At its January meeting, the Common Council tabled for more investigation and discussion a budget amendment to pay $10,801 to the Galvan Foundation for four years of the senior center's share of the utilities at the Galvan Armory. The story was reported last week in the Register-Star: "Hudson to pay back $10k in utility expenses for senior center." In the article, Dominic Merante, councilmember for the Fifth Ward, expressed concern about lack of oversight at the senior center, noting that Nea McKinney, Commissioner of Senior Services, did not regularly report to the Common Council. Mayor Kamal Johnson explained that the utilities had not been paid since 2021 because the invoices had been sent to the personal email address of a former senior center employee. The identity of that employee was not revealed. He defended McKinney's failure to report to the Common Council by saying that commissioner was a volunteer position and McKinney had a full-time job.
Yesterday, McKinney resigned her position as Commissioner of Senior Services, maintaining that she was unaware when she accepted the position that it involved anything more than programming and publicity.
The powers and duties of the Commissioner of Senior Services are defined in § C27A of the City Charter. Commissioners are appointed by the mayor and receive an annual stipend of $1,000. COPYRIGHT 2025 CAROLE OSTERINK
The circus continues. The next time this kind of nonsense happens it very well could be due to an issue at Code Enforcment, perhaps having to do with funds. And the mayor will respond, "Craig isn't required to present a monthly report to the council or show up to any informal meetings. It has always been this way, and we never had a problem until now. He sends me his monthly report on a sheet of 8x11 paper and no one else sees it."
ReplyDeleteWhat a trainwreck Kamal's City Hall is!
Why do we have commissioners? No point. Waste of $. Smoke screen for inept managers. This is more reason to go to a city wo(man)ager. Pay Galvin with a huge thank you for the hospitality despite this city’s unworthiness.
ReplyDelete🤔 Hi Carole -
ReplyDeleteWho is the "former Senior Center employee" and why was this an auto-forward to their personal (not city) email address?
Seems odd.
📜 Throwback: City of Hudson elected officials had credit card fraud issues in the not too distant past. [Not Heather, the Treasurer]
Why is Heather (Treasurer)'s office not paying all the regular bills for all the Departments? It would be pretty duplicative if every department in Hudson had one person paying bills...
Likely just an honest mistake... but why is Hudson raising taxes when it could first achieve savings through simplification and unification?
How can a utility company go 4 years without being paid? No homeowner would be allowed.
ReplyDeleteThe money is not owed to any utility. It is owed to Galvan. The senior center, like the library, has a triple net lease on its space in the armory. By some formula agreed on years ago, each tenant pays its share of the ultilities.
DeleteThank you for the clarification Carole.
Delete$10k is not a ton of money... but it is also at least two home-owning family's tax burden to Hudson per year? *
And it is rather odd that Galvan never contacted Heather the Treasurer about this directly... isn't Galvan the largest landowner in Hudson with several financial ties? Their offices are very near to each other.
Or that some former Senior Center employee (who?) just gets bills from Galvan in their personal inbox and does not find that weird.
I mean, do people get bills from Galvan so often in the physical or digital mail that it is so common that confuse them?
Reference:
*Median Annual Property Tax Payment: $4,325 for a median home value of $247,7781. This reflects a 1.69% effective tax rate, which exceeds both the national median (0.99%) and the New York state median (2.39%).
https://www.ownwell.com/trends/new-york/columbia-county/hudson
I have not read the RS article, but it seems that Dominic's comment mentioned here is disingenuous at best. Nea wasn't attending meetings to offer her report until about one year ago because no one was requiring her to attend. That is until the council told her to show up -- and she has been! The council, you know, that Dominic Merante is part of.
ReplyDeleteThe whole system is so screwed up because no one is in charge, no one can communicate properly (or just simply aren't interested in communicating properly) and no one can pay attention to all the fires. We are expecting far too much of our council members -- they are nothing but regular people, most of them barely qualified to run a lemonade stand, and certainly not equipped to run the city. So bullshit like this should come as no surprise. And it's only going to get worse. The ship is sinking slowly but surely.
Rob Perry, our DPW Superintendent with the 6-million-dollar budget, hasn't showed up in person to a common council meeting in about 4 years. What is that, 50 consecutive meetings? And the council is perfectly fine with that, possibly into perpetuity?
Thank you for the vigilance, Dominic Merante .
ReplyDelete