Marching Along

COPYDOGS. Columbia County Chamber of Commerce honchos are planning a promotion that emulates Catskill’s brilliant Cat ‘n Around show last summer. Only their figures of choice, for sidewalk sculptures, will be dogs. Meanwhile, Catskill’s feline replay for this summer has had a strong start, with 62 sponsorships, ranging upward in cost from $500, eventuating from the designs that were exhibited at BRIK gallery. The newly created cats will populate Main Street and kindred pathways starting on Memorial Day, with the big auction scheduled for September 21^st. Some of the fiberglass felines for this year are dubbed Cat'n Hook, Botanicat, Phil the Philatelic Cat, Cole’s View, Caddy Cat and Copurrnicus.

CLOSED, as of last week, following a Republican Party function: LaRosa’s Market and Café, on Brando’s Alley in Catskill. The place is now available for rent at $1500 per month, says proprietor Michael DeBenedictus, and “we’ve already had quite a few inquiries.”

GONE from the upper floor of the original Greene County Courthouse (now the office of lawyer and historian Ted Hilscher, corner of Franklin and Bridge Streets, Catskill, is Krisna Creque Dodig’s Dance Fit International. The web site www.catskilldancefit.com is moribund.

GONE from 355 Main St, at great loss to chocolate addicts (and to fans of tall slender women): Catskill + Co. Business there was far from slow, but proprietor Jean (“Bean”) Andzulis, as the mother of 5, was over-stretched. Building owner Andrea Lowenthal (671-6200) aims to find a new tenant who “will be a good neighbor and a good addition to Main Street.” The place is totally ready to be a restaurant.

OPENING soon in Catskill: a pet food store and an Italian delicatessen, on West Bridge Street, along with the gift shop that replaces the former Beginners Mind gallery, on Main Street.

AUTHORIZED recently to operate around GreeneLand as limited liability corporations are firms bearing the names Greene Scorpion Group (Cairo), Builders of Yehudah (Oak Hill), Ninis (Leeds), Crackerjack Classics and Worldwide Galleries (Tannersville), North Country Associates (Coxsackie), Urban Country (Maplecrest), Trenchcoat Productions, and Bare Fete (!) and Traveling Fete (Climax).

CHALLENGED by a neighbor or two in Cairo, most recently at a Planning Board hearing last Wednesday: Tom Roe’s plans to build a study center on his Wave Farm property, for use as main studio for what he and friends hope will be a new, low-power community radio station. In other respects the 103.9FM project is progressing.

CITED recently for deficiencies, twice, by the State Health Department, according to June Maxam of the muck-raking North Country Gazette is Catskill’s branch of the Eden Park nursing homes company. The Gazette report of February 28th. (See http://northcountrygazette.org , then search for Eden Park) is peculiarly cryptic, with no follow-up on the initial statement about the citations. Additional information may be accessible through http://nursinghomes.nyhealth.gov but navigation through that site is awkward.

MAULED lately by our local Congressperson, as well as by our local news grubbers: the English language. “If you believe in openness and transparency, if you believe that elections should not be the exclusive domain of multi-millionaires with ties to party leadership,” says Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand in a Feb. 25 solicitation letter, “then please make a $35, $85, or even $150 today.” As for the Press: “A Serb nationalist wearing a traditional cap provocates a U.S. solider serving in KFOR….” “…the surveillance camera have allegedly captured pictures….” “O’Connorhas requested a movement of the system from one side of the street to the other side where less interference with existing structure will take place as well as an increase in effectiveness.” “Environmental damage on the properties include old tires, oil tanks, and the state Department of Environmental Conservation has ordered the cleanup of a New Baltimore plot of land.” “The cost of the lease will be $100,000 per year, according to Frank, which will be funded primarily through bonds.” “He also noted that he had experienced the use of a Taser, in which he holds certification, in a suicide attempt by a Cairo resident and that the use of the device resulted in the saving of that individual who, said Sprague. ‘To this day, when he sees me, thanks me for saving his life’.”

SLATED for Sunday, at Beattie-Powers Place, from 2pm: Wei Zhou playing piano works of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Prokofiev. Ms Wei collected top prizes in China and in Europe on her way to the Bard Conservatory of Music.