Tonight's "Eat.Play.Stay" email from Chronogram contained this trivia question:
If you clicked on the correct answer (Holcim), you were rewarded with this:
The link, of course, is to the article that appeared in Rural Intelligence on May 28: "Hudson Mayor Joins Call for Limits on Industrial Use at City Waterfront." The following is quoted from that article:
The mayor says the planning board's ongoing use permit approval process needs to be halted for a few months so a multi-party group can be convened to draft conditions and broker a compromise that addresses resident concerns while allowing the company to continue operating.
It's been more than a week since that article was published. More importantly, it's been a month since the Planning Board closed the public hearing, starting the 62-day time limit for rendering a decision, and there has been no word about stopping the clock, reopening the public hearing, or convening the "multi-party group" the mayor spoke of to draft the conditions that would protect the waterfront from the negative impacts of unchecked industrial use.
We deserve to know what's going on.
COPYRIGHT 2025 CAROLE OSTERINK
We know what’s going on: nothing. The mayor has studiously ignored his responsibilities as the City’s chief executive since right about the time he took the oath of office for the first time. Beyond that, it’s not even clear that a stipulation between the PB and ACS can halt the 62 day clock. And now Kamal’s consistently political appointments to the PB have come back to haunt the entire city with their incompetence.
ReplyDeleteHow much longer can we afford to be at the mercy of a man who is more concerned with his social media feeds and the angle of his cap than with performing his duties?
I am not even convinced that in this specific instance, the Planning Board is to blame. They had been trying to close the public hearing for a while and the one on May 8 only happened based of public pressure.
ReplyDeleteIt was held, more feedback was received and at that point it was closed with another three weeks left to submit written feedback. That was reasonable. The benefits of keeping the public hearing open ad infinitum escape me.
The real issue with this story is that Kamal made a statement to the press that was a blatant lie. It took the Gossips audience maybe half a day to sort this out.
I meanwhile received confirmation from the mayor (of course on Facebook) that the approval process hadn't been halted. It's reasonable to assume then that he didn't do any of the other things he laid claim to.
If one were pay close attention to the mayor’s public strategy, he tends to say whatever he thinks that particular audience wants to hear in that moment and hoping that whatever he says stays within that bubble. And since social media is his preferred medium, it’s easy to spot the differences. Granted, many politicians do this, but I think this demonstrates that he’s become a career politician who’s now saying whatever it takes to keep the cushy gig that he made for himself over the past half decade.
DeleteSo for the Instagram and new media audience (Rural Intelligence, etc)—the classic vote-blue-no-matter-who, NYC transplant, card carrying Democrat, has the West Wing catalog on Blue Ray types—you will see things likes this concession on Collarusso limits, or reaffirming Hudson’s “welcoming/sanctuary” city status.
However, on Facebook, where he truly is the spiritual mayor and hometown hero, you will not see reposts of this recent Colarusso position, nor the pro-immigrant statement, as that audience of “locals” tend to be very pro heavy industry, conservative, and very anti-transplant/tourism. When it serves his needs, he will stroke the ingrained nativism (that in many ways rivals Trumpism) of Facebook groups like the “unfiltered Hudson” group; which was started after a schism between moderators over calling people “cidiots.” This group in particular is often used as a recruiting ground and calls for action to pack public meetings in favor of the mayor’s development initiatives or getting Colarusso the bid for the Ferry St Bridge.
That's a pretty accurate summary of Kamal's "media strategy". He uses different channels for different messages. His problem is that he can't keep the channels pure and sometimes one message in one medium leaks into another with devastating consequences.
DeleteWhen Alex Maduro posted a link to his RI interview in the regular (non-unfiltered) group, those that Kamal thought he might enchant with his 180 stayed quiet whereas the locals ripped him a new one.
His own FB wall isn't a safe space anymore either since all of Hudson is closely watching it.
The Unfiltered group, whose founder I'm friendly with, is receptive to the nativist angle but in many ways does not approve of his policies otherwise. They like him for being a local and to some degree see him as a preserver of the old times, but they are keenly aware that he's also the enabler of their archenemy Galvan.
The thing I understand the least is his Instagram. It's too sporadic and the messaging is incoherent. A little while ago he seemed to start a series on housing affordability in Hudson but that one died after two posts. He may have simply run out of material. 🤷♂️
Here is a suggestion for a compromise. Let them continue business use of the property provided it is a conforming use. They could open a campground with trails, a boat rental, an outdoor spa, an environmental education center, docks for fishing, there are a multitude of recreational business uses that could conform to recreational zoning and could create clean, healthy jobs for local residents. Industrial use is no longer permitted, case closed.
ReplyDelete