People say that a lot when talking about Hudson, but a press release just received from Chief Ed Moore is another example that proves the truth of the sentiment.
FLEEING MAN DRIVES INTO RIVER
On Tuesday, October 12, 2021, at about 9:15 p.m., HPD received a call of a domestic dispute at a residence on North 2nd Street. A woman reported that she and her boyfriend had been arguing, and that he was breaking her property. Upon the patrol’s arrival one minute later, the man was seen exiting the house and leaving in his vehicle, a black 2002 Jeep Cherokee. As he sped away, he nearly struck the HPD cruiser, and proceeded to hit two parked cars, doing damage to both.
The patrol pursued the fleeing vehicle to the waterfront. The operator of the Jeep proceeded south on the CSX maintenance road that parallels the railroad tracks. Officer Randy Strattman broke off the pursuit owing to safety concerns as well as the amount of dirt and debris being kicked up by the Jeep. He was joined by a Columbia County Sheriff’s Deputy as they followed south in search of the subject.
The patrols drove south to a turnaround near the Rip Van Winkle Bridge, then came back north to recheck the route. Amtrak was advised to put trains on hold. At 9:28 p.m., the vehicle was located partially submerged in the river, just north of Hallenbeck Road. Evidence at the scene indicated that the Jeep had travelled several hundred yards off the road, through dense vegetation, until it hit a telephone pole and went airborne into the river.
Officers at the scene took Michael K. West, age 29, of Hudson into custody. West complained of back injuries and was transported to Columbia Memorial Hospital by the Greenport Rescue Squad.
While at the hospital, West allegedly kicked an attending nurse in the head, causing injury. West has pending charges to include DWI (refusal), Assault, Criminal Mischief, and numerous Vehicle and Traffic Tickets. As of this writing, West has not been arraigned.
“There are a lot of people to credit for the safe resolution of this incident. Our patrols had a one minute response time to the domestic incident, and showed good judgment by breaking off the pursuit when it became too dangerous. I am thankful for the response from the Sheriff’s Department. Not to be overlooked was the professional removal of the vehicle from the river by the towing company Hillsdale Repairs. They handled the job quickly and safely under extremely difficult conditions. Lastly, I want to acknowledge our nurses who are often put at risk while trying to perform their duties. I think we sometimes take their frontline service for granted.” Chief
It's too bad there's nowhere else to fit this comment, but over the weekend the Register-Star quoted a perfectly ignorant remark by city attorney Jeff Baker concerning the same "CSX maintenance road" Mr. West used for his escape. In fact, he was traveling on a publicly accessible shared easement up to the 4.4 acres, a deeded right conveyed to the city in 1969.
ReplyDeleteMr. Baker, speaking out of school, remarked that "I don't think they've [the Colarusso company] disagreed with that [i.e. city ownership of the '4.4 acres']. I think the issue of providing access to it [the acreage] is one of the issues, one of the things that the planning board is looking at now."
I sincerely hope that the Planning Board is no longer "looking at" that. It was in January that the Board's two advisors, engineer Ryan Weitz and attorney Victoria Polidoro, presented members with a well-planned ask for the Colarusso company.
Equipped with a developed site plan for the scheme, Weitz proceeded to waste everyone's time recapitulating the same unnecessary quid pro quo found in the city's 10-year-old waterfront program. (It was the ultimate failure of this specific plan within the plan which prevented the state from approving the program.)
Then as now, our laughable experts steered the city toward a negotiated agreement with the mining company of the day, hoping to solve a nonexistent problem over property rights - rights which the city has enjoyed for more than 50 years without realizing it.
Following our complaints to then-Chairman Gramkow, attorney Polidoro scoffed at the impertinence of the public, demanding evidence to back up our criticisms.
Fortunately, the deed record states repeatedly and unequivocally that whoever owns the old Ice Dock acreage has a right of access from the public way. This same right is preserved in the shared easement deed of 1995 between the owner of the dock property and CSXT.
Now, only nine months after these same advisors' misguided scheme to access a city-owned property which we already enjoy access to (talk about zero institutional memory!), the same deed chain presented months ago to Ms. Polidoro and the Planning Board has not been re-presented to the Common Council following the Register-Star story.
Taking into account recent complaints that a process which was profoundly delayed by the applicant is now taking too long for said applicant, it is essential that residents keep an eagle eye on our likely dishonest (or just unfathomably stupid) city attorneys, as they steer us towards the next unnecessary quid pro quo with the Colarusso company.
Sorry, I meant to write that the deed chain is now in the hands of the Common Council.
DeleteFor anyone who's interested in this even if our attorneys are not, here's that same deed chain at the city website (scroll to the bottom):
https://cms3files.revize.com/hudsonny/Boards%20and%20Committees/Planning%20Board/2020%20Applications/175%20South%20Front%20St%20(Colarusso)/OGS%20Letter%20and%20Exhibits%203.18.21.pdf
You should do a write in campaign for alderman.
DeleteOn the road to east jesus
ReplyDeleteIts true..mental health and domestic abuse can't be made up...it's a daily reality that deserves better than a funny headline(normally accompanied by a cartoon of a balding man in a tiny hat smoking a cigar scratching his head quizzically)
ReplyDeleteI say well done HPD, and well done Unheimlich to remind us once again of the past recorded for all to see, except apparently by our short-sighted attorneys.
ReplyDeleteIn a thread on the alternative worlds spun by attorneys, and also the dependable gullibility of our representatives and officials unable to resist even the thinnest of lawyerly fabrications, the Planning Board deserves special praise for defying a particularly pernicious untruth perpetuated by a series of legal advisors.
ReplyDeleteIt took them a long time, but in the end the board members ignored their lawyers and cut through the miasma of errors and lies.
I'm talking about a nearly successful sham promoted aggressively by an applicant's attorney who, for years, lectured that "dock operations" must only take place on an actual, physical dock.
For more than two years - and well into 2021 - most or all of the Planning Board members simply acquiesced to their own advisors' interpretation of the Code, the city's lawyers in turn acquiescing to the applicant's lawyer.
Rather than trust their own eyes and minds, almost nobody believed the definition of "dock operations" found in the Code: "loading and unloading facilities, and storage of such goods and raw materials, and associated private roads providing ingress and egress ..." 325-17.1.D(1).
Instead, from 2019 to 2021, the ongoing environmental review of the applicant's dock operations was restricted to the applicant's actual, literal dock. The applicant was insistent on this point.
Looking back it's one thing to ask how our fellow citizens could be so dumb, but how could our own lawyers have been so slow-witted for so long?
Frankly, it would be more accountable and more charitable to conclude that they're all on the applicant's payroll, except that I have no proof of this.
To their great credit, then, it was the Planning Board members themselves who recently trained their own attorney and their equally deluded engineer to reject the applicant's self-serving story in favor of the plain language of the Code. (Reread the above definition of "dock operations" and wonder!)
It's unfortunate that in the wake of his failed stratagem, the applicant's attorney is now complaining of the burden on his client that it took the Planning Board so long to see through his tricks! And incredibly, aside from the applicant's frivolous lawsuit against the board in 2017, THAT is the reason for the supposed burden, that the applicant's attorney fooled us for so long! (Everyone sees that, right?)
But how could so many city attorneys - with the notable exception of Ken Dow - be so wrong about something so simple and so fundamental that, in the end, only the board members themselves could correct them?
Even with no proof that our current city attorneys are in the pocket of the applicant (look harder, everyone), we'd be pretty stupid not to regard them that way. It's time to put an end to our stupidity.
Wow, I just got a phone call informing me that Cheryl Roberts, the city's Corporate Counsel known for dispensing advice involving the Colarussos, is also the Executive Director of something called the Greenburger Center.
DeleteOn May 18, 2021, the city website informed residents of "a parcel soon to be donated to the Greenburger Center by A. Colarusso and Sons."
A conflict of interest? You decide.
Should this person be dispensing legal advice that involves the Colarusso application? Absolutely not!
Jesus, they don't even hide it.
DeleteRoberts has been working for Colarusso always whilst pretending to represent the citizens of Hudson.
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