Thursday, January 24, 2019

For Sale on Warren Street

This morning at 11:30, the City issued the invitation to bid on 427 Warren Street. 

The minimum bid is $300,000; bids will be accepted until 3:00 p.m. on Monday, March 4, 2019; and bids must include a statement of how the bidder intends to use the building. Click here for the complete bid package.
COPYRIGHT 2019 CAROLE OSTERINK

4 comments:

  1. This bid package is an amazing document. It reminds me of weeklong Monopoloy games my friends and I played as kids -- or wish we had played with these rules. The all-powerful BEA reminds me of the Wizard of Oz, speaking from behind a curtain. (Try to find the names of the Board of Apportionment.) Without saying exactly what it's looking for, "The BEA of the City of Hudson reserves the right to reject any and all bids."If the City insists on playing real estate baron, could it at least be a bit transparent about what it has got in mind for this property and what it's going to cost the taxpayers to oversee this odd auction process?

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    1. The makeup of the BEA is no secret. It's the mayor, the treasurer, and the Common Council president--always has been. What the City has in mind for the property is no secret either. It's all reported here: https://gossipsofrivertown.blogspot.com/2019/01/selling-427-warren-street.html.

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  2. Thanks, Carole. But my standard for transparent government is "easy to find" and these names were not easy to find. In fact, I spent a good five minutes roaming around the Hudson City website (in the Google era that's an eternity) looking for said names and didn't find them. But thank you for you having reported it. But now knowing who is on the BEA (thank you very much) doesn't change my belief that this is a Wizard of Oz group. No offense, dear office-holders, but you have no experience in real estate, which only supports my belief that this deal is just a game of Monopoly for our town fathers and mothers. I urge you to take this seriously and treat the taxpayers with some respect. This property is probably worth a million bucks on the open market; the City should pocket the money and use it for a good cause instaed of playing Monopoly. Yes your eearlier report gave the names of the BEA, but it gives no information about what the City is looking for for that property and why they might reject a bid out of hand. This is tinpot democracy and the winners of this auction will no doubt be those who have an inside track on the minds of the BEA! (That's pretty scary!). Why not just turn the building over to a consortium of nonprofits and entrepreneurs and let the real public have a chance to participate in the public purpose for a change.

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    1. It's called "representative democracy." You don't like it, change the NYS Constitution and the Hudson City Charter.

      Your "solution" to the "problem" of electing your neighbors to do the people's business is to turn over valuable public property to an unelected mass of various constituencies (not-for-profits among them I assume because you believe for some reason that they operate in the public interest -- see, e.g., the Galvan Foundation, et al.) This, of course, is no solution as it begs the question of what your cabal's various factions have in mind. I think I'll stick with the type of government we have rather than your neoTrumpian populism.

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