Tonight, the Common Council passed a resolution authorizing the mayor to enter into agreements with Tabner, Ryan & Keniry to provide legal counsel to the Planning Board. According to the resolution, William Ryan, senior partner in the firm, will handle the Article 78 proceedings against the Planning Board, and Andrew Clark, partner, will be counsel to the Planning Board.
In the roll call vote, Mohammed Rony (Second Ward) abstained, saying that he wanted information about why the change was being made. At that point, Claire Cousin (Fifth Ward) asked if a resolution could be tabled after the roll call vote had already begun. Council president Margaret Morris said Cousin could move to table the resolution but explained new legal counsel needed to be in place before the Planning Board's February meeting. Cousin made the motion to table, but it failed, and the vote went ahead. All members of the Council voted to approve the resolution except Rony, who abstained. After the vote, Cousin reiterated that she wanted Mayor Joe Ferris to explain to the Council why the change was being made. Morris told her, because it was a personnel matter, Ferris's explanation would have to be presented in executive session.
The public may never know Ferris's reasons for wanting to replace Victoria Polidoro as legal counsel to the Planning Board, but here is some background that may or may not be pertinent. There are currently two Article 78 proceedings against the Planning Board relating to two projects that were before the Planning Board during Polidoro's tenure as counsel: Mill Street Lofts and the Colarusso dock. Also, during the Planning Board review for a conditional use permit for Colarusso's dock operations, Polidoro steadfastly maintained that Hudson's LWRP (Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan) was not legally binding, basing her unshakeable opinion on what Gossips characterized as "code detritus" but might be thought of as a scrivener's error.
It is not atypical, when there is a change of mayor, that there is also a change in legal counsel, not only in corporation counsel (i.e., city attorney) but also in counsel to the regulatory boards. In fact, it has pretty much been standard practice in Hudson for at least thirty years. What seems atypical here is the expectation by some members of the Common Council that the mayor explain his reasons for engaging different attorneys.
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It's a bit of an awkward situation, no? If Joe thinks the new law firm will provide better representation for the city, this would then also come to bear in these two article 78 petitions the city has to defend.
ReplyDeleteI don't know exactly where Joe stands with respect to these two petitions but a municipality normally wouldn't want to throw them and should be interested in defending against them successfully.
Polidoro’s open contempt for the Planning Board, visible in her eye rolls and silencing of Hoffman, was unprofessional.
DeleteThe credentials gap here is impossible to ignore.
Polidoro attended Pace Law (154 average LSAT, 44% acceptance), while Attorney Ryan graduated from Fordham, a top-40 school with a selective 16% acceptance rate, with deep institutional ties in New York State.
Surely someone here might be annoyed by a reference to school rank... but lawyers need to know the law, they need to be conscientious, and academic achievement is a proxy for those natural talents and cultivated capabilities.
Would you want your heart surgeon to be from a 150th ranked medical school, or the #1 student at the number 1 medical school, who sits on the government committee that reviews medical malpractice?
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Ryan has decades of municipal experience and was even trusted by the State to investigate bad lawyers on the Attorney Grievance Committee.
Why would the City settle for less expertise? If his rate is competitive, it’s an easy choice. Even if it is more, it is likely still going to save Hudson tax payers money in the long-term.
Bogle and Ryan could both serve on public company boards or national entities and distinguish themselves there. The same could not be said for their predecessors on the Planning Board.
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Separately, Hudson has a "captured counsel" problem. It’s a pattern we saw when the Common Council attorney effectively became personal counsel for former President Tom DePietro. (Failed Duty to the Entity). When lawyers stay too long, they stop being objective and start enabling sloppy behavior.
Polidoro’s misguidance will cost Hudson taxpayers thousands in lawsuits and lost commerce. We need competence, not comfort.
Council Member Cousins is well within her right to ask questions and provide oversight, but what exactly was her concern with the change to more experience and independent counsel?
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Throwback to when the Common Council lawyer Crystal Peck (Bailey, Johnson & Peck), also a graduate of a law school not in the top 100, stood by while DePietro intentionally discriminated against viewpoints in a public forum, on municipal property.
Only after we emailed her several supreme court cases and municipal precedents from Albany, did DePietro make a 180. What if we didn't do that... would DePietro just continued to curate public letters...
P.S. The Charter Reform Committee should consider a rule to cycle out certain service providers every few terms to prevent this kind of stagnation.
As someone who graduated from a law school ranked 117 out of 195, I take issue with the above. Not everyone is chasing prestige when it comes to higher education. For some of us, the proximity of a school is the draw. I would also add that we all have to take the same test to practice.
DeleteI agree Kristal, school choice is very personal and rank usually isn’t the deciding factor. Having graduated from a top ranked veterinary school, chosen by location not rank, I can assuredly say the education is a jumping off point only. The boards make sure we have the basis to develop into competent practitioners, and it’s the same with other medical as well as legal professionals. Being a number one school or a number one student doesn’t guarantee much when it comes to practice.
DeleteFair point. Especially coming from one of the most respected lawyers in Hudson Valley.
DeleteWe all know that having a Phd is clearly not a guarantee of critical thinking...
In founder land... Steve Jobs was a drop out from Reed College and most great "American Gentry" businesses are founded and operated by folks with untraditional backgrounds and not Wharton MBAs.
And to steelman Pace Law... they do have an excellent Environmental Law program... which is one of Polidoro's focus areas. And often people pick schools based on (in state tuition, aid, location etc.)
Still... it is a helpful proxy (one of many), and especially in the law...
Our point is simply that Hudson would be better off if we try to get more data- driven where possible... move from "I know and like X person..." to "regardless of my personal relationship with person X or Y, she has Z objective achievement of relevance to the task or role"
HCS: The awkwardness I was alluding to has actually nothing to do with the specific law firm or their perceived chops in academic terms. The strangeness lies in the 180 that the local politics of Hudson is going through right now.
DeleteYou have an entirely new administration whose agenda is diametrically opposed to the previous administration's agenda. They are inheriting lawsuits, now against the city they are running, that were filed before they took over and that at the time they - Margaret and Joe - might have supported themselves.
If the new attorneys are better, I for one am happy that they'll be defending against the most recent article 78 petition.
I also agree with Kristal. The ranking of a particular institute of education says very little. Success and outcome is more often determined by factors other than the school, most notably the socio-economic environment and the parents under which the offspring grows up and develops. Any kid that is born to parents that care automatically wins the lottery.
Tassilo -
DeleteThank you!
1. Agree that there are many roads to Rome.
2. Are there any Hudson residents who are as involved and invested and informed about Greenport issues as you are on Hudson issues?
Just curious.
3. Please move to Hudson!
So glad to see the tragicomedy that is the Hudson Common Council continues. In a fit of static energy, Roni finds the calories to abstain AND ask a question, and then is supported in his delusion that the aldermen have any advice-and-consent powers as to mayoral appointments under the current city charter by Cousin, the one member with less legislative experience in the chamber than himself. What a couple of chuckleheads.
ReplyDeleteNo one is required to work with any lawyer they don’t want to when they’re empowered to select their own. Besides, the City has rarely been represented so poorly as it was by Ms. Polidoro who seemed quite partisan in her behavior, and whose advice has resulted in not one but two Article 78 proceedings it must defend.
The one bright spot in the flailing these two salons engaged in is that, in a body long known for its lack of continuity, Mr. Roni continues to misuse abstentions when he has no reason to abstain. Perhaps he’s a closet conservative, hide-bound for no reason beyond the hide? Perhaps Ms. Morris will ask counsel to explain the legislative process to her members?
My name is Rony. It’s clearly written in the article. Perhaps you're playing childish games by misspelling it on purpose, or maybe you simply need to improve your reading comprehension to accurately reproduce a four-letter name. I suppose we’ll never know.
DeleteThe new rules of order adopted by the council clearly state that members may abstain if they require additional information regarding a resolution. I exercised that right because this resolution was dropped on our desks just two hours before the meeting. Maybe you can enlighten us: when was the last time the council was asked to approve legal counsel? According to the city charter, the Mayor holds executive authority to appoint counsel to protect the city and its officers.
I began my abstention by stating that the executive already possesses the power to appoint legal counsel. I didn’t understand why we were being asked to approve a last-minute resolution - especially when the Mayor provided no communication and no one was available to answer questions. This sets a troubling precedent, particularly considering this Mayor campaigned on promises of improved communication between departments and with the public. That promise is not being upheld when the body of representatives is left in the dark about the reasoning behind such abrupt and unexplained resolutions.
I noticed it a few years ago: the common council has gotten too involved and bogged down with matters that never concerned councils in the past. I think our new council president is especially guilty of this, and beginning with her predecessor, the council president assumed too much power and sway. Margaret is merely following in Tom's footsteps, it seems. BUT, when there is a management vacuum -- as there has been for the past six years -- someone has to step in to fill it. Hopefully that vacuum will be filled by the mayor's office for at least the next two years so that the council can get back to what it does best: issuing ayes and nays on simple proposals and budget fund transfers, not worrying about who the city's attorneys are or how to increase parking revenues. Let's face it, even the wisest and most involved council member (it's certainly not Rony or his compatriot in the second ward, Dewan Sarowar) is still an amateur. If buying $150,000 of the wrong kiosks is any warning, most of which are still in storage after one year (thanks to Jen Belton and Tom D), it is this: stop allowing the council to do too much, we can't expect them to know how to best handle and spend taxpayer money properly. Leave those decisions to the people paid to do so, if those people exist. If they don't exist, don't spend the money and by goodness don't create a committee of amateurs to deal with complex problems that may not exist anyway (parking)!
ReplyDeleteThe Parking Study Committee, which is no longer around, was given a budget of $400,000! Kiosk$, a consultant, endless talk (mostly without anyone from HPD in attendance), then they handed parking off to our Police Chief. HPD didn't follow any of the committee's suggestions for the rollout of the new parking payment system, delays are still happening and will continue for weeks, and it is obvious now that HPD never would have bought the kiosks if the committee hadn't. Three weeks into the new year and Warren's side streets and 700 block of Columbia STILL HAVE FREE PARKING (no signs, no issuing of tickets) after 4 weeks of free parking in December that HPD top brass and Margaret Morris did not want. This is called fiscal irresponsibility and general dysfunction that we all pay for. Thanks in whole to the Hudson Common Council and no one else.
We don't actually know how the acquisition of the wrong parking kiosks came about. I'd be reluctant to blame Jennifer Belton or Tom DePietro for that. It might have just been a clerical mistake by the executive.
DeleteThat said, there was a disconnect between mayor and council. In an ideal world, the mayor sets an overarching agenda and steers the council in that direction. That never happened under Kamal who had a blatant disregard for Hudson's legislator and instead tried to govern by Facebook post. The council then proceeded to do its own thing, often having to come up with initiatives that should have come from the mayor but didn't. The recent willingness to collect back property taxes was all Vicky's doing.
Fixing the parking situation was another project the council took upon itself. The outcome was less good but that's partially due to HPD deciding to swoop in and take over. Once again, the culprit was the absentee mayor and his allergy to exercise leadership.
Max, the executive does not control or drive the legislative. They are coequal thirds of the government. While you’re correct that Kamal did nothing during his tenure, neither did the council under Tom. Coequal halves of a nonperforming whole.
DeleteYour final paragraph confounds me: if not the council, which element of government is supposed to take on quality of life law changes? Not the executive — it’s tasked with enforcing laws, not writing or enacting them. Certainly not the City court. And we should never trust law enforcement to work outside their mandate — those in uniform should never be establishing policy: we have a purposefully civilian government.
I am an avid reader of GoR but have rarely commented here. However, as someone who watched the entire Colarusso saga unfold, I can state with certainty that the Planning Board was poorly represented from beginning to end. Victoria Polidoro seemed to be working for the applicant rather than the City of Hudson and its citizens. For this reason, I applaud the mayor for starting fresh with a well-qualified attorney. As Kristal Heinz points out above, it is not so much about where you went to law school. It's about a commitment to the client you represent. Victoria Polidoro failed in this mission. I look forward to a new, more professional attorney.
ReplyDeleteHear, hear!
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