Meeting 2 with the Mayor Presumptive

Last night, mayoral candidate Rick Rector held the second in a series conversational meetings with residents of the five wards of Hudson. This time, the meeting was in the Third Ward, at House Rules Cafe. Last week's meeting in the First Ward drew a crowd of around 75 people, but fewer than 20 people showed up for the meeting in the Third Ward. For this meeting, there is no need to rely on the Register-Star or Gossips to report what questions were asked and what Rector said. Dan Udell was there with this video camera, and you can watch all that transpired here.  

There is another meeting tonight in the Fourth Ward. It begins at 6 p.m. in the Community Room at the Hudson Area Library, 51 North Fifth Street.
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About That Move--55 Years Ago

We know from the building history provided on the Hudson Opera House website that City Hall, for which purpose 327 Warren Street was constructed in 1855, was moved upstreet to 520 Warren Street in 1962. In hindsight, we can all see the effect that move had. The "business district" became concentrated in the 500 and 600 blocks of Warren Street, the areas below Fifth Street became abandoned and unwelcoming, it took decades to revive Hudson below Fifth Street, and the rebirth of 327 Warren Street as the Hudson Opera House was the major driver of that revival. 

Gossips has never investigated what controversy, if any, surrounded the decision to move City Hall, but it being Hudson, you figure there had to have been some. Recently, I stumbled upon an article in the Albany Times Union from October 1963, which revealed that at least one person had some prescience about the consequences of moving City Hall. It was Michael LeSawyer, who was the Democratic candidate challenging Republican Samuel Wheeler in the mayoral race that year. Here's what the Times Union reported on October 17, just weeks before the election.

Switch of Hudson City Hall Draws 

Attack by Democrat

Democratic mayoralty candidate Michael Lesawyer today lashed out at the Wheeler administration for switching city hall locations and said, "Downtown Hudson was sold down the river."

He strongly criticized his opponent, incumbent Republican Mayor Samuel T. Wheeler, for shifting city hall to its present location and said it was a "severe blow" to downtown property owners.

Mr. Lesawyer also claimed that the switch of city hall buildings has effected [sic] downtown business in general and added, "the foresight of the administration to date is definitely zero."

Sees Tourism Loss

"Walking through downtown Hudson one can feel the depressing effect," Mr. Lesawyer said. "It is hard to believe that a former spokesman (Mayor Wheeler) for the Taxpayer-Rentpayer Association is responsible for this situation. Yet it is true.

"You will recall the assurances that the interests of the property owners would be protected. The assurances and promises were definitely broken. Property owners have suffered by the change," he said.

Mr. Lesawyer contends that nothing was planned or considered as to the effect on the downtown area. He said with the aid of the Planning Commission attempts could have been made to rebuild or maintain the area "as a thriving center of the city."

Referring to the $4,000 selling price, Mr. Lesawyer said, "Even a parking facility would have been worth considerably more than the price received for the old city hall."

Touching on what he termed "a lack of foresight," the Democratic candidate said, "Next year, and the year after, this city will lose out on the possible benefits from the 1964 World's Fair because of a lack of initiative. It is hard to believe that the opening of the Fair is only a few months away. The administration has failed to offer plans or suggestions to attract the millions of tourists, by-passing the city, to at least stop in for a visit."

Mr. Lesawyer concluded: "We have an abundance of historical sites and interests that people would like to see and visit. Tourists spend money and a definite shortage of money exists in this city."

Common Council minutes show that on October 25, 1962, the sale of 327 Warren Street to the Loyal Order of Moose for $4,200 was approved by the Common Council, with the Council president and eight aldermen voting for it, and only two aldermen voting against it. What the City actually paid for 520 Warren Street is difficult to determine. There is evidence in Council minutes of a complicated deal that involved leasing the former bank building for $1 a year for eight years, from an entity called Claverack Landing Corporation, which then held the title to the building, and the exchange of shares of stock. What is clear from Council minutes is that the City spent more than $13,500 to renovate the building for use as city hall.

On November 6, 1963, the Times Union reported that Wheeler won reelection for his second term as mayor, "by the landslide plurality of 1,598 votes." Wheeler, who served four nonconsecutive terms as mayor of Hudson (1962-1965, 1968-1969, 1974-1975), was in office in 1969 when the General Worth Hotel was demolished and the Common Council committed the City to the vast urban renewal project that changed it forever. It's intriguing to contemplate what might have been if the outcome of the 1963 election had been different.

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Referendum Prep: Constitutional Convention

Among the signs cropping up everywhere in the days approaching election day are a few advocating a No vote on a constitutional convention. 

Some of the signs offer no clue about their origin; one of them--the one shown in the picture immediately above--does: NoNewYorkConvention.org. If you go to that website, which is attributed to a group called New Yorkers Against Corruption, you will find allegations that a constitutional convention would be a "Politicians' Convention" and a "multi-million dollar boondoggle funded by tax payer money" that would threaten the rights of working families and promote the interests of the wealthy elite. There is even the claim that the referendum question is being put on the back of ballot (where such questions always appear) on purpose to make it less likely voters will see it and vote on it. 

There is also a pro-convention group (which apparently isn't passing out lawn signs--at least, not around here) called the Committee for a Constitutional Convention. This group argues that constitutional reform is needed to combat entrenched interests and make constitutional improvements that would, among other things, address legislative dysfunction and corruption and update the state's flawed electoral process.

Our current state constitution requires that every twenty years the voters of New York decide, by referendum, whether or not to hold a convention to amend the constitution. In 1997, the last time there was such a referendum, it failed. There was a constitutional convention in the 1960s, but the changes to the constitution it recommended were ultimately rejected by the voters. The last time there was a successful constitutional convention was in the 1930s.
    
Blair Horner, executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), did a commentary on WAMC last summer about the upcoming referendum, which serves as a good primer to the constitutional convention: "The Fight Over the Constitutional Convention Heats Up." In it, Horner outlines the process going forward were the referendum to succeed. But success is hardly assured. A recent Sienna College poll indicated that the number of voters supporting the constitutional convention is about equal to the number opposing it, and the opposition brings together some strange bedfellows--Planned Parenthood, the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, the Conservative Party, public- and private-sector unions, and environmental groups, to name a few.
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The Meeting with the Mayor Presumptive

The Register-Star dispatched its newest reporter to the first of a series of "conversational meetings" mayoral candidate Rick Rector is holding with residents of Hudson throughout the city. The resulting article appeared on the front page of the paper's weekend edition: "Rector cites waterfront as priority." In the print version of the paper, the article had this subhead: "Silence on affordable housing dismays some at get-to-know-you meeting." 

What's remarkable about the article is that, aside from cherry-picking a few things Rector shared in his opening comments about his background and priorities, the greater part of the article was devoted to post-meeting comments solicited from two people with fairly well-known agendas: Rebecca Wolff, a tireless advocate for affordable housing, and Kaya Weidman, co-founder and executive director of Kite's Nest, who is a champion of the economically disadvantaged and regularly speaks out against gentrification, tourism, and what is perceived as economic development. 

What the Register-Star did not report was that the candidate made it clear he intended to make no campaign promises but instead affirmed his commitment to working with whomever it took to seek solutions to problems. He did speak of one thing he planned to initiate as soon as he took office: a Mayor's Council for Youth, tasked with analyzing and coordinating services for children and young people provided by the Hudson Youth Department, the school district, the library, and various not-for-profits, with the goal of improving services. There was a suggestion that the Youth Center rejoin the Boys & Girls Clubs of America (it had that affiliation until around 2005), and Rector promised to investigate the possibility. 

Twice, in responding to questions about affordable housing and the $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant, Rector spoke of the housing project being pursued by HCDPA (Hudson Community Development & Planning Agency) on vacant property owned by HCDPA on lower State Street--a project, he said, that is running "in tandem" with the DRI planning. When responding to a complaint about gentrification, which the questioner said was ruining Hudson, Rector pointed out that it wasn't possible to prevent people from selling their houses. When the questioner persisted, saying he knew of ways to control gentrification, Rector expressed his willingness to hear those ideas. 

Much was said during the meeting that the Register-Star didn't report and Gossips cannot recall, since I was present as a resident of the First Ward not as a reporter. There are four more such meetings coming up--two in the next week: for the Third Ward, on Tuesday, October 10, at House Rules Cafe, 757 Columbia Street, and for the Fourth Ward, on Wednesday, October 11, in the Community Room at the Hudson Area Library, 51 North Fifth Street. Gossips will be present at both those meetings, with pen and notebook on hand, prepared to report what transpires. 
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Imagine All of Hudson Were a Historic District

Since December 2006, when the extensive Union-Allen-South Front Street Historic District was created by a resolution of the Common Council, no new historic districts have been designated in the City of Hudson. 

An attempt by Historic Hudson in 2011 to designate Robinson Street and the adjacent neighborhoods on North Second and North Third streets as a historic district met with vehement opposition from Ed Cross (who I'm told would now like the church building on Columbia Street he wants to acquire for his Endless Love Temple to be designated a local landmark) and ultimately went down in flames at a public hearing. Since then, no one has had the courage to propose any new historic districts, and that is unfortunate.

At the beginning of 2015, this double house at 451 State Street, right across the street from the Galvan Armory, ceased being part of Phil Gellert's notorious Northern Empire. 

Its new owner cleaned up the interior and then sold it in the summer of 2016. The current owner is, according to tax records, Pacific Studio, LLC.

The building is now undergoing exterior renovation. All the windows are being replaced--the second floor windows with windows that appear to be wider and shorter than the originals; the 1950s "picture" windows on the ground floor, added at some point in the house's unfortunate past, are being replaced with banks of three windows.

These newest alterations to the building's fenestration move it even further away from its original design, which can be seen in the background of this historic picture.

Had this house been in a historic district (sadly, it's just across the street from one), locating a historic photograph of the house and using it as a guide for any alterations to the building's facade would have been a requirement, and this further remuddling of the house's intended design could have been avoided.
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Another Plan Abandoned

Since Friday, Hudson and the art world have been abuzz with the news that Marina Abramovic has abandoned her plan to transform what was originally the Community Theatre into the Marina Abramovic Institute. Meanwhile, another ambitious plan has also been abandoned--that of turning the building at the corner of Warren and Eighth streets, originally the Crescent Garage, where Packards were sold and serviced, and most recently Ackerman's Applicance, into Hudson Anchor, a food emporium modeled after the Chelsea Market or Guido's in Great Barrington.

The windows of the building, which had been filled with signage announcing its anticipated future use, now display notice that the building is available for lease through The Kinderhook Group.

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Musing on the Alleys of Hudson

This past January, an exhibition at the Hudson Opera House called No Parking: The Alleys and Garages of Hudson was one of Hudson's many memorable events. The exhibition celebrated the unconventional, "accidental" beauty of the buildings on the alleys and on Partition Street--the smaller streets that run parallel to Hudson's major east-west thoroughfares.

Photo: William Hellermann

Some of the pictures in the exhibition had been taken nearly twenty years earlier, and those familiar with the alleys of Hudson could recognize changes. Some of the buildings no longer existed, some had since been altered with new garage doors and paint.

Nantucket style house that once stood on Partition Street near West Court Street

Despite the changes over the past couple of decades, the alleys, as those who often walk these back streets can attest, retain much of their authenticity and idiosyncratic charm, but things are afoot that could change that.

In the past year, the Historic Preservation Commission has granted certificates of appropriateness to two projects that involved replacing original buildings on Partition Street--buildings that were constructed to serve as garages or carriage houses--with new buildings intended to be residential spaces. Granted Partition Street is a street not an alley, but in many ways it embodies the characteristics of an alley both in the nature of its buildings and in its principal use. 

In February 2017, the HPC granted a certificate of appropriateness to replace an existing one-story garage behind 317 Union Street with a two-story residential unit with an attached garage. According to the applicant, the design of the new building was meant to be as much like the building it was replacing as possible. The first picture below is a Google Street View capture of the building that once stood on the site. The second picture shows the building that took its place.

Recently, the HPC was asked to grant a certificate of appropriateness for a project that involved the demolition of an accessory building in 400 block of Partition Street, behind 439 Union Street, and the construction on the site of a new building, which one member of the HPC described as a "generic modern building." The building to be demolished (shown below) was an early 20th-century garage which was perfectly sound for its intended use. The HPC initially denied a certificate of appropriateness.

When the applicant came back with a different design for the new building--one that replicated the existing building--the HPC granted a certificate of appropriateness for the demolition and new construction.

Replication, of course, is meant to preserve the integrity of a streetscape, but at what point does replication result in total loss of authenticity and character?

Last year, farther down Partition Street in the 200 block, folks wanted to build an accessory building behind their house on Allen Street. There had once been a building on the site, a very old and unusual building, but it had been demolished by a previous owner almost twenty years ago, before there were historic preservation laws in Hudson. When their original plan to build a little barn with a gambrel roof was rejected by the HPC, the applicants came back with a new design that imitated an early 20th-century garage two doors up from their property.

The new building provides a starting point for imagining what Partition Street and the alleys would look like if all the original buildings were to be replaced with replicas. But this may be where we are heading. 

The need for affordable housing and the desire of property owners to generate income from their property are driving an interest in converting structures in the alleys and along Partition Street into habitable dwellings. There is legislation now before the Common Council that would facilitate converting "rear yard" buildings into dwelling units by waiving the requirement for off-street parking for such units. Alderman Michael O'Hara (First Ward), who chairs the Common Council Legal Committee, talked about this legislation as a means to ease Hudson's housing shortage at the most recent Affordable Housing Hudson forum. You can access the video of that forum here. His comments about this legislation begin at 26:19.

The problem with this initiative was seen with the garage behind 439 Union Street. The buildings along Partition Street and the alleys are accessory buildings; they were not built to be residential dwellings. They typically do not have foundations, and a foundation is a present-day code requirement for buildings used as residences. It was argued that the garage behind 439 Union Street, perfectly sound as a garage, would not survive being lifted for a proper foundation to be constructed beneath it and then lowered onto that foundation. It's unlikely that any other 19th- or early 20th-century carriage or garage on Partition Street or in one of the alleys could survive it either.

So the likely consequence of encouraging people to convert historic accessory buildings along alleys into housing is the loss of these historic buildings, with the best outcome being having them replaced by replicas that would have none of the character and unconventional beauty of the originals.
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Parking Reminder

The summer suspension of alternate side of the street parking on weekends is over. We are back to parking overnight on alternate sides of the street. For much of the city that means tonight cars should be parked on the odd side of the street--the side where house numbers are odd.
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It's Official

Imagine that! Only yesterday, Gossips reported that, while the building at Seventh and Columbia streets that was to become her eponymous institute stood vacant and abandoned, Marina Abramovic was selling macaroons "that tasted like her."

Today, the Times Union reports that Abramovic has officially given up the idea of creating the Marina Abramovic Institute in Hudson: "Performance artist abandons Hudson plans."

According to the article, the estimated cost of transforming the building, which she purchased in 2007 for $950,000, "ballooned" from $15 million to $31 million. Now, it is speculated, she will likely try to sell it.
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Thanks to Chad Weckler for bringing this to our attention

Peter Cipkowski on Urban Renewal in Hudson

In recent years, Peter Cipkowski has shared the treasure trove of photographs and movies of Hudson left by his grandfather Jozef Cipkowski, who owned a grocery store, Chipp's Market, at 39 South Front Street and lived with his family over the store. 

The building that housed Chipp's Market and all the other buildings along the west side of Front Street--south and north--were demolished in the 1970s during a period of urban renewal in Hudson.

On Thursday, October 26, Cipkowski will present "A Brief History of Hudson's Experience with Urban Renewal," an illustrated talk about the massive undertaking that was urban renewal in Hudson, which impacted hundreds of families and changed the city forever.

The presentation is based on historic documents and conversations with project leaders and local residents and will address many of the questions we, living in Hudson almost a half century later, wonder about: How was the urban renewal project funded? What were its original objectives? Did it succeed in meeting its goals? What was lost? Was it worth it? What has the experience taught us about planning, preservation, and economic growth? How did it compare with similar projects in the Hudson Valley and beyond? What lessons, if any, are there for us as Hudson continues to evolve?

The presentation, which is the latest in the Hudson Area Library History Room's Local History Speaker Series, takes place at 6 p.m., on Thursday, October 26, in the Community Room at the library, 51 North Fifth Street. The event is free and open to the public. 
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Of Interest

While the future home of the Marina Abramovic Institute remains vacant and moldering, the latest news of its namesake is that she is selling macaroons that "taste like her."

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Who Are These People?

Yesterday, Mayor Tiffany Martin Hamilton announced the members of the Local Planning Committee for the Downtown Revitalization Initiative. Many are well-known members of the community, but some of them may not be familiar to Gossips readers. For this reason, I provide some basic information about each one.

Tiney Abitabile  Principal at Hudson High School

Brenda Adams  Executive director for Columbia County Habitat for Humanity

Kim Bach  Owner of Verdigris Tea & Chocolate 

Shaheim DeJesus  2017 graduate of Hudson High School, now a student at Hudson Valley Community College; recipient of a Hudson Dollars for Scholars scholarship

Todd Erling  Executive director for Hudson Valley AgriBusiness Development Corporation

Betsy Gramkow  Executive director for the Columbia Greene Hospital Foundation

Michelle Hughes  Director of investments and partnerships for the National Young Farmers Coalition

Jeff Hunt  President and CEO of the Columbia County Chamber of Commerce

Joan Hunt  Project director for Greater Hudson Promise Neighborhood

Tony Jones  Chair of the Columbia Economic Development Corporation (CEDC) Board of Directors; former owner of the newspaper The Independent

Peter Jung  Owner of Peter Jung Fine Art; president of Friends of Hudson during St. Lawrence Cement struggle

Sara Kendall  Assistant director at Kite's Nest

Bob Lucke  Owner of The Cascades

Randall Martin  Owner of Martin Audio Video Services and a member of the Hudson City Democratic Committee

Elena Mosley   Co-founder and executive director of Operation Unite, New York  

Matthew Nelson  Vice president, loan production, at Community Preservation Corporation

Seth Rapport  Owner of Valley Mortgage Company and former chair of the Hudson Development Corporation (HDC) Board of Directors

Jabin Ahmed Ruhii  Team member at Hudson Muslim Youth

Michael Sadowski  Program director for the Bard College Early College Hudson Initiative at the Warren Street Academy

Dan Seward  a.k.a. Dan Bunny, owner of John Doe Records

Colin Stair  Owner of Stair Galleries

Christine Vanderlan  Community project manager at the Columbia Land Conservancy

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But Wait . . . There's More

Yesterday, Gossips published a legal notice from the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation about the Colarusso proposal to build a new two-lane paved road through South Bay, which appeared in the Register-Star. The legal notice continued on for three columns, in the little narrow columns of the public notices page, and the entire final column was missed. What was omitted was the deadline for public comments and information about submitting them. So here is the rest of the legal notice. It has also been appended to yesterday's post.

The publication date for the notice was October 4, 2017.
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Revenue from Visitors

At tonight's Common Council Arts, Entertainment & Tourism Committee, John Friedman, who chairs the committee, reported on the lodging tax, which the proprietors of hotels, inns, B&Bs, and short-term Airbnb rentals began collecting on June 1.

In the first quarter, $73,811 was collected in lodging tax and $6,800 in registration fees. When the lodging tax was being discussed in the Common Council, prior to the law being enacted, it was projected that the tax would bring in $69,570 in the first quarter. Friedman told the committee, "The receipts are in line with our expectations. In fact, we are 6 percent above where we thought we would be."
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Of Interest

The shortage of affordable housing in Hudson has been the topic of many meetings lately, and at every one of them, the number of buildings--mixed use commercial/residential, apartment buildings, and single-family homes--owned by the Galvan Foundation and standing vacant is mentioned. The situation inspired the Common Council Legal Committee to draft legislation that would require the owner of a vacant building to register the building and pay a fee every six months for as long as the building remained unoccupied. 

There has been much speculation about why the Galvan Foundation is acquiring more property than it is able to rehabilitate in a timely fashion, but an article that appeared today in Cubed seems intent on putting all speculation to rest while explaining the group's noble motive: "A renovated armory brings new life to Hudson, New York." The article contains some surprising statements, such as this one: "But a recently re-opened and gut renovated downtown building, and an accompanying set of new affordable housing developments, have given the city and its ailing downtown a new sense of energy and vibrancy, showing how real estate can also be a tool to help Hudson." It's not clear if the armory is the "recently re-opened and gut renovated downtown building," but Hudson's downtown hasn't been "ailing" for quite a while now, and sadly, the neighborhood immediately surrounding the armory is more or less ground zero for Hudson's recent spate of gun violence. And then there's this statement, which pretty clearly seems to refer to the armory: "Now home to numerous community groups, as well as 171 rental units, the formerly blighted structure, which opened in early 2016, has taken on a new life while reanimating a traditional town center." Where, oh where, might those 171 rental units to be found in Galvan Armory?
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Back to the Road Through the Wetlands

The Colarusso dock, where repairs were made without the required review and permitting from the City of Hudson Planning Board, and the Colarusso proposal for a new two-lane paved road through South Bay are still before the Planning Board. When last we reported on the situation, the City of Hudson was suing the Greenport Planning Board, the lead agency in the SEQRA process, for failing "to take a hard look at the potential significant adverse environmental impacts" of the proposed road and making a negative declaration, and A. Colarusso & Sons was counter-suing the City of Hudson. So today, an eagle-eyed reader found this notice in the Register-Star, from the Department of Environmental Conservation, regarding the proposed new road from the quarry to the dock.

There's a lot that's puzzling here, not the least of which is contained in the last two lines: "SEQR Lead Agency None Designated."

Update: But wait, there's more. Here's the remainder of the legal notice, which continued in a third column and was regrettably overlooked previously.

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Thanks to Virginia Martin for bringing this to our attention

The Waiting Is Over

Gossips just received the following press release from the mayor's office, revealing who will serve on the Local Planning Committee for the Downtown Revitalization Initiative:

The Mayor’s office is pleased to announce the formation of Hudson’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative Local Planning Committee. The LPC will work alongside representatives from the New York Department of State, the Capital Region Regional Economic Development Council, Empire State Development, and professional planning firm Stantec to drive the planning process. Over a six-month period, the LPC will engage with the community to build upon the projects framework laid out in the City’s DRI application, solicit ideas for additional projects, and decide by consensus the final projects that are to be implemented over the next two years. The following is a list of the LPC members who have graciously agreed to serve:

• Tiney Abitabile
• Brenda Adams
• Kim Bach
• Shaheim DeJesus
• Todd Erling
• Betsy Gramkow
• Mayor Tiffany Martin Hamilton, Co-Chair
• Michelle Hughes
• Jeff Hunt
• Joan Hunt
• Tony Jones
• Peter Jung
• Sara Kendall
• Bob Lucke
• Randall Martin
• Elena Mosley
• Matthew Nelson, Co-Chair
• Seth Rapport
• Jabin Ahmed Ruhii
• Michael Sadowski
• Dan Seward
• Colin Stair
• Christine Vanderlan

There will also be an advisory board, consisting of the following ex-officio members:

• Chairman, Hudson Common Council Economic Development Committee--John Friedman
• Chairman, Columbia County Board of Supervisors Economic Development Committee--John Reilly
• Treasurer, City of Hudson--Heather Campbell
• Member of the Hudson Department of Public Works--Christian Ludwig

It is anticipated that the first meeting of the LPC will be held on October 17 at 6:30 p.m. Further details will be announced next week.

It Isn't Over Until It's Over

For most of the city, the Democratic primary decided the local races. Except in two instances--the Republicans running Martin Martinez for alderman in the Second Ward and twelve-term incumbent Bob Donahue for alderman in the Fifth Ward--the other parties did not field their own candidates but simply cross-endorsed candidates who are Democrats. There are candidates in the Second Ward who lost the Democratic primary and remain on the ballot on other party lines, but in the Fourth Ward the competition remains most fierce. 

In the race for the two aldermen seats, it's still a three-way race.

John Rosenthal and Rich Volo beat out Lauren Scalera in the Democratic primary, with 107 and 104 votes respectively to her 100 votes. But, thanks to the long Hudson tradition of cross endorsement, Scalera, the incumbent and daughter of long-time mayor and Hudson politico Rick Scalera, remains on the ballot on the Republican and Conservative party lines.

Things are even more complicated in the race for Fourth Ward supervisor.   

In the Democratic primary, Linda Mussmann, co-director of Time & Space Limited, challenged Bill Hughes, the incumbent who has held the office since 2008, and won by two votes--109 to 107. Hughes, however, cross-endorsed by the Republican and Conservative parties, remains on the ballot. But that's only the beginning of the complication.

Hughes, who prior to the primary was endorsed by the Hudson City Democratic Committee (HCDC), is also a member of the HCDC. In April 2017, because it was alleged that some members of the HCDC had in past elections worked to elect candidates who were not the Democratic candidates, the HCDC unanimously agreed to the following: "After the Primaries, HCDC members must not actively support a candidate running against the candidate on the Democratic line." This puts Hughes and the HCDC in an awkward situation. As a member of the HCDC, he has presumably forsworn actively supporting a candidate running against the candidate on the Democratic line, but, thanks to cross endorsement, he is the candidate running against the candidate on the Democratic line. Is he then required not to support himself or work to get himself elected? Short of that, it would seem he should resign from the HCDC, but that hasn't happened.  

Another weird twist in this race: Hughes recently challenged Mussmann to a debate, saying, "I think the people of the 4th Ward deserve to see both of us sitting side by side answering random audience questions that would allow us to demonstrate our knowledge and ability to address the problems they face." In the email informing her of the challenge, Hughes told Mussmann, "The Register Star would be the moderator and I'm asking the Democratic Party to pick location, date and time." But wait. Hughes is not the Democratic candidate yet he is inviting the Democratic candidate to a debate that would essentially be hosted by the HCDC. Mussmann, not surprisingly, declined the invitation, telling Hughes, among other things, "The old ways of having a 90-minute debate where each side plants people in the audience to ask questions and play a game of 'gotcha' is not something I am interested in doing. I will spend my time from now until election day continuing to meet the people of the newly drawn 4th ward, and to campaign in a new way, which does not include a debate with you." 
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Election Prep: John Rosenthal

In case you missed it, John Rosenthal, Democratic candidate for Fourth Ward alderman, did an interview on WGXC Sunday before last, with Kevin Factor, on the show Foraging Ahead. A curiosity of the interview, for Gossips at least, is that they managed to talk at some length about a chicken law issue currently going on in Tivoli without reference to Hudson's own chicken law controversy just four years ago. That aside, the interview does contain a very comprehensive analysis of the current situation between A. Colarusso & Sons and the City of Hudson. The interview can be heard by clicking here.
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Coming Up This Week

On Thursday, October 5, mayoral candidate Rick Rector holds the first of a series of conversational meetings to take place between now and Election Day in each of the five wards. Coincidentally, the first meeting in the series takes place in the First Ward, at Hudson Lodge, 601 Union Street. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. and go on until 7:30 p.m. Click here for the dates and locations of meetings in the other four wards.

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O, What a Tangled Web

Bill Williams, of 98.5 The Cat, reported earlier this evening that Di-Quann Powell, who was shot on North Fifth Street two weeks ago, is scheduled to be arraigned in Columbia County court tomorrow morning. Also scheduled to be arraigned tomorrow morning is Michael Johnson. You can read the details here: "Arraignments scheduled Monday for two Hudson men."
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Pursuing a Hudson Parks Conservancy

Last Monday, Gossips shared a proposal to create a Hudson Parks Conservancy. The response from readers was heartening. As a first step in getting organized, a Facebook group has been formed for the purpose of sharing information and gathering ideas.

If you're interested in learning more and maybe getting involved, click here to join the group.
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Later Today

From 4 to 6 p.m. today, Historic Hudson is having its annual meeting at the three-century-old Jan Van Hoesen House.

The event offers a rare opportunity to see inside the house and learn about its history and plans for its future from Ed Klingler, president of the Van Hoesen House Historical Foundation. 

The Van Hoesen House is located next to Dutch Village Mobile Home Park, 440 Route 66. The event is open to members of Historic Hudson. To become a member, go to historichudson.org.
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