News About the Auction

At the last Common Council meeting, Ed Cross brought up the auction of foreclosed properties that took place on November 4 when he rebuked the Council for allowing the City to seize 241 Columbia Street, the church building he rented, for nonpayment of property taxes and evict his congregation. The auction had also been a topic of discussion earlier in the evening during the Common Council Finance Committee meeting. The following is reproduced from the agenda for that meeting. According to the chart, the bid on 618 State Street was refused. 

After the auction, Gossips reported that the winning bid of $140,000 for 618 State Street had been cast by Jack Connor, who was bidding on behalf of Hudson Collective Realty LLC, yet another Galvan entity. Colin Stair, who had also bid on the house, challenged the legitimacy of Connor's bid because employees of the City of Hudson are prohibited from bidding in foreclosure auctions, and Connor is a city judge. Connor maintained that, as a judge, he was not paid by the City of Hudson and hence was not a City employee, and he was bidding on behalf of someone else. 

At the time, Carl Whitbeck, who was conducting the auction for the City, told Stair that the Common Council would have to decide whether or not the bid conformed to the rules governing the auction. The notation "TBD" (to be determined) on the chart distributed at the Finance Committee meeting suggests that the Common Council in the new year will have to decide what happens with the house.

As a point of information, Galvan already owns the building next door to 618 State Street, the original Hudson Orphan Asylum at 620 State Street; 

the building immediately behind 618 State Street; 

and the building behind 620 State Street, the old garage that was once Canape Motors.

The house at 618 State Street is the missing piece in this square of properties at the corner of State and Seventh streets.

In 2012, Galvan, in collaboration with the Mental Health Association, proposed converting the old orphanage and the old Canape garage into a transitional housing facility with twenty-four studio apartments to be called "Galvan Quarters."

Galvan Quarters never happened, but two years later Galvan was back before the Planning Board with a plan to create ten studio apartments in the old orphanage and to transform the old garage into "a multi-purpose building for educational and community service use." That plan never materialized either, but one wonders what might be in store if Galvan were to own all the buildings on that half block of State Street.
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