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Bridget Starr Taylor
SHARON — Connecticut’s Office of Health Services (OHS) has denied Sharon Hospital’s appeal of its final decision mandating that the hospital maintain its Labor and Delivery Unit.
OHS released a Final Decision on the question of Sharon Hospital’s application for a Certificate of Need (CON) to terminate labor and delivery services at the hospital.
In response, Sharon Hospital filed a petition requesting to appeal the final decision Feb. 20. The petition reiterated arguments that the Hospital, owned by Nuvance Health, had made in its appeal of OHS’s Proposed Final Decision Oct. 18, 2023.
In response to the hospital’s petition, OHS released a two-sentence letter signed by Deirdre Gifford, OHS’s executive director, Monday, March 11.
The second sentence reads, “Having reviewed and given due consideration to the Applicant’s submission, the Petition for Reconsideration is hereby DENIED.”
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Sean T. McMann/Dutchess County Government
RED HOOK — Dutchess County Executive Susan Serino delivered her first State of the County address — and slide show — in the darkened auditorium of Red Hook’s High School last Thursday, March 14.
Introduction
Before Serino herself took the stage, Red Hook High School student Nora Callaghan-Jurgens sang “I Have Confidence,” which she had recently performed in the school musical, a teen-friendly “Chicago.”
Attendees were asked to stand to hear Desiree King sing the national anthem and to pledge allegiance to the flag and the republic for which it stands.
Attendees were asked to remain standing for the prayer, delivered by Apostolic Bishop Debra E. Gause of Holy Light Pentecostal Church, Poughkeepsie. After inviting the Heavenly Father to be the “esteemed honored guest” at the event, Gause prayed that God grant Susan Serino “divine wisdom.”
“Father caused this county of Dutchess to be the leading county of this region,” she said. “Help each of us to do our fair share and find ways to embrace our differences.”
Affordability and youth opportunity
Serino’s address consisted of some 7,000 words spoken over 40 minutes — “Probably longer than I’ve ever spoken,” noted the executive as she closed in on the final sections.
With a paean to cross-aisle cooperation and community outreach, Serino directed her words at what she described as the county’s “affordability crisis,” which she noted has only gotten worse since the pandemic:
“I have to tell you, I talked to so many seniors who are living on this income, a less than $20,000 a year. Just wrap your head around that. It’s those seniors and so many other individuals who are struggling to make ends meet. It’s them I’m thinking about every time I’m faced with a decision in the county,” she said.
“You know, when I think about our children and our grandchildren, my goal is to make Dutchess County a place where they want and can afford to live, not one that they want to leave.”
While the affordablity crisis cropped up throughout the speech, it was only directly addressed by one initiative: the launching of the Dutchess County Food Security Council in partnership with Dutchess Outreach and the United Way of the Dutchess-Orange Region. Serino said, of developing children’s opportunities:
“We need to focus on issues outside of the classroom, and at the most basic level. Our children need to be free from hunger to be successful.” Dutchess County pantries have reported a record number of “individuals seeking resources,” she said.
The Council will work by “bringing the right people to the table to provide guidance to policymakers on how best to address hunger,” she said.
Her administration will also be focusing on getting young people to work, through training programs in the trades and by partnering with Wappingers Central School District on a “Career in the Skilled Trades” job fair.
Serino recalled talking with county youth “about careers like plumbing and welding — and wow, just seeing their eyes light up about the possibilities and opportunities that come with a career like that,” she said.
She also asked, “How do we empower our workforce to help parents?”
Mental and behavioral health
In her various roles, Serino, who lost her brother to suicide, has consistently concerned herself with mental health.
In Poughkeepsie, her administration is dividing the Dutchess County Department of Behavioral and Community Health into two: a community health department to be run by current DBCH Commissioner Dr. Livia Santiago-Rosado, and a separate Mental Health department to be led by Jean-Marie Niebuhr.
Serino announced the county’s support for two treatment centers — the Dutchess County Stabilization Center in Poughkeepsie, a partnership with People USA, which just became the first licensed Supportive Stabilization Center in New York State, and the Empowerment Center, also in Poughkeepsie — and for the Oxford House group, a line of sober houses.
Serino also emphasized her administration’s reliance on law enforcement to deal with mental health and drug-related homelessness as well as the county’s addiction crisis.
The slide illustrating law enforcement pictured a couple small bags of pale powder, a couple guns, and a Drug Task Force Police patch that featured a hooded Grim Reaper.
EMS crisis
Another heavily emphasized topic of the address was the county’s EMS crisis.
“Our team has made it a top priority to create a plan to help solve this crisis, and we’ve developed a multi-pronged approach to tackle this issue and are getting started on the first step now,” she said. “We’re currently looking for interested agencies who can help fill the points of service by offering supplemental coverage.”
She also emphasized recruitment: “We also need to empower a shrinking workforce and think creatively to recruit and retain talent,” she said.
Seniors and conclusion
Fittingly, her discussion of senior living was one of the final segments.
Serino remarked at one point that “by being mindful of the obstacles our neighbors are facing and addressing them head on with practical and common-sense solutions.”
One of her preferred practical solutions is job fairs and job training pipelines — to address EMS shortages, opportunities for young people, mental health issues and increasing accessibility for people with disabilities.
Another preferred solution is volunteer peer-to-peer support programs — for trauma responders, for veterans (Vet2Vet) and, for seniors, the Friendly Calls from within the Office for the Aging (OFA).
She also announced a new grant that will expand ride services offered in partnership with OFA.
“I’ve heard from countless seniors about how difficult it can be when they no longer drive, specifically when it comes to finding rides to medical appointments.”
She went on to announce that her administration “will be working with partners to find additional ways for seniors to enter the workforce again. I want to do with seniors a trade event,” she said. “Isn’t that great?”
She concluded her address, “Our community truly is a great place to live and work, and by working together, I know we can do so much more.”
The full text and video of the speech can be found on the county website: www.dutchessny.gov
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Rizzoli
In 1979, interior decorator Bunny Williams and her husband, antiques dealer John Rosselli, had a fateful meeting with a poorly cared for — in Williams’s words, “unspoiled” — 18th-century white clapboard home.
“I am not sure if I believe in destiny, but I do know that after years of looking for a house, my palms began to perspire when I turned onto a tree-lined driveway in a small New England village,” Williams wrote in her 2005 book, “An Affair with a House.” The Federal manor high on a hill, along with several later additions that included a converted carriage shed and an 1840-built barn, were constructed on what had been the homestead property of Falls Village’s Brewster family, descendants of Mayflower passenger William Brewster, an English Separatist and Protestant leader in Plymouth Colony.
Williams has written extensively about the renovation of the Falls Village home where she and Rosselli still reside, but in a new book published Tuesday, March 5, from Rizzoli, Williams takes readers to the great, green outdoors. “Life in the Garden,” featuring principal photography by Annie Schlechter and additional photography by James Gillispie, combines matte and glossy paper, color and black and white imagery, as well as essays, seasonal maintenance steps and plant guides to chaperone readers through spring, summer, fall and winter on the Falls Village land. It’s an intimate tour of the gardening efforts that dwell beyond the white border fence on Point of Rocks Road.
“Life in the Garden,” however, is a slightly deceptive misnomer, for there is not one but many unique gardens to discover on Williams’s property, each with their own character.
Rizzoli
For the lovers of planting composition as a form of botanical embroidery, outside of the conservatory is the parterre garden, a formal garden that takes its name from the French for “on the ground.” This style came into English fashion in the 17th century after Claude Mollet, “premier jardinier” for the kings, first introduced the design for French royal gardens at Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Fontainebleau. In Williams’s parterre, a pergola covered by the growth of a vigorous William Baffin climbing rose that produces deep strawberry pink semi-double cluster blooms overlooks a rippling sea of blush and berry petals belonging to tall, late-blooming tulips framed in neat patterned squares of boxwood hedges.
Offering appeal for the more rustic and adventurous, hidden beyond the trees is a secret garden found by following a dirt path trail where woodland peonies and Japanese wood poppies will lead you to a cast iron bench overlooking a small pond graced by the extending white flowering branches of dogwood trees.
There are many more spots to discover, each a little world of its own, whether it’s the clucks emanating from the lively chicken coup, the twisting branches of the apple trees, the columns of arborvitae, the Guy Wolff handcrafted clay pottery or the greenhouse where Williams inhales “the delicious scents of jasmine and citrus.”
For the book, Williams and Rizzoli publisher Charles Miers have thrown out strict organization — Claude Mollet be damned — in favor of surprising juxtapositions that place candid family portraits next to quiet snapshots of life on the New England land: a lone limestone chicken sculpture blanketed in snow; a table springing to life with floral arrangements set for guests; a congregation of old watering cans. Per Williams, this anti-organization of photos is for readers to get lost in as they discover contemplation, inspiration and a new visual experience each time the book is opened with fresh eyes.
Whether Bunny Williams’s many Falls Village gardens are set in stone or will continue to evolve, destined to be updated in a future volume, is not for us to know. But if there’s any hint, Williams has included a quote from the late Gertrude Jekyll, the famed British horticulturist and garden designer closely tied to the Arts and Crafts decorative movement of the late 19th century. Perhaps best known for her designs for Munstead Wood, a Grade 1 house in Surrey, Jekyll, an author herself and Country Life columnist, wrote: “In garden arrangement, as in all other kinds of decorative work, one has not only to acquire a knowledge of what to do but also to gain some wisdom in perceiving what it is well to let alone.”
Rizzoli
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Jennifer Almquist
On Saturday, March 9, the people of Norfolk, Connecticut, enjoyed a dance performance by northern Connecticut-based Garet&Co, in Battell Chapel, titled INTERIOR, consisting of four pieces: “Forgive Her, Hera,” “Something We Share,” “bodieshatewomen,” and “I kinda wish the apocalypse would just happen already.”
At the sold-out show in the round, the dancers, whose strength, grace and athleticism filled the hall with startling passion, wove their movements within the intimate space to the rhythms of contemporary music. Wierdsma choreographed each piece and curated the music. The track she created for “Something We Share” eerily contained vintage soundtracks from life guidance recordings for the perfect woman of the ‘50s. The effect, with three dancers in satin slips posing before imaginary mirrors, was feminist in its message and left the viewer full of vicarious angst.
Following their performance, Wierdsma and her dancers sat on the dance floor and answered many questions from audience members, regarding subjects such as how long they have been dancing. The six young women have each been dancing for more than 18 years, a lifetime of sweat and discipline, perfecting their craft.
Website: garetwierdsma.com
INTERVIEW:
Jennifer Almquist: What first inspired you to become a dancer?
Garet Wierdsma: I was put into dance when I was 2 years old, in a baby ballet class. My mom was a dancer, my aunt was a dancer. I had the option of choosing between many sports, yet I gravitated to dance because it was quieter. I was very quiet as a child. Dancing gave me a place where I could just be and express myself quietly.
I wasn’t aggressive when I was a kid, but I have become more competitive as I’ve gotten older. I was also lucky enough to have cousins around my age that also danced. Whenever we got together, we made up shows and forced our families to sit and watch us. Those shows were fun, and creating our own thing, then presenting it, planted the seed that made me want to continue and be a choreographer when I got older.
JA: Was there a teacher who inspired you?
GW: I had teachers that I loved. Being a dancer can be difficult. I remember that when I was 7, I was disappointed by not being asked to be in a certain group. When I was 11, in response to losing a part I felt I deserved, I went on a journey to prove them wrong. I switched to a different studio and really connected with my new teacher. I owe a lot of my passion for dance to her. She recognized my quiet personality, my determination. She recognized that I wanted to be as good as I possibly could, even if I wasn’t loud about it.
Her name was Brenda Barna of The Dancing Slipper in Southwick, Massachusetts. Her passion for dance and her passion for movement resonated with me and lit a fire for what I was doing. It wasn’t all about the tricks or skills. She was a person that loved to move and loves music.
JA: Did she help you develop your body physically in a healthy way, build your muscle, your ability to handle what dancers must endure?
GW: So much goes into that training. For me to get to the level I achieved I had to train at that studio as well as at my high school and a ballet school elsewhere. I was also doing intensives all summer long and master classes any weekend that I could. Plus, I was training myself at home by clearing out our living room.
We didn’t have a living room for probably seven years because it was my dance studio. With dance you are also training your brain. You must sit and think about things or discuss things. As a teacher now, I stop class and try to help my students understand the concept, which takes a lot longer. It’s a huge time commitment. It means you must be taking even more time to be able to build up the strength to do it.
JA: Physical strength is essential. How do you sustain that?
GW: Dance is very physical. I think it’s just about that base training, like making sure that you have all the training to back up what you’re doing. I personally don’t take class as much as I used to. I’m not in class every day, but because I was in class every day for six hours a day for more than over 10 years, I have the foundation now to be like, ‘OK, I remember those muscles and I can do it.’
JA: Does that help you know how much you can ask of your dancers?
GW: Exactly! It is important because your dancers look to you for that — how do you know your own body, too. Dancers are really in tune with knowing their limitations or where they can push.
Garet WierdsmaJennifer Almquist
JA: Tell us about creating your dance company, Garet&Co. Are social media, the use of AI [artificial intelligence], and photography or film tools for your business now?
GW: I started my company based on a film. During the downtime of COVID I realized I really love choreography. I’m grateful they had a lot of choreographic opportunities at NYU. I was supposed to create a solo for a show at school, then suddenly we’re all shut down. I decided to make it a film instead and had a fun experience doing that. I submitted the film to a festival; it was accepted.
When I graduated from NYU in 2021, I had been teaching whenever I was back home. I grabbed three of the students I had taught at one of my workshops during the winter — ‘Hey, do you want to make a dance film with me in my backyard?’ We made the film, which I submitted to a few festivals, where we won a couple of awards. Then I accompanied my film to live dance festivals with the intention of saying, ‘Here’s my film but I want to make it a live piece.’ That is how the company started. At festivals I kept being asked what company I was with, and I answered Garet Wierdsma. I finally said that is our name: Garet&Co.
JA: How do you find your original dancers?
GW: I found my dancers a couple of different ways. I asked some of my students to join me. Then the stars lined up when a colleague took a gap year while I wanted to do festivals. She was the first adult professional that joined my company. I put notices for dancers on Facebook and Instagram — ‘Hey I’m looking for dancers. Email me your dance reel and your resume.’ I got some great dancers from that, two of whom are performing in this show tonight. Garet&Co is in our third season, and I held my first audition this year.
JA: What is next for Garet&Co?
GW: We will be continuing to share the joy and catharsis of contemporary dance through offering lots of classes and performances throughout the Northeast this spring and summer, culminating with our Season Four audition in August.
Our upcoming events:
March 24: “Something We Share” at Spark Theatre Festival in New York City
April 7: Garet&Co Contemporary Community Workshop
April 11: Garet&Co Open Company Classes (classes open to all)
April 28: “bodieshatewomen” at Central Connecticut State University
May 4: “bodieshatewomen” at Artistic Dance Festival in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts
Read the full interview on www.lakevillejournal.com
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