- Today, Monday, September 30, at 3:00 p.m., the Board of Estimate and Apportionment (BEA), made up of the mayor, the Council president, and the city treasurer, begins the ordeal known as the budget workshops. The practice of making these workshops open to the public was initiated last year. Today, the BEA considers the budget for the Police Department. People interested in observing how the decisions are made that affect our city property taxes are encouraged to attend, although the real excitement may not happen until the BEA gets around to considering the budget for the Youth Department. The budget workshops take place in the Council Chamber at City Hall.
- Also today, Monday, September 30, at 6:00 p.m., the architectural firm of Lacey Thaler Reilly Wilson will present their completed feasibility study of the potential adaptive reuse of the John L. Edwards school building as a "civic center" for Hudson. The presentation takes place in the Community Room at the Hudson Area Library, 51 North Fifth Street.
- On Tuesday, October 1, the Conservation Advisory Council meets at 6:00 p.m. in City Hall. At the September CAC meeting, after a heated discussion of the natural resources inventory (NRI) and how the information therein might be published and used (during which Timothy O'Connor declared the NRI to be "crap" and pledged to "devote all of my resources to fighting this document"), trees were the major topic of discussion: applying for an urban forestry grant, adopting a tree ordinance, establishing a tree board, becoming a Tree City USA. Trees are likely to be a topic of discussion at the October meeting as well.
- On Wednesday, October 2, the BEA (Board of Estimate and Apportionment) holds another workshop at City Hall. This time, the subject is the budget of the Department of Public Works. The budget workshop begins at 3:00 p.m.
- Also on Wednesday, October 2, the Common Council Youth, Education, Seniors and Recreation Committee meets at 5:30 p.m. and the Housing and Transportation Committee meets at 6:45 p.m. Both meetings take place in City Hall.
- Just beyond our borders . . . on Wednesday, October 2, the Livingston Planning Board meets at 7:00 p.m. to continue its deliberation about granting a special use permit for the construction of a mega gas station and convenience store at the Bells Pond intersection of Routes 9, 9H, 23, and 82. It is anticipated that the Planning Board will make its decision at this meeting, which takes place at Livingston Town Hall, 119 County Route 19.
- On Thursday, October 3, there is a special meeting of the Common Council Economic Development Committee at 6:00 p.m. The purpose of this meeting is to hear presentations from WMR Services LLC and SunCommon about options for sustainable energy they might provide as alternatives to the community solar plan being offered by East Light Partners.
- On Friday, October 4, the BEA (Board of Estimate and Apportionment) takes up the budgets of the city clerk's office and the code enforcement office in a workshop that begins at 1:00 p.m. in the Council Chamber at City Hall.
As for the CAC, trees are a much happier subject - in large part thanks to the group's newest member - than any of their uneducated speculations about future sea level rise (SLR) in Hudson.
ReplyDeleteBy omitting the half-as-high worst-case predictions of SLR by the UN's IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and by wholly embracing the self-interested radicalism of the state's Hudson River Estuary Program, the unscientific CAC members "concluded that it's essential to consider worst-case scenarios and not minimize potential risk." Not the IPCC's worst-case scenario mind you, but the governor's.
That last quotation is the entire rationale for excluding the IPCC's hundreds of scientists and thousands of peer-reviewed papers from the CAC's rickety the Natural Resource Inventory (NRI). Notwithstanding the air of importance to a "conclusion" (it's apparent the CAC members have no knowledge on this subject), their words are a rationalization for outright propaganda.
Granted, the NRI was completed without the help of the CAC's absconding consultants who stole about $16K from the city (didn't hear about that one, did ya?). At least when the former CAC Chair presented the finished document to the Common Council in May he acknowledged its deficiencies which happen to be numerous. (The paper would merit a "D" in any halfway decent high school, its presentation viewable at the video address below.)
The rehearsed explanation is that the NRI is a living document which can be updated at any time, but that's ludicrous and the speakers must know it. Where will the money come from to affect changes and edits, and why change something that's already so effective at raising alarms? Where the NRI's self-important "conclusions" misappropriate the actual research being cited, who cares as long as it can shape local policy?
Well I care, and perhaps others will care who detest manipulation and hypocrisy.
Can it be any surprise then that the NRI, not even six months old, is now being touted as sound science ready to advance some resident's interests at the expense of others?
The Common Council should not consider any new legislation based on any portion of the current substandard NRI, though that's precisely what the CAC will pursue next.
https://gossipsofrivertown.blogspot.com/2019/05/watch-for-yourselves.html