More About Tuesday's Meeting: Part 4

Gossips has already covered the biggest stories from Tuesday night's Council meeting. Here are the remaining issues of interest.

Grant for HPD  The Common Council unanimously passed a resolution to accept a $10,000 donation from the Abatecola family foundation "to be used for the general purposes of the Hudson Police Department." Back in February, it seemed the money was to be earmarked for a K-9 unit. The resolution, however, clearly stipulates that the funds "shall not be used to fund a K-9 unit." When Alderman Rick Rector (First Ward) drew attention to the stipulation, police commissioner Gary Graziano explained, "I tabled the K-9 program."

So Long, Solar  At the end of May, Gossips discovered that the City had issued an RFP (request for proposal) for a solar project that would provide all the electricity used by the City in its various buildings and plants. (It has never been clear if electricity for the City's streetlights was part of this project.) The request for RFPs seemed to be inspired by Herbert Ortiz and his pitch to get the City to enter into a twenty-year contract with his company, Energy in the Bank.

On Tuesday night, Common Council president Don Moore announced that the RFP for a solar project that would provide "all the electricity for the City from a single vendor had proven to be too difficult" and the RFP had been withdrawn.

Police & Court Building The architect's cost analysis and proposed design modifications have been received and the value engineering has been completed. Now the Council must once again take up the issue of the proposed new police and court building at 701 Union Street. 

At Tuesday's meeting, Council president Don Moore announced that the mayor wanted a special meeting to assess the situation. Moore agrees but only if the Council is going to act on the project. So it seems there may be a special meeting, or the project may not be taken up until the Council's regular meeting in August. Either way, the City is a little behind schedule on the plan that was submitted to the Office of Court Administration on June 1. According to that plan, July 21 was the milestone for "completion of value engineering, discussions and modifications to existing plans and specifications, issuance of amended bond resolution, approval of modified plans and specifications, and issuance of bidding documents."
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