HUDSON—Advocates gathered in the sunshine outside Mexican Radio on Warren Street last Thursday, April 4, lending vocal support to the Women’s Equality Agenda (WEA). Governor Cuomo announced the agenda during his State of the State address. It’s a 10-point plan with the goal of reducing discrimination against women in the workplace and in housing, improving women’s safety and wellbeing and ensuring equal treatment under the law.

Speakers from Columbia County acknowledged the great strides women have made in the last 40 years; in New York State, however, women still earn only 84% of what men earn, according to the WEA. Lee Jamison of Stuyvesant noted that in the generation as recent as her grandmother’s, women could not vote. Not until she was in her 20s was Jamison’s grandmother “granted” the right to vote.

VALATIE--Newly elected Mayor Diane Argyle presided over her first village meeting at the Martin H. Glynn School building Tuesday, April 9. At the annual organization meeting, the new mayor’s first act was to fill a vacancy on the Board of Trustees created when Jennifer Kolb resigned March 30. Outgoing mayor Gray Strevell had appointed Lisa Hill to fill the vacancy, but by law, the new mayor can appoint someone else to the seat.

Mayor Argyle received three applications for the position and selected Angelo Nero as trustee. Mr. Nero, who also serves as a county coroner, was sworn in by Village Clerk Melissa Martino-Morin saying that he wanted to help during this transition. He added that the new Village Board has “a lot of work to do.” Mr. Nero was serving on the village Planning Board, but has resigned that post.