Wednesday, June 16, 2010

A Tale of Two Counties

Last week, the Register-Star reported that the Columbia County Board of Supervisors was planning to enter into a contract with CARE Inc. to complete a ten-year plan "on how to accommodate homeless and low-income populations in a more efficient way."

This morning, the Register-Star reported that Dutchess County has just released a ten-year plan to end homelessness, "focused on disturbing the status quo of homelessness for our poorest neighbors through innovative ideas and strategic solutions."

Am I missing something, or is the leadership of Columbia County setting the wrong goals?

5 comments:

  1. Hudson by it's actions is stuck in the 70's while other communities embrace new positive solutions .

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  2. This isn't Hudson--unless you're using "Hudson" (because it's the county seat) to mean county government, the way "Albany" is used to refer to state government.

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  3. Yes, I should have said Columbia County of which Hudson is the County Seat.

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  4. The entire problem with Hudson and Columbia County is the incestuous nature of the city and county governments, and the other quasi-governmental appendages. It would be a worth while venture to look at the members of the IDA Board; the membership of the CEDC; the Board of Directors of the Chamber; who works at HCDPA and HDC; who works for Mayor Ricky; and note who is related to, works for or with, and who socializes with each other. It is an incredibly shallow. . . puddle. The same group of primarily men who go back generations, whose families inter-marry, who use one another for professional references. Not a whit or a hint of a divergent opinion, let alone a new thought.

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  5. I think you're right, although relations (blood or otherwise) are not always spurious, there does seem to be an incredible degree of what I would vaguely term 'backwardness' amongst many agencies. Whether this is a product of nepotism, I'm don't know. There seems a hostility to 'ideas' in general. I think the demographic changes have only wrought a bunker mentality to protecting this backwardness, further exasperating the vacuum of sensible, intelligent, and contextual solutions to jobs, housing, land use, etc, in county gov't. I agree, I think producing some cognitive maps as a tool for articulating the relationships of capital and politics between the various "agencies", "boards", and "businesses" that make up the power structure of Columbia County could make real the anecdotal evidence of many.

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