entertained the festival-goers. Over a dozen vendors added to the festivities. Residents from both the Seabury and The Fieldhome also came out to share in the celebration.

The Leos brought along some friends to help out; Elmo, Spongebob, Winnie the Pooh and Leo the Lion made an appearance. The characters had their pictures with fans, shook hands and hugged admirers.