In recent years, Council meetings have gotten much tamer, but this past Tuesday, some of the fire was back. At the end of the meeting, Alderman Cappy Pierro (Fifth Ward) took it upon himself to scold Alderman David Marston (First Ward) for some unknown (to the audience) affront, saying that "someone who had been on the Council for all of eight weeks" should read the code book before criticizing the actions of others--namely him. Although Pierro chose to rebuke Marston in public, Marston's offense occurred in private--in an email sent only to Council members. For the benefit of a puzzled public, Council President Don Moore explained what Pierro was talking about.
It seems that at the last meeting of the Council's Economic Development Committee, the Ferry Street bridge was discussed, and the suggestion was made that, since the bridge provided principal access to the waterfront and CSX was doing a less than commendable job of repairing and maintaining it, the City should undertake to build a new bridge. Pierro took it upon himself to contact Colarusso to find out how much a new bridge might cost, and Marston, in an email, suggested that it would be a good idea to get a second opinion about the cost from another contractor. Pierro apparently took Marston's suggestion to be a veiled accusation that he was engaging in some kind of backroom dealing with Colarusso and took umbrage. Marston explained that he thought a second opinion would give a better sense of an "industry average" for the project and provide the City with a more accurate figure to use in thinking about possible ways to fund a new bridge.
Why should taxpayers pay to fix a bridge that is supposed to me maintained by CSX? After all, shouldn't we get something back for letting their trains belch diesel fumes and hold up traffic in our town? A better approach might be to park a bulldozer on the tracks and tell them to fix the bridge. Then they can pay a lawyer and go to court to move the bulldozer, or fix it. I wonder how much the time city officials have wasted and/or how much has been paid to lawyers just to get them to replace a few rotten boards? The whole deck and walkway is rotted out and needs to be replaced. I don't even like walking over it, let alone drive a car.
ReplyDeleteColarusso and Crawford are on speed dial.
ReplyDeleteMarston's approach is obviously the right one, though it seems unlikely he will not last too long when unwilling to pad pockets of Hudson's good ole boys.
ReplyDeleteSounds like Cappy doth protest too much. He was very obviously engaging w/ some backroom dealing with Colarusso rather than putting this job out for public bidding OR discussing a penalty for CSX until the bridge is repaired. Cudos to Adlerman Marston for speaking up. It doesn't matter if you've been in city government 8 weeks or 80 years. You are elected to take care of the community, not special business interests.
ReplyDeleteManda: Make no mistake. There was no question here about circumventing a bidding process. That's not what was happening at all. The purpose was to get an idea of what a new bridge would cost so the City would have some idea of whether or not it was a project the City could reasonably pursue with grants or whatever. The problem was that Pierro behaved as though Marston had accused him of trying to circumvent a proper bidding process when he was only suggesting that a second opinion might validate or amend the first one.
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