Three people were taken to area hospitals after a fire in Hillcrest yesterday. That’s according to TheYeshivaWorld.com. The website says the fire occurred at 46 West Hickory Street. No word on the cause of the blaze or the victims’ injuries. The Red Cross was reportedly asked to help about a dozen residents who were displaced by the fire. Rampo Supervisor Michael Specht on Twitter said the town’s Building Inspector said the house appeared to be used as a rooming house, and has a history of similar uses, though it only had a Certificate of Occupancy for a single family dwelling. Specht says the home owner is being issued a summons to appear in court for the alleged violation.
Library Budgets Passed in Nyack and Valley Cottage
Residents of Nyack and Valley Cottage love their books! The budgets for the Nyack and Valley Cottage libraries were both approved by voters yesterday. Nyack’s passed 151 to 27 against, while Valley Cottage passed by a vote of 90 to 31. Official results still need to be verified by the Nyack School District Clerk.
STAC Students Build Weather Station to Raise Awareness About Weather Changes and the Environment
Students in the St. Thomas Aquinas College XLAB built their own outdoor weather station last semester that’s providing regional weather data to the STAC community and local weather services. STAC History professor Dr. Robert Ingoglia says students from many different non-science and non-weather-related educational backgrounds contributed to the “Weather Over STAC” project…
Senior biology and economics student Declan Pattermann worked on the project, helping build the weather station and set up the software to run it…
The students also created a web page and social media presence to display this data and raise awareness about weather changes and environmental stewardship. You can find more information about Weather Over STAC by visiting www.stac.edu/weather and the real-time weather report can be accessed at www.stac.edu/WOS.
Rockland Opens New Office Of Buildings and Codes to Start Covering Spring Valley Violations
Rockland County’s new Office of Buildings and Codes is now open for business, but they’ll spend the next month focusing just on existing cases in the Village of Spring Valley. They won’t be accepting any new permit applications for the next 30 days. 20 inspectors will first have to take care of a backlog of about 800 buildings that have yet to be inspected for years. The state-authorized move comes in response to the fatal fire last year at the Evergreen Adult Home in which Spring Valley firefighter Jared Lloyd and a resident were both killed. At a press conference yesterday announcing the opening of the main office in Pomona, Rockland County Executive Ed Day said financial repercussions for lawbreakers will be steep, but the goal is not to penalize people, but to make their buildings and homes safe for all…
Day was referring to a note that’s been circulating around Spring Valley discouraging residents from letting inspectors do their jobs. Two former Spring Valley building department employees and four others have been charged in connection with the Evergreen blaze. Heading up the new department is former Suffern mayor and NYPD Officer Ed Markunas, who said the office will have a zero-tolerance policy towards those who break the law…
Rockland County Attorney Thomas Humbach said cases against law-breakers could end up being prosecuted in local courts…
The new office is headquartered at the county’s health complex in Pomona at Building “A”, but a satellite office will be opening in Spring Valley in the near future. Day didn’t give an estimate as to how long the process to fix Spring Valley’s department might take.
Rockland COVID Deaths Hold Steady, Hospitalizations and Cases Both Down
The number of COVID deaths in Rockland remained steady while hospitalizations and total cases are both down, based on yesterday’s update by the county health department. We’ve got 1,135 fatalities due to COVID, 24 hospitalized with coronavirus, that’s down 11, and the total number of active cases is at 1,151, down 25.