Last night, the Planning Board held a special meeting devoted exclusively to the Hudson Housing Authority's massive redevelopment plan, which when complete will have a total of 276 apartments, more than twice the number of units in Bliss Towers and Columbia Apartments. At one point, Ron Bogle, who chairs the Planning Board, spoke of the meeting as having three parts. Gossips' reporting about the meeting will also be in three parts, although the segmentation will not be the same.
After some introductory comments by Bogle, Sara Black spoke to address concerns about conflict of interest. Black, who was appointed to the Planning Board by Mayor Joe Ferris in April, was up until that time a member of the Hudson Housing Authority Board of Commissioners. Prior to that she worked as coordinator for Hudson Community Development and Planning Agency (HCDPA) and for The Spark of Hudson on its HudsonDots affordable housing initiative.
Black defended the propriety of her participation in the review of the HHA project. Here is what she said:
I think most people who have been following the recent public media in town about this project may have seen a concern expressed in the Register-Star and Gossips about whether or not my participation in the discussion of the HHA project constitutes a real or perceived conflict of interest, before I was appointed, because I previously served as a member of the Board of Commissioners of the Housing Authority from January 2025 'til I resigned prior to being appointed to this board. We spoke, I believe the mayor spoke with the city attorneys and I've had a chance to speak with the Planning Board attorney, and Ron did as well before my appointment. And just out of respect for our neighbors and this process and the applicants, I just want to clarify that I do not meet by any stretch of the imagination any sort of legal threshold for a conflict of interest. I'm not financially or relationally involved with any of the applicants' party other than, you know, I see Nick Zachos at a barbecue every now and again.
I think the matter of a perception of a conflict of interest, I think John Friedman in the Register-Star was quoted as saying that I would be appointed to rubberstamp a project that I developed, and that wasn't my experience on the Housing Authority board. I was appointed after the majority of the development work had been decided on, including all the sort of resident feedback. Most of what I learned about this project I learned the same way other members of the public might have, by going to the HHA meetings. I was never a member of the development committee. I essentially in no way shaped this development. I went back and checked the minutes. From my appointment, we never voted on this project. I never really weighed in substantively on the configuration of the project. I think I at one point in the process asked a question in public, you know, how can the commissioners be supporting this process? But, so I welcome any public or personal feedback on this, but I have received clearance from legal counsel to participate fully as a member of the Planning Board. I think that might be all I have to say.
The Register-Star article Black references can be found here. What Friedman actually said, as quoted in the article, is this:
I have no idea who Ms. Black is, but I know what she has been doing, which is sitting on this particular board that has a matter that's now before another board, so she'll basically be passing judgment on her own work. Whether she approved of that work or not is somewhat immaterial. The fact of the matter is that she had a stake in the outcome, and now she has an ability to basically act as a sort of an adjudicator on that particular project [Bliss]. So, I would think that, as a matter of just basic ethical practice, that she would recuse herself from the deliberations and any decision-making concerning any matter that was before the Housing Authority Board while she was a sitting member of that board.
After Black made her statement, Bogle made his own statement, as a "point of clarification":
The Planning Board is appointed by the mayor, and in this matter the Planning Board, including the chairman, has no particular authority or position to make any determination. It would be Sara's decision alone to decide how she wanted to engage on this particular project.
And so the meeting began. More come.
COPYRIGHT 2026 CAROLE OSTERINK
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