News of the Youth Department

Last night, the Common Council voted unanimously to approve the resolution creating the position of Assistant Youth Director, which is to be held by Alderman Calvin Lewis (Third Ward). Lewis was, appropriately, put into the Zoom waiting room when the vote was taken. 

At the end of the meeting, Claire Cousin, who currently serves on the Hudson Housing Authority Board of Commissions and is the only candidate running for supervisor in the First Ward, offered her congratulations to Lewis, saying, "It is awesome that we have someone homegrown [in this position]." She went on to say that she wanted to talk about another personnel issue. 

Cousin told the Council that she too had applied for the job of Assistant Youth Director, and when the decision was made to hire Lewis, she was told that there was another job at the Youth Department for her. She said she had been given an official job offer, which she accepted, and, on the strength of that, she had given two weeks' notice at her job. Having resigned the job she had, she was told that the position she had been offered at the Youth Department didn't exist, and the person who had offered her the job was not authorized to do so. She is now unemployed.

Jeff Baker, counsel to the Council, told Cousin the City was "sympathetic to her plight" but said, "The situation has not risen to the level that the Council can take any action." It was not revealed who had offered Cousin the nonexistent position, but Baker advised all those involved not to discuss it. 

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