Who pays the most in property taxes?

WASHINGTON — Town of Washington residents asked at the comprehensive plan visioning meeting about taxes. In fact, based on an analysis by The Millerton News, town residents on average pay lower tax rates than in surrounding Dutchess County towns. But that doesn’t mean that town of Washington residents have lower tax bills. The total estimated market value of Washington properties is high, four times that of Pine Plains, two-and-a-half times that of North East. As a result, Washington residents pay as much in county taxes as residents in Amenia, North East and Pine Plains combined. It’s the school taxes that matter the most. For a village of Millbrook resident school taxes would add another 11 percent or almost two-thirds of total property taxes. Town of Washington residents can be in one of three school districts, with Millbrook having the lowest rates and Dover the highest at 17.35 percent.Washington town assessor Jim Tyger explained that his office is continually analyzing sales price versus assessments in the town to assure that properties are valued fairly. Anyone can go to Town Hall and discuss their assessment with Tyger at anytime. It’s not necessary to wait for Grievance Day. From 2002 to 2007, market and assessment values rose quickly and then valuations were adjusted downward to reflect the slide in the real estate market. This year, Tyger expects a more typical adjustment of plus or minus 3 percent.

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South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

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Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

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Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

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Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

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