Tuesday, July 9, 2019

Tonight's Big Event

Gossips has been following the Planning Board review of Colarusso's pursuit of a conditional use permit for its operations in Hudson since March, but although the folks from Colarusso and their supporters usually filled half the seats in Council Chamber at City Hall for Planning Board meetings, the others there to observe the process have been few. That's likely to change tonight.

Yesterday and today, Facebook has been alive with notices about tonight's public hearing, both from opponents and proponents of Colarusso. Tonight, we're likely to see at the Central Fire Station a repeat of the turnout for the "special informational meeting" about the haul road held at Columbia-Greene Community College by the Greenport Planning Board back in April 2017.

The number of attendees may necessitate moving tonight's public hearing from the meeting room at the fire station to the giant truck bay, as happened back in February 2013, when the Common Council Legal Committee, in the aftermath of the shooting of children and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, was contemplating banning guns from city buildings and city parks.

Yesterday, in preparation for tonight's public hearing, a new post appeared on The Valley Alliance website: "The Waterfront Should Benefit Everyone . . . Not Just a Single Corporation." It is recommended reading for all who care about Hudson and its waterfront.

Photo: The Valley Alliance

The public hearing begins at 6:00 p.m. at the Central Fire Station, 77 North Seventh Street.
COPYRIGHT 2019 CAROLE OSTERINK

2 comments:

  1. According to the City Clerk, this evening's hearing was only posted at the City website yesterday, at 3:19 PM.

    According to the Open Meetings Law at §104, "Public notice of the time and place of a meeting scheduled at least one week prior thereto shall be given or electronically transmitted to the news media and shall be conspicuously posted in one or more designated public locations at least seventy-two hours before such meeting."

    The hearing was not posted at all, conspicuously or otherwise, "in one or more designated public locations" within 72 hours as required by law. Nor was any description provided to indicate the hearing's legal context.

    If a notice ever appeared in The Register-Star, that's something the Planning Board Chairman must answer and not the Clerk.

    Why the persistent unlawfulness? There's something very wrong with this Planning Board.

    https://www.dos.ny.gov/coog/openmeetlaw.html#s104

    ReplyDelete