Gossips reported that Johnson was living in a house owned by Galvan back in 2020. This is how he responded at the time. (Click on image to enlarge.)
Saturday, June 21, 2025
Hudson in the Regional News
A front-page article in the Times Union today is this one by Roger Hannigan Gilson: "Hudson mayor refuses to reveal rent for home owned by Galvan." The story has been picked up by the Empire Report. Gilson exposes what Gossips readers have known for a while: the "apartment" that Mayor Kamal Johnson, in his closing statement in the debate in Monday, acknowledged renting from Galvan is actually a four-bedroom house valued on Zillow at $758,900. The article is recommended reading. It is reported that the paywall is down.
Gossips reported that Johnson was living in a house owned by Galvan back in 2020. This is how he responded at the time. (Click on image to enlarge.)
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Gossips reported that Johnson was living in a house owned by Galvan back in 2020. This is how he responded at the time. (Click on image to enlarge.)
I think any city, town or village that claims to have put its corrupt and nefarious days and ways behind it is in fantasy land. Especially one with such a rich corrupt history as Hudson has. It never goes away easily - it becomes part of the fabric -- and in the right conditions it never entirely goes away. The 21st century Kamal Johnson/Galvan connection is proof that we still have our seamy side.
ReplyDeleteWhen the mayor is corrupt or incapable of leading, what you find is that the people he surrounds himself with are equally unwelcome (sound familiar?). So, you start to have all sorts of problems in just about every facet of governing: departments led and filled with people uninterested in doing their jobs, unaccountable to anyone. For example, bills don't get paid for years, houses rot and taxes aren't paid on them for years, someone forgets the deadline for something that brings the city lots of revenue, one department head says one thing and another official contradicts that statement (think the Ferry Street bridge opening) and on and on and on. If your ship is steered by a not so smart person with no experience and no interest or ability to steer the ship properly and keep it away from rocky shores, expect the worst outcome and expect the worst effort from the entire crew. The Galvan/Johnson story is the subtext to everything that is wrong with City Hall and that has been for the past six years and will likely continue for more years. It's not easy to fix a city hall that is broken. Workers leave, workers start to not care, workers do stupid things, residents suffer the consequences. (sound familiar again?)
Last point: We have a long-time 2nd ward council member who co-owns a house in Greenport with his wife. They have at least one child. He claims every year that he lives at 9 (19?) Columbia Street and is a full-time resident of Hudson. Most people from outside of Hudson would ask: How is this even possible? But if you live here, maybe especially if you grew up here, there would be nothing unusual about it at all. This is just the way things have been done and will continue to be done, especially if there is no city manager to root out all the nonsense, inefficiencies and dysfunction. Even the mayor (and his council president buddy) might say this about a council member who for years has apparently lived outside of the city he is supposedly representing: "Why should you think that this is a problem for me to be concerned with?" And similarly, the mayor would say, "Why is it a problem where I live, who my landlord is, how much my rent is or who pays it? Go away, I have work to do!"
Do see how damaging Kamal Johnson is to the present and future of Hudson? And we probably don't see half of it. It's much worse than you think, believe me. The rot is SO DEEP!
I was doing so light afternoon reading of the NYS Public Officers Law, specifically § 73(5)(a) of New York State, which governs gifts to public officials:
ReplyDelete“No statewide elected official, state officer or employee, member of the legislature or legislative employee shall, directly or indirectly, solicit, accept or receive any gift having more than a nominal value, whether in the form of money, service, loan, travel, lodging, meals, refreshments, entertainment, discount, forbearance or promise, or in any other form, under circumstances in which it could reasonably be inferred that the gift was intended to influence him, or could reasonably be expected to influence him, in the performance of his official duties or was intended as a reward for any official action on his part.”
Additionally, the regulations under 19 NYCRR § 933.2(j) define what constitutes a “gift”:
“Gift shall mean anything of more than nominal value in any form … Notwithstanding the preceding sentence, the exclusions contained in section 933.4 … are not gifts.”
Together, these provisions confirm that any benefit—including reduced rent—worth more than nominal value provided to a public official can be legally considered a prohibited gift under Public Officers Law § 73.
Interesting to see and contrast the reactions here to those on FB where the public rage immediately turned towards the messenger rather than the mayor.
ReplyDeleteHere it barely rises to the level of a yawn since everyone has known about this stuff already for years.
It is curious....
ReplyDeleteColumbia County District Attorney Chris Liberati-Conant seems to be doing a good job with very little resources and his predecessor (more GOP leaning) did not take action on this for 4 years.
So either they investigated and found nothing, in which case it would be good to know, and Kamal can just show the receipts of payments. But an exonerating investigation would have come up in the Times Union story, and Kamal would have mentioned it. (At the debate he alluded to other parties looking into this issue but not the DA or the OAG.)
But all parties interested in the case of Kamal's missing receipts... might appreciate the case of Sandy Annabi of Yonkers, where Kamal was born.
She is basically a GOP caucasian Yonkers version of Kamal and Tom DePietro. Sandy Annabi was betrayed by Zehy Jereis, her secret (jilted) lover and political ally in City Hall.
She took in-kind gifts and cash to vote for public housing and tax breaks for the Yonkers version of Galvan and Kearney Realty.
But Annabi then rejected a marriage proposal from Jereis, even after he supporter her financially and emotionally. He was not amused and it got ugly...
The key events bear a striking similarity to the Kamal / Galvan / "Hudson Housing Hustle".
But in that case the prosecutor was Preet (he is fierce, check out his podcast) and the accused... not exactly card carrying Hudson Catskill Housing Coalition members who use Signal to talk to BLM leaders. (Funniest and most revealing comment in a City Hall meeting in Q2? That QC!))
All that needs to happen now for this to really be history repeating itself is for Kamal to cheat on Michelle, the Housing Justice Director, or break off an engagement (again?) and then for her or a related party to spill the beans on pay-to-play.
If there are beans?
How would we know... Kamal does not answer questions and in response to community members asking about this today he said:
"When the hate don't work they start telling lies... get out and vote!"
Kamal, please point out the lies. There is no hate, just hypocrisy, unexplained housing deals, handshakes instead of hearings, and loyalty instead of ledgers.
As a journalist Roger Hannigan Gilson would have to retract any false statements and issue an apology. And I would love nothing more than to be wrong about your various (Appearance) of Conflict of Interests.
Reference:
https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/newyork/press-releases/2012/former-yonkers-city-councilwoman-sandy-annabi-and-former-republican-chairman-zehy-jereis-sentenced-to-six-and-four-years-in-prison-for-corruption-crimes