What He Said

Yesterday, Victor Mendolia interviewed Common Council president Don Moore on his WGXC radio show @ Issue. In addition to the news that the Galvan Foundation has offered to supplement the funding for the senior center, which Gossips reported yesterday, here are some more highlights from the interview.

Fracking Fracture  Moore's comment about the opposition vote to the fracking ban: "If people needed more information, that should have been made clear instead of killing the bill." He later commented, "I try not to deal with people's motivations." He stated his intention to have an "informed discussion of the effect of the law" and to reintroduce it at the informal meeting of the Common Council in February.

Gossips Note: The word is that the defection of three aldermen and possibly a fourth from the majority caucus, in reaction to the opposition to the proposed anti-fracking law, was the subject of a heated discussion at the Hudson City Democratic Committee meeting on Tuesday night. According to the reports Gossips has received, the most fiery exchanges were between Bill Hughes, Fourth Ward supervisor, who was defending the actions of the aldermen from the Second and Fourth wards (one of whom, of course, is his sister), and Moore.

Weighted Vote The numbers are due from Rutgers professor Lee Papayanopolous at the end of next week. Responding to insinuated allegations that he was deliberately holding up the process, Moore shared the information that Papayanopolous's computer "had to go through one million iterations to get the right balance for Hudson." According to Moore, the draft bill is ready and "only needs to have the blanks filled in." Moore confirmed that the new weighted vote is subject, as it was in 2004, to permissive referendum.      

New Home for the Police and Court Moore indicated that the City is "definitely pursuing a new space that would provide shared space for the police and court," although he would not reveal what that space was. He also indicated that the goal is to acquire and adapt a new space for "under $2 million."

Senior Center After sharing the information that the Galvan Foundation has offered to help with the senior center, Moore made the point that there were "a great many ifs," mentioning that the City has been "late in meeting deadlines" associated with the original Community Development Block Grant awarded for the project.

City Hall Break-In Moore echoed Mayor William Hallenbeck's interest in finding out who broke into City Hall and bringing the person or persons responsible to justice. In Moore's words, "It is not good for the soul of the city to have City Hall broken into and the crime to go unsolved."

Residency and Elected Office When asked to comment about an unnamed alderman who is rumored no longer to live in Hudson and allegedly is now using the relative's address for his voter registration, Moore said, "I trust that as of the end of this particular session [of the Common Council], we will be back with eleven members who live in Hudson."

The entire interview can now be heard online.