Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Rumors Confirmed

There have been rumors abroad that Holcim may be selling its property in Hudson and Greenport. These rumors seem to be confirmed in an email sent on January 30, 2013, by city attorney Cheryl Roberts to Holcim attorney Donald Stever. This email, which was part of the "stack of printouts of private email" that The Valley Alliance received in response to its FOIL request, is quoted in full on The Valley Alliance website

On the topic of the land transfer, Roberts writes: 
The City is prepared and will move forward with eminent domain proceedings at its February meeting unless your client is prepared to move forward with this transaction. The City may also be prepared to meet with the private entity to whom Holcim is selling the property and Holcim if such a meeting would be of assistance.
Is selling--that sounds pretty definite. Of course, so does will move forward, and we know that never happened. Still, shall we speculate about which private entity is buying the port and the quarry?

5 comments:

  1. My guess is that before the City and Holcim sign an agreement on the controversial waterfront plot, there will be announcement that all or most of Holcim's land holdings will be sold to the Colarusso / Koskey group known as Lone Star Partners. This will mean that the City of Hudson got played for fools, and spent an enormous amount of time and taxpayer dollars on trying to make a deal for 10 useless and inaccessible acres that might be polluted. I'm reaching out to Hollywood producers in the hope that I can make a good buck selling the narrative of this saga. It would make a gripping sitcom, and is better than fiction-- you can't make this shit up.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Between the LWRP game, Hudson being held hostage by Holcim, and The Galvan/Scalera Empire of the Industry of Poverty, you have a three part scenario movie of warning how The Little City That Could was bought and sold behind closed doors - while the citizens played at creating a viable community went ignored.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Please forgive my ignorance but am I correct that there are only two choices concerning the Holcim waterfront ?
    Sign the 50 year agreement or we (the city) start the eminent domain proceeding.
    Are these are only choices ? I think not !

    ReplyDelete
  4. whoops :
    Are these our only two choices ?

    ReplyDelete
  5. windle, as Gizmo says "you can't make this shit up." On the other hand someone IS making it up and the story's not over yet.

    Aside from the unlikely but still-unexplored variations to the city/Holcim deal, a third party could end up owning the land but not be allowed to do very much with it.

    The regulatory criteria for Significant Coastal Fish and Wildlife Habitats (of which the South Bay is one) apply to areas inside and even well outside the technical boundaries of the SCFWH.

    The SCFWH "impairment tests" must be taken into account whenever anyone weighs the meaning of any of the choices before us (choices that are anyway decided by an attorney who lives in Austerlitz).

    ReplyDelete