Frustration and Exasperation at the City Hall

Last night's Planning Board meeting, which was advertised as a hybrid meeting, turned out not to be. The Zoom link provided on the City of Hudson website did not work. The meeting presumably started at 6:30 p.m., but it wasn't until 7:04 p.m. that Randall Martin, who is the board's "tech person," sent a new link, one to a livestream of the meeting on YouTube, to just three people: Council president Tom DePietro, Planning Board clerk Linda Fenoff, and me. The first half hour of the meeting was not captured on video, nor will it be reported in the meeting minutes. 

When I tuned in to the livestream, the board was talking about their visit to the Colarusso dock. Gini Casasco talked about the City and Colarusso collaborating to plant trees that would screen the dock from view from riverfront park. Gene Shetsky worried about security and suggested that the area needed to be locked and gated. Martin brought up the issue of scope of operation, citing the giant transformers that were recently delivered there. "We need to nail down what is going to be received there," said Martin, noting that the initial application was for "aggregate and stone."

Responding to Martin's concern, Cassondra Britton, legal counsel to the Planning Board, claimed it was a Type 2 action and hence the Planning Board could not control what was shipped and received at the dock. She went on to say that the state regulates what materials can be shipped on the Hudson River, maintaining, "The Planning Board is not the agency that regulates that." JR Heffner, Colarusso's vice president of operations, argued that the Planning Board "can decide about what was repaired but not the entire operation." In fact, the unauthorized repairs to the dock ended the grandfathered nonconforming use status of the dock operation and triggered the need to seek a new conditional use permit. The latest court decision annulled the Planning Board's positive declaration, preventing the Planning Board from doing further examination of the environmental impacts of the dock operations, but it did not confine the Planning Board's review to "what was repaired."

When the question of a public hearing was raised, Britton said one was not required. There had already been a public hearing four years ago. It was up to the Planning Board to decide if they wanted to hold a  public hearing at this time. Casasco and Shetsky expressed opposition to a public hearing. Martin, however, made a motion to hold a public hearing, "because the people need to be heard." The motion was seconded by Bettina Young. In the vote that followed, Martin, Young, and Kali Michael voted aye; Casasco, Shetsky, and Theresa Joyner, who chairs the Planning Board, voted nay. Since four votes were required for the motion to pass, it failed. (It should be voted that the Planning Board is one member short and has been for the past six months.) 

Audience members Tony Stone, Ben Fain, and Nicole Vidor objected strenuously to the decision not to hold a public hearing, maintaining that much has changed at the waterfront in four years' time and asking for one more chance to be heard. Joyner told them to submit their comments in writing, and the board would use those comments to decide if the concerns merited a public hearing. At one point, Joyner told Vidor, who questioned the process, "If you don't want to write them, don't come here and tell me what to do." 

At the end of the meeting, there was a discussion of the board's perennial issues with hybrid meeting technology. Although most city meetings are now using Microsoft Teams, the Planning Board continues to use Zoom. Britton pointed out there was no longer a legal obligation to do hybrid meetings and suggested the board do meetings in person only. It was not clear if the plan going forward is to do meetings that are in person only, as meetings of the Zoning Board of Appeals are, or to livestream and record the meetings. Either way, going forward, anyone who wishes to speak at a Planning Board meeting will have to show up in person at City Hall.

One hopeful thing happened at the end of the meeting. Joyner told the board that they had been invited to make a site visit to "the other side of the tracks," in other words, the businesses and residences that are impacted by the activity at the dock. Joyner was careful not to mention who had invited them, but Gossips knows it was Ben Fain, whose enterprises in the vicinity include Kitty's Market and Restaurant, The Caboose, The Wick Hotel, the restoration of the Robert Taylor House, and the redevelopment of the Kaz warehouses. It was decided that the Planning Board would accept Fain's invitation and make a site visit.

The recording of the meeting can be viewed here.

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