Now it seems nonessential meetings are starting to be held again. On Friday, May 8, the Historic Preservation Commission is having a Zoom meeting at 10:00 a.m., and next Tuesday, May 12, the Planning is holding a Zoom meeting. Gossips received this notice today from Planning Board chair Betsy Gramkow.
NOTICE OF PLANNING
BOARD MEETING
AND CONTINUATION OF PUBLIC HEARING
The May 12, 2020, meeting of the City of Hudson Planning Board will be broadcast live on Facebook at Hudson Zoom Meetings @HudOfficialCityMeetings, as well as being live streamed on WGXC 90.7. This meeting will begin with a continuation of the public hearing on the conditional use permit and site plan applications from A. Colarusso and Son Inc., for road improvements and commercial dock operations at 175 South Front Street, Tax ID #109.15-1-1. Members of the public wishing to provide comments during the public hearing will be able to notify the administrator on the Facebook page that they wish to make a comment by providing their name, email address and street address. The administrator will then admit that person into the Zoom meeting to present their comments to the Planning Board. The public and the Planning Board will be able to view the person making the comments. All comments will be limited to three (3) minutes. Members of the public are also encouraged to submit any comments in writing.
COPYRIGHT 2020 CAROLE OSTERINK
The Planning Board and HPC are doing the right thing making sure that meetings are able to go forward and City business continues to be conducted; ZBA should follow suit. Otherwise, when it is safe to open, our vital construction sector will be behind the eight ball.
ReplyDeleteThe Common Council, quite frankly, has lagged on the issue of accountability and the situation needs to be rectified immediately. It is the hallmark of transparent government and functioning democracy to make sure citizens are able to participate; the City has done the bare minimum required under the law to keep meetings open to the public. As examples:
1.- Streaming on the City website during meetings has been spotty at best, and WGXC has not posted audio archives of the CC meetings in a consistently timely manner;2.- Agendas have not been posted on the City website in a timely manner;3.- The special CC meeting to discuss the 7th St. Boondoggle proposed by the mayor instead pivoted to normal Common Council business, with no agendas or documents posted in advance for the public to review. (Note: Galvan did manage a $2.7M reduction in assessed value of its holdings in Hudson at this meeting, so at least it was thematically consistent with the stated agenda.)4.- The public cannot, as Gossips pointed out, participate in these meetings, instead emailing comments to the Common Council President, who may choose to share public comments, or not. This clearly diminishes the right of the citizen to query and challenge their elected representatives.5.- Common Council subcommittees haven't happened in any meaningful way since February. Our City is facing a severe budget crisis, residents have deep concerns, and City Hall has shown little interest in developing a plan to get us out of this crisis.
At the onset of this crisis, the benefit of the doubt went to those ostensibly scrambling to do their best in a new and challenging environment (even though it seemed obvious Hudson's leaders were taking marching orders from a City Attorney with no moral compass and little passion for accountability in government.) We're two months in-there are no acceptable excuses at this point. The City of Hudson, if it is to recover from this, needs to find a way to engage its residents in a meaningful way.
It is very clear that the Mayor, Aide to the Mayor, and the Common Council do not want residents to participate. Let's remember that some on the council clearly said before elected that they wanted all the restaurants and businesses on Warren to close. They have gotten what they wanted- and they clearly will do nothing to help small businesses re-open or to re-start the local economy. They don't want to include the public who might question them. It's shocking to listen in on their meetings. They all make Trump seem like a 'very stable genius.' We are all doomed in Hudson with this group of so called 'leaders.'
ReplyDeleteThe Council President has been consistent in one thing – surprise agendas since stepping into office. As a Council member, it was almost a game to sign into the city’s website 2 hours before the regular meeting to see what new agenda items appeared. Yet, we were, and they are, expected to vote on them that day. And this was all pre-pandemic.
ReplyDeleteIn our new pandemic world, you would think the government would fall over themselves to be more transparent, not less. As a business owner in today’s world – our staff are looking for open and honest communication. Being a leader is making sure that you have all the conversations, the good, the bad and the ugly. You don’t hide information in a time of a pandemic – you work harder at making it more easily accessible.
Every single small business owner in this country has had to adapt to this new world – our city government should not be any different.
The city decided to allocate tax dollars this year to hire someone to take minutes as the previous council decided minutes weren’t an important part of their job. Since they now have someone doing that part f their job - Agendas for ALL meetings should be posted PRIOR to each meeting (not the day of the meeting) – so that any city resident that wants to attend a meeting for a specific piece of city business, can do so.
The CC agenda should not double in size between the informal and regular meeting – there’s a reason the informal meeting occurs, to place items on the desk – if there is an emergency resolution, sure, but the city shouldn’t be dumping resolutions on the day of the regular meeting – it’s not only keeping residents from finding out about issues important to them, it’s making council members vote on things they haven’t seen before – is that in the best interest of the city and their constituents?
In a time of crisis, leaders in organizations are looked upon to provide hope, strategy and a future vision – unfortunately, the City of Hudson doesn’t have this benefit right now.