The same resolution and local law were tabled in August. As Gossips reported at the time, the greatest objection to what was proposed came from C0uncilmember Claire Cousin (Fifth Ward), who took issue with the process for appointing members of the commission described in the law:
Seven community members shall be appointed by the President of the City of Hudson Common Council in consultation with the Common Council. At least one resident from each Ward shall serve on the Commission.
In August, Cousin argued that the law as written placed too much appointment power in the hands of the Council president Margaret Morris. At tonight's meeting, Cousin thanked Morris for her hard work on this initiative and acknowledged she had reached out to people in her ward but found none who wanted to put in the time required to serve on the charter revision commission.
At the end of tonight's meeting, the Council went into executive session to discuss the people Morris is proposing to serve on the commission, all of whom volunteered to step up and do the hard work of revising the charter.
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Sad to hear that no one in the Fifth Ward was willing to step up when asked. No doubt that once this commission presents a proposal they don't like, they'll speak up and complain that they weren't included.
ReplyDeleteI wonder though if the composition of a charter commission mandates an executive session.
Max - will Greenport (seemingly our 6th Ward?) be updating its Charter?
DeleteSeems like it is competing with Hudson these days re: politics.
Speaking of mandates... friendly reminder to check the scoreboard of who Hudson voters trusted to update the Charter, shape the budget, and other issues they ran on etc.
https://www.hudsoncommonsense.com/p/scoreboard
- Of the 3 BEA members only Joe did not get more than half of the votes.
- Cousin, Merante, Sarowar, and Rony did not have contested races in the general.
- Amongst the Supervisors, only Madero had a contested race, and walloped Randall, twice.
Everyone else ran unopposed.
Would Hudson be more functional if we had many candidates compete for 1 City wide County Supervisor slot, and 1 Common Council slot per ward?
Or should we continue to have 18 elected offices... one person for every 300 residents.