More News of the Planning Board

Last night's Planning Board meeting went on for more than three hours. After a little more than two and a half hours, the board voted six to one to pass a resolution granting a conditional use permit to Colarusso for its dock operation. The video of the meeting, with a few annoying freezes and stops, can be found here. The discussion of Colarusso begins at about 30:30.

Of particular interest is a statement made by Planning Board member Gaby Hoffmann, which happens at about 2:06:33, and the response to it by Theresa Joyner, who chairs the Planning Board. The following is Gossips' transcription of Hoffmann's statement:

The Planning Board that approved that haul road application, I believe, failed the City of Hudson. They failed to scrutinize the documents and the numbers--and clarify that the documents submitted to the Greenport Planning Board, Hudson Planning Board, CCPB, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation permit, and New York State Department of Transportation permit had vastly different truck trip numbers and barge numbers than the resolution that is in front of us tonight. And I think this Planning Board has the opportunity to rectify that failure and protect the future of Hudson from a potentially devastating situation at the waterfront with a truck running by every 2½ minutes and up to 9 barges parked next door to our one waterfront park.…

We are essentially giving our waterfront up to the highest bidder by approving this resolution. I feel this board has had a failure of imagination, both of what the riverfront might be under the worst possible conditions and of what the riverfront could be and should be, which is a riverfront that prioritizes its residents, their health, safety, quality of life, as well as their economic future and the beauty that the natural world offers this unique location. I'm not the only one who thinks so. Hundreds of public comments have said similar things and addressed similar concerns.…

I think it's safe to say that this C.U.P.--this resolution in front of us--is incredibly liberal and permissive. It allows for significant intensification of industrial activity at the waterfront, which is fiercely antithetical to the City's expressed desires and needs, and it makes a beautiful vision of a future Hudson that so many have been working so hard for for decades, and we should all want, almost impossible to imagine. 

This public has put an incredible amount of passion and effort and work into the comments, and I thank them for that, because I learned a lot, and I regret that this board did not properly address, review, or discuss their comments, nor did the applicant. And these comments should have been used as a guiding light to help see what the future of Hudson could be and to help us achieve that. It's shameful that it wasn't. . . .

A few words later, Joyner interrupted Hoffmann, claiming she had spoken for three minutes. Hoffmann objected, saying that time limits should not apply to members of the board. Hoffmann then made a motion to reopen the public hearing, based on new information, citing the numbers on which the Columbia County Planning Board based its recommendation and the recent barge accident. Hoffmann's motion was not seconded. When Hoffmann rose to pass out a sheet of information to other board members, Joyner told her to sit down and declared her actions to be "highly improper."  

Seeming to pick up on an earlier suggestion by Joyner that Hoffmann had "an agenda for private people," Veronica Concra asked Hoffmann if she had done all the research on her own. Hoffmann confirmed that she read all the public comments, done further research, and "spent days and days and days doing all of that work." To which Joyner responded, "And you're disrespecting anything that we have or our attorneys or consultants." Joyner went on the lecture Hoffmann:

What you are doing here--you are placing the procedures of this board in jeopardy. This is not a place for you to act like a public advocate--advocacy for the public. This is a place where we as members of this Planning Board, OK?--we cannot advocate for particular social policies, groups, or even--

Hoffmann interrupted at this point to say, "I'm here to advocate for Hudson." Joyner continued:

Our solemn responsibility as Planning Board members is to deliberate based on the facts presented, the current zoning regulations, and the legal options relevant to each applicant and this applicant--This emotional outbreak has got to stop. This failure to conform as a Planning Board member has got to stop. Your actions--you're placing the citizens--not just the twenty-three people that you know or that is with you--but the whole people that's in Hudson in jeopardy by the way you are acting.

What we care about is the fact that you have no respect for anything that we have given you, the legal aspects of this application--you have no respect for that, and you have no respect for the procedures of this board.

A vote on the resolution occurred soon after, the outcome of which we already know, but not before Randall Martin told Hoffmann that he "took umbrage" with her statement that the Planning Board had failed the City of Hudson when it approved the haul road. He spoke the hundreds of trucks on the streets of Hudson, passing through "the most vulnerable populations in Hudson … the poorest people, the oldest people," before the haul road was approved. He failed, however, to mention his own surprise, expressed at the August 27 meeting of the Planning Board, when he realized that the volume of trucks that had been approved for the haul road--284 truck trips a day--would end up at the dock, crossing the railroad tracks and passing by a public park.

The whole bitter end to the Planning Board's review of the dock operation can be viewed here, beginning at about 30:30. 

The terms of three members of the Planning Board--Theresa Joyner, Randall Martin, and Bettina Young--will be over at the end of December. It is hoped mayor-elect Joe Ferris is thinking long and hard about the people he will appoint to replace them.

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