On Sunday, when Gossips was assembling "Meetings and Events in the Week Ahead," the agenda for the Planning Board meeting indicated they would be taking up the issue of Colarusso's dock operations. At some time after that, the agenda was revised. Colarusso was removed, and added in its place was a presentation by Public Works Partners about the city's new comprehensive plan. Melissa Lee, principal of Public Works Partners, Dan McCombie, Aron Lesser, and Danny Goodman were all present virtually for the presentation.
Although the comprehensive plan doesn't seem to be on too many people's radar, we are more than halfway through the process, which began in January 2024 and is expected to end in April 2025. So far, there have been two Community Visioning Workshops--one in June, another in September. There will be a third workshop in December.
A draft of the comprehensive plan is expected to be ready in February 2025, and the final plan will be completed by April 2025.
The Community Preference Survey may be the element of the comprehensive planning process most familiar to readers. (Gossips shared the link to the survey back in May.) Last night, McCombie reported that there had been 471 responses to the survey, 366 of which came from people who actually lived in Hudson. (366 represents 6.28 percent of the population.) He went on to say that the demographic distribution of the respondents did not match the demographic distribution of the community as a whole. The graphic he shared (reproduced below) shows that the majority of the respondents were white women who lived in the First or Third ward and had an annual household income of more that $50,000.
Among the Main Survey Findings, the following are of particular interest.
McCombie explained that the following Guiding Principles are based on the engagement conducted to date.
COPYRIGHT 2024 CAROLE OSTERINK
"Community"? Please define. That concept has become difficult to understand or find in Hudson and just about everywhere else.
ReplyDeleteWhile it is praiseworthy to seek community input and make an actual Comprehensive Plan for Hudson... this effort - as others have already pointed out - was flawed from the get-go and designed to rubber stamp pre-decided goals and plans and motivate for more politicized public spending.
ReplyDeleteThis was clear when at the most recent PWP public meeting the supposedly "objective" and "neutral" researchers intentionally biased the community participants with a leading hypothesis. It was so odd... so irregular, that we simply had to look into it.
So let's dig in:
1️⃣ The Public Works Partners "Community Survey" / Comprehensive Plan cost the city more than $208k.
2️⃣ $208k / 366 Hudson based survey respondents = $550 paid by taxpayers per respondent.
Leaving that expense to a NYC / Pasadena based progressive consulting firm aside…
3️⃣ PWP is not releasing the core / primary data, which is odd. Even after we requested it directly. Danny Goodman (SLR), if you are reading this please share the primary data.
Melissa Lee, why are you ignoring Hudson community members who are trained in statistics and urban planning? Your effort would be so much more plausible if you simply engage and actually seek out voices who disagree with your client, or simply neutral voices.
❌ This is the sort of biased sampling and polling (PBS News/NPR/Marist election poll) that assured the nation that KamalA would win by 4 points the day before the election...
4️⃣ It is particularly odd, because those who know statistics know that for a community of 6000, you need a minimum sample size of 323 respondents (95% confidence level). So it is very curious that you scrape by with a few dozen responses above that bare minimum threshold. And PWP acknowledges this, partially, when they say the "respondents do not proportionally mirror Hudson's diverse population".
🚨 Academic and research integrity experts would have a field day with the 1) Poor Survey Design, 2) the Inadequate Sampling Method, and 3) the Insufficient Response Rate.
🇺🇸 ❓ And to remedy this flawed survey… PWP then decides to reach out to groups based on immutable traits (race and ethnicity), rather than mutable traits (behavior, skills, knowledge, preferences, education, and personal choices). You can't make this up.
📺 The chef's kiss 🤌 moment in that meeting was at 2:39.00 min when the consultants (hired by Mayor Kamal) wink and smile at the suggestion of the City of Hudson hiring a full-time City Planner.
The Planning Board, and its Chair Theresa Joyner who was appointed by Mayor Kamal, then pointing out that the Housing Justice Director (Michelle Tullo, whom other commenters on this blog have alleged to be in a long-term romantic relationship with Mayor Kamal ) just so happens to have a related qualification and could perhaps fulfill this role. One Planning Board member then asks Michelle directly "are you interested in that?" and then Theresa Joyner smiles and chimes in with the rejoinder; "that is another discussion…"
And then giggles, chuckling, and winking ensues by all those politically appointed by the Mayor, and paid by the Mayor...
🎭 So what are the chances that when the external grant that funds the Housing Justice Director's salary runs out next year… that like magic, a spontaneous and urgent need will emerge to create a new role or job that the City of Hudson simply must fund at all costs.
📈 And this… ladies and gentlemen, is how a city of 5000 ends up with a budget of approximately $20 million, despite the fact that the City of Hudson's civic workers, who do the bulk of the work in City Hall and on the streets in both winter and summer, barely receive a livable wage, and working middle-class families are forced to leave Hudson because they cannot afford the property taxes.
[I filled out the survey.] Based on the Main Findings, did Hudson taxpayers need to spend 208K for someone to ask people to tell us that we need more housing, public spaces and grocery stores and less hotels? The suggestion that Hudson needs less parking is absurd. I drive around looking for a place to park (especially on the weekends) in my neighborhood all the time. What will we end up with? "Affordable/Livable/Civic/etc" all sounds clever, but then what?
ReplyDeleteGarbage in / garbage out. A commission ran by politicians housed by taxpayer grifter developer recommends more taxpayer funded development. Like the old studies from big tobacco saying smoking is good for you.
ReplyDeleteThis consultant class make-work makes it easy to understand how the Harris campaign blew through a billion dollars in 3 months, and little to show for. I’m in the wrong business.
I also did the survey. Maybe my data was eliminated as a statistical anomaly for not meeting the correct demographic.
What I am asking myself is why Hudson's leadership is going for this pointless, costly, irrelevant and legally inconsequential comprehensive plan instead of reviving efforts to get the LWRP which has been lying dormant since 2011 submitted and ratified by NY State's DOS.
DeleteIt has by now collected a little bit of dust but it is otherwise still very much applicable to today's Hudson. Unlike the comprehensive plan, a ratified LWRP would allow the city to gain access to state grants that are currently off-limits.
Municipalities around us, Athens for example, have had no problems getting theirs approved.
It is regrettable that all this money was wasted and could have been used on sidewalks, blue bags, or upgrading the City of Hudson's payment system to make city workers more efficient and improve resident experience.
ReplyDeleteJust for those who might not know (I did not), what is LWRP?
FNI--Search "LWRP" on Gossips to get up to speed on Hudson's LWRP--Local Waterfront Revitalization Program/Plan.
DeleteIt's short for Local Waterfront Revitalization Program (or Plan when it's the specific one of a municipality). It's a NY State program: https://dos.ny.gov/local-waterfront-revitalization-program
DeleteIt's kind of like a comprehensive plan for waterfronts, only far more impactful as it generally affects the local city legislation and can also be a source of state grants.
Got it, thank you! That makes sense.
ReplyDeleteMore residents would participate in local government if it was more accessible.