Meetings of Interest in the Week Ahead

The holidays are over, and the new year has begun. This being the first full week of 2020, here are the meetings taking place this week.

• On Tuesday, January 7, the Conservation Advisory Council meets at 6:00 p.m. at City Hall. A possible tree ordinance, the formation of a Tree Board, and Hudson's participation in the Climate Smart Communities program are all expected to be topics of discussion. 
• On Wednesday, January 8, the Hudson Housing Authority Board of Commissioners meets at 6:00 p.m. in the Community Room at Bliss Towers, 41 North Second Street.
• On Thursday, January 9, the Board of the Hudson Community Development and Planning Agency is scheduled to meet at 2:00 p.m. at 1 North Front Street. Because the board of HCDPA is made up entirely of members who serve ex officio--the mayor, the Common Council majority and minority leaders, the Planning Board chair, and the Hudson Housing Authority board chair--this meeting may not take place, given that, at least to Gossips' knowledge, the majority and minority leaders of the Council haven't been determined yet and a new Planning Board chair has not yet been appointed.  
• In the evening on Thursday, January 9, the Planning Board was supposed to hold a special meeting to continue the controversial "work session" with A. Colarusso & Sons begun on December 10. That meeting, Gossips learned today, has been canceled, and no new meeting has been scheduled.   

The cancellation of the special Planning Board meeting leaves everyone free to attend the Local History Speaker lecture at the Hudson Area Library. The lecture by Dr. David Voorhees is called Colonial New York Censuses: The Several Places Where the Inhabitants Were Dwelling. Voorhees will talk about when, how, and why population surveys were conducted in the colonial New Netherland and New York, with a specific focus on Claverack Landing, the name for what is now Hudson, before the arrival of the Proprietors. Voorhees' lecture begins at 6:00 p.m. in the Community Room at the library, 51 North Fifth Street. A question-and-answer period and refreshments will follow the talk.   

The lecture is a prelude to an exhibition at the library called History of the Census in Hudson, which opens on February 6. The exhibition will examine federal censuses, which have taken place since 1790, the New York State censuses, which began in 1825, colonial censuses, which occurred before the American Revolution, and the upcoming 2020 census. The exhibition will include historic information and artifacts specific to the City of Hudson.

• On Friday, January 10, the Historic Preservation Commission holds the first of its two monthly meetings. The meeting takes place at 10:00 a.m. at City Hall. There's a typo in the listing for this meeting on the city calendar. Preservation is spelled Perservation. I mention it not to be snarky, but because it strikes me as a perfect portmanteau to describe the work of this body--a combination of perseverance and preservation.    

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