There's been no word about Colarusso since September 23, which was the last time the Planning Board considered the Colarusso applications. At that meeting, it was expected that the Planning Board would make a positive or negative declaration in the SEQRA (State Environmental Quality Review Act) process, but instead the board went into attorney/client session, from which the public was barred, "for the advice of counsel." The counsel providing the advice was assistant city attorney Victoria Polidoro. When the public was readmitted, more than an hour later, Planning Board chair Stephen Steim announced that the Planning Board was not ready to take further action.
Colarusso was not on the agenda for the regularly scheduled Planning Board meeting in October. Although for months the Planning Board had been holding special meetings to consider the Colarusso issue, no special meeting for that purpose was scheduled in October.
On October 8, when city attorney Cheryl Roberts presented the budget for legal services to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, she requested $100,000 be allocated in the budget for possible ligation, but the nature of that litigation was discussed in executive session. On October 20, the BEA reduced the amount budgeted for litigation to $50,000, because, in the words of Council president Tom DePietro, "The last time we had that kind of litigation, it was $50,000." (It will be remembered that A. Colarusso and Sons sued the City of Hudson in September 2017.)
On October 19, the Common Council meeting began with an executive session that lasted forty minutes to discuss "a matter of personnel." Roberts was part of that discussion, but since it happened in executive session, no one outside of the city government knows what was discussed.
Now Gossips has learned that the mayor has called special meetings with the Common Council and the Planning Board to take place tomorrow, Thursday, October 28. Word is that attorney/client privilege is being invoked to allow these meetings to happen without public notice or public access. Given the hints dropped along the way, it's tempting to surmise that the potential litigation and the executive and attorney/client sessions have to do with Colarusso and its desire to continue using the dock and to widen and extend its haul road.
In May 2020, Alderman Shershah Mizan (Third Ward) said he wanted the Common Council to pressure the Planning Board to approve the haul road. Jeff Baker, counsel to the Council, who was at the time also counsel to the Planning Board, offered the opinion that the Council "has a right to let the Planning Board know know they are feeling." Council president Tom DePietro, who had once chaired the Planning Board, then opined, "It would have no authority with them."
Is it possible now, with a perceived threat of another lawsuit brought against the City by Colarusso, that the Council and the Planning Board are being advised to avoid litigation and acquiesce? If so, is it appropriate that Cheryl Roberts, our city attorney, should be the one delivering that message?
Commenting on a Gossips post about Jeff Baker's resignation as assistant city attorney and counsel to the Council, published on October 19, "unheimlich" revealed a possible conflict of interest for Roberts when it comes to Colarusso: It was in May that a press release for the Greenburger Center's Wellness Hub announced a parcel "soon to be donated" by A. Colarusso and Son in Greenport. Cheryl Roberts, Executive Director of the Greenburger Center, should have recused herself at once, especially as the gift was still pending.
Come to think of it, is the donation still "soon to be"? Why didn't she recuse herself from any involvement with the Colarusso application ages ago?
Given this situation, one may well wonder if Roberts is the right person to be advising the Common Council and the Planning Board about matters relating to A. Colarusso and Sons.
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