In its New Year's Eve edition, the Register-Star devoted most of its front page to the end of Kamal Johnson's six-year tenure as mayor of Hudson--"Kamal Johnson has no regrets as he leaves Hudson City Hall"--and Joe Ferris's imminent assumption of the office--"Mayor-elect Joseph Ferris is ready to lead the city."
In his opinion, however, the biggest reason he lost November's election was the loss of votes from people who have left the city since he took office.
"With the population decline, a lot of people who were on my team back in 2019 no longer live in the city anymore," Johnson said. "That's particularly why you saw my signs in Greenport, Claverack and everywhere else, because those people used to live in Hudson, they know what I was fighting for and still stood by me, even though they got priced out or were forced to move."
Anyone who was hoping to get a better sense of our future mayor's plans for Hudson will be disappointed by the article about Ferris. Apparently that information will be revealed in his inauguration address on Saturday, of which he is quoted in the article as saying:
"It's really just gonna be about my vision, about how we, the city, can work together," Ferris said. "It's an opportunity to lay out a vision and a road map to find ways to bring the community together, to collaborate and work together as one."
According to the article, however, Saturday's event will not provide the information of interest to many Hudsonians: Who will be appointed to the Planning Board? (There are three vacancies, and the mayor also names the Planning Board chair.) Who will be Ferris's mayoral aide? Who will be the city attorney and how many attorneys will there be?
An interesting bit of history about the mayoral aide: The position was created back in 2000, when the office of mayor was a part-time position that paid $11,000 a year. Ken Cranna was the mayor then. Cranna's full-time job was being a lawyer, but he wanted to ensure that when people called City Hall seeking to speak with the mayor, they got someone who represented the mayor and could make them feel their voice had been heard by the mayor. What scandalized many at the time was that the mayoral aide, who kept regular office hours at City Hall, was paid more than the mayor.
Ferris's ceremonial swearing-in takes place at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, January 3, at Hudson Hall.
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It's funny how things we've known all along have become newsworthy. I told Kamal last year that his base has shrunk past the critical point and his response was "Just you see!".
ReplyDeleteJoe meanwhile, not even sworn in yet, is already getting FB heat for not involving every member of the Hudson electorate in his current decision making processes. Some members of the public expect him to shut down Bliss on January 1st. But no matter what he does, it's gonna be either nothing or bad. In the eyes of many, both.
Facebook will be a different place in 2026. A portion of the vox populi will no longer have Kamal soundbites guiding them with what to think and may have to get a subscription to the Register Star, or start reading Gossips for their daily dose of outrage.
Re: Government Creep
ReplyDeleteIn 2000, Hudson paid its mayor $11,000, or about $20,000 in today’s inflation adjusted dollars. Today, a city with 20% fewer residents funds a 3 person "mayor office" costing nearly $250,000 in base salary alone. (In Weaver's farewell note he essentially admitted he and Tullo were doing the mayor's job.)
So Hudson has replaced a modest mayoral stipend with a bureaucracy costing 10x more to serve fewer people.
This proves the point: Kamal and Tom's City Hall viewed itself as a creator of jobs and vibes for the Luxury Belief class, not a provider of cost-effective service for taxpayers.
Put another way... a Hudson Mayor in 2000 took ~$10k honorarium... Kamal and Michelle's combined household took $160k base plus benefits, and who knows what size subsidy in discounted rent from Galvan.
~25 years, ~10x greater cost... and the city sized stayed the same, population decreased.
Hence this Shallot article on the Hudson Peace Corps:
https://www.hudsoncommonsense.com/shallot-hudsonpeacecorps
In Hudson in the year 2000, Hudson was full of starving artists who lived in the cheapest place on the East Coast,. They all came here because it was the only place they could afford. It was a smart crowd of pioneers, and it was fun. There were no restaurants except for the Charleston. Perhaps one other. Now it is the center for the elite and rich "progressive" class who like all of the amenities they had in Brooklyn. It is a different world. It is a little Disneyland to me, so well kept renovated. I am not so sure the vibe is as creative.
ReplyDeleteThese are separate issues.
Delete1) There is no reason why Hudson requires a $200k mayor office today, when it got by with a $20k one before. Essentially the elected mayor can decide if they want to be full-time or part-time, which says a lot.
2) But you raise an excellent point about supporting artists, which goes to the core of what makes Hudson great, while supporting residents from all backgrounds.
What can Hudson do to attract and keep more great artists?
- lower property taxes (affordability)?
- easy permit approval for new storefronts? (or pop up use of empty storefronts)
- easy permit approval for adaptive reuse & live/work type zoning?
- private business sponsored rejuvenation of alley murals and experiences?
- artists and business leaders can work with the IDA or HBC to expand Open Studios or create a bigger annual artist event, Hudson version of Park City's Kimball Arts Festival? (It makes several millions of sales in one weekend.)
What else?
- Chances are Joe Ferris and Margaret Morris would be very receptive and do what they can to help.
- Local hotels and businesses already support in a big way and will likely do more if asked...
On the nose: this town isn’t nearly as fun as it was when it was full of striving artists. Actual artists, not “creatives” busily “curating” amidst investment bankers and 40 year old retired private equity investors. We had fun when it was a drinking town with a tourist problem.
DeleteYou ain't kiddin, J! It's difficult to be in the Spotty Dog nowadays and not remember how lively it used to be with locals, standing room only with the place packed even on a Thursday night. The joy, the community, seem to have disappeared.
DeleteI started working in Hudson as a legal aid lawyer in 1993. I don't doubt there was a real sense of community. The antiques were affordable and the Charleston was serving up some good meals. But life was rough for a lot of people, and there were not a lot of protections available to them.
ReplyDeleteThe problems people like to complain about here are not unique to Hudson, to New York, or even to the United States. The cost of living crisis, housing shortages, youth unemployment, and digital isolation are affecting communities all over the world.
ReplyDeleteThe nostalgic early 2000s Hudson some boomers above still romanticize is essentially gone everywhere. I spend a fair bit of time in Portugal, where despite forty-year mortgages, strict Tenent rights, and Airbnb regulations, housing remains unaffordable for young or working people.
What I once joked about when explaining Hudson—being a boomer's paradise—is actually a global phenomenon driven by youth underemployment, declining alcohol consumption among young people, and a generation so tethered to phones that what little remains of physical third spaces sits increasingly unused.
Some of the social issues tied to phones and the internet are not entirely the government's fault, though we absolutely should be regulating phones and social media more aggressively to protect children. Everything else, however, is largely the systemic outcome of decades of policy choices made by successive conservative and neoliberal governments. This trajectory began with Reagan, and I would argue policies implemented in the 80s are really only now being felt in full effect. Later administrations sat idle while the largest percentage of global GDP shifted away from Europe and the United States to other regions. While this has lifted millions into a global consumer class, it has simultaneously shrunk the economic pie for Western working classes, accelerated pollution, globally hollowed out local communities, and fueled mass urbanization + migration worldwide.
As Martin Luther King Jr. so succinctly put it, many are being "integrated into a burning house."
Young people in the West now face disproportionate unemployment and precarity, while wealth is increasingly hoarded by older generations. These dynamics are worsened by corrupt, increasingly immoral governments beholden to entrenched capital owners.
I do not think it matters much who is mayor of Hudson. The forces shaping our lives are far larger. At best, we need a competent executive managing basic services. We should eliminate the mayor altogether and move to a more efficient professional city manager model.
Also, like any other properly run small city favored by tourists, Hudson should: A) Install traffic cameras, which are low hanging fruit for improving safety and generating revenue in the face of increasingly unhinged drivers. B) Institute tiered property taxes in favor of owner-occupied homes, with an increased burden placed on second home owners and investors. This is an obvious policy choice that helps working families stay housed.
If Kamal or anyone really cared about working folk and better local governance, their number one issue should have been—or should become—fighting for healthcare reform, as it would greatly help people live healthier, less financially stressed lives and relieve pressure on local budgets, where it is increasingly one of, if not the single fastest growing line item.
None of this is likely to get better. It is almost certainly going to get much worse.
So yes, thank you to the boomers for helping ruin the planet, then remaining narcissistic enough to complain endlessly about the consequences of your own choices.
Oh no! Life is hard? You have to work to earn? Why when I was a youngster our parents just gave us what we wanted, a pat on the head and sent us off to our easy jobs, free homes and free healthcare.
DeletePersonally, I built a castle from the gold bars my folks were throwing out one day and used that as my base of operation from which to thwart the hopes and desires of the succeeding generations. Hahaha!
Times are hard. They’ve been harder. They’ll be easier at some point and then harder again. The only thing you can bet on is you won’t get a ribbon for showing up.
Well said, Jacob.
DeleteI think Joe Ferris will come to realize that, perhaps like his predecessor, there is very little he can do as mayor to reverse the trends that have altered Hudson not for the better. As you rightly point out, this is true all over the country. The fact that the city has essentially run out of spending money won't help us, either.
We live in the age of LLC's, where it's not only not uncommon for residents to not know who owns the house next door, but City Hall itself may not not know either. Send the tax bill to a bizarrely named LLC lacking a person's name and with an address in Red Hook, Manhattan or Texas. I don't know how one can put a stop to that ugly, community-killing trend.
This is basic arithmetic.
DeleteWages vs productivity
Since 1970, US labor productivity is up about +177%, while real pay for typical nonsupervisory workers has risen by only about 10% after inflation. Workers produce vastly more value but capture far less of it.
Sources:
https://www.bls.gov/productivity/
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OPHNFB\
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB
Housing affordability
In 1970, the median home cost about 2.4× median family income.
In 2024, it costs about 4.0× median family income, roughly 66% worse relative to income.
Sources:
US Census Bureau, Median New Home Prices
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPNHSUS
US Census Bureau, Median Family Income
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEFAINUSA646N
Tuition
Public four-year college tuition and required fees:
Early 1970s: about $3,000 per year (in today’s dollars)
Early 2020s: about $16,000 per year
That is a +430% real increase.
Source:
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d23/tables/dt23_330.10.asp
Rent burden
Around 1970, roughly 25% of renters were cost burdened.
By 2023, 49.7% of renters paid 30% or more of income on rent.
Source:
https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/state-nations-housing
Healthcare, inflation adjusted
US per-capita healthcare spending:
1970: about $2,800–3,000 per person in today’s dollars
2024: about $16,500 per person
That is roughly a +480% real increase, even after inflation.
Sources:
https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-reports/national-health-expenditure-data
https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-spending-healthcare-changed-time/
To add, John K. Friedman, your comment reads less like hard earned wisdom and more like reflexive contempt. There is nothing masculine, resilient, or impressive about sneering at people who are pointing out measurable economic realities.
Sarcasm is not an argument. Reducing structural failures to jokes about ribbons and castles is what people do when they either cannot engage with facts or are afraid of what those facts say about their own unearned advantages. Confusing luck and timing with virtue is not grit. It is delusion.
If your best contribution is mockery instead of substance, that does not make younger generations weak. It just makes you irrelevant to the conversation and confirms exactly why so many people no longer take you seriously.
All the statistics you cite are, no doubt, true. As I said, times are good and then they’re bad, and then they’re good again. The point is resilience and the ability to adapt. It’s not about strength or weakness in the sense you write, but about experience. It’s about expectations and how to adjust them as circumstances change. But the productivity curve inflected in the 70s as you point out — 50 years ago. So, sorry if my flippancy upsets your sensibilities but, in all seriousness, don’t you think those same factors affect everyone alive now, not just Gen Z or x or whomever? So try to solve one of your perceived problems or don’t — but quit whining about it.
DeleteJacob - you are certainly right in one regard...
Delete"boomers" are sitting on a mountain of (mainly housing) equity that makes the market look like a closed club.
And the American Dream has shapeshifted. For many, it feels less like a promise and more like a fantasy.
But here is the uncomfortable truth...
The only things skyrocketing in price are the sectors the government "helps" (read: regulation) the most: housing, education, and healthcare.
Notice how all 3 are particularly broken in Hudson, and most of New York. The quintessential blue town (no, CITY) in a famously blue state.
Meanwhile, the unregulated sectors give us miracles. We have supercomputers in our pockets and can stream all recorded music for the price of a sandwich. Speaking of the sandwich, we spend half as much of our income on food today as families did in 1960. It turns out restricting supply drives up costs.
Why do people not see that connection? Arguably everyone in Hudson agrees on affordability, but few seem to see the next data-driven connection... regulation and taxes (lower supply).
Re: 1970s nostalgia. Since then, violent crime collapsed and the average home size nearly doubled in sqf. Life expectancy way up. If you can avoid social media induced downsides life is pretty great.
Few would trade the internet, civil rights, and modern medicine just for cheaper rent and 1970s dentistry.
See here for the "most famous graph if the century" that should accompany this debate and more data:
https://humanprogress.org/time-pricing-and-mark-perrys-chart-of-the-century/
So we can agree on part of the problem you identify... can we agree on solutions?
~~ If there were an entrepreneurial 22 year old in Hudson today, what business could she start to serve boomers (and their housing equity) that would do really well in Hudson Valley?
- Sent from a country with a 40% unemployment rate for 18 to 35 year olds... no Youth Center can be found but still looking...
John K Friedman sounds exactly like the boomer(s) Jacob described who helped ruin the country for all of us. Sorry John, I do not want to adapt to a soulless world where the top 1% treat the rest of us like slaves.
DeleteHCS, I agree with you on several key points, and I appreciate the good faith engagement rather than snark.
DeleteI agree that housing equity has turned many markets into closed clubs, and that the American Dream now feels out of reach for a large share of people. Where I think your argument oversimplifies is in treating government help or regulation as the main driver of rising costs in housing, education, and healthcare. These are not normal consumer goods. They are essential, inelastic, and tied to basic dignity and survival. I think most moderates would agree that the issue is not regulation itself, but who it serves and what it is paired with.
Housing costs are driven by financialization, speculative capital, zoning capture by existing owners, and asset inflation at least as much as by regulation. Education costs rose alongside administrative bloat, credential inflation, and the erosion of public funding. Healthcare is the clearest counterexample. The United States is more market driven than peer countries and yet has far higher costs with worse outcomes. That points less to too much government and more to rent seeking, monopolization, and policy capture. This is not regulation failing in the abstract. It is a political economy where rules are used to protect asset values.
I also agree that many things have improved. Technology, medicine, and civil rights gains are real, and no one is asking to trade those achievements for cheaper rent. The problem is that productivity gains have not translated into economic security for younger generations. You can have an iPhone and Spotify and still be locked out of housing, basic healthcare, higher education, family formation, and long term stability.
Time pricing is useful, but it does not apply evenly across sectors. Markets are very good at driving down costs for optional, scalable goods where consumers can delay, downgrade, or substitute. They work far less well for non optional foundations of life like housing, healthcare, and education, where demand is inelastic and supply is constrained. When those essentials consume a growing share of income, falling prices for optional goods do little to restore real economic security. That gap is why younger people feel squeezed even in an era of abundance.
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I am not arguing for nostalgia or a return to 1970. I am arguing for rebalancing risk and reward. That means increasing housing supply, taxing speculative ownership, favoring owner occupancy, reforming healthcare, and recognizing that markets do not self correct when essentials become financial assets.
DeleteYour question about what business a 22 year old could start in Hudson to serve boomers and their housing equity actually proves the point. Most viable ideas involve extracting value from aging, illness, loneliness, or asset management. Elder care, concierge healthcare, downsizing, estate liquidation. That is not entrepreneurial dynamism. It is an economy focused on harvesting accumulated wealth rather than creating new opportunity.
So we agree on part of the diagnosis. Where we differ is that I do not see the core problem as too much government versus too little market. I see decades of policy choices that turned basic human needs into speculative assets, followed by surprise when younger generations stopped believing the system was fair or functional.
South Africa, where I assume you are, is a clear example of what happens when extreme inequality is paired with weak state capacity. Apartheid created a deeply unequal, two track economy that was never fully undone. Add in failing infrastructure, chronic power shortages, high crime, and major skills mismatches, and you end up with an economy that struggles to create jobs at scale.
I consider myself fairly moderate. I see government and the economy as tools to lift all boats and take care of people. I do not think things are going to change anytime soon, and much of what I outlined above is likely to get worse without a real course correction, or else a sharp swing to the left that I would not welcome either. I hope for thoughtful, emotionally intelligent leadership that can actually process data and make policy choices based on needs rather than pure politics, but I am not holding my breath.
And yes, despite calling estate liquidation businesses as having a lack of entrepreneurial dynamism, I am working on one myself, because it will be a growing market over the next thirty years. Anywho, happy New Year, and I hope you are having a safe and fun trip.
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Jacob,
DeleteFirst - congratulations and good luck on the business. No sarcasm.
You describe serving Boomers as "harvesting wealth" as if it were a moral compromise. That is not fair to your work or "creative destruction"... how Schumpeter described the necessary and virtuous market economy. Any enterprise that follows laws and pays taxes is doing God’s work. You are supporting a family, and via your taxes other services. You are removing a liability from the state ledger.
Imagine if Kamal and his kabal all got honest market rate jobs this year and avoided public government roles, lobbying, and not for profits.... and got to a level where they paid double digit in taxes... to fund the projects they advocate for...
~
Why do we stigmatize serving those who spend their own earned income, while praising those who service clients spending public funds?
A voluntary exchange of money for services is not "extraction." It is simply "making something people want".
Besides: Uber/ridesharing was founded for older wealthier people needing a luxury black car service... and now it is also lifeline for people without cars, healthcare visits, limits drunk driving etc.
On SA. Your guess is in the right neighborhood but the diagnosis is incomplete, respectfully. The woes of the region (ZA, Zim, Eswatini, Nam) are not solely the legacy of Apartheid. These nations have now been "free" for longer after minority rule ended, than apartheid actually lasted. The "Born Frees" are now running the economy and the largest voting block.
Before that came centuries of ethnic conflict. There is a reason, we say, the soil is red. But the tragic lesson of Southern Africa post 1994 is clear:
The only thing that ruins a country faster than an illegitimate racist minority government is aggressive and arbitrary affirmative action, the state "helping," and "state capture."
Nothing clarifies the mind like flying between certain parts of Africa and Hudson.
It exposes the absolute absurdity of the welfare-industrial complex in Columbia County and Hudson. You see one world where people find a way to thrive with nothing. And you see another where a bloated system manages to deliver less for a politically selected few while having everything.
Peak irony was reading a letter from FOHY to City Hall leveraging african narratives (where actual poverty and lawlessness exists) to raise money for privileged American youth born on the 2nd and 3rd base of life.
~
There is a lot to unpack in your comment. We might address your thoughtful points on inflation and inelastic goods in a longer essay later or please consider writing more yourself.
But we will leave you with this:
When something is broken in Hudson the reflex is/seems always to ask how the government will fix it. One of the reasons why the mayor's job is so hard.
In the rest of the free world people ask how they can fix it themselves, or together. It is time Hudson moved toward a culture of agency where we control our lives instead of handing our money and sovereignty to the state, and then fight over who "deserves" to be helped most.
This:
ReplyDelete"The problems people like to complain about here are not unique to Hudson, to New York, or even to the United States. The cost of living crisis, housing shortages, youth unemployment, and digital isolation are affecting communities all over the world."
+1000!
Most places have it way worse than Hudson.
re: "tiered property taxes in favor of owner-occupied homes"
Homestead Exemption could solve this and already present for some via the STAR relief.
In MA towns can just enact this: (M.G.L. c. 59, § 5C) that allows any municipality to grant a "Residential Exemption."
Defer to experts and folks like Friedman who served on the council but in NY state... Albany seems to have to bless such a change.
But first... if Hudson could do annual, or every other year, fair and transparent tax re-assessments, it would go a long way to ensure fairness. And this step is within Hudson's control.
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DeleteWe live like royalty and don't know it:
Deletehttps://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/we-live-like-royalty-and-dont-know-it
Bring on the traffic cameras if that’s the only way the unhinged driving can be addressed. Of course it has to pass six committees and papal blessing.
ReplyDeleteIt’s a huge problem and why it has not warranted notice is odd.
It should be noted that a few years ago, via a grant, HPD got 12 surveillance cameras to spread around town to fight crime. One of them is above Harry Howard Avenue at Paddock Place, in front of the school. Another is hanging above lower Prospect Avenue near Warren, another hotbed of nightly criminal activity. None of them have anything to do with traffic or speed control. Mostly, they do nothing to improve life in Hudson (except for possible use in a criminal case), but we do have to pay to keep all that surveillance footage stored somewhere. Preventing crashes, nabbing red light runners, issuing speeding tickets downtown by way of a radar gun or traffic cameras and keeping our streets safe for resident and visitor pedestrians is not high on City Hall's list of priorities... if it's on the list at all.
DeleteI've been out of the country for a few weeks (I recommend it for mental health purposes) and it's nice to see Gossips as robust as ever, with a deep discussion about important topics that excludes, as usual, our children and their education -- among the worst in the state. I think there's a "special" board of education meeting about hiring a new superintendent. If all of Gossips' smart readers went to the meeting and asked why, with just 1600 kids and $56million (I'm tired of doing the per pupil math, but it's a lot) can we only teach a third of the kids to read at grade level? -- well, it's a question that the citizens of Hudson should care about....
ReplyDelete