Meetings and Events in the Week Ahead

We're still two weeks away from the autumnal equinox, but it's starting to feel as if summer is over. The lineup of meetings and events this week corroborates that.

• On Monday, September 9, the Common Council Economic Development Committee meets at 6:00 p.m. at City Hall. One topic on the agenda will be the utility purchase agreement with East Light Partners' community solar project. A resolution authorizing the mayor to enter into agreement came before the Council on August 20, but it was tabled on a motion by Alderman John Rosenthal (Fourth Ward), who explained that he wanted to do "more research into a similar product."
• Also on Monday, September 9, the Common Council holds its informal meeting at 7:00 p.m. at City Hall. So far, there appears to be nothing on the agenda for that meeting, but that no doubt will change.
• On Tuesday, September 10, there is a full day of meetings. At 1:00 p.m., the Industrial Development Agency (IDA) meets at 1 North Front Street. No information is available about what might happen at that meeting.
• At 2:30 p.m on Tuesday, September 10, the DRI Committee meets at City Hall. It is expected that at this meeting it will be revealed which three firms, of the nine firms responding to the RFP for the "connectivity project," made the cut and will be invited to make presentations to the committee on September 24. Also at the meeting, representatives from the State Historic Preservation Office will be present to talk about two of the DRI projects: "the Shacks" and the Dunn warehouse. Site visits are expected to be part of this conversation.

Update: Gossips has been advised that no one from SHPO (State Office of Historic Preservation) will be present at the DRI Committee meeting on Tuesday. The site visits to "the Shacks" and the Dunn warehouse are expected to happen anyway.

• At 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 10, the Planning Board continues its public hearing on Colarusso's applications for two conditional use permits. Once again, the meeting takes place at what was once City Hall but is now Hudson Hall, 327 Warren Street. It will be interesting to see how the Planning Board decides to proceed now that the mayor has expressed his determination to settle, once and for all, the question of ownership of the 4.4 waterfront acres adjacent to the Colarusso dock, which it is alleged were illegally transferred by the City to St. Lawrence Cement in 1981.

• On Wednesday, September 11, the Hudson Housing Authority Board of Commissioners meets at 6:00 p.m. in the Community Room at Bliss Towers, 41 North Second Street. It is anticipated that at this meeting the public will learn about HHA's new plan to create more income-based housing in Hudson. 
• On Thursday, September 12, the board of HCDPA (Hudson Development and Planning Agency) meets at 2:00 p.m. at 1 North Front Street. 

Update: The HCDPA meeting has been canceled.    

• At 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 12, Travis M. Bowman, senior curator at the New York State Bureau of Historic Sites, will present a lecture entitled "Slavery and Dutch-Palatine Farmers: How did middle class farmers on Colonial New York interact with slavery?" The talk, which is part of the Jacob Leisler Institute lecture series, is an opportunity to learn how slave labor led to the prosperity of many families in the Hudson and Mohawk valleys and also may eventually have influenced the abolition movement. The lecture takes place in the Community Room at the library, 51 North Fifth Street.

• On Friday, September 13, the Historic Preservation Commission holds the first of its two monthly meetings at 10:00 a.m. in City Hall.

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