Sheena Salvino served as executive director of Hudson Development Corporation (HDC) and Hudson Community Development and Planning Agency (HCDPA) from July 2011 to August 2018. She played a significant role in Hudson's successful effort to win a $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant in 2017. That's Sheena at the left, posing with the big check for $10 million.
In 2018, Salvino left Hudson and moved to Texas, where she got a job as Redevelopment Manager for the Pasadena Economic Development Corporation. Recently, she moved back to New York and will be working for NYS Homes and Community Renewal, not in housing but in economic development. She and her family are now living in Troy.
Because of Salvino's involvement with the DRI, Gossips is inspired to compare what has happened in the time she's been away--in her life and in the "life" of the DRI. Since 2018, Salvino has gotten married and given birth to two children. In that same time, the City of Hudson has completed only one of its four DRI-funded projects: the redesign of the entrance to Promenade Hill.
Regarding the City's other DRI projects, it's been a year since there has been any word about Hudson Connects, the project to implement Complete Streets improvements in the part of the city below Second Street. The efforts to stabilize and redevelop the Dunn warehouse and to repurpose the historic fishing village, known variously as "the Shacks" and the Furgary Boat Club, as a public park both seem to be dead in the water.
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So where is the rest of the DRI money sitting, if nothing has been done on those projects for 5 years?
ReplyDeleteExcellent question, and who is in charge of it now?
DeleteThe blowhard critics of our plan to stabilize only a handful of the "fishing village" shacks - as painstakingly explained in the actual DRI proposal - routinely misrepresented our proposal in these threads.
ReplyDeleteThe lion's share of the DRI award was always to: 1) remediate the already-identified contaminants as required by state law of all city properties, despite the fact that every contaminant discovered is found in nearly every private home in Hudson; and 2) raze and dispose of the unwanted and now-remediated shacks.
The big question was, after remediating and removal, would any funds remain?
Now we can all wonder, what will the foolish critics spout next when the DRI money is gone and no shacks are remediated and none removed?
For the shacks we'd planned to save, no one had any idea of "restoring" any of them. Unfortunately, it was commenters at Gossips who'd fixed the word "restoration" in the head of the city's building inspector, after which nobody could disabuse him of his fantasy that the remaining shacks would require Certificates of Occupancy. (Apparently he'd never read the proposal either, even though he regularly advised the DRI committee whereas actual project sponsors were barred from attendance.)
So even though I'd like to lay blame on the noisy ignorance of so many negative commenters in Gossips threads (oh, please comment again so I may expose you for the morons you are!), the sad fate of the DRI is due to the appalling behavior of the DRI Committee itself (post-Sheena, I hasten to add).
It was the DRI committee who hid their monthly meetings from the public based on the shoddy opinion of one of the most crooked lawyers Hudson has ever hired (except for so many others). He wasn't even the lawyer for the committee, but he provided the fake premise committee members most desired to spend public money privately. And residents took this lying down. Just pathetic.
It was only after Sheena departed that the committee decided, unknown to the public, that the implementation of DRI projects would follow an arbitrary hierarchy, so that projects of least priority would have to make due with whatever money remained from the preceding projects.
At least that's how the committee later explained things us, although it's possible, or even likely, that someone decided privately that of the four DRI finalists the shacks would never receive a cent.
In the end it was all a big lesson about the importance of the Open Meetings Law, a lesson which must be remembered when city taxpayers end up footing the entire bill for remediating and removing the shacks. It will be very expensive. And now it's on you. Well done.
How about a simple accounting of how the money was allocated and spent by project and how much remains? I don't think that's to much to ask.
ReplyDeleteThe money's sitting with the DoS -- you think they're that dumb they'd let Hudson sit on it? The big fake check was as close to the money as Hudson will get: the State pays the bills up to the amount of the grant.
ReplyDeleteThat said, it's ludicrous that Hudson's mayor has done NOTHING to advance these other projects. And the Council is too busy not legislating to engage in any actual, functional and useful work. In fact the only thing, the ONLY thing the Hudson city government has accomplished in the last 3+ years is hand out staggering amounts of PILOT money. Granted, if the City didn't the CEDC would use the city's funds to hand them out. But the fact remains that beyond this fiscal irresponsibility, the City does nothing. Well, DPW does pickup the trash and recycling. Kudos to them.
So if I understand correctly, there is money but no agency, person or entity in charge of moving it forward? Ok, I will volunteer to shake the tree, any idea how?
ReplyDeleteThe DRI project manager for Hudson was "Chazen Companies," first led by Chris Round and then Julie Paccante.
DeleteToday those individuals are gone and Chazen has been acquired by LaBella Associates. Their website showcases DRI work on behalf of other municipalities but makes no reference to Hudson. Why advertise a failure in the making?
All of the projects are moving forward. We will have to re-bid for Hudson Connects project. There is only a very limited amount of money for the "shacks" all of it will go to removing anything that is deemed harmful. We have met with DOS about allocating the food hub money to another project that will host a food hub. Hudson's mayor has done a lot in a short amount a of time actually. Not to mention I had a baby as well (congrats to Sheena) and continued to start and move these projects during COVID.
ReplyDeleteNot to say it was your decision Mr. Mayor, but I think choking the shacks of their awarded funds was the committee's plan all along.
DeleteNobody ever asked us for a budget based on the project's minimal needs because nobody on the committee, or who'd advised the committee, understood the actual Code requirements.
I think the committee never asked us about the Code requirements because the usual handful of n'er-do-wells already knew they wanted the shacks gone. Did that even have something to do with denying public attendance at the DRI Committee meetings? (The closed meetings predated Covid.)
On second thought, I do blame you for the committee's lack of transparency. Doesn't the buck stop with you? How could you have agreed to that? Can you explain how the DRI's secrecy has served the public?
"Repurpose Historic Fishing Village as a City Park. The City of Hudson will preserve and redesign the Furgary Fishing Village into a public park. DRI funds will be used for site cleanup, remediation, design services and site preparation. $150,290"
ReplyDeleteChad, with a $150K we could still achieve a lot of what we aimed for, probably a shack or two less.
DeleteBut the committee willfully misunderstood the project at every turn, banished us from their meetings, and in the end considered only a single remediation-and-demolition estimate, and that from a crony friend of a city commissioner.
Turning it into a park was the city's plan all along. And that was our plan, too, except you'd see a cluster of out-of-the-way shacks at the extreme east end.
Well, we musn't preserve history, and God forbid anything funky ever survives.
Funny thing, early in the process I saw a site plan from Kite's Nest which extended the sweep of their land to the shore. As I recall, there were no shacks on their fantasy map, just a greater social justice park. Poetry is officially dead.
Mayor how long are you going to use Covid as an excuse for not doing anything? It didn’t keep you from picking the pockets of tax payers to shunt our money to your landlord so he could fund housing — in South Carolina. It didn’t keep you from getting a raise, a new car or go on vacation. Just from doing your job. You’re a nice guy but you suck as mayor.
ReplyDelete