Town receives AAA traffic safety award Refugee families relocating to region

The town of New Paltz has been awarded the AAA Northeast’s Community Traffic Safety Awards Program’s silver award.

New Paltz police were cited for its many traffic safety efforts, including holding car seat checks, active participation in safety programs such as Stop-DWI and Buckle Up New York, and for a fiveyear reduction in pedestrian injuries.

All award winners in the New York metropolitan area were honored at a luncheon ceremony Oct. 13 at The Carltun in East Meadow at which 43 awards were presented.

AAA has long recognized communities that make outstanding efforts to make the region’s roads safer for motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians, according to a press release.

AAA Northeast is a notfor-profit auto club with 62 offices in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.

More than a dozen refugee families from war-torn areas of the globe will be coming to live in the Hudson Valley as part of an effort to address the worst refugee crisis since World War II.

The Mid-Hudson Refugee Solidarity Alliance will announce details of the new refugee resettlement program – the first of its kind in the Hudson Valley - at a special meeting on Nov. 6 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on the second floor of the Students’ Building at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie.

The Hudson Valley’s first refugee families most of whom are anticipated to have fled Afghanistan and Iraq - are expected to arrive in early 2017. Since last April, the alliance has been working with the refugee resettlement agency, Church World Services.

The alliance is comprised of Vassar College, SUNY New Paltz, Dutchess Community College, Mount Saint Mary College, and Bard College.