Yesterday morning, WAMC reported that the mayor of Albany, Kathy Sheehan, was encouraging Albany residents to call Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell to urge them to provide federal aid to state and local governments. Weeks earlier, Sheehan had written a letter to Trump requesting federal aid. Last evening, WAMC reported: "Leaders of Capital Region municipalities are preparing for the worst as the coronavirus shutdown devastates their budgets." This morning, WAMC reported that the City of Troy has adopted a resolution "urging the federal government to provide emergency financial aid to municipalities."
Here in Hudson, we have a budget that anticipated increases in revenues from sales tax, lodging tax, and parking fees--none of which will be realized. Our budget, too, might be considered "devastated." Given this, one wonders why the mayor and Common Council aren't writing letters and passing resolutions requesting federal aid to state and local governments. Perhaps they are, and we just don't know about it.
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yeah, seems like little has changed or any sense of urgency from City Hall. Will be interested to see what all departments are going to cut as per the mayor's call for each to offer cuts of 5 and 10 percent. We will be informed about this, won't we Kamal?
ReplyDeleteWe got what we voted for
DeleteThere appears to be a vacuum of leadership at the municipal level. Nothing to be heard from City Hall except its pet PILOT and proposals for toothless, non-binding resolutions.
ReplyDeleteIf we don't join in the regional effort to fill the financial hole, the we're in trouble.
ReplyDelete“We” are extremely worried. Can’t speak for anyone in the City government. Maybe if they allowed public comment at meetings or the opportunity to ask questions, we could better understand the plan, but at this point the citizens seem to be excluded by design.
ReplyDeleteThe mayor's solution to Hudson's financial problems is to build a huge public housing project that will pay hardly anything in payments in lieu of taxes whilst burdening the City with unfunded school fees and other expensive services for years to come.
ReplyDeleteIt is the all expense no revenue strategy of the "affordable" housing proponents.
Services are free-- Right ? and we dont want any of those nasty tourists ruining our plans around here spending money and paying sales taxes or staying in AIRBNBS.
We want to be the good ole nonsensical City like we used to be, a City in financial ruin.
The federal and state governments needs to provide more support to local governments. I agree with the council’s support of New York’s SB140 which would provide important housing support. But even if SB140 passes, the resolution is a small piece of what is necessary. The Mayor and I are actively speaking with state and federal representatives and calling on solutions.
ReplyDeleteI encourage everyone to reach out to your federal and state officials and share our most urgent needs.
You can read about my views on Federal and State Stimulus on my website https://chameid.es/supervisor/covid#federal-stimulus-support and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/mchameides/posts/10223125636953874 .
The City is facing deep financial cuts and budget shortfalls, and the mayor’s office tells us-“call someone else.”
DeleteMichael -- in the COVID crisis, where are all these additional "state and federal" funds going to come from ?
DeleteHudson is not going to be the only entity to be really really broke. The state has no idea how broke it is going to be, and neither does the federal government.
The misguided concept of shutting down the world to work and earning money is going to hit everyone very hard in about two months.
No jobs, and no income, and failing businesses and mortgage defaults are going to be the order of the day -- and the year.
Hudson was going in a good direction of providing jobs and taxes to the government. Now all of that is stopped.
Few people understand the consequences of this right now. It is time for the people of Hudson and New York to wake up to the new reality that we have all lost our cushy heavily funded lifestyles.
The tidal wave has not yet hit but it is on its way-- and no one is going to be able to bail out anyone. You are living in a fantasy world.
On March 15- when it was announced that restaurants and bars were shutting down throughout the region, I realized this wasn’t going to be a short blip on the radar. We were planning our move out of our Madison Ave office to W33 St on 3/31. I quickly got back to NYC and pushed our move out date and staff to work from home with a deadline of March 20 – on March 22, the Governor put us all on Pause. We then made the decision to slow down our lease negotiation in the new space, and ultimately – a decision to move to a permanent work from home for the foreseeable future, at least 2020.
ReplyDeleteI say all this because we made that decision knowing that we were going to see devastating affects on our business, our clients and the overall economy. It was vital for us to find a way to cut our budget by at least 20% (all in overhead) so we could be viable in the future.
It’s May 9 – and the city is bouncing around PILOTs and perhaps a 5% budget cut. It’s May 9 - I repeat – May 9th.
While the rest of the world and small businesses were being shuttered and slashing staff and budget for the last 2 months – The City of Hudson has had a few meetings and are running a $200K a month loss in our revenue – which will just come back to the tax payers.
Telling us to write to our elected officials? I do – I write to them – here in Hudson and all I get are snarky responses. It’s time for our elected official in town to stand up, lead and give us a strategy for the next 24 – 36 months. It was actually time on March 20, but I digress. . . . .
This is an article from 1998: https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/28/nyregion/giving-money-local-color-small-connecticut-town-issues-its-own-currency-urge.html
ReplyDeleteIt shows that with a little inventiveness and a smart and highly educated leaders, anything is possible!
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