Truck Talk

Tom Casey has an article in today's Register-Star about  a meeting that took place yesterday to discuss truck routes: "Officials hash out proposed new truck route." The article reports that "Officials from Hudson and Greenport met with representatives from the Department of Transportation and the offices of U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, and U.S. Rep. Chris Gibson’s offices Tuesday to discuss moving the route." It's not known who the Hudson officials in attendance were, but word has it that Greenport supervisor John Porreca was there. The meeting was initiated by Linda Mussmann and held at Time & Space Limited--located on one of Hudson's two truck routes, the one that would be eliminated by the proposed new route. 

The proposal doesn't seem like much of a solution for many Hudsonians--especially the residents and business owners on Warren Street above Seventh and around the Public Square who have organized to improve their neighborhood. It involves banning trucks from Route 9G, which comes into Hudson on Third Street and turns right onto Columbia Street, and making all trucks follow Route 9 through the city--entering on Worth Avenue, turning left onto Warren Street, turning right onto Park Place, and then turning right again onto Columbia Street. The trucks would then make the curve onto Green Street and follow Green Street to Fairview Avenue. At Fariview Avenue, instead of turning left and following the path of Route 9, all trucks, except for those bound for the big boxes in Greenport, would stay on Green Street (and Route 23B) and head for Claverack, presumably to turn left onto Route 9H at the intersection in the hamlet and eventually find their way back to Route 9.       

"Conceived in Iniquity and Born in Sin"

When that phrase came to mind earlier today, I thought it was Biblical, and I still think it is, but when I Googled it, I discovered it had been used to describe banking by Sir Josiah Stamp, who was the president of the Bank of England in the 1920s and the second richest man in Britain in his day. What brought the phrase to my mind--justly or unjustly--was reading a court decision on Leagle, the link to which had been provided by a reader. The case, which was heard in May 2000 by the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court, First Department, involved the American Baptist Churches of Metropolitan New York (plaintiff) and T. Eric Galloway (defendant). In Baptist Churches v. Galloway, the things Galloway was alleged to have done--the actions for which he was being sued by the American Baptist Churches of Metropolitan New York (ABC Metro)--seem to be the very actions that brought the Lantern Organization, then called the Community Lantern Corp., into existence. 

The lawsuit alleges "misappropriation of corporate opportunity by an officer of a charity, who was retained to help the charity develop an AIDS care facility but seized control of the project himself." It seems that, in 1994, ABC Metro, which operated an outreach program for AIDS patients, wanted to start a second facility, to be called Noah House. Galloway, who was then employed by the Settlement Housing Fund, was hired by ABC Metro, first as a consultant and later as an employee, to spearhead the Noah House project. This he did over the next two years, but after he had negotiated the purchase of a site for Noah House, obtained the necessary government approvals, and secured funding for the project, he allegedly "embarked on a scheme to seize control of the Noah House project and cut ABC Metro out of the transaction entirely." He told ABC Metro's legal counsel to incorporate Community Lantern Corp. (CLC) as a not-for-profit corporation, with him as one of its three directors, and to substitute CLC's name for ABC Metro's on the purchase contract with the seller. He was also alleged to have told the seller's counsel to delay the sale. That done, in July 1996, he informed ABC Metro that "he was resigning and that CLC was taking control of the Noah House project." 

A lower court had dismissed the case on the grounds that "[a]s a not-for-profit corporation, ABC Metro cannot satisfactorily allege damages, which would otherwise be premised upon lost profits." ABC Metro appealed the decision, and the Appellate Court determined that the lower court had "erred in concluding that a not-for-profit could never sustain compensable damages" and reinstated all but two of ABC Metro's claims in the lawsuit. 

I don't know the final outcome of the case. Perhaps Galloway or Tom Swope will comment and tell us how the situation was resolved. What is known is that the Lantern Organization, on its website, cites 1997, the year after Galloway resigned from ABC Metro, as the year of its founding.           

Water Water Everywhere

The major theme of the Revitalizing Hudson Riverfronts workshop, presented by Scenic Hudson last Friday at Columbia-Greene Community College, was climate change--"the issue of our age"--and what it means for the Hudson Valley. Some effects of climate change are already being noticed. Fran Dunwell, of the NYS DEC Hudson River Estuary Program, reported that the Hudson River is now six inches higher than it was forty years ago. Sacha Spector, Director of Conservation Science at Scenic Hudson, told the audience that climate models indicate that, in coming years, the Hudson Valley is going to be "more droughty," although, with more water in the atmosphere as a consequence of global warming, it will, like the rest of the world, be subject to more turbulent weather and major rain events. 

Drought is already upon us. At a time of year when it's typical to worry about snowmelt, water-saturated soil, and springtime flooding, we are experiencing abnormally dry conditions, and things are worse farther to the east and south, as shown on this regional drought monitor map.

Back in the 1960s, there was a drought in the Northeast, which reached its peak of severity in the summer of 1965. Motivated by that drought, the City of Hudson made a very forward-thinking purchase: 339 acres of land off Newman Road in the Town of Greenport, in the quarry and over an aquifer, which gave the City an emergency secondary water supply. At the time, people may have feared that drought would be an immediate and chronic problem for the Northeast, but that turned out not to be the case. So, in 2002, when access to fresh water was already an issue in other parts of the country (for example, the question of whether or not the water in the Great Lakes, which represents 18 percent of the Earth's available surface fresh water, should be shared with states where water is not so plentiful had been a topic of public debate since 1985), Mayor Rick Scalera came up with a scheme for paying back the $11 million the City had borrowed to build the new water treatment plant: leasing the 339 acres that surrounded the City's secondary water supply to A. Colarusso & Son so they could mine it. 

Although the resolution passed by the Common Council on September 20, 2002, stated that "the City of Hudson has previously retained the services of two separate consultants who have issued opinions that the aforesaid property can be leased with conditions to insure that the city's emergency water supply is adequately protected," and Colarusso had, according to reports, magnanimously promised that if their activities ruined the City's secondary water supply they would provide another one, many Hudsonians were skeptical . . . and worried.

The resolution passed in 2002 gave Colarusso the "revocable option" to lease the property, and in 2006, some members of the Common Council, those who believed that water was going to be the 21st century's oil, tried to revoke it. During that period, Alderman Robert Donahue (Fifth Ward) declared on several occasions that the emergency water supply had never been used in forty years and therefore would never be needed. The efforts of those aldermen worried about putting the emergency water supply at risk never achieved the support of the Council majority, primarily because the City had already started collecting $200,000 a year from Colarusso and would have to refund it, as well as find another way to pay off the debt on the water treatment plant. 

Last November, Colarusso decided to exercise its option to lease the land and begin mining it. On December 20, 2011, a resolution authorizing the mayor--Mayor Scalera--to execute the necessary documents came before the Common Council for a vote. The only alderman voting against it was Ellen Thurston (Third Ward). The minutes from that meeting indicate that, before he cast his aye vote, "Doc" Donahue made this statement: "What we have here is a financial windfall for our state, taxpayers and residents, the final piece of the rich legacy that Mayor Scalera is giving to the City.”

Time will tell--perhaps even sooner than the water-obsessed aldermen imagined in 2006--how rich this piece of Scalera's legacy really is.  

Photo of the Hudson waterfront after Hurricane Irene by Sarah Sterling.

Ear to the Ground

There's an unconfirmed rumor flying about that Quintin Cross may have turned himself in--after eluding the police for close to a month, while continuing to post from time to time on Facebook. Gossips will keep you updated as more information is received.    

Our Civil Servants

On her blog on the Register-Star website, Audra Jornov identifies the five highest paid employees in the City of Hudson and the five highest paid employees in Columbia County: "Public salaries." Just a hint about what she reports for Hudson: four of the five highest paid employees are police officers.  

Lessons of the Past

On his blog, Sam Pratt reviews the City of Hudson's past handling of federal grant money and relates it to Tom Swope's statements about the Lantern Organization: "Failing upward (or, Learning from L&B)."

Pratt Sheds More Light on Lantern

Sam Pratt just published two posts on his blog about buildings in New York owned by Eric Galloway's not-of-profit Lantern Organization. The first, "Primary Source," quotes someone who actually lived in one of Lantern's buildings; the second, "Vermin and Bedbugs," references an article about a Community Board 4 meeting in the Manhattan neighborhood of Chelsea where the conditions in a Lantern building in that neighborhood were described.  

Civic Pride: From a Different Angle

Last week, Gossips reported on the graffito that defaced the new sidewalk in front of Wunderbar and The Crimson Sparrow. On his blog, Current Matters, Mark Orton has something else to say about this stretch of new sidewalk on upper Warren Street.  

The photograph is from Mark Orton's blog.

Of Interest

Will Doig, who writes the Dream City column for Salon, had an article in Salon over the weekend that finds a new and very au courant way to vilify historic preservation and historic districts: "Preserving history, or the 1 percent?" The focus of the piece is Greenwich Village, light years away in its evolution from our little city, but there are resonances for historic preservation here. Roberta Brandes Gratz, preservation advocate and longtime champion of Hudson and its historic architecture-driven renaissance, was interviewed for the article and is quoted at some length.

About That Old Church Building

Karen Smith, whose house on Union Street is immediately adjacent to the structure, was the first to express publicly her concern about the soundness of the former Methodist Episcopal Church which is today the Hudson Youth Center. The building, which will be 160 years old next year, probably has not received the most solicitous care since it was taken over by the Boys' Club in the 1930s, but it must be acknowledged that in the past decade or so, since the City of Hudson took possession of the building, there have been some noticeable improvements, which are evident when the first picture below, which was taken in the late 1990s, is compared with the second picture, which was taken this afternoon.

Since 2005, at least $800,000 in grant money has been invested in the building, to replace the roof and install new windows. Still, Smith's concern about the condition of the building, particularly the rusted exterior steel support on the building's east wall, prompted the City of Hudson to engage a structural engineer to do a "cursory structural assessment" of the building. The report of that assessment, submitted by Daniel Proper of Crawford & Associates, was presented to the Common Council at the informal meeting last Monday.

The report makes the statement about the building's condition: "In general terms, the building was found to be in good to fair overall condition. No signs of imminent failure were identified. With regards to the placement of the new addition, no deterioration or existing structural conditions along the north side were observed that would restrict the placement of the addition in this area. Furthermore, it is anticipated that the new addition will be structurally independent of the existing building."

Although no imminent threats of failure were observed, four areas of concern were identified in the report and recommendations were made. The first cause for concern was cracking in and above the six masonry window arches on the south and north walls of the building. These arches support the dead weight of the masonry above the windows. Back in 2006, when the new windows were being installed, it was recognized (and this information is not part of the assessment report) that undue stress had been placed on the masonry arches when the original stained glass windows of the church were removed. The original windows apparently had steel frames, which helped support the weight above the windows. The recommendation made by Crawford & Associates is to install crack monitors on the arches to monitor the rate of movement. It's possible that remedial efforts were made when the new windows and frames were installed (although the cracks were not repaired at that time), and the monitors will detect no further movement. 

A second cause for concern are "significant longitudinal cracks in four roof purlins." Purlins are horizontal timbers that span the heavy trusses and support the roof rafters. Although the report indicates that cracks of this sort are common, the situation, according to the report, calls for fairly immediate action: "It is recommended that the members be full assessed, along with the remaining roof framing, and corrective action taken to reinforce the cracked purlins and their connections to the timber trusses. Due to the severity of the cracks, this work should be completed prior to 2012 winter season."

The third area of concern was the bowing of the tin ceiling along the south side of the second floor gymnasium. The report explains: "As is typical for buildings in Hudson, tin ceilings were installed primarily to cover over the deteriorating original wood lath and plaster ceiling." Apparently, the deterioration that the tin ceiling was meant to cover up has continued, and now the weight of the plaster that was come detached from the wood lath is causing the tin ceiling to sag. Crawford & Associates recommends a full evaluation fo the ceiling and appropriate corrective measures once the extend of the problem has been determined.  

The fourth and final cause for concern is the rusted exterior steel support that worried Smith in the first place. The steel framing supports what Crawford & Associates calls a second floor "bump out" constructed of masonry but was probably an apse in the original church building. The report states that "corrosion was observed to exist on all of the exterior steel support members" and makes the recommendation that "the progression of the decay be evaluated" in order to determine "the steel's allowable capacity to support the bump out loading."

The colorized post card image of the Methodist Episcopal Church was provided by Helen Arrott. The photo of the building in the late 1990s was taken by Byrne Fone. The photo of the exterior support on the building's east wall was provided by Karen Smith.

He Said, He/They Said Continued

On April 3, Sam Pratt posted on his blog the results of his research into the violations on record for buildings in New York City owned by Eric Galloway's not-for-profit Lantern Organization. Today, Tom Swope, executive director for the Galvan Initiatives Foundation, Galloway's new not-for-profit here in Hudson, responds to Pratt's data on the foundation's blog.  

Of Interest

There's editorial by Parry Teasdale about Eric Galloway and his acquisitive activities in our city in the Columbia Paper: "What's his plan for the city?"

Attention First Ward Residents

There is a meeting tomorrow night, Monday, April 16, for First Ward residents to discuss issues facing the First Ward and the city. The meeting takes place at 7 p.m. in the community room of the Chamber of Commerce office, the former Washington Hose Company firehouse at the western end of Warren Street. First Ward residents are asked to submit agenda items in advance of the meeting to AldermanMarston@cityofhudson.org. 

Graffiti on the Waterfront

It seems the graffiti artist who defaced the newly poured sidewalk in front of Wunderbar and The Crimson Sparrow may have gone on a graffiti rampage. A reader submitted these photographs, taken on the waterfront at Sandy Beach, just south of the Holcim dock. The medium is different, but the theme seems the same.

Stray Dog

The dog that was the subject of comment on Gossips earlier this week was sighted this morning by Don Moore, Common Council president, on Partition Street between Front and Second streets. Moore called the Hudson dog warden, Wes Powell, but there is no news on whether or not Powell has been able to locate the dog.

The dog has been described as a small shepherd, black and tan with some white markings, wearing a red collar. At one point, the dog was reported to be limping, but that seems no longer to be the case. It has been seen running alongside Route 9G near Mount Merino Road, at the waterfront between the big Amtrak parking lot and Basilica Hudson, in backyards on Willard Place, and now on Partition Street. The dog was first spotted on April 4, so the poor thing has been on its own for a very long time. It's reported to be very shy and skittish of people and other dogs. If you see the dog, call the dog warden: (518) 339-4008. 

Tonight at the Hudson Opera House

There's a concert at the Hudson Opera House tonight that is thoroughly intriguing--combining music, humor, uniquely American literature, and Hudson history. At 8 p.m., pianist John Davis plays a musical tribute to Mark Twain, in a program that includes readings from the works of Twain and musical works by Blind Tom Wiggins, an autistic savant piano player and former slave from Georgia, who performed at the Hudson Opera House on four occasions between 1868 and 1871. 

The HPC Reviews the Senior Center

On Friday morning, the Historic Preservation Commission reviewed the schematic design drawings for the proposed senior center, which is being fast-tracked through the City's regulatory boards. At the informal Common Council meeting on Monday, HPC chair David Voorhees had said he didn't know if there would be a quorum for Friday's meeting. The commission is short one member since Nick Haddad's resignation, two members--Jack Alvarez and Rick Rector--had informed Voorhees that they would be unable to attend, and Scott Baldinger's presence was in question because he'd had an automobile accident. That left only three members--Voorhees, Phil Forman, and Tony Thompson.

As it turned out, Baldinger was present at the meeting, but he'd been advised by Cheryl Roberts, legal counsel to the HPC, to recuse himself from the discussion of the senior center because he had already publicly expressed an opinion about the design on his blog. Without Baldinger's participation, there was no quorum. The commission took up other matters first, and miraculously, about an hour into the meeting, Rector appeared, giving the commission the quorum needed to make a recommendation about the senior center.  

Although Jane Smith, the architect, had on Monday said that a model and realistic renderings of the building would be presented to the Historic Preservation Commission, haste required that the HPC make its recommendation based only on the schematic design drawings. Roberts informed the HPC that when the project was in its final design stage, it would not be coming back before them for a certificate of appropriateness because this was a City project and hence a certificate of appropriateness was not required.

The problem with demanding a judgment from the HPC at this point in design development is that it is their responsbility to determine whether or not the proposed building will be compatible with the surrounding neighborhood. There are several factors that contribute to compatibility, but among them, texture, color, and finish of the materials are critical considerations, and the schematic design drawings give no hint of any of this. Smith made the point that the detailing would make the building, but the details are precisely what was unavailable to the HPC. Smith told the HPC that she wanted to use cedar clapboard, which would be allowed to weather naturally, and metal with a dark bronze patina. She mentioned as an important detail the lattice on the clerestory windows, which filtered the light in the interior and enhanced the appearance of the exterior. But she explained that the design still needs to go through a step called "value engineering," during which it is determined if the building as designed can be built for the amount of money budgeted, and made the point that, although materials represent only about a third of the cost of new construction, people typically look at materials as a way to reduce cost and stay within a budget. In the final design, created after the value engineering, the clapboard may not be cedar, the metal may be different, the lattice may be eliminated, and there may be fewer clerestory windows.

Roberts suggested that the HPC's recommendation identify the materials that they would not find acceptable, and of the universe of unacceptable things, they came up with two: pine clapboard and chrome. Roberts made the point, however, that the City was under no obligation to abide by the HPC's recommendations in the matter of materials.

In the end, the four members of the HPC present and able to vote--Forman, Thompson, Voorhees, and Rector--voted unanimously to make the sought-after recommendation, with stipulations about the materials and a request that any major, significant changes to the design be submitted to the HPC for review. Rector summed up the opinion with the HPC when he described the proposed building as "handsome, new, but shows respect for the existing building."

More information relevant to the problems and delays with this project were revealed at this meeting--all going back to the fact that the City, in its original grant application, overlooked or chose to ignore the fact that the site is in a National Register-listed historic district and the adjoining building is a contributing structure in that historic district. Responding to a question from Voorhees, Roberts told the HPC that the design would be reviewed by the State Historic Preservation Office "for funding reasons."

At another point in the discussion, Smith pointed out the design for the building that was submitted with the grant application would not have been approved by SHPO because it was attached to the side of the existing building, putting too much stress on the historic structure, and it covered the lower part of the windows in the north wall. Of the proposed new design, Smith said, "From a SHPO point of view, this is an easy sell. It doesn't impact [structurally] the existing building at all." 

Another interesting detail was revealed at the meeting. Roberts said that, in the State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR), the action proposed is described as "taking away a blight"--the blight being the little cinder block building now appended to the former church that is the Youth Center.

Not to Be Missed

Buried online under a letter about volunteerism, without its own link, is a letter to the editor from Frank Rees, longtime director of the Hudson Area Library: "Keep library as is." Rees's letter is inspired by Norman Posner's "My View" about the library, which appeared earlier this week.  

More from the Planning Commission Meeting

After the project proposed for 347 Warren Street had been discussed and most of the audience had departed, the Planning Commission turned its attention to two other projects: the hotel proposed for 542 Warren Street and the proposed senior center.

Duncan Calhoun and Russell Gibson, the owners of The Croff House on Willard Place, are the principals in the hotel project. Their purchase of 542 Warren Street is contingent on having their plan to turn the building into a luxury 16-room hotel approved by the Planning Commission and their ability to work out a deal with the City of Hudson to purchase the exclusive use of 16 parking spaces in the municipal lot behind the building. The proposed renovation of the building includes the installation of an elevator, central air conditioning, a sprinkler system, and fireplaces in most of the rooms, all of which will be 250 to 300 square feet. There is a plan to have a handicapped accessible room on the first floor and a pet friendly room somewhere else in the hotel. Calhoun and Gibson hope to open in April 2013 and anticipate nine month's of construction. 

The Planning Commission accepted the hotel plans and will consider the project at its May meeting. Carl Whitbeck, who is the attorney for Calhoun and Gibson, will recuse himself from the deliberations, and Kevin Colwell will act as counsel to the Planning Commission in their consideration of this project. 

The proposed senior center was next, presented by Michael Sullivan, representing Crawford & Associates. It was revealed at this meeting that the project plans to ask that two new handicapped parking spaces be created in the municipal lot on Warren Street between the Tom Swope Gallery and Shana Lee. Also, Common Council president Don Moore stated that the Council will "move on SEQR and the appropriation of funds" on Tuesday, April 17. 

On Monday night, at the informal Common Council meeting, city attorney Cheryl Roberts said that there had to be a recommendation from the Historic Preservation Commission before the SEQR could be done, so if Moore hopes to move on SEQR next Tuesday, the HPC will have to make a recommendation at its meeting this morning at 10 a.m. It will be interesting to see if the HPC will make a recommendation based only on schematic design drawings rather than realistic renderings that would give them a real sense of the proposed building's compatibility with its historic surroundings.      

Of Interest

Alan Dahl has a letter to the editor in today's Register-Star about dogs, dog poop, and dog parks, which was given the bizarre title "Scat! Begone!"