Tomorrow evening, scores of "fired-up residents" are expected to descend on 401 State Street to protest the Republican-led actions to nullify the petitions and forestall the County Executive referendum.
Given the attention to the initiative to modernize county government, it seems appropriate to catch up on the charter change initiative here in Hudson--the initiative that would transform the structure of Hudson government from mayor-council to city manager-council and reduce the makeup of the Common Council from eleven to five.
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| Photo courtesy Hudson Common Sense |
After a weekend spent gathering signatures in the pocket park outside Mel the Bakery, the Hudson Charter Change initiative reports they have 62 signatures from confirmed Hudson registered voters. In this second round of petitioning to get the issue on the ballot in November, 102 signatures are needed. With 40 signatures still to go, Bob Rasner told Gossips, "The campaign is in the 'door-knocking' phase."
Petitions will be available for registered Hudson voters to sign on Friday night, at HDC's free screening of Jaws in Henry Hudson Riverfront Park.
The plan is to file the petitions within the next two weeks, to give the city clerk adequate time to review and certify them before the August 4 filing deadline.
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Update: Bob Rasner put this in a comment, but since not all readers read the comments, I decided to add it here. As of this afternoon (Wednesday, July 9), the charter change petition has 72 verified signatures. Just 30 more to go.
In an effort to slowly retire our fellow editor FNI (though he threatens to re-emerge if woke socialists get rowdy and need to be fact-checked, especially non-resident interlopers), here are some thoughts about the November general election... shared in good faith to get our friends and neighbors civically engaged and informed:
ReplyDelete1. Imagine if the County Charter change group had the very organized and detail oriented Bob Rasner, Krystal Heinz, Friedman et al on their squad...
Matt Murell and team would have had a much harder time discarding signatures.
Turns out leadership and experience matters.
Maybe time for the two Charter groups to meet and share lessons? Cross-endorse? And if neither make it on the ballot this time many lessons and research to share to inform incoming Common Council President Morris and new Supervisors.
Similarly, Matt Murell can meet with Kamal and Tom and compare notes on how to try and block a lawful resident uprising by petition?
2. This means the City of Hudson Charter Change Petition has more verified resident signatures than Tom DePietro received votes in the Dem Primary, with funding and #AHOD support from several local groups and national political action entities.
Recall when Tom said of the petition: "The idea has been concocted by a group of dissolute people, many who couldn't be elected dog catcher, and also includes people who don't even live in Hudson. So, I think the plot of this cabal has little chance with the city."
We quote him not to be petty, but to call out the shift in support in Hudson.
It also means that the City of Hudson's $220k Comprehensive Plan that Kamal and Michelle worked on for a year and was supposed to guide the City for the next decade, had fewer resident submissions than the essentially unfunded neighbor-to-neighbor Charter Change Petition's verified signatures/support.
Imagine if the Hudson Charter Change group had been enlisted to handle public engagement for the Hudson Comprehensive Plan Survey... participation might not only have been statistically credible (the current Comprehensive Plan is not) but even hit 20 percent of residents given the same time and a 1/10th the funding?
This is yet another example that money, especially public funds, does not solve problems. Michelle Tullo's salary + all the help from Spark to get the word out + the $220k, was bested by Krystal and a few retired friends, with no budget, and volunteers hanging out at Farmer's market, coffee shops, and community events around town.
3. Friendly reminder, that there are a couple of really interesting permutations of how the November election goes, please chime in if we miss anything or inadvertently misrepresent anyone's views:
ReplyDelete1. Mayor: Kamal, CC: Morris, + Charter Change
2. Mayor: Spear, CC: Morris, + Charter Change
3. Mayor: Ferris, CC: Morris, + Charter Change
4. Mayor: Lloyd, CC: Morris, + Charter Change
5. Mayor: Kamal, CC: Morris, + Charter Same
6. Mayor: Spear, CC: Morris, + Charter Same
7. Mayor: Ferris, CC: Morris, + Charter Same
8. Mayor: Lloyd, CC: Morris, + Charter Same
Presumptive CC President Morris has said that in outcomes #5-8, she will, with the Council's support, move to start a new participatory process to create a new Charter Change proposal and then have the 11 person Common Council vote on it during her first term. In outcomes #1-4, we assume the current Charter Change would have to be adopted by law, and then after that more changes can be proposed and voted on by the CC for a 2nd Charter Change?
There is a very real possibility that the next elected mayor of Hudson might be Hudson's last "strong mayor", and not by choice... or that the next mayor would choose, not forced by voter petition, to help change the role of the mayor and explore a City Manager.
Spear & Ferris have both said that they are in support of a general Charter Change update, skeptical of this initial Charter Change Petition (on the grounds of wishing for a more inclusive and transparent drafting process that is not served fully baked to the residents, but please check their websites for their exact thoughts).
Spear has spoken for a long time about using Citizen Assemblies to kick-start dialogue and deliberation to make several changes.
Ferris has written about the need for a Charter Revision commission.
Kamal has also acknowledged to the Register Star the need to update the Charter in an inclusive way, but taken a more critical approach of the current petition and its proponents. His website is still not updated and show the 2021 Election Dates. (Justin, did you guys lose the credentials to update the site or is there a new site? Please fix so that we can be fair to Kamal and his existing and potential voters.
Our correspondents will check with Lloyd in person for his updated thoughts and report back if Common Sense writes something about this, but he said at a public meeting about a City Manager, "the essence of management is caring" and he didn't "know that a city manager is going to care." - as reported by Gossips.
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If you look at options 1-8 above, and consider that if Tom DePietro had won the Dem Primary a few weeks ago... or if Morris did not run, then half of the permutations would have most likely ended in no Charter Change for another few years. (In fairness to Tom he has said for a long-time that the Charter should be reconsidered, but given his track record and his comments in the press, it seems unlikely that it would have been prioritized during his tenure).
Since Morris won, and won big, (https://www.hudsoncommonsense.com/electionresults) Hudson is now on track for a near guaranteed Charter Change in 36 months.
Morris has a womandate.
(Like mandate, but, you know... woman.)
Either way, the rewrite will come from the current proposal on the ballot or some future version shaped by Morris and whoever ends up mayor, along with the broader Council and resident input.
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What a stunning turn of events in just 8 months... total vibe shift, total narrative violation, a City in flux, a literal watershed moment on the Hudson... add to that the hotswap of absent-Galvan and present-Bard over the next 6 months, and the professional civic influencers Spark, Kite's Nest, Hudson Youth Center, FOHY and HCHC's political favorites (who they openly endorsed and in some cases campaigned for) falling out of favor, who said elections do not matter.
To quote another great Margaret; “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
P.S. Spare a thought and a high-five, as Americans are want to give, for the first movers....
ReplyDeleteThe first domino fell with Bill Rasner's Charter Change petition announcement, first printed in these green pages, last year. Then came Billy Blowers, announcing his run for mayor in January, though he never filed. Those early moves were cautious, criticised, and briefly suppressed. But they cracked the door wide open in many races. Many walked through. And then we had the high school "debate".
No one knows who will win in November...
But for now we know that Billy walked first down Warren, then to a new job. Lloyd walked everywhere. That made room for Peter, Joe, and Kamal to race, by bike, by train, and by car, up Warren to City Hall, where Margaret, the Angela Merkel of Hudson Valley, will be waiting, ready, professional, and prepared.
A truly monstrous comparison.
DeleteMerkel was the undertaker of the German party and parliamentary system. She shifted her own party, the Christian Democrats, so far to the left that it made the Social Democrats obsolete (now a splinter party in many German states) and opened up a void on the right to be summarily filled by the AfD, now Germany's second strongest party.
The way she handled immigration is eerily reminiscent to how Kamal has been trying to jam Mill St down everyone's throat.
Now she is sitting on the peanut gallery criticizing the new chancellor Merz every step along the way as he is trying to fix what she broke.
Margaret is in every conceivable way the opposite. She listens, she collaborates, shows empathy yet is firm on the non-negotiables.
Too much IR detail for this audience (and that is saying something coming from us).
DeleteMargaret Thatcher jokes are not apt given Margaret's views and birth country...
HSC- I’m only weighing in on point 1, as I don’t vote in Hudson.
ReplyDeleteColumbia County Forward, which is not a Charter Change initiative but a petition for an Alternative Form of Government, got more than 4,000 signatures. The signatures that have been invalidated by The Board of Supervisor’s clerk were done so using a methodology that has (in past cases) not held up in court.
We had over 100 residents collecting these signatures, because 4,000 is a heavy lift. I personally oversaw petitioning in my town and spent a lot of time driving to people’s homes to talk about the county executive reform and get their signatures. More than one resident asked why this couldn’t be done online.
I actually just took a look at scans of the petition sheets I collected and all of them contain instances of abbreviations like Rd and Rte, including mine!
Election Law § 6-134(5):
Minor errors or the use of customary abbreviations or mailing names do not invalidate a signature if they do not materially affect identification of the signer.
Hope to see you tonight at the Board of Supervisors Meeting, we are gathering at 6:30pm outside of 401 State Street in Hudson.
Thank you for the clarification. Please consider writing a Guest Op-Ed explaining these important details to the electorate.
DeleteSignatures update. The petition now has 72 confirmed signatures.
ReplyDelete