This Morning at the HPC

Phil Forman, chair of the Historic Preservation Commission, started this morning's meeting by asking how many people preferred Zoom meetings to in-person meetings. Everyone in the room, including the commissioners, who had slogged through the rain to get there, raised their hand. One enormous advantage of Zoom meetings, for the HPC in particular, is that screen sharing enables everyone, commissioners and observers alike, to see the drawings and plans submitted and to understand what is being proposed. Forman said he had sent a letter to the mayor's office, on behalf of the HPC, requesting that some form of live streaming of meetings be continued.

Some good news for everyone who has been disturbed by the narrow shutters on 542 Warren Street, formerly The Barlow now the Hudson Whaler. We learned this morning that the shutters now in place were installed "in error" and will be replaced with shutters of appropriate size. It is not clear if the new shutters will be attached to the wall, as these are, or installed with proper hardware. 

The plans for 9 Willard Place have been modified. They still involve adding additional windows to the west side of the building and creating front stairs that are the full width of the facade of the building, but the New Orleans style wrought metal balustrade proposed for the upper balcony has been abandoned in favor of a wooden balustrade, and the plan to build new stairs down to a newly carved out offstreet parking space has been abandoned as well. 

  

Instead there will be a new walkway from the front door to the existing stairs down to the street. The HPC approved the revised plan.

The Charles Alger House, 59 Allen Street, was back before the HPC this morning. In March, when the HPC gave a portion of the project a certificate of appropriateness, it was with the understanding that, as work on the house progressed and new discoveries were made, Walter Chatham, the architect for the project, would return to the HPC to report what was found. Today, Chatham appeared before the HPC to report the discovery of two openings in the west wall of the building, believed to be doorways, and the evidence of an earlier window in the east wall.

The evidence of a window opening in the tower on the east side of the building was particularly exciting for Chatham who has always maintained that a window had originally been there, or if there wasn't, there should have been. He has questioned the accuracy and downplayed the significance of an 1858 engraving of the house, which shows no windows in the tower except at the bottom and the very top. Today, he argued that his physical evidence should be accepted over an engraving that showed "a witch on a broomstick" in the sky and "giant gargoyle" on the roof of the veranda.    

The detail below shows what appear to be the elements Chatham was talking about. The witch is in the upper left; the gargoyle, looking a little like an enormous cat, is in the lower right.

After much discussion and side conversations, it was decided that the HPC would pay a visit to the house to see the evidence for themselves. As Chip Bohl, the architect member of the HPC, said, "The reuse of material in the openings can be superinformative." The site visit has been scheduled for 9:15 a.m. on Friday, July 23, after which there will be a public hearing on the proposal to reinstate two doors in the west wall and a window in the tower on the east side of the house. The public hearing will take place, following the site visit, at 10:00 a.m. in City Hall.

The final project to come before the HPC this morning was 724-726 Columbia Street, the former Smith Tire building, originally part of the Gifford Foundry, which is to become another brewery.

Chatham was seeking and was granted a certificate of appropriateness to remove the painted metal siding on the building and to restore the brick underneath. Bohl expressed the hope that the details of the brick pilasters were still there. Considering how it appears the metal was installed around the pilasters, it is very likely that a couple of them at least have survived.

It will be interesting to watch this reveal.

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Addendum to the COVID-19 Update

A press release just received from Matt Murell, chair of the Columbia County Board of Supervisors, contains this information from the Department of Health. Although the Delta variant has been confirmed in a number of cases in and around New York City, there have been no confirmed cases of the variant in Columbia County.

COVID-19 Update

The Columbia County Department of Health has released its numbers for today. Since yesterday, there have been no new cases of COVID-19. The number of active cases being reported today is the same as yesterday, from which it can be inferred that no county residents have covered from the virus in the past 24 hours. There are two fewer county residents in mandatory quarantine today than yesterday, but the number hospitalized remains the same. There has not been a death from COVID-19 reported in Columbia County since Thursday, June 24.

The New York Forward dashboard is reporting a positivity rate for Columbia County yesterday of 1.7 percent and a seven-day average of 0.9 percent. By comparison, the daily positivity rate for the Capital Region is 0.7 percent and the seven-day average is 0.4 percent.

 

A year ago today, the CCDOH reported no new cases of COVID-19. The total number of cases was 456, and the number of active cases was 23. There were 11 county residents hospitalized with the virus, and none was in the ICU. The total number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 at this time last year was 37.

Special Meetings of the IDA

The regular monthly meeting of the Hudson Industrial Development Agency (IDA), which was to take place this past Tuesday, was canceled, but today two special meetings of the IDA were announced. 

• On Monday, July 19, the IDA will meet at 1:00 p.m. in Suite 301 at One City Centre. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss options for PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) review procedures. It should be remembered that the PILOT requests now being considered by the IDA are for 75 North Seventh Street and 708 State Street, the two buildings being proposed by the Galvan Foundation in the part of the city that has been dubbed, by Galvan, the "Depot District."

• On Wednesday, July 21, the IDA will meet again--same time, same place--to discuss the two Galvan projects: 75 North Seventh Street and 708 State Street. 

These are both public meetings, but neither is a public hearing. The IDA has yet to schedule a public hearing for these projects.

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COVID-19 Update

The Columbia County Department of Health has released its numbers for today. Since yesterday, there have been two new cases of COVID-19. The number of active cases being reported today is two more than yesterday, from which it can be inferred no one in the county has recovered from the virus in the past 24 hours. There is one fewer county resident in mandatory quarantine today than yesterday. The number of county residents hospitalized with the virus remains the same. There has not been a death from COVID-19 reported in Columbia County since Thursday, June 24.

Strangely, although the CCDOH reported one new case of COVID-19 yesterday and two today, the New York Forward dashboard is reporting, as it did yesterday, a daily positivity rate for Columbia County of 0.0 percent and a seven-day average of 0.6 percent. By comparison, the daily positivity rate for the Capital Region is 0.6 percent and the seven-day average is 0.3 percent.

A year ago today, the CCDOH reported 3 new cases of COVID-19. The total number of cases was 456, and the number of active cases was 24. There were 10 county residents hospitalized with the virus, and none was in the ICU. The total number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 at this time last year was 37.

The Rumor Is True

Gossips just reported the "rumor" that Gary Purnhagen was withdrawing as a candidate for alderman in the First Ward. It turns out it's not a rumor at all. Last week, Purnhagen posted this statement on his Facebook page.

Once again, I'm learning that life isn't predictable.

When I decided to run as the Democratic candidate for the 1st Ward Alderperson, I committed to showing up and doing the work. This week I accepted an employment opportunity that will prevent me from delivering on that commitment. I just will not have the time to properly represent the 1st Ward and, therefore, will not run or serve.

Unfortunately, it is too late for my name to be removed from the ballot in November. Therefore, I urge someone else to step up and declare yourself a write-in candidate. I would much rather decide who will represent us than the Common Council at large.

I thank everyone who supported me in this campaign.

Purnhagen's statement alludes to what will happen if he, in the First Ward, and Calvin Lewis, in the Third Ward, are elected--and they will be if no one steps up to run as a write-in candidate--and decline to serve: the Common Council will elect one of the representatives of the First Ward and one of the representatives of the Third Ward. The outcome will be that 20 percent of the aldermen on the next Council will not have been elected by the people they are supposed to represent.

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This Morning at the BOE

It isn't over until it's over, and now it's over. This morning at the Board of Elections, Gossips witnessed the hand count of ballots from the Fifth Ward, carried out by the two commissioners of elections, Ken Dow (Democrat) and Kelly Miller-Simmons (Republican). The absentee ballots, the ballots from each of the nine days of early voting, and the ballots cast on Election Day were counted and tallied, and results remain the same. 

Rebecca Borrer        53

Dominic Merante    56

Vicky Daskaloudi     75

Mark Bodnar            31

 

Daskaloudi and Merante will be the Democratic candidates for Fifth Ward aldermen. Borrer will appear on the ballot as the Working Families Party candidate.

While things now seem settled in the Fifth Ward, where, in the Democratic primary, four candidates vied for two slots, that is not the case in the Third Ward or the First Ward. After the designating petitions were submitted in March, each of those two wards had only two candidates, both Democrats: Calvin Lewis and Ryan Wallace in the Third Ward; and Art Frick and Gary Purnhagen in the First Ward. With no competition, their victories were assured.

Since then, Lewis has taken a job with the City as assistant director of the Youth Department and was persuaded to resign as alderman to avoid conflict of interest. Presumably, the same conflict of interest that moved him to resign will cause him to refuse to be sworn in for a new term if he is elected in November, and the only thing that would prevent him from being elected is if someone in the Third Ward launched a strong write-in campaign. A similar situation may be developing in the First Ward. There is a rumor that Purnhagen plans to withdraw from the race.

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COVID-19 Update

The Columbia County Department of Health has released its numbers for today. Since yesterday, there has been one new case of COVID-19. The number of active cases being reported today is three fewer than yesterday, from which it can be inferred that four more county residents are now considered to be recovering from the virus. There are three fewer county residents in mandatory quarantine today than yesterday, but the number hospitalized remains the same. There has not been a death from COVID-19 reported in Columbia County since Thursday, June 24.  

The New York Forward dashboard is reporting a positivity rate for Columbia County yesterday of 0.0 percent and a seven-day average of 0.6 percent. By comparison, the daily positivity rate for the Capital Region is 0.3 percent and the seven-day average is 0.3 percent.

A year ago today, the CCDOH reported two new cases of COVID-19. The total number of cases was 453, and the number of active cases was 21. There were 9 county residents hospitalized with the virus, and none was in the ICU. The total number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 at this time last year was 37.

The Bullet We Dodged

The title of this post is taken from an article written by Sam Pratt, which appeared in the Winter 2010 issue of OurTown: "The Bullet We Dodged: How the Cement War Was Won." 

Photo: The Valley Alliance

Many in Hudson today, including several in Hudson government, were not here for the seven-year-long battle against the plan to site what was touted at the time to be the world's largest coal-fired cement plant just across the border in Greenport. The remarkable struggle was documented in the 2006 film Two Square Miles, which can be viewed on YouTube. 

Recently, Sam Pratt discussed the St. Lawrence Cement experience with Sandy Rosenthal on her new show, Beat the Big Guys. Rosenthal is the New Orleans activist who founded Levees.org in October 2005 to educate the American public about the cause of the levee failures and catastrophic flooding in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.

The focus of their conversation is on the fundamental tools and strategies for citizens' groups--the "nuts and bolts of grassroots organizing"--learned during the St. Lawrence Cement battle. The show can be viewed on YouTube. 

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COVID-19 Update

After taking the long weekend off, the Columbia County Department of Health has released its numbers for today. Since Friday, July 2, there have been five new cases of COVID-19. The number of active cases being reported today is three more than on Friday, from which it can be inferred that two more county residents are now considered to be recovering from the virus. There are four fewer county residents in mandatory quarantine today than on Friday. One county resident is now hospitalized with the virus. There has not been a death from COVID-19 reported in Columbia County since Thursday, June 24. 

The New York Forward dashboard is reporting a positivity rate for Columbia County yesterday of 0.0 percent and a seven-day average of 1.3 percent. By comparison, the daily positivity rate for the Capital Region is 0.5 percent and the seven-day average is 0.3 percent.

A year ago today, the CCDOH reported three new cases of COVID-19. The total number of cases was 451, and the number of active cases was 19. There were 7 county residents hospitalized with the virus, and 1 was in the ICU. The total number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 at this time last year was 37.

Considering Sidewalks

Sidewalks are a perennial topic of discussion in Hudson. On Monday, July 12, Mayor Kamal Johnson will be holding a public hearing on a proposed law requiring repairs to sidewalks to conform to ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) standards. The Common Council has been working for years to draft a law to ensure the replacement, uniformity, and ongoing repair of the sidewalks throughout the city.

Yesterday, I came upon an article in Strong Towns that gets to the heart of the issue of sidewalks and helps explain why some neighborhoods in Hudson have no sidewalks and where they do exist they are the responsibility of the property owner: "Doing the Math on Sidewalks." It is a short but interesting read.

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Left Out of the List of Meetings and Events

Gossips' list of meetings and events for the week, published yesterday, omitted something: the hand count of all votes cast in the Fifth Ward, in particular those cast for the office of alderman. After the absentee ballots were counted on Wednesday, June 30, incumbent Dominic Merante led Rebecca Borrer by three votes: 56 to 53. A margin that close requires a hand count of all the ballots--those cast in early voting and on Election Day. That count will take place on Thursday, July 8, starting at 10:00 a.m., at 401 State Street. 

The outcome for the other two candidates in the race is not at issue. Vicky Daskaloudi received a total of 75 votes, and Mark Bodnar received 31.

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A Second Chance

It's not often that you get a second chance, but here is one both for Gossips and for you. The deadline for ordering tickets to the Columbia County Recovery Kitchen's garden party, Planting Seeds to End Hunger, has been extended until tomorrow, July 7. That gives Gossips a second chance to tell you about it, and you a second chance to get your tickets for the event.

On Saturday, July 10, from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m., the Columbia County Recovery Kitchen is hosting a garden party to support the continuation of its efforts to deliver healthy meals to those experiencing food insecurity in Columbia County. The event will be held at a spectacular private garden in Spencertown. Guests can explore the garden while sipping prosecco or sparkling water and enjoying hors d'oeuvres prepared by Recovery Kitchen chef and chef de cuisine at SWOON Kitchenbar, Jamie Parry. The event will also be an opportunity to learn about regenerative agriculture techniques and community farming and find out more about how the Recovery Kitchen is fighting food insecurity with nutrition security.

Click here to buy tickets to the event. After you have purchased your tickets, details about the secret location of the party will be sent to your inbox. If you cannot attend, you still join the party in spirit by clicking here to make a donation to the Recovery Kitchen.

Meetings and Events in the Week Ahead

As the long holiday weekend comes to an end, here's what's happening for the rest of the week.

• Tuesday, July 6, would have been the day of the regular monthly meeting of the Hudson Industrial Development Agency (IDA), but the July meeting has been canceled. Gossips' information is that the IDA always takes July off, but canceling the meeting raises questions about the status of the PILOT agreements for 75 North Seventh Street and 708 State Street, the Galvan buildings proposed for the "Depot District."

In May, Dan Kent told the IDA that the NYS Homes and Community Renewal funding application was expected to be released that month, with a six to eight week deadline for submitting applications. He made the point that a PILOT agreement was needed to meet the threshold requirements. From what Gossips has been able to discover online, the application was released sometime in June, and the deadline for submitting applications is August 26. As of the last meeting of the IDA, the financial analysis of the project has not been completed (in May, they were still waiting on information from the Galvan Foundation), a public hearing on the project has not been scheduled, and the Planning Board had not done its SEQRA review, which is a necessary prerequisite for the IDA to make its decision. There seems to be a lot left to be done if the August 26 deadline is to be met. 

• At 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, July 6, the Conservation Advisory Council holds its regular monthly meeting. It is assumed that the meeting will take place in person at City Hall, 520 Warren Street. No agenda for the meeting has yet been made available.
• On Wednesday, July 7, the Common Council ad hoc committee pursuing inclusionary zoning meets at 6:00 p.m., in person at City Hall. The committee has been waiting for Jeff Baker, counsel to the Council, to produce a working draft of the law that would require 20 percent of the units in any newly constructed or substantially renovated building with five or more units to be "affordable." Perhaps the draft will be ready for review and discussion at this meeting.

Update: The ad hoc committee meeting has been canceled.

• Also on Wednesday, July 7, at 6:00 p.m., the subcommittee of the Hudson Housing Authority Board of Commissioners is expected to hold a public hearing on the RFQ (requirement for qualifications) for the redevelopment of HHA's properties. The draft RFQ can be found here. The HHA meeting will take place in the Community Room at Bliss Towers, 41 North Second Street. It will also be accessible on Zoom by clicking here.

• Wednesday, July 7, also sees the return of Waterfront Wednesdays. The event, which will happen every Wednesday from 5:00 p.m. until sunset, through September 1, offers musical concerts, dance performances, drum circles, boat excursions, interactive educational programming, food, and more. New this year is a shuttle bus connecting Riverfront Park and Seventh Street Park, where the Upstreet Market takes place every Wednesday from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. This Wednesday at the waterfront, an Operation Unite awards ceremony will take place at 7:00 p.m., and at 8:00 p.m., Brett Miller and the Neon Moons will perform, with line dancing called by Alex Udis.  

Photo: Angelina Dreem

• On Friday, July 9, the Historic Preservation Commission holds its first meeting of the month at 10:00 a.m. The meeting will take place in person at City Hall.

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God Is in the Details

At the last meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission, on June 25, the new owner of 508 Warren Street appeared seeking a certificate of appropriateness to replace the windows on the second and third floors of the building and to reconstruct the stoop at the entrance to the upper floors. 

What wasn't included in the certificate of appropriateness application was replacing the colored glass panes surrounding the display windows with clear glass--something that had already been done without a certificate of appropriateness. 

Also done without a certificate of appropriateness was the removal of the signs, believed to be stained glass, that read "Supplies" and "Artist."

At the meeting, which was Hudson's first city meeting to take place in person after the pandemic, audience member Chris Jones reported the absence of the stained glass. She told the commission that this was the store where Frederic Church purchased his art supplies and Olana had receipts from the store in its archive. 

Back in 2012, Gossips recounted the story that the panes of colored glass were used to judge the purity of paint colors. Since the colors in the stained glass remained constant, a level of consistency in the colors of hand-mixed and hand-prepared oils could be achieved by comparing them with the colors of the stained glass. Although the likelihood of this being true was questioned in a comment by Sam Pratt, this bit of Hudson lore seems to have persisted.

The new owner of the building claimed some of the stained glass was "broken and crooked" and "hadn't been installed correctly." He said some of it wasn't actually stained glass at all but rather vinyl. He argued, "It is prohibitive for us to do business with a kaleidoscope of color coming in." (The building is to be the new location of the clothing store Loup, now located at 426 Warren Street.) Reacting to the statement, HPC member John Schobel said, "That's not the way that this works."

The applicant argued that the clear glass had been "created and poured in the same way as the original glass was." HPC architect member Chip Bohl asserted, "The history of the storefront needs to be known and evaluated." 

It was decided that work could proceed on the stoop, but the HPC would have to have "another conversation" about the windows--those in the storefront and on the upper floors. The HPC is seeking historic photographs of the building to establish the history of the storefront and the configuration of the upper windows. So far, Gossips has been able to find only this one, taken in 1917, when the ground floor of the building was occupied by Miller Brothers Barber Shop.

  

Sadly, the photo is of little help in confirming the history of the stained glass panes and of no help in understanding the appropriate configuration of the windows on the upper floors.

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Ear to the Ground

Actually, it should be "Eye on Facebook." For everyone wondering what will replace Ca' Mea at 333 Warren Street, the answer was found recently in two appeals for new employees that appeared on Facebook. A new restaurant, headed by NYC chef and restaurateur John DeLucie, is expected to open sometime this summer. Associated with the restaurant will be a butcher shop and fishmonger, "selling fish, local produce such as tomatoes, peppers, corn, and fruits," as well as "ready to cook items such as hamburgers, meat and fish shish kebabs, crab cakes, marinated leg of lamb, etc."

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News You Have to Read in the Register-Star

Years of watching The West Wing taught me that Friday was the day the White House released negative stories to the press, in the hope they would go unnoticed. I was reminded of this when I learned that today, on a Friday before a long holiday weekend, the news was released that Alderman Calvin Lewis (Third Ward), who is now also assistant director of the Youth Department, has resigned his position as alderman "to avoid conflict of interest": "Lewis resigns from Common Council." 

According to the article, "Lewis will have to be replaced before the end of the year, and the council will hold a special meeting to discuss its next steps." Presumably, Lewis will also have to be replaced as a candidate for Third Ward alderman on the ballot in November. According to information provided by John Kane in a comment on this blog, Lewis's replacement on the ballot will be determined by a committee made up of Emily Chameides, Kate Treacy, and Kamal Johnson.

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The Weekend Starts Off with a Bang

Many have predicted problems with the concrete barriers installed on Warren Street to protect people seated in what is typically the parking lane from vehicles moving along the street at 30 mph. Today, at around 3:45 p.m., there was such an incident, which resulted in the car that hit the barrier suffering a blowout. Thanks to Virginia Martin, who was nearby when it happened and took these pictures.

As can be seen in the fifth picture above, the cone that should have been on top of the cement block to warn drivers of its presence was stowed safely inside the barriers. The absence of a front license plate on the car suggests that the driver was an out-of-state visitor to Hudson.

COVID-19 Update

The Columbia County Department of Health has released its numbers for today. The run of no new cases, which lasted for three days, is over. Today, the CCDOH is reporting two new cases. A press release from Matt Murell, chair of the Columbia County Board of Supervisors, explains that the two new cases are both "adult family members residing in the same domicile." The number of active cases is two more than yesterday, from which it can be inferred that no county residents have recovered from the virus in the past 24 years. There is one more county resident in mandatory quarantine today than yesterday, but, as was the case yesterday, no one is hospitalized or in the ICU with the virus. No deaths from COVID-19 have been reported in Columbia County since Thursday, June 24.   

The New York Forward dashboard is reporting a positivity rate for Columbia County yesterday of 0.0 percent and a seven-day average of 0.9 percent. By comparison, the daily positivity rate for the Capital Region is 0.3 percent and the seven-day average is 0.3 percent.

A year ago today, the CCDOH reported two new cases of COVID-19. The total number of cases was 447, and the number of active cases was 27. There were 7 county residents hospitalized with the virus, and none was in the ICU. The total number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 at this time last year was 37.

All Gone

The Gothic house on Fairview Avenue, once known as "The Pines," was demolished in February to make way for a new McDonald's.

Long after the big house was reduced to rubble, the little Gothic cottage at the back of the property, believed to be part of the Farrard estate, remained standing. 

Below is the view from the parking lot of the current McDonald's on Wednesday, June 30, just two days ago. There at the left, the little Gothic cottage is still standing. 

Photo: Dorothy Heyl

Gossips is quite sure the cottage was still there yesterday, when I passed by shortly after midday. But today, the cottage is gone without a trace.

Photo: Dorothy Heyl

There's a Bear Out There!

This is really hyperlocal news. Sometime today, a bear was sighted, walking in the street, in the 200 block of Allen Street. Gossips missed seeing it (I was away from home at the time), but a neighbor reported it to me. 

This is the third time there has been a bear sighting or evidence of a bear's presence in this part of Hudson--what was the original First Ward--in the past month. On June 8, a bear was seen ambling down a passageway between two houses in the upper part of the 200 block of Allen Street. On June 24, evidence of a bear's presence was discovered in the backyard of a house in the first block of Union Street. Today, a bear was sighted out in the street, in the part of 200 block closest to Second Street. 

So, to all my neighbors: Be on the alert. Bizarre as it may seem, you could encounter a bear at any time.

What to Do on the Fourth of July

Robert Livingston was a member of the New York Provincial Congress, and, in 1776, he was selected to attend the Continental Congress. He was part of the committee tasked with drafting the Declaration of Independence but was recalled to New York before he could sign the document. What better place in the Hudson Valley to celebrate Independence Day than his home, Clermont?  

The Fourth of July observance at Clermont State Historic Site happens from noon to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, July 4. Culinary historian Lavada Nahon will be present to teach 17th- to 19th-century cooking techniques, including those once used by enslaved people in the mid-Atlantic region. Other domestic arts demonstrations will include sewing and paper cutting. You can watch the British Army drill on the lawn of Clermont. You can listen to readings of the Declaration of Independence and Frederick Douglass's famous speech "What to the Slave Is the 4th of July?" There will be crafts and activities for children, as well as tours of the exterior of the mansion. Fortunes Ice Cream will be selling their fresh seasonal handmade ice cream.

There will be no fireworks at the site this year, and the gates will close at sunset. The event admission fee is $10 a car. For more information, call Clermont State Historic Site at (518) 537-4240 or visit the website.

COVID-19 Update

The Columbia County Department of Health has released its numbers for today. Since yesterday, and for the third day in a row, there have been no new cases of COVID-19. The number of active cases being reported today is the same as yesterday, and there are three fewer county residents in mandatory quarantine today than yesterday. No one is hospitalized or in the ICU, and there has not been a death from COVID-19 reported in Columbia County since Thursday, June 24.

The New York Forward dashboard is reporting a positivity rate for Columbia County yesterday of 0.0 percent and a seven-day average of 1.1 percent. By comparison, the daily positivity rate for the Capital Region is o.2 percent and the seven-day average is 0.3 percent.

A year ago today, the CCDOH reported 4 new cases of COVID-19. The total number of cases was 445, and the number of active cases was 25. There were 7 county residents hospitalized with the virus, and none was in the ICU. The total number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 at this time last year was 37.