"Riparian Land Grab"

Joe Gallo, apparent spokesman for the North Dock Tin Boat Association, a.k.a. the Furgary Boat Club, has another letter to the editor in today's Register-Star: "Historical use." In the letter, Gallo describes the Furgary as "Hudson’s only 100 percent member supported club that promotes fishing, fowling and navigation by maintaining Hudson’s only fisherman’s wharf and small craft port" and accuses Mayor Rick Scalera of waging an "illegal land war with the North Dock Navigators." Gallo's claim that the Furgarians are not squatters but "stewards" of "public use lands" might have more credibility if access to those public lands did not seem in practice to be limited to the handful of families who have for generations maintained fishing and hunting shacks on those "public use lands."