Will They or Won't They?

It is expected that the Common Council will vote tonight, at its regular meeting at 7 p.m., on two resolutions having to do with the acquisition and adaptive reuse of 701 Union Street, as the City's police and court building.

The first resolution authorizes the mayor to "execute any and all documents necessary to purchase" the property; the second resolution authorizes the issuance of serial bonds to pay for the purchase, renovation, and expansion of the building--not to exceed $2.53 million.

If the resolutions pass, the City will finally be on the way to solving a problem that has needed solving for twelve years. If the resolutions don't pass, the City is back to square one.

Moving forward with 701 Union Street seems the obvious and expedient thing to do, but at the informal Council meeting on Monday, October 7, Supervisor Bill Hughes (Fourth Ward), expressed a desire to "go back to building a new building." Since the only proposal put forward recently that involved building a new building was the Galvan Foundation's Civic Hudson scheme, which put the police department and the city court in the same building with 33 units of supportive housing and made the City Galvan's lessee, one wonders if that's the solution Hughes had in mind.
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