Thursday, January 27, 2022

Council Appoints Community Member of IDA

One of the three purposes for tonight's special meeting of the Common Council was appointing a community member to the Industrial Development Agency (IDA). Six of the seven members of the IDA are ex officio: the mayor, the Common Council majority leader and minority leader, the city treasurer, the assessor, and chair of the Planning Board. There were five candidates vying to be the seventh member of the IDA, the one chosen from the community. They were, in alphabetical order: Tiffany Garriga, Julie Goldweitz, Jane Trombley, Richard Wallace, and Rebecca Wolff. 

In responding to questions from the alders prior to the vote, Garriga defined one of her greatest strengths as communicating with the community, Goldweitz spoke of qualitative and quantitative guidelines and accountability, Trombley stressed job creation and said the IDA should be more proactive rather than reactive, Wallace said that landscape of Hudson is changing--socioeconomically and politically--and stressed the importance of reflecting the wishes of the community as a whole, Wolff said the goal of the IDA should be to balance out development with delivery of economic stability for the city's residents. 

The IDA member would be elected by a simple majority: six votes. The plan was to have the alders vote for candidates by name. They would eliminate the candidates getting the least number of votes and repeat the process as often as needed until one candidate received six votes. That wasn't necessary. One candidate received six votes on the first go round. Theo Anthony (Fourth Ward) voted for Rebecca Wolff; Margaret Morris (First Ward) voted for Jane Trombley; Art Frick (First Ward) and Malachi Walker (Fourth Ward) voted for Tiffany Garriga; Vicky Daskaloudi (Fifth Ward), Amber Harris (Third Ward), Dominic Merante (Fifth Ward), Mohammed Rony (Second Ward), Dewan Sarowar (Second Ward), and Ryan Wallace (Third Ward) voted for Richard Wallace. 

Although Richard Wallace already had the six votes needed for a majority, when it was his turn to vote, Council president Tom DePietro voted for Wolff, stating, "I can attest that Rebecca Wolff has done more on the IDA than anyone. . . . She initiated so many projects on the IDA, in terms of making sure that they had new standards for giving PILOTs, and the workforce development project she did. So anyway, I vote for Rebecca. Obviously, she doesn't get it, but that's where we are."
COPYRIGHT 2022 CAROLE OSTERINK

3 comments:

  1. Who are the majority and minority leaders again on the Common Council? I know Gossips informed me, but memory is the second thing to go, so my synapses no longer retain the names.

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    Replies
    1. Dominic Merante (Fifth Ward) is the majority leader; Ryan Wallace (Third Ward) is the minority leader.

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  2. Glad to see so many of the Common Council members can see through Tom's 'attestations.'

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