After the Snow

All meetings for tonight have been canceled, but tomorrow there is an event trifecta--three different events in three different places, all starting at 6 p.m. 

At City Hall, it's the regular meeting of the Planning Board. According to the agenda, now available on the City of Hudson website, the board will be considering three projects: a proposal to site a beauty salon on the first floor of 25 North Fifth Street, formerly the location of Discipline Park; a request from the ever evolving BackBar at 347 Warren Street to amend its hours of operation; and the initial site plan review for the Hudson Sloop Club's Evert Nack Center, to be constructed on City-owned land at the waterfront. A public hearing is expected to be held on each of these projects, so there will be an opportunity, at a later date, to learn more about them and to comment.  

At John L. Edwards Primary School, it's the final public meeting in the Downtown Revitalization Initiative planning process. This meeting is being described as "an Open House to learn more about the draft DRI plan," which makes it sound as though the public input part of the process may be over. Still, it's an important meeting to attend, to stay informed about what's being contemplated.

At the Hudson Area Library, it's "The History of the Black Community in Hudson," presented by the Local History Series and SBK Social Justice Center's Barbershop Talks. Longtime residents will be sharing their remembrances of the Hudson they grew up in and discussing what the city is like now.

Dan Udell, the ubiquitous video documenter of Hudson events, has made it known that he will be recording the event at the library, which may make the decision about where to be tomorrow night a bit easier for some. Still, the situation raises the question: Why couldn't this scheduling conflict have been avoided? The schedule for City meetings, like the Planning Board, is well established and the same from month to month, year to year. The Planning Board meets on the second Thursday of the month. Couldn't the DRI planners have avoided scheduling a meeting--particularly a meeting that expects public attendance and participation--in conflict with a City meeting? The DRI meeting schedule was been available since early November, when the Hudson DRI website was launched. Couldn't that have been taken in account when scheduling the Black History Month event so that people wouldn't have to choose between reminiscing about the past and being involved in the planning for the future?  

COPYRIGHT 2018 CAROLE OSTERINK