At a glance
Hudson's Common Council met for its informal November meeting on November 10, 2025. Because this was an informal meeting, no votes were taken. The Council heard monthly reports from the Fire Department, Youth Department, Police Department, Treasurer, and Department of Public Works, and previewed several resolutions for next week's regular meeting — including a cooperation agreement tied to the Hudson Housing Authority's redevelopment of Bliss Towers. Recurring threads ran through the night: the 2025 city budget, parking revenue and enforcement, the $66 million sewer-upgrade project, and how the city pays for services used by people who live outside Hudson.
0100:00:57
Opening & Fire Department Report
Council President Tom DePietro opened the informal meeting and noted the routine paperwork on file. The Fire Department then gave a brief account of a quiet October.
Key points
- Draft minutes from the October 9, 21, and 30 meetings are available, and committee reports have been posted to the city register.
- The Fire Department reported a light month: a handful of calls including false alarms, good-intent calls, and two hazardous-condition calls — a vehicle-accident cleanup and a carbon-monoxide call.
- There were two motor-vehicle accidents, one requiring crews to extricate a person from a vehicle, and one equipment fire.
- The department's new boat was used on several calls this season and has been pulled from the water for the winter.
Who spokeTom DePietro · Council PresidentUnidentified Fire Department official
A note on the transcript
The automated transcript merged the fire official's remarks into the Council President's speaking turn, and exact call counts were garbled. Figures here are described in general terms rather than quoted as precise numbers.
0200:02:50
Youth Department: October Report
Youth Department Director Calvin Lewis reported a busy October — rising enrollment, a full slate of programming, and youth basketball sign-ups already underway.
Key points
- Registration is up across all three age groups. The department now runs programs from the Hudson Youth Center, Oakdale, and a satellite site at the library, having left a church location in September.
- Programming includes Literacy Voyagers, music and movement, hip-hop dance, drumming (with Operation Unite at Hudson Hall), cooking with the Sylvia Center, and art through the Art School of Columbia County.
- October field trips included a fruit farm, the MVP Arena, and a mural project at the Hudson Sandwich Shop. Students of the month were recognized.
- Youth basketball registration is open — roughly 104 children had signed up as of the prior Friday, with a December 1 deadline. The department is recruiting coaches and volunteers.
- County-funded transportation continues to bring members to programs.
Who spokeCalvin Lewis · Director, Hudson Youth Department
0300:15:17
Debate: Funding Youth Services for Non-Residents
Council questions about Youth Department staffing opened into a broader debate over whether Hudson taxpayers should fund services for children who live outside the city.
Key points
- Council members asked about staffing — six full-time staff (including a full-time cleaner/maintenance worker) and about ten part-time staff — and how students and employees of the month are chosen.
- Margaret Morris questioned the need for a full-time cleaner and, citing past practice of receiving residency data, asked why Hudson funds youth services for a substantial number of children from neighboring towns. She suggested those municipalities should contribute.
- Director Lewis said he would consider the question and report back. The Council President noted families often move in and out of the city, and that the city's county supervisors had previously raised cost-sharing with the county.
- Residents pushed back: Claire Cousins described the Youth Center as the only drop-in, open-recreation program of its kind, and noted the county already invests heavily in city youth programming.
- A resident raised a process concern — that the funding question had effectively been handed to the Youth Director alone, with no clear path to a decision.
Who spokeCalvin Lewis · Youth Dept. DirectorVicki Diskaloudi · Council MemberMargaret Morris · Council MemberRich Volo · Council MemberTom DePietro · Council PresidentClaire Cousins · ResidentNick Zachos · Resident
What's next
No decision was reached. The Youth Director agreed to bring residency data and information from the county's inter-agency youth coordination group to a future meeting.
0400:29:23
Police Department Report & Parking Revenue
A police captain reported October crime statistics and recommended the city keep parking enforcement running through December.
Key points
- October figures: no use-of-force reports, 31 arrests on 48 total charges, two emotionally-disturbed-person calls, and no reported drug overdoses.
- Incidents included an e-bike accident on the Harry Howard Avenue bike path (minor injuries), dirt-bike riders ticketed, and an attempted arson in a waterfront restroom that remains under investigation.
- Two vans were stolen — a funeral-home van and a city van taken after a break-in at the Youth Department — and both were recovered undamaged.
- Parking revenue has risen since the Police Department took over enforcement: first-quarter revenue (July–September) was about $297,561, roughly 19% above the prior year; October revenue was about $130,695, roughly 6% higher.
- The captain recommended the city not suspend parking enforcement in December this year. The weekend overnight-parking suspension will be lifted starting November 21.
Who spokeCaptain Miller · Hudson Police DepartmentVicki Diskaloudi · Council MemberMargaret Morris · Council MemberTom DePietro · Council PresidentNick Zachos · Resident
What's next
No formal vote was taken, but council members Diskaloudi and Morris voiced agreement with keeping parking enforcement in place through December. The weekend overnight-parking suspension lifts November 21.
A note on the transcript
The raw transcript labels this speaker "Speaker 10." Council members address him as Captain Miller of the Hudson Police Department, and he is named that way here.
0500:41:53
Treasurer's Report: Budget, Taxes & Tax Foreclosures
City Treasurer Heather Campbell reported mixed budget signals for 2025 and gave an update on the city's tax-foreclosure process, which has already recovered most delinquent properties.
Key points
- Through September, building and plumbing permit revenue is running below budget, though October and November permits added roughly $50,000.
- Sales-tax revenue is strong — the third-quarter distribution was the highest on record. Lodging tax and cannabis tax are both running below budget.
- The 2024 city audit is still not finalized; the Treasurer hopes to close it within the week.
- Tax foreclosures: the city began with 151 privately-owned delinquent properties and is down to 76 after a first demand letter, with about $2.1 million still outstanding (roughly $1.5M in principal and $635K in interest). About 75 properties have been redeemed, totaling around $890,000.
- A second demand letter will follow a required mayoral public hearing (expected around November 12) and will include information on installment-payment agreements and free foreclosure counseling from Housing Resources of Columbia County.
- The city closed on EFC financing for the first phase of a $66 million sewer-upgrade project, and 98 Park Place has been authorized for sale at auction.
Who spokeHeather Campbell · City TreasurerTom DePietro · Council PresidentMargaret Morris · Council MemberRebecca Wolf · ResidentLloyd Koedding · Resident
Connections
- The $66 million sewer-upgrade project — whose EFC financing closed here — is described in detail in the DPW & Water Department report (section 06).
- A resident asked whether buyers of foreclosed property can be restricted. The Treasurer noted only city employees are barred from bidding; the Council President said sale terms can carry conditions such as build-by deadlines.
0600:54:54
DPW & Water Department Report
DPW Superintendent Rob Perry reported on sewer and stormwater work, the design phase of the $66 million sewer-separation project, and routine water-system maintenance.
Key points
- Crews repaired a collapsed manhole at Fifth and Union and installed a new catch basin on the 500 block of Union Street to relieve stormwater backups for nearby residents.
- The $66 million capital sewer project is in design. Using LIDAR contour data and 3D modeling, the city is laying out new storm and sanitary mains.
- Construction documents for the Columbia Street corridor are expected to go out in March or April 2026, with construction starting in summer 2026. The full project will run roughly four to five years, with later phases reaching through 2028–2029.
- Water system: a state-inspection punch-list item at the water tank was completed, a lead service line was replaced, and a hydrant on Clinton Street was replaced.
- Algae found at the reservoir was tested and came back below regulatory limits, with no cyanotoxins detected.
- Other items: Railroad Avenue was formally designated a two-lane road, a new parking lot was built at the cemetery house, and the department lent its boat to Greenport for a Halloween event.
Who spokeRob Perry · Superintendent of Public WorksVicki Diskaloudi · Council MemberJen Belton · Council MemberTom DePietro · Council PresidentLloyd Koedding · Resident
Connections
This is the second time the $66 million sewer project came up — the Treasurer's report (section 05) covered its financing. A fully built Hudson AI would link both mentions to the project's own page, so a resident could follow it across every meeting and every body.
0701:09:11
Resolutions Introduced
The Council President introduced a set of resolutions and previewed a presentation. None were voted on — all are expected to come up at next week's regular meeting.
Key points
- Four resolutions were introduced for a vote the following week: appointing commissioners; authorizing the sale of Long Alley; a transfer of funds for attorney fees; and a Greenport charge-back matter.
- On the Greenport charge-back, council member Jen Belton noted the Council was still waiting for an explanation of how a figure of roughly $75,000 had been calculated, following an earlier visit from outside representatives.
- A fifth item — a cooperation agreement with the Hudson Housing Authority — was introduced and presented in detail in the next section.
Who spokeTom DePietro · Council PresidentRich Volo · Council MemberJen Belton · Council Member
A note on the transcript
The transcript is fragmentary in this section. Resolution titles and the names attached to each introduction and second are partly garbled and should be checked against the official Council agenda.
0801:11:00
Hudson Housing Authority: Bliss Towers Redevelopment & PILOT Agreement
Representatives of the Hudson Housing Authority presented a proposed cooperation agreement — a tax arrangement tied to the long-planned redevelopment of the authority's housing. The Council is expected to vote on it next week.
Key points
- The Housing Authority's redevelopment plan is currently before the Hudson Planning Board. New York State, a major funder, requires a cooperation agreement — a PILOT, or payment-in-lieu-of-taxes — with the city, setting tax payments for the life of the state's bond financing.
- The proposal would sever part of the project site (on the north side of State Street) from the existing 2020 Bliss Towers agreement and place it under a new agreement. Bliss and Columbia Towers would stay under the existing one.
- Because winding down Bliss Towers has strained the authority's finances, it proposed that PILOT payments for 2025–2029 be paused and replaced by a single one-time payment of about $120,000, expected around the third quarter of 2026.
- Phase 1 would build 166 units, including a townhouse with two five-bedroom, two two-bedroom, and two one-bedroom units. Overall, the project would grow from the current 135 units toward about 276 across all phases. Roughly 80% of units would serve households at or below 50% of area median income.
- The new PILOT works out to about $250 per unit, up roughly 12–13% from the current $220.
- Discussion covered ADA accessibility in the multi-floor townhouse units, asbestos remediation in the old Bliss building (a Phase 2 item needing state and federal approval), and acceptance into the state Brownfield program to fund site cleanup. HUD funding was described as unaffected, since the project's primary funding is from the state.
- Residents and a commissioner raised the idea of revisiting an earlier concept to close part of State Street for a larger shared courtyard, noting that parking at the existing development is largely under-used.
- Phase 1 financing is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026; construction would take roughly 18 months, with residents potentially moving in around 2028–2029.
Who spokeDavid · Public counsel, Hudson Housing AuthorityJeff · HHA Executive DirectorJohn · MCO, co-development partnerCarlos Espel · Project architectTom DePietro · Council PresidentVicki Diskaloudi · Council MemberJen Belton · Council MemberNick Zachos · Resident / commissioner
What's next
No vote was taken. The cooperation agreement is expected to be voted on at next week's regular meeting. Council members were urged to read the full document and send questions to the Housing Authority's counsel beforehand.
Connections — how one decision touches many
This single agenda item reaches across years of city decisions and several governing bodies. A fully built Hudson AI would link it to each of these:
- Hudson Planning Board — the redevelopment plan is in active review there, with a SEQR lead-agency notice already issued.
- The 2020 Bliss Towers cooperation agreement — negotiated by the same counsel before COVID; this proposal amends it.
- The Hudson 2035 Comprehensive Plan — the city's housing goals are the policy backdrop for replacing and expanding 135 units.
- NYS Brownfield Cleanup Program — recently accepted the project, a funding source for remediating site contamination.
0901:37:46
Closing: School-Sale Vote & Street-Safety Petition
The meeting closed with a reminder about Thursday's public vote on the sale of a former school building, and a resident petition about street safety.
Key points
- The Council President reminded residents of Thursday's public vote on the sale of a former school building to the developer Penrose.
- A petition from residents of a street that straddles the Hudson–Greenport line asks for safety improvements. Residents describe the street being used as a cut-through near the cemetery and want measures such as a crosswalk.
- The petition will go to the Council's legal committee. Margaret Morris, who chairs that committee, offered to take it on and coordinate with Greenport.
- The meeting ended with a reminder that the following day was Veterans Day.
Who spokeTom DePietro · Council PresidentMargaret Morris · Council Member, chair of legal committeeVicki Diskaloudi · Council MemberNick Zachos · Resident
What's next
The street-safety petition is referred to the legal committee, with Margaret Morris taking the lead. The public vote on the school-building sale is scheduled for Thursday, November 13.
A note on the transcript
The transcript renders the petitioning street's name inconsistently (variously as "Paul Avenue" and "Wall Avenue"). The exact name should be confirmed against the petition itself.
Read the full transcript
0:57Rich Volo, Council Member: There. Huh? Survey there.
1:01Tom DePietro, Council President: Okay. Crystal there copy of the draft minutes for October 9th, 21st and 30th. Meeting posted on the city west. Copies of committee reports that be posted on the city register. There's a lot of documents, communications related to the a j process, which is discussed tonight. First we have our department's reports beginning with the Hanson gentleman from the fire department. Go. Alright, we'll be quick. Short month. Third field calls this month. 24 more false. My four good intent calls, one service to all two hazardous condition calls. One was a vehicle accident cleanup and one was a carbon monoxide. We had two accidents, one with injuries and the other one we actually had to extricate somebody from the vehicle. We call a pin job. Still a minor accident. And then we had one fire, which was a equipment fire and I believe that was the village. And cats other than that, took the boat out for the year. New boat, we put it in this season. Ran four or five calls, probably four or five calls out there this season with it. So everything went going out. We just pulled it out last weekend. Pretty much it. Nothing crazy. Great council members.
2:28Speaker 3: Questions? Comments, public
2:35Rich Volo, Council Member: Thank. Thank you director of the youth department. Good
2:50Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Evening council here to report on what we've been doing month of October at the youth department. So starting out with our numbers, attendance and registration across all three groups. Registration has gone up and so that just underscores the growing success that we have and the appeal of the diverse programming. And also just want to reflect on the ridership numbers that we have. Courtesy of the county, we are able to offer transportation to our members and so there you have a week by week breakdown as well as the ones the total board rides given to our members. So we're also just working on being more intentional with fostering a supportive and nurturing environment for our members. And so by doing so, the staff is implementing strategies to promote emotional wellbeing for our members. This includes conflict resolution, creating inclusive spaces where our kids feel valued and heard. Our staff are implementing these techniques to contribute to a more supportive environment.
4:06Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: We're also beginning our quarterly reviews for our full-time staff and our bi-annual reviews for our part-time staff with commitment to continuous improvement. These meetings are taking place to provide valuable opportunity for feedback, professional growth, and to align the goals with the overarching department goals. And the performance will be assessed against key objectives and individual development plans that we've created to improve skill sets and leadership capabilities in general. October was a pretty fun month for us. We had a ton of programming as well as a lot of community engagement efforts this month and so you'll see a lot of that as we continue to PowerPoint. This is again an overview of the programming at our paper. Second location.
5:13Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: And now we go to the next slide and this is an overview of the participation in those programs. So here we have literacy voyagers with Mr. Ray or Mr. Ray comes each week and does a literature activity paired with the hands-on activity. This month the kids had a glass with pumpkins, or excuse me, October. The kids had a glass with pumpkins. They read the book Pumpkin Soup and they were able to decorate grilled pumpkins and conducted a pumpkin explosion project using bacon, soda, vinegar and food coloring. It was a mess, but it was unforgettable in a good time. And so Mr. Ray also, he then took the seed home, bathed them and the kids either ate them or used them for a big
6:08Speaker 3: Project.
6:12Rich Volo, Council Member: And so here you kind of see them doing. So
6:21Speaker 3: For the pictures, we can't
6:23Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Get enough of those pictures, but those are just pictures of the kids. Again, we're at the library much better space, things are going well there. And these are the number breakdowns for some of the other programs that we have. We're continuing to work with Beal Juliana. She comes on a m basis Q2 does a literacy program with our youth and we also have music and movement with Ms. Ena Mosley that incorporates a drumming component along some cultural awareness.
7:00Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: So here at the map,
7:03Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Juliana is the adult
7:05Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: In the picture with some of our youth there. Here we have a
7:13Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Breakdown of the programming for our third through eighth group, which is at the Hudson Youth Center, which consists of six programs. So we're continuing to work with hip hop dance led by Lindsay. We have drumming as I mentioned with the Operation Unite that takes place at Hudson Hall. We are continuing to work with Sylvia Center, which has really been a big hit at program in the early, a lot of our girls were part of the program and since then a lot of our boys have joined that program as well, which is the more the merrier. They learn a lot of life skills, food prep. And so that program has really been great to see Flourish Ben and Art with Joanne by way of the Art School of Columbia County. And on the next slide we have some photos showing some of the wonderful culinary work that's
8:15Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Being done by members here. As I mentioned, October
8:22Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Was a pretty fun month for us. Our Cape of second group, they went to clients kill Fruit Farm. They were able to bring home bags of apples. They also went to the MVP arena to watch Hot Wheels, monster trucks, and we were invited to the Hudson Sandwich shop to paint a mural on the building itself. So that was really fun. And then our third through eighth group, they got to go to a art gallery with Joan just tommer themselves in that experience, which will also prepare them for the upcoming event that we have this Saturday.
9:09Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: The third eighth group also went to the Fruit Farm. They also attended the basketball game at the junior high. That was HPD versus HFD. We also attended trunk or Treat. Some of those kids have attended beyond the Monster truck and the RO project as well. And so in the next slide you can see some of those photos on the far left there. That is one of the kids at the Fruit Farm Center there. That's some of the kids at the E arena and on the right that some of our members painting sandwiches and different murals there at the Hudson Sandwich shop. The students also got a cash prize for partaking in that mural project. $20 if I recall correctly, which is a lot of money for an 8-year-old continue. Here are some pictures of the Hot Wheels Monster truck trip and this is a snapshot of what you can anticipate at the Open House Ball Festival this Saturday, one to four. This is a play on the artist, I believe his name's Andy Warhol. He has an infamous photo of Marilyn Monroe where she's in different colors. And so this was our children's imitation of the Andrew piece.
10:42Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Here we have a breakdown of some of the activities that our teams took part in for the teens last month. They were able to extend a field of horrors, which is Halloween themed kind of content hay ride in Troy. And so that was a big highlight for them for the month of October. And overall, our team numbers are pretty consistent. They have dipped a bit, provided the athletic season that is upon us, including basketball and volleyball. That said, we've also gotten a big request from high school team girl who want to come to the space for a volley hall. So that's something that we want to support. We have the equipment to do so and so that is something that we will be committing to going forward
11:41Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Next. Here are some of the photos from that event, some of our teams, some of the horrors as well. And this is just highlighting the event that took place at the school. So here we have our students of the month. To your left we have I Dallas de Jesus, she's in our K through second program. To your right you have Alejandra. I'm going live on Alejandra's last name, but here we have Alejandra. We did have a team month, but I wasn't able to get that photo in on time so I could make that available to the next meeting. To our left, we who was Tiana is one of the most reliable, just current hearted staff to work with. She shows up anytime we need her to and that someone calls out or an extra driver. Tiana has been there time and time again. Can't say enough about her.
13:00Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: She has children that also attend the program. So she's really been dedicated to the department for the past, I would say three years now. And to the right, that picture was taken on October 16th. October 16th was National Losses day, unbeknown to me. However, the staff, my staff was aware and they took the time to put together a certificate for me with cookies. And so that was a nice treat and those were our third ADE kids that were with us that day. So that was really a really fun home there. And these next few slides we have photos of YDSL soccer teams. YDSL has come to a close, but we certainly wanted to showcase our members that made it a memorable time. And with that, we are now open for youth basketball. We are now open for youth basketball. The CU for that is December 1st. As of Friday we had roughly 104 kids sign up. We expect that number to continue to climb as we approach that deadline here and now, we are still looking for coaches and volunteers to help us with that program. As you may recall, this lends itself to a feeder program for the future of Blue Hawks of our district. And so we're always looking to really commit to our youth
14:45Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: In that capacity. So that
14:51Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Ear as always is these our handles, whether it be on social media, can always contact us by phone or email with the next slide. Certainly wanted to say thank you to the council in lieu of tomorrow. Also wanted to say thank you to any of our veterans that are either online or present with us.
15:17Tom DePietro, Council President: Thank you, Calvin. Thank you. Thank you. Question to council members
15:20Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: A question. What is your criteria when you pick the student of the month? Does everyone eventually becomes a student of
15:29Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Ideally, yes. It's open for every kid to be eligible to be awarded to a student of the month. It does lend itself to attendance, behavior, engagement in programs, and so all of our members are kids that are there, I would say three to five times a week. They're engaging in a variety of programs. They're really just showing up and just embracing.
16:00Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: Does the same apply for an employee of the month?
16:04Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Yes. Yes. The employee of the month typically is the staff that's kind of gone above and beyond and that person's chosen amongst the full-time staffers who have the capacity to see both our K through second program or third to eighth program.
16:24Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: And how many full-time employees do you have?
16:26Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: So it's myself, the secretary cleaner, and we have the program coordinator and two full-time staff, so a total of six.
16:38Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: Okay. The program coordinator, was that the position that for some time was not filled? I remember when Liz was there,
16:47Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Yes,
16:50Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: But then we did.
16:51Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: We did for that position, yes.
16:54Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: So it was a good two years that it was without the position, without the, I think was she doing that job?
17:04Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: It was
17:05Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: Doing that
17:07Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Part of it? Yeah, I think she was doing part of it. I think the predecessor left. She kind of left notes and contact and
17:15Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: Yeah.
17:15Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Yeah.
17:16Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: Okay. Thank you.
17:18Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: That was the full-time. Is there a part-time staff
17:20Tom DePietro, Council President: Also?
17:21Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Yes. Y'all have a parttime staff as well. How
17:24Rich Volo, Council Member: Many
17:24Rich Volo, Council Member: Part-time staff
17:26Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Part-timers? 10,
17:35Rich Volo, Council Member: six full-time. 10 part-time is
17:45Rich Volo, Council Member: 20 hours a week?
17:47Rich Volo, Council Member: 15 to Yeah, 15 or 20.
17:56Rich Volo, Council Member: Margaret. Okay. Margaret.
18:00Margaret Morris, Council Member: Yeah. So the sixth full-time person is the cleaner, correct. Calvin?
18:07Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Sorry,
18:09Margaret Morris, Council Member: Of the full-time
18:11Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Full.
18:12Margaret Morris, Council Member: Yes. The cleaner is full-time. So can you explain to me the hours that cleaner works and why you need a full-time cleaner?
18:26Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: So we have a full-time cleaner to help us maintain cleanliness of all the spaces that we utilize, whether it be Oakdale, the youth center or our satellite site at the library. The cleaner works a six to one schedule five days a week.
18:48Margaret Morris, Council Member: So that person comes in after everything is closed? Correct. Before you're saying 6:00 AM or 6:00 PM?
18:59Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Six in the morning till about one in the afternoon.
19:04Rich Volo, Council Member: Okay. Wait, how
19:08Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: About the church? Who claims that?
19:10Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: So we're no longer at the church. That's why I keep reiterating.
19:12Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: That's why you said that. Now you're at the library.
19:14Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Okay.
19:15Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: That's why.
19:16Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: No, yeah, it is still fresh.
19:17Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: It's very fresh. Right. When did it happen?
19:20Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: We just began that this September,
19:23Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: So that would save us, what was it, 10,000 a year perhaps?
19:26Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Well that was not a city expense, but we weren't paying rent for the church,
19:33Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: Which was around that time.
19:34Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Yes, roughly shy. 10 K.
19:37Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: Okay, so now you're at the library. Which room is it
19:43Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: On the second floor.
19:45Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: We
19:45Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Utilize the back rooms. So the first floor, two bathrooms? Yeah. Yes, the two bedroom rooms. Okay,
19:52Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: So they need to go and clean those, right,
19:54Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Right. Yeah, we do utilize that space, foot traffic, bathrooms and stuff. I do think our kids
20:03Rich Volo, Council Member: Deserve a clean space to be in. Any other questions?
20:12Claire Cousins, resident in audience: I would just like to say this is the level of programming that I think a lot of parents have been waiting for. It sounds amazing, which you've been able to offer the kids since you've come in, highlighting the staff is really important. I think young people have shown how excited they are to go to your program, so I just want to commend choices of you've made, you've come in together, good shape.
20:32Nick Zachos, resident in audience: Did you put your hand on? Yeah, I would just like to clarify also, does the cleaner do more than just
20:39Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Cleaning? Oh, absolutely. Light fixtures. He's a cleaner slash maintenance. One name
20:49Nick Zachos, resident in audience: For a church from the 18 hundreds, has a few thousand dollars to upkeep it every year. And he's the one who fixed all of those things, sir. Yeah, as best he can. Yeah,
21:01Tom DePietro, Council President: He's a jack of all trade.
21:07Nick Zachos, resident in audience: One more question as this is going on and people seem to be questioning positions in relation to the budget, what it sounds like to me is to see whether council members will also be questioning personnel members of other budgets, DPW police by or other wherever else, or if they're just focusing on the youth department, one of the smallest of the departments in the smallest budget Question for the council I guess.
21:32Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: Well, I mean if you heard before, I was questioning the other department
21:37Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: That wasn't talking about the youth department, but I do believe at some point the city, we should calculate how many kids there are in the city and how many youth programs do we have because right now Pets Nest is growing, we have promise, we have youth, so I was wondering if they can be some kind of collaboration of all of those units to have for the best of the kids just saying forget the money. Just saying there must be a better way to handle it without having separate entities and having entities working all together into
22:25Tom DePietro, Council President: They do meet regularly to coordinate
22:27Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: The three of them.
22:29Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: It's a host program. It's about 25 organizations that meet probably co-host,
22:34Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: 25 utilizations meet here?
22:37Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: No, throughout the county?
22:40Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: No. Okay. I'm talking about the city per se to have
22:44Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: That. Those city groups are a part of that network as well and we meet on a monthly basis to discuss similar topics.
22:57Claire Cousins, resident in audience: To your point, there's multiple programs that exist for youth, but the youth center is the only open rec space that offers multiple choices of programming where the kids actually get to decide what they want to be into their crafts, homework, health, cooking. They can do the field trips. Kites Nest has a topic that they
23:18Claire Cousins, resident in audience: Teach kids around. Everybody is not, not their niche promise is also a younger crowd of kids. So a lot of the older kids, once they phase out of promise, they want to go to the youth center to have more freedom and it's also like he was explaining before a feeder program, whether it's sports, whether it's leadership, most young people, their first jobs is that the youth center because they came from youth center and that is the pipeline, that's where they're getting some of their youth investments. So I think it's invaluable to have an open rec space that is available to young people.
23:52Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: How about the school? Is there something you can work with the school as well?
23:58Tom DePietro, Council President: School has their own program. They do have a server,
24:00Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: They do have a program. Is it competitive with yours? I mean do you see kids going more there or more here? Do you know their numbers or Yeah, I don't have data. That's what I'm saying. It'd be nice to have all their information and be instead of being, okay, I have this amount of kids to all try to work together and beyond the umbrella of afterschool programs for our kids or Hudson,
24:27Tom DePietro, Council President: I think a lot of the ones in the afterschool program also live outside of the city of Hudson, so parents use that as their daycare right after school because they don't have anything outside the city. So I think that that attendance, you'll see more report CLO to kids out there rather than in the city. One more time. I'll
24:55Nick Zachos, resident in audience: Just also add that the afterschool program, that limited number of seats, they fill up incredibly quickly and then they're filled up for the entire semester and they operate under a different set of hours at the youth department. So that's done by five 30 and that's just when things are getting at the youth department. None of those other organizations existed to drop in that can provide a space for youth team, young adults in those evening hours when there's no other youth program, nothing during those hours, promise neighborhoods, school, anything.
25:28Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: I think it would be very good to have some information of what takes place on those meetings with the 20 father. Not so we can compare it. So instead of you having to explain so much, then we put everything in perspective that
25:50Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Make that happen.
25:51Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: Yeah.
25:52Tom DePietro, Council President: Margaret, hands up.
25:55Margaret Morris, Council Member: Yes, thank you. To Dominic's point, I think it was Dominic who mentioned it, the children who attend the youth department who do not reside in Hudson. Why are the taxpayers in the city of Hudson paying for afterschool care and evening events for children who are not residents of Hudson?
26:25Rich Volo, Council Member: The afterschool program, not the youth department.
26:30Margaret Morris, Council Member: I'm sorry, that question was for
26:31Rich Volo, Council Member: Calvin.
26:37Margaret Morris, Council Member: So we have a fairly substantial percentage of the children and teens who are accessing the services of the youth department do not live in the city of Hudson. Why are we
26:50Rich Volo, Council Member: Paying for that? Calvin? I'm looking for your answer.
27:00Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: My partner. You said down. Could you say that again? Why are we paying for what?
27:04Margaret Morris, Council Member: Yeah, so we used to get numbers from Liz of the percentage of children who lived in Hudson or did not live in Hudson and so we have to Dominic's point, there are substantial number of kids accessing the services within the Hudson City youth department who do not live in the city. So what is the rationale for the city of Hudson to be paying for services for children in Greenport and lure?
27:40Rich Volo, Council Member: Well, I would say it is an
27:42Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Investment in the youth, I mean in our city, so therefore we should support it.
27:49Margaret Morris, Council Member: I'm sorry, can you say that again? I didn't catch it.
27:54Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: I'd like to think on it and get back to you.
27:57Margaret Morris, Council Member: Okay. Yeah, it seems to me that the municipalities who are accessing our services should be providing some funds for the services that they're accessing. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying that they should not access the services. I'm just saying that the city of Hudson and the youth department budget, which comes out of our budget, should get some funds from the municipalities whose children are using our services.
28:29Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Yeah, I think you have valid point.
28:32Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Thank you.
28:33Calvin Lewis, Director of the Hudson Youth Dept: Okay, right along. Thank
28:35Lloyd Koedding, resident in audience: You Governor. Just in terms of size of programs, very robust program. It's a wonderful thing. I would just contrast it with something like the senior department, which is a much smaller and a lot less robust activity, so I get that youth department is, who knows you said the smaller to something way more than even the youth department and that would be the senior.
29:09Rich Volo, Council Member: Okay, thank you bud. Next up a miller. Any kind. All
29:23Speaker 10: Right. I'm just going to go over my reports for October for our section nine reporting. We had zero defensive action reports, so that's good. We also made 31 arrests for a total of 48 total charges. We only had two emotionally disturbed person calls and we had zero ods or Narcan or drug overdoses or any of that, which was good for October for our body worn camera reports. There was nothing out of the ordinary to report on that, so that was good from supervisors. Also, just a couple things. I know it always comes up with the e-bike concerns. We did have an accident on Harry Howard on the bike path, so I was pulling into the fireman's home and flipped a e-bike rider. There was two of them on the bike. They had a little bit of a knee injury but nothing serious, no medical. They denied any medical attention and also on one shift they ended up getting dirt bikes that were riding around.
30:30Speaker 10: We actually caught them, got a little bit of a, I don't want to say chase, but they ended up fighting 'em in Greenport and issued tickets and all that to them. So something we're working on. Also, just so you guys know, last week we had two vans stolen from the city of Hudson. One van was from a local funeral home, which we recovered with no and Stockport with no damage or anything like that. The other one was someone broke into the youth department, sped in, got the keys to one of our city vans. We were able to recover that band with no damage or anything like that out in the county next to the airport, next to als. There. Both of them are ongoing investigations, so I can't really discuss much more about it. The detectives units unit is dealing with it because they're felonies.
31:14Speaker 10: Also, somebody tried to start a fire in one of the bathrooms down at the waterfront and we have people of interest on that and detectives are working on that. Luckily it didn't, obviously the fire started but it didn't obviously build out down the building. So that's an ongoing investigation. And also since we took over parking, I have a parking report here I'd like to go over. So we've had it in October, about four months now, the parking division and for that quarter, so the first quarter from July to the end of September for revenue, excuse me, we made $297,561. Last year's totals were 241,000, so we were up about 19% for a total of $55,880
32:12Rich Volo, Council Member: And for October we were at for just a month of
32:20Speaker 10: October, revenue was 130,695 and this time last year was 122,776. So we're up about 6% for a total of about 8,000. So parking's doing good. I also wanted to, weekend parking was suspended for overnight, so we're unsu suspending that starting November 21st and also in my opinion, for the suspension of parking during December, considering everything you guys spoke about, I don't think we should do that this year and we did. I'm glad that this is suspension of the overnights parking during the weekend that's going to be lifted. So that will be in effect.
33:04Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: Exactly.
33:05Speaker 10: So during the summer they started a program where they stopped doing enforcement on our street. I'm saying that we should not do that, go back to the way and just do enforcement. That's my opinion from now that this is on my lap. I'm sorry, this ion decision, I'm sorry. It's usually the mayor of the mayor. I'm not sure because it's like police commissioner kind of thing. It should be now. Yeah.
33:31Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: So who is going to take the initiative to talk to the mayor and you guys?
33:36Speaker 10: I don't know, it's just a suggestion from,
33:38Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: I don't even know if it passes from the consult, but I definitely think we should do it,
33:45Tom DePietro, Council President: Not do it.
33:46Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: Yeah, we should do what he's saying. Yeah.
33:50Speaker 3: So can you see,
33:52Tom DePietro, Council President: Hold on, Margaret, you finished?
33:57Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: Yeah, if you can please see that. I'll proceed. Okay, Margaret,
34:02Margaret Morris, Council Member: I just want to vehemently agree with Vicki and Captain Miller that in December we should not suspend parking, that we should continue to have parking enforced throughout the month of December and I thank Captain Miller for bringing that up.
34:20Speaker 10: I only say it because it sounds like we're just in a different position and maybe we can get back to that position sometime. I Okay, thank you.
34:32Tom DePietro, Council President: One other question, can you mention this the overnight, I'm sorry, the street cleaning parking on the weekends, is that still in effect?
34:44Nick Zachos, resident in audience: You
34:44Speaker 10: Would have to ask
34:45Nick Zachos, resident in audience: Rob. I really, I'm not sure you mean,
34:51Speaker 10: Yeah, they may have a schedule on, I don't know. I don't know if you enforce it. Okay, nevermind. We just do the wrong siders set night
34:58Tom DePietro, Council President: Without investigation. Can you speak line without jeopardizing the investigation? Was the vehicle broken into or was the club broken into a key still?
35:10Speaker 10: Yes, the club was broken into, the keys were reportedly stolen from there and then they stole the A van from there and we did recover again. No damage, nothing like that, but
35:21Tom DePietro, Council President: Thanks. Okay. Anybody from that community? Yeah, the feedback accident, that's a minor or no,
35:31Speaker 10: My accident, they were the riding the e-bike. They were minor? No, they had driver's license. They were of age to drive. Oh,
35:40Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: What is the age limit for that?
35:42Speaker 10: I think it said 16 on think 16 ride two on a bike. No, they shouldn't have been riding two on a bike. So did they get ticketed or they did not get tickets?
35:52Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: We don't have a lawn in place yet. We need to put a lot. I saw little kids on planet
35:58Speaker 10: They can issue tickets for that ride bike bicycle, but they did. They ended up actually they're still working on the accident work.
36:07Tom DePietro, Council President: Yeah, I see a lot of e-bike people driving. Two person
36:13Speaker 10: That's not saving safe. You're supposed sliding those or warn that. Yeah, everything. The concerns you give me, I give 'em to patrol. That's why they give me a report and then I've just returned what they're, so they have been doing extra enforcement just in that particular case, but I don't like to judge if I wasn't on scene, but it sounds like it was the actual car's fault this time when they were pulling in because they were just traveling down the bike path and got clipped. So being on the bike besides that, they were in using the right lane and all that.
36:51Tom DePietro, Council President: Okay, thank you Dr. Lloyd. Thank you. Oh, sorry, yes.
36:57Resident in audience: Question on the previous topic, not the policing topic. I answer that which the youth department. Sure.
37:06Tom DePietro, Council President: Oh
37:08Resident in audience: Yeah. I just was unclear at the end of that conversation. Can you guys hear me okay?
37:13Tom DePietro, Council President: Yeah,
37:13Resident in audience: Yeah. Okay. At the end of that conversation there was this really cool presentation. I don't know anything about this, so I'm just listening to your presentation and I'm like, this is so lovely, all of this love and opportunity you're providing and I know that obviously I think everybody here knows that there are budgetary issues in the city and I understand it a general level that there's a question of the city funding and then people being outside of the city limits and I would imagine that maybe some people also go back and forth. Maybe there are families that are in and out of the city. I'm not really sure, but I guess what my question is is the question to you after you, your presentation was why should the city pay for this? And then it was kind, which I understand why that's a question, but it was left sort of lapping in the breeze.
38:14Resident in audience: Now it's the youth department's responsibility to sort of come up with a reason. But then what's the impact of that? It seems like to me it seems like not knowing too much about how the organization works. I would think that if there's going to be a question of there's some portion like a third or something like that, people who are outside of city limits by residents, then somebody's got to get together and communicate with the town, the government outside that would provide that funding if that's the route that we're going to go. And it just kind of seems like it is probably not just the youth department by themselves to do that. It seems like it's the rest of the government to do that. So am I just thinking something that everybody knows or it just was kind of left hanging? He's supposed to answer that question by himself and come back and have a solution. I've been in situations like that where I myself have been assigned something and left and then I was like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do in the next meeting. What am I supposed to provide? I can't do this. Well, should you like to clarify that your
39:28Tom DePietro, Council President: Best insight was that people go back and forth? I've people on council and elsewhere. I probably don't appreciate how often that happens because doesn't affect them.
39:39Resident in audience: You mean
39:43Tom DePietro, Council President: This now who should actually be approaching those other towns. It's interesting. Our supervisors don't seem right.
39:53Tom DePietro, Council President: I mean we have five supervisors on the city of Hudson that meet with the board of supervisors for the other county. We did meet with them months ago to say, then these other towns chip in.
40:06Claire Cousins, resident in audience: I have to unique. I think the only point I would add that is constantly missing from this conversation is what the county does provide when it comes to youth programming, a large chunk of youth programming within the city, both for the youth center and programming abroad, coverage, transportation. They move things in their budgets to support youth programming throughout the county. The co-host committee, which is the 25 youth programs that get together on a monthly basis also is supported by the county. So the county as a whole does invest in Hudson probably more than they invest in other towns and villages throughout the rest of the county. So I think that they are pouring a fair share into what the city is offering. And then I would also encourage beyond the supervisors, there are department heads that are in charge of these budgetary items that are in question and if you reach out and ask, pretty sure that he's very forthcoming with how the money is allocated to you programming throughout the county and specifically for the city on Hudson. It's very broken out. Thank you Claire for that clarification. Okay,
41:10Resident in audience: So then is that, I'm not trying to assign work to anybody, but I'm just trying to make it sure that nobody is leaving this meeting being like, am I supposed to do something or am I not? Or are people going to be mad at me? Am I come back and I don't have an answer to something that seems like it needs to be collaborative representation. I don't know. Or maybe you guys don't want to deal with that, but that's just, that seems to me
41:33Tom DePietro, Council President: Thank you for raising anybody else. Okay, we'll move along and
41:43Tom DePietro, Council President: Thank you. We will talk about it further. Right now we have a report from Heather.
41:53Rich Volo, Council Member: Hello
41:54Heather Campbell, City Treasurer: Everybody. Just going to share my screen. It's going to be a short one today. As most of you know, I've been inundated with other obligations, so I tried to update this as well as I could.
42:12Rich Volo, Council Member: Okay, can you see that? No. Yes or no? I'm
42:18Heather Campbell, City Treasurer: Sorry.
42:19Rich Volo, Council Member: No, no, that's what I'm hearing, correct. No. Okay. Bear with me. She emailed it.
42:38Heather Campbell, City Treasurer: Okay. All set now?
42:40Rich Volo, Council Member: Yeah.
42:40Heather Campbell, City Treasurer: Great. It's a good size or do you want me to increase it? I'll increase it a little bit
42:48Heather Campbell, City Treasurer: If I can figure out how. Hold on. Okay.
43:00Heather Campbell, City Treasurer: Okay. Building permits and fees. As you can see we're 75. This is through information is all through September, so 75% of the fiscal year plumbing permits we're at just under 40% of budget building permits. We're at 22% of budget. I think we've all discussed that we're probably not going to hit those numbers. I will say though that what I've seen in October and November to date for building permits is like another 50 grand. So we had a couple pretty good months. It may not get us to the number in the budget, but I mean when we're only showing 81,000 year to date, another 50 is going to be substantial. So parking revenues, again, we're at 75% of the year for on and off street parking we're at 145,000, so 55% of budget. The front street lot we're at 360 1, which is 70% of budget and you can see other ones parking at other permits at 50 and parking tickets at four 19.
44:10Heather Campbell, City Treasurer: So reiterating what Officer Miller said, parking tickets is looking strong. So that's going to be I think another potential upside for 2025 end years. I know we've been talking about how we think 2025 is going to come in at the end and obviously none of us know the magic answer to that, but there are some good signs that are offsetting some of the negative signs. Sales, cannabis mortgage and lodging tax. I cheated on this one a little bit because I said it through September, but we didn't actually record the sales tax contribution till October, but I wanted to show it this month anyway, so we're at 1.82 or 78% of the budget. The amount that we got in the third quarter of 2025 was actually the highest amount of sales tax distribution that we've received. So that was another nice little plus lodging tax we've discussed for all the varieties of reasons we've discussed, not looking like it's going to hit that number.
45:13Heather Campbell, City Treasurer: Ditto with cannabis tax. We did get our next, let's see, last time I reported it was through May, so June, July and August. So June, July and August was approximately 32,000. So that's roughly what we've been estimating each quarter since its inception. Obviously it's still a very new tax and we don't know how it's going to evolve over time. And as we discussed earlier today as well, we've taken that trend into consideration in the 2026 budget estimate and mortgage tax. This is one of two. We have not received a second payment yet. It has to get voted on by the county board of supervisors before it gets distributed, but Holly Taylor did send me a record of what we're anticipating getting. It's about $135,000, so we will be not quite at the 2025 budget number but pretty close. So yeah, so the second half payment was almost twice as high as the first half payment.
46:15Heather Campbell, City Treasurer: The rest of this is just operational stuff. We are still, I keep saying we're hanging the have a 2024 audit complete and we're still not complete. The auditors keep coming up with other things to address. So my goal is to get it done by the end of this week. Ideally, I'm not going to bother to go into the operational systems upgrades. We've talked about that enough, I just like to leave it there. We did talk about the foreclosure proceedings at the earlier meeting, but I know some of the council folk weren't there. So I will just give a quick summary. Again, we were waiting to do the second demand letter to the property owners pending the resolution for the 10% 36th down months option for installment agreements passing. And then of course we're also required to have a public hearing by the mayor that's scheduled for I believe the 12th of this month.
47:08Heather Campbell, City Treasurer: And so shortly after that we will be issuing the second demand letter. We're going to be putting information both about both installment agreements, assuming that they go through and also a brochure from housing resources that offers foreclosure counseling. Free counseling for people that are in risk of foreclosure and housing resources is also going to issue a separate letter to follow up with the demand letter. Once again, emphasizing the fact that they're offering free foreclosure counseling. We started with 152 properties, one of 'em was city owned, so 151 properties technically we're down to 76 and that is just by sending out that first demand letter, there's about an outstanding balance of $2.1 million. That's about a million and a half in principle and 630 5K in interest. So when we had the discussion earlier in today's budget meeting about the impact of the foreclosures on the city budget, $600,000 worth of interest that will maybe not entirely be redeemed because if we have to foreclose on a property and we don't sell it for the full amount owed on the taxes and interest, we might take a hit. But overall that should be a pretty significant benefit to the budget.
48:29Heather Campbell, City Treasurer: And in terms of what's been redeemed to date, we've redeemed 75 properties, approximately 890,000. It's 50% of the properties, but only 30% of the dollars. And as I mentioned before, I will be publishing the new list on Wednesday when we're back in the office. But what you'll see among other things is if I remember correctly, literally four properties of the remaining 75 properties account for 50% of that $2 million. And I think something like 14 properties account for 75% of it. And then there's a whole bunch of guys at the end that own anywhere from a couple hundred to a couple thousand dollars. So certainly anticipating that the second demand letter will bring some more action in my office. Also issues a delinquent notice every year regardless of whether we're in a foreclosure process or not to any property that has any outstanding taxes. Once we receive the delinquent school taxes that we're responsible to collect that generally we generally see a spike in reaction in payments after that letter goes out. Oftentimes people are not aware that they owed the money, especially when we say that you still owe school tax and they're convinced that they paid it, but it turned out they paid the first payment but not the second. So that should all be of benefit to the city budget.
50:04Heather Campbell, City Treasurer: As we said before, we'll issue the second demand letter, we'll have a turnaround time, probably 30 days. And once that 30 day period is over, we will actually start the legal process, which is filing with the county clerk, ordering title searches and so forth. 98 pad place. You guys authorized the sale at auction of 98 pad place. So I've reached out to Corporation Council to say what do we do to get this going? SIDI reached out just this morning to Crystal and she was out of office, so we haven't had a chance to talk, but basically need to figure out how we actually execute the sidewalk improvement district fees on the tax bill because the law doesn't actually provide any guidance. So I think Crystal and I can touch base on that later this week. And I think everything else is. The other new thing is, the other two new things is that we did actually close on the EFC financing for phase one sewer upgrade, $66 million project. So that is closed, which is great, and the application for sewer debt exclusion was submitted and received and the public notice was provided. So we are just waiting on the final response from them. I think we provided them everything we need and I anticipate that that's going to be approved. And that's all I have today.
51:29Rich Volo, Council Member: Okay. Council members questions Did July when finished the, I'm sorry, back.
51:44Heather Campbell, City Treasurer: They're almost complete. Unfortunately, Danielle was diagnosed with COVID over the weekend, so she will be out for the next few days. But I understand you have a soil and we do have to respond within a limited time to provide you that information and we will do so. Lloyd,
52:02Lloyd Koedding, resident in audience: I kind of like to wait until the trip, till the July time if that's, I can give me the old ones, that'd be great. Okay. You
52:10Heather Campbell, City Treasurer: Have everything Il June.
52:14Lloyd Koedding, resident in audience: Hi, I'm looking
52:17Margaret Morris, Council Member: Tom, I have Andreas,
52:20Tom DePietro, Council President: Your hand was in our first Margaret, Rebecca Wolf, please.
52:24Rebecca Wolf, resident: Oh, hi.
52:25Margaret Morris, Council Member: Sorry, I thought you were taking comments from the council.
52:29Tom DePietro, Council President: Oh, well you weren't here so I didn't see your hand up right away. Rebecca, go ahead.
52:33Margaret Morris, Council Member: Yeah, I was just wanted to mention one thing that was not mentioned at the budget meeting I don't believe, which that in crafting the budget, one of the decisions that was made was that no non-union employees or elected officials will be receiving a raise in the last couple of years. The city has elected to provide raises in line with the union raises for the non-union employees and for the elected officials. And I just wanted to make that, I don't believe that was mentioned in the budget meeting, but I wanted people to be aware of that.
53:12Tom DePietro, Council President: Okay, that's important. Rebecca, what was your question?
53:18Rebecca Wolf, resident: Yeah, I was curious, Heather, the properties you're talking about that are under foreclosure or are receiving these letters, is there currently any restriction on who can buy properties that are offered for sale?
53:36Heather Campbell, City Treasurer: The only restriction that I'm aware of is no employee of the city of Hudson. Once the city forecloses on the property and it turns around to sell it, the city has two options. Either option requires I believe a three quarters vote of the council. It can either be sold at private sale or it can be sold by auction. It's almost always done by auction. Private sale requires getting an appraisal ahead of time, so assuming that the properties are available and they are up for auction, the only people I'm aware that are not allowed to bid on them are city employees.
54:10Rebecca Wolf, resident: So no, it doesn't have to be like an individual, it can be a corporation, it can be anything.
54:18Heather Campbell, City Treasurer: Absolutely.
54:19Rebecca Wolf, resident: Okay, thanks.
54:21Tom DePietro, Council President: Actually we can write into the proposal restrictions as we have done in the past. For example, on some of the options we insisted, excuse me, that developer, whoever bought it, started within a certain timeframe where there was a financial penalty. So we stand as certain boundaries.
54:49Rich Volo, Council Member: Okay. Any other questions?
54:54Tom DePietro, Council President: Okay, let's move on to our last innovation. Rob and I see you're there. I am. What are we looking
55:04Rob Perry, Superintendent of DPW: For here? Okay, accepted its revenue for August was $49,761. So we're pretty much on pace to meet what the revenue projection was for the year. Now this is just to show you one of the manholes at Fifth and Union last month. They talked about how there was some partial collapses. We had to do an excavation to remove pieces and replace and repair and then we had to make another excavation to replace what had actually come apart. So this was one of the rainstorms this month and you can see everything is flowing just fine. We've installed another catch basin on the 500 block in Unit Street. This was kind of at a request for some of the residents that were there was there's some capacity issues in the main. So this catch basin is actually tied into an old force main that is now a dedicated storm line. So the residents, it was the understanding that we put this here, they would tie in their roof leaders, take them out of the combined sewer and run them over to this basin and then that water would no longer have a potential for backing up inside of their system. So that project is also complete.
56:32Rob Perry, Superintendent of DPW: We have construction. So what we're doing is when there's new construction or people are putting new sanitary lines in that are going to have storm water, we had them run the line separately. So you can see on the left side here, this is actually footing drains and maybe some roof drains. They come down and they're ying into the sanitary line, which then goes into the main, that's because there's no storm line in this alley. The reason we have them bring it out like that is because in the future when we do install the storm line, what we'll do is we'll disconnect the connection here and connect it to the new storm line and then the city will take it from there. So this is just something that we've been doing for the last couple of years. It looks a little goofy, but as the store separation projects continue to advance, more and more stormwater will come out of the sewer system.
57:33Rob Perry, Superintendent of DPW: We've talked about the capital project, the 66 million project a number of times it was in survey for the first three months and then it's been in a lot of design phase. So just gives you some of the work that's involved. So what we do is we take the known, these are down on front street in Columbia work that's already been completed and we use those as basically the benchmarks, the place where we have to tie into, which means we have to hit the locations and we have to hit the elevations, right? This is actually something using the lidar, which is, it's a satellite imaging, but these blue lines and green lines are all contours. And by using the contours we're able to generate a theoretical drainage area as well as where the runoff will go for placement of catch basins and various infrastructure. So then after that's done, we come up with where the new mains theoretically should go.
58:39Rob Perry, Superintendent of DPW: This is what their inverts are for the structures and locations. And so this is all kind of proposed new construction as part of that $60 million project. And once we do that as far as design, then we model it. So at this stage you've got 3D modeling and green is sewage and brown is the storm water. And what happens is there's basins to get separated into the storm line and what it does is it helps us make sure that we're going to get proper elevation so that the flows can go. Obviously we want to use gravity and only gravity. We also want to try and anticipate any potential conflicts. This just shows these sanitary and storm lines. Now we'll add gas and water and any other underground utilities to the information that we have it. And like I said, it'll make sure that when we do the actual construction designs we can mitigate any potential conflicts.
59:44Rob Perry, Superintendent of DPW: And so just so we have a rough idea, so starting on Second Street, Columbia Street, some of the alleys associated with it, we should put it out after we have the designs and construction documents ready, they have to go to DEC for review and approval. We're planning on a couple of probably four months for construction documents, two months for them for DEC to review. Probably putting this on the street in March or April with construction to start next summer. So we're looking at 2020 6 27 for this Columbia Street corridor if you will. There'll be some overlap with portions of Washington Prospect in that area. And then the next phase is the upper Green Street, upper Columbia Fairview in that area for 28 and 29. So a project this size is, we're looking at probably four to five years of construction. And yes, it will certainly be inconvenient for many going to the water department.
1:00:49Rob Perry, Superintendent of DPW: There was part of that state inspection that we had over in the summer and what happened is this is for pipe cleaning. This is where we allow finished water from the tank to push the poly peg through for pipe cleaning. The issue was that this, by being a solid pipe, there was the ability for one or both actually both of the gate valves and this check valve here. To fail it would be very unlikely, but it is possible and conceivable that it could happen. And so they wanted this spool piece removed so that way even if they did fail, there was no way. And then putting a cap over the section that goes to the tank so there's no way of raw water bypassing the plant and making it directly to the tank. So there were some other minor points that they wanted screens over some vents, some kind of various insulation and gaskets. Those were done a while ago. This was the last of the punch list. They will come back to inspect and then we expect this matter to be closed.
1:01:56Rob Perry, Superintendent of DPW: This is just a picture of a piece of lead water service that was removed from a repair. And so the galvanizes, this little guy on the right and what they do is they just take the lead and they literally mold it over top of the pipe that they connect to. And that's how they made connections for lead pipes because it is very malleable. We changed the hydrant out on Clinton Street. So the yellow is a type of a pipe coupling that is also a restraining system so it holds the valve, it helps hold the hydrant in place so that way when if there's a charge to the system, we don't have anything shifting around and moving, making a potential leak that was installed. The hydrant was installed afterwards. So that is all complete copay is within our watershed. So we were making, they do go by the lake and take a look at it.
1:02:57Rob Perry, Superintendent of DPW: We did find some algal bloom along. This is along the shore and this is downstream of, there's an overflow structure. So some of the algae was there. I did reach out to the association and I also reached out directly to the supervisor for the town. And as Phil Collins says, no reply at all, but we did end up testing it because that's what we do. It is in our watershed. And the results came back that for micro systems it was below MCL basically means non-detect and of the cyana toxins there was zero found. So it's not a concern DPW, those shared services, for those of you who are familiar with screen port, that's the big Halloween to-do out in Warman Square. And so they asked if they could borrow the boat. They put the band on there. This is just the skeletal band. They actually put a real band on it later on at night and then brought the boat back the next day.
1:04:11Rob Perry, Superintendent of DPW: This is a railroad avenue that goes to DSS. It actually is listed on our highway inventory as a two lane road. Most people just assumed it was one way because there was only one house on there. And I think that that person usually just would go through the drive, the driveway and parking lot of DSS. But anyway, so as part of the Depot district, they've installed a parking lot on the backside of it. So we've had to call this out as being a two lane road. There'll be signage that will be installed by the county and other than that, it's not pretty but it's enough to give people some guidance.
1:04:50Rob Perry, Superintendent of DPW: Car versus pole, this is down on Power Avenue and just some van going out of control and hit the pole. This is a utility pole up by the world famous triangle and HPD does have a camera that watches this intersection 24 hours a day. And the individual that ran through this intersection last month just blew through the intersection, didn't stop. There's a blinking red light, there's a stop sign. Either one of them as traffic control devices are certainly a standard device and here's a redundancy, but I think you're going to find out through conversations with the police department that 999 out of a thousand incidents are driver error. Where the people are just distracted, not paying attention, not doing what they're supposed to be doing. But that'll be a discussion for another time for sure.
1:05:56Rob Perry, Superintendent of DPW: This is just kind of the silly stuff we get drawn into. I guess there was some beef at the library over whose garbage can was whose. And so I don't know how I get dragged into a library beef with the senior department and especially when the library gets half a million dollars a year from the city. But there we go. There's the $90 solution and I guess OL's, well now this is just last night. Yeah, these are ashes. Some of Hudson's more colorful individuals maybe We got a little cold and they decided to start a fire inside the bathrooms down at the waterfront park. So those bathrooms have been, we lock 'em up this time of year anyway for the season because there's no heat in them. They're just a seasonal bathroom. And so they are shut down. They've been winterized and locked up. So it's that At the cemetery there was a big old dead tree that was here by the house for years. We had it taken down last year and I thought it would be a good idea to make a parking lot. So here's a machine removing the roots, the same machine, removing the overburden, and then they went and put item four down for a base, compacted it and there's your finished product. Nice little parking lot at the cemetery house. That's all I got.
1:07:22Tom DePietro, Council President: Thank you Rob. Council members?
1:07:23Rob Perry, Superintendent of DPW: Yeah,
1:07:25Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: Rob, thank you for fixing Clin Street. I appreciate that. And a different note during the budget meeting, prior member, the public asked if the cemetery receives any funds because there are veterans at the cemetery.
1:07:49Nick Zachos, resident in audience: From the federal government?
1:07:50Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: Yeah, from the federal government.
1:07:51Rob Perry, Superintendent of DPW: No. Well the federal government will pay for their internment of the veteran toll cover that cost. But they don't just write us a, there's not like a recurring check or fee or anything like that.
1:08:06Jen Belton, Council Member: Rob, I actually found a grant right after they asked. I just Googled it. I'll send it to you. There is a grant program since we do have military veterans.
1:08:24Rich Volo, Council Member: Okay. Amber else Council.
1:08:32Lloyd Koedding, resident in audience: Rob, wonderful job Ms.
1:08:34Lloyd Koedding, resident in audience: Used. We know we can count on, give you one another, this may not be your purview, but the Galvan Armory, I noticed they got a flag ball coming out on fifth Street, but there's nothing, no flag on the flag pole. Is that something that, is that you or is that some other No,
1:08:55Rob Perry, Superintendent of DPW: That's Galvin. Was that, that's private property.
1:08:59Lloyd Koedding, resident in audience: You have no correct. I'm asking
1:09:05Rob Perry, Superintendent of DPW: It's the same answer. It's the same answer. It's Galvin's property, it's private property. It's not city.
1:09:11Tom DePietro, Council President: Okay. Anyone else? Okay, moving on. We have four resolutions and a presentation. So resolutions pretty quickly I think going be voted on next week. The first resolution is appointing commissioners at the
1:09:33Rich Volo, Council Member: Juan and Darren. The next is recruit the sale of Long Alley Juan and Isha. And next is the transfer of funds in the attorney fees introduction. Second Gary. And okay, so
1:10:08Tom DePietro, Council President: Let's get this resolution on pay first and, oh wait, I'm sorry. We have the green court charge back.
1:10:17Rich Volo, Council Member: I have a question about
1:10:18Tom DePietro, Council President: On what? Well let's get introduce
1:10:21Rich Volo, Council Member: The second first introduction in second on the board charge back and what's the
1:10:35Tom DePietro, Council President: Question?
1:10:36Jen Belton, Council Member: Two or three months ago we had a visit from someone. We had
1:10:41Tom DePietro, Council President: O'Connor,
1:10:42Jen Belton, Council Member: Caden, that was part the culture, what's his name? And then also we were supposed to get information from 'EM about why and how this number of $75,000 was
1:11:00Tom DePietro, Council President: Correct. Okay. The next resolution is a cooperation agreement with the Hudson Housing Authority. Can I get an introduction in a second? Okay. So the group from HHA is here tonight, introduced this. Obviously we don't vote on it until next week. How would you like to proceed, gentlemen, believe you all gentlemen. Most of the time, sorry.
1:11:46David from Public Council for Housing Authority: So good evening. David. Public Council for Housing Authority with Johnson is the Executive director of housing. John man, representative of mco, the code development partner, and Carlos Espel, who is the architect right John. So as you all know, Hudson Housing Authority has been working for years to try to redevelop the authority site into quality, clean, safe, affordable housing. Currently now we have the development plan in front of the planning board and I saw that material also posted to the city website as part of the redevelopment project. Something that the state requires New York state who is a major funding agency for this project that it requires to do is to enter into some sort of a pilot or cooperation agreement with local municipality. What that does is that allows pilots or taxes, payments and loan taxes to be set at a predetermined level for the period and time in which the state will have its bond financing bond on the property, which is used to construc the property.
1:13:03David from Public Council for Housing Authority: About five years ago I was in here right before COVID to negotiate the existing pilot agreement with cooperation agreement that's for Bliss Towers. What this project contemplates doing is taking a portion of the project portion of the project site that's subject to the existing cooperation agreement, severing it from the existing cooperation agreement and on that will be built the new project. So what we are looking to do is amend the existing pilot agreement to remove the property that is on the what north side of State Street I believe it is. Remove that from the existing pilot so that Bliss and Columbia Towers will continue to be under the existing pilot and then enter into a new cooperation agreement for that site is all a couple other lots that the development is acquiring. What we would like to do as part of that is because BLIS Towers is being wound down over the construction period, that winding down has created a crunch to the housing authority and its ability to maintain its own expenses.
1:14:21David from Public Council for Housing Authority: What we have offered to do, what we are asking to do is that pilot payments under the existing cooperation be told for the period for essentially the 20 20 25 through 2029. However, there would be a one time payment of $120,000, which we would anticipate being beginning of the third quarter, maybe beginning sometime around third quarter of 2026. So there would be a payment that would come in that would cover payments that otherwise would've been made under the existing cooperation agreement for that time period. So currently right now the housing authority paying about $30,000 a year of battle payments to the city. What we did is we said we will take that, we multiply it by four and we pay it all to the city at once and sometime in July, August, September of 2026. Yeah, I got everything there. So we're happy to talk about, we've got John here who's project lead. He's happy to talk about details on the project. We've got Jeff here who's the housing authority executive director who's also available to answer any questions
1:15:39Tom DePietro, Council President: That you guys have. Thank you. Council members, obviously we're not voting on this tonight, but I really, this is a long document. I recommend you familiarize yourself and ask questions between now and next week. I think Dan will be back answer more questions then, but there's a lot involved and welcome your questions. And this is one property, is that the townhouse property where the townhouse is going up?
1:16:10David from Public Council for Housing Authority: Yeah, yeah. Yes, correct. So on the north side of state, that's where right? No, no, we
1:16:16Tom DePietro, Council President: Have So you're asking what we're talking about separating, is that what you're asking Tommy? Is the townhouse part of that part of Oh yes, part of the first phase. So my question is, and I've been looking at, because it is a unique property house that going to accommodate because it's going to have two floor, right. How's that accommodate? Because it's five bedrooms I believe, right? That accommodate somebody in a wheelchair if somebody needs assistance without an elevator. So there are going to be six units there, two five bedrooms, two bedrooms and two one bedrooms. And so we will, or obviously not going to put someone that doesn't have accommodations in the townhouse property, the building will be able to accommodate them and be prepared for that. There's an only gap space back there, but the one apartment for example, that a five bedroom is going to take up all for the space is going to take up all three floors.
1:17:22Tom DePietro, Council President: My thought would be say you get family and it has a grandmother, when they move in they don't need when as somebody eats, they need an accommodation to get to the second floor. What's the plan on accommodating that family? Yeah, I think when we have changes and family composition, which does occur over a period of times, obviously then we have to work around that and see if we have to relocate that person. They may not when they moved in, obviously they're suitable for that accommodation, but if their family situation changes then we have to work around them and we'll try to move them into a building. But the new building's not five bedroom. The new building does not have five bedrooms. Again, we don't know what the family composition is going to be. Sometimes families change in a lot of different ways, but I'm saying if that family has five then you've going to displace or you're going to separate
1:18:26David from Public Council for Housing Authority: A family. I mean, yeah, I think that one the EDA advice here, so we're required to make reasonable accommodations. The interior D unit is always something that we'd have to kind of work out. It seems to be like chair. Exactly. And so I think MCO well versed in Johnny project manager. He's not a property manager. Property management going to be working with Jeff and his team are well versed in compliance with the aada A. And so I think in terms of if accommodation is required stair look or something like that, that would be addressed within the context of what's required as what's required. So I think similar to any other affordable complex, you kind of take those requests as they come, you go through what are the requirements of the DAA, what does the tenant need, what are the resources of the tenant, and then you kind evaluate as to what make
1:19:32Tom DePietro, Council President: Properly place. But in the development stage, is there four thought to say if we need to accommodate, let's make it so it can be like a light switch rather than tearing a wall down or whatever, making it the stairways a little bigger or whatever that it's going to be able to accommodate an accommodation if needed. Yeah, that's a great question. The answer is yeah, we spoken with the architect about that and there is a question of how do you design it. So you can add on almost an elevator shaft on the exterior of the building. I mean you had to come back to the building department obviously, but we're looking at that. Yeah, I mean again, that's something that may or may not happen in the future, but it's certainly something we
1:20:14David from Public Council for Housing Authority: Can look at now. Thank you. And again, certainly something that also is limited by the underwriting of the state. Definitely the state looks at this and state has their own EDA experts who actually look at these plans requirements and they have tenant rights advocates that you actually have to work with on the lease doing the leasing, doing the management plan, everything like that. I can say having just gotten a project approved and closed on the last week, they definitely are very well equipped to advocate for attendance rights. Great. Yes. Thank you.
1:20:52Tom DePietro, Council President: Council members, we have your questions. I would also just offer this. My
1:21:00David from Public Council for Housing Authority: Email was posted up on the city website and my email address, it's there if you have questions, detailed questions, feel free to ask. I'm more than happy to answer them as well.
1:21:11Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: Where's your email? Where can I find
1:21:13David from Public Council for Housing Authority: It was posted on, Tom posted it on the
1:21:20Tom DePietro, Council President: Email from me. Another question. My understanding is some of the departs going to be marketed right? Second phase. Second phase or third phase. None of them. There're going to be different levels. Depend mind. Right. Most 80% of the units would be for households that incomes of 50% or lower is Q scattered between 50 and 60 and I think there are two units between 60 and 80%. It's still going by the county A I, not the city A. That's right.
1:21:55Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: Are you planning to use some grain materials though? Some green materials, yes.
1:22:06David from Public Council for Housing Authority: Has very robust requirements for sustainability. Right. We produce robust and so we are required to meet those sustainable requirements
1:22:18Tom DePietro, Council President: And there's good incentives to use them. Right. I don't know if that's changing. What's that? The incentives to use? Well yeah,
1:22:31David from Public Council for Housing Authority: There are state incentives and then there have been federal incentives. The direction of those two incentives programs are going different ways.
1:22:40Tom DePietro, Council President: The only thing I would add if I could is that obviously we're sensitive to the city's budget issues. Currently the pilot that's on the property now is about $220 a unit and we are closing $250 a unit, which is about a 12 or 13% increase from what you're getting there. And the good part of it is it will be built into the financing structure will allow the housing authority to actually pay it going forward.
1:23:09Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: So how many units are you planning to build now? Because I know the number went up and down. Nothing. Hundred 66. But overall
1:23:18Tom DePietro, Council President: 276, which is we replacing current at 1 35. So we're creating a few more apartments in the first phase, about 30 more and in the first phase and we're adding additional on the second phase.
1:23:36Jen Belton, Council Member: I'm curious about the maintenance of the buildings. So who pays for the maintenance? What is the budget structure for gaining the buildings?
1:23:49David from Public Council for Housing Authority: So there's property management agreement that has to be entered into Mount Co. One of their management affiliates will be managing the building alongside the housing authority. So housing, essentially what happens if housing authority employees, right? Guys are taking the lead on that with assistance from, so one the staff and the housing authority is exceptional with what they've been dealing with and it's done in a amazing job to continue that bill billing that exists for on the budget that they've been at. They've had the team does these projects all over the place. The great thing about a group like MCO is they have the ability to come alongside, provide some training rise and water level. There's taxpayer compliance that John's team will do as well is the management budget is built right into the overall proforma budget. So when we close on the construction, we know that we have a budget that will like an operating budget that will work as long as the bond is on the property. That's something that the state's requires. So it should be totally self-sufficient between, it's underrated self-sufficient at rents that are affordable based on the amis and that will all be public
1:25:10Tom DePietro, Council President: Information. The pledge will be approved by the development budget and the operating budget to be approved by the state. That's all public information care
1:25:18David from Public Council for Housing Authority: You all. So the great thing about these types of projects, public private partnerships is it allows the housing authority to continue its existence as a public authority, which that of its tenants, but it also allows it to happen into private funds through both the federal and state low income tax but low income, high impact growth, tap private financing that wouldn't otherwise be available. And then also build off of the experience of private companies who are doing this work elsewhere throughout the state. My part is working NOCO and a number of different housing authority projects and I don't represent NCO by the way represent housing authority, but NCO from my view, it is one of the groups that are really quite topnotch. They do great work. The stuff that they've done over in Kingston, which also had a similar pilot structure to this one and it was really quite successful. How much green space is it is
1:26:20Tom DePietro, Council President: Going to be available. And then what didn't you when it all happened? Well that whole center of court, I mean if we're going to be building on this whole four acres, I don't know the measurement, but that whole center court after LI is raised along with the town homes is it is going to be driven style where park area is going to be public for citizens too or is it going to be for residents? Right now the way it's designed, there are other people can come into the property, but the whole idea for the residents to Have you even thought about happening two, sorry, the money we have for the pool, maybe putting the pool down there. No, no, no interest. Well say there's no interest. We just endeavor. But I heard the money I 50,000 I think table, table pulls off the table. Is this all going on the project on the website somewhere or where can
1:27:31David from Public Council for Housing Authority: Sorry. Yeah, no, that's great. So I know that is that the planning board issued their seeker notice, right? Lead agency notice. And so I think that everything we've uploaded to the city website when I access this, the city council website, I saw the EAF and a whole bunch of other documents on the city website. I also believe the documents would probably be also available on the plan for IT website, although that they're there as well. But to the extent that you difficulty accessing something that my email ask me and get
1:28:09Jen Belton, Council Member: Thank you. As far as the, I know there's a lot of asbestos in the old building list. I didn't see a mention of that when I was reading through all the documents that were uploaded to
1:28:24David from Public Council for Housing Authority: Yeah, yeah, I think I know where you're going, right?
1:28:30Jen Belton, Council Member: Mediated before it comes.
1:28:31David from Public Council for Housing Authority: So that's phase two.
1:28:33Jen Belton, Council Member: Okay.
1:28:34David from Public Council for Housing Authority: And so what's critical is to build phase one, which allows us to move folks out list out of Columbia into a new building that's decent, safe, we stand and then phase two will have to go to the state and actually HUD to get approval to take the building down. So they've approved phase one, right.
1:29:03Tom DePietro, Council President: But you're absolutely right, your remediation plan, they'll have to be approved and that will require us to bring in environmental pupil before we take the building down. The asbestos and any other materials that are in there has to be remediated and removed in a certain way before, but
1:29:22David from Public Council for Housing Authority: After the people are
1:29:24Speaker 17: Already removed.
1:29:25David from Public Council for Housing Authority: And that whole project again will be under state requirements Quality Review Act. That project again will have to go for planning board, which is proper jurisdiction for that. They will then review it, review the entire action, which would be the demolition of the building and create then the construction of the,
1:29:47Speaker 17: Are you worried about or do you have any concerns? Have you heard anything about HUD funding?
1:29:57Tom DePietro, Council President: Yeah, I think the HUD funding is very, doesn't directly apply to this project. The primary funding source is the state. Okay. So we in good shape with that
1:30:11David from Public Council for Housing Authority: Question. So back in 2020 when this council approved the prior cooperation agreement, the housing authority did what's called the RAD Conversion Rental Assistance Demonstration, which is the Obama program that went through to create what we're doing here. And so when they did that back in 2020, even though there was no change that we're contemplated was the time we did enter into our funding contract with hud. And so that's contract and it's in existence and so funds from HUD to the housing authority come through that contract and that just, we're just going to, but that's in place that not being affected on this project. So those funds are based on a certain amount of units that the housing authority had at that time. Then we're adding new units, consider the new unit, we're going to be able to, that funding is coming from the state and by all levels from what the state has talked about, if the state is very robust on building affordable housing, I mean they are, it's a massive commitment right now. And so the fact that the state had their eyes on Hudson is really great because it already funded a few projects in the city and there's a big commitment, I think the state has shown to the city. Everything's really incredible.
1:31:45Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: What is your timeline of when you would start and finish the phase one?
1:31:50Tom DePietro, Council President: We're talking about closing third 4 million and again, subject to the state, we're in competition with a lot of other housing authorities around the state, but I think we're very well positioned to listen, take the third quarter
1:32:07Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: Start about the third portion?
1:32:08David from Public Council for Housing Authority: Yeah, would be construction. It's construction financing. Start construction. Then you got to, again, construction's going to take 18. Yeah, 18. Yeah. So the better part of 2008. And when you get to closing, we might be able to have folks moving it in at some point, but really I think the first poll you're on time would be 2029. Right? End
1:32:32Tom DePietro, Council President: Of 20, 28, 29. But one thing since the last time we were before you, that is a major step forward for us. And I don't know that this was related to the council yet, but the project had been accepted into the Brownfield program, which is a major funding source and it's also a major source. You'll allow us to remediate the existing sites, not the bliss building, but their environmental issues, particularly with site B. So there's a whole remediation plan which has been accepted by the State Department of Environmental Conservation that controls how we remove, there's some soil contaminants in there that have to be removed, but getting into that program is significant and that has also helped us with the state. The state knows that their own agency is putting money in. So that's all good news council. And because this is done by the state, this is lottery based, is that how you're talking about the waiting list? The waiting list? Well we have our current residence and if we are waiting list is also open so it will lottery based. We have to establish our tenant selection plan. I'm sorry, say that again? I said we will have to establish our tenant selection plan. So it's
1:33:58David from Public Council for Housing Authority: Already, are you saying lottery based on how we select tenants?
1:34:01Tom DePietro, Council President: Yes.
1:34:02David from Public Council for Housing Authority: Yeah. Yeah. So the ones that are people are currently housed with the housing, they're
1:34:07Tom DePietro, Council President: Going to be house, they're going to be housed. Right? Right. New tenants. And how is that determined? That's what I'm saying. There's a tenant election plan that's already in place, but we'll have to establish the check preferences right now I think we have a preference for people who live at work and us. It does not exclude other people, but they get first opportunity. They'll score will raise them to the state because it is tax money or whatever. You can't do for, it's got to be a lottery. Right. I thought because of the tax money that's involved that you can't do preference. No, I can check that. I don't think that's correct. I don't think there are certain preferences that are allowed by the state. The state. We have to prepare a marketing plan and as Jeff said, obviously the first choice of the people that are there now are going back into the new. Beyond that, the rest of the plan is going to be negotiated between the state and the housing authority. I've seen somewhere they had 20% based at the local diverse priority, but there's a percentage that they allow. And has that changed over a period of time? Each project you go in the state is going to tell you what we can, they've been pretty tough about limiting what the preferences are. Yeah. Would you be able to confirm that for us please? Yeah, can And email us
1:35:45Tom DePietro, Council President: Council members.
1:35:47Rich Volo, Council Member: Yeah.
1:35:47Tom DePietro, Council President: Thank you.
1:35:49Nick Zachos, resident in audience: Thank you. I was going to provide a quick side note to Dominic's question about green space and pointed out to some of the council members who may not have followed the exact process is that the phase one and phase two have changed over time. And one of the plans that was before the plan board originally was one of the original plans was creating a larger campus, which would be shutting down a small section of State Street and opening up a larger greener courtyard in the middle, which I think a lot of residents, some of us commissioners and other people were really excited about. And that didn't change in this plan, but right now State Street is continuing all the way through. But one thing that we made sure of as we were doing that is talking to the developers and the state to make sure that if we could do that in the future, and I think the only real ignorance is parking
1:36:44Nick Zachos, resident in audience: And both the plan board for parking numbers and regulations of parking numbers. What we know at the housing development now is the majority of our parking spots are empty, daytime, nighttime, all the time. So we're anticipating that we won't have to house as many cars as people we're planning for. And so I think it's a lot of people's hope that maybe as we get to phase two or even we consider phase one, thinking about that concept of this campus with a large green space, having a whole area in between the buildings, kids, people, families could be going in between these buildings without having a road going through. They're really on State Street doesn't go anywhere. There's no houses, no businesses further down on State Street that you can't get from anywhere else. So I think there's potential for even more Green State and I would love to get the public council and everyone on board with moving back towards that idea, which I think both are excited.
1:37:44Rich Volo, Council Member: Anyone else?
1:37:46Tom DePietro, Council President: Okay, let's move on. Thank you gentlemen. Council I'D questions?
1:37:57Nick Zachos, resident in audience: I got one,
1:37:57Tom DePietro, Council President: A couple. So just a reminder about Thursday's vote for the sale of the school on Thursday. Everybody probably got their card, but just a reminder that vote for Penrose to purchase filling. Also have petition. I'll probably submit to the legal committee from residence on all avenue. What Tage? What's that? All avenues. It has half the streets in Greenport, half it's Hudson. They're looking for a safer solution for that street, especially toward Columbia Turnpike. Greenport is on work with a safe solution. So I'll submit this to the legal committee and see what can be done between working with Greenport to come up with a solution for Paul Avenue that would look for the residents of Wall 11. What's the problem there? It's unsafe because they're using it as a cut through and it's very small street and they're using, and there's a lot of kids there now, plus the cemetery, that relative cemetery, it's just very dangerous. There used to be a lightweight that when I was growing up, there's no light there no more. And so they're looking at maybe a crosswalk to assist.
1:39:20Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: But does this belong in
1:39:21Tom DePietro, Council President: Hudson? Half of it's in Hudson, half is in Greenport. So it would be a combined effort for Greenport and Hudson to work and GreenPorts willing to work with us to make it a solution. Whether it's the one way, whatever can be
1:39:39Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: Make, I think this is more a matter of the supervisors approaching the Greenport supervisors. I don't think it's really the possible, I don't know. What do you think
1:39:49Tom DePietro, Council President: He, they want to deal with it.
1:39:55Vicki Diskaloudi, Council Member: We cannot approach the counsel.
1:40:00Tom DePietro, Council President: I think it's the supervisor, but Well, it comes down to the supervisor's not going to deal with a city issue. It just is half city issue. Right.
1:40:12Margaret Morris, Council Member: Sorry, excuse me. This is Margaret, chair of legal. Hey. So Dominic, who in Greenport are you working with on this?
1:40:24Tom DePietro, Council President: No, the other side of the street approach. Planning at the town meeting last week to Greenport to see if they would be interested and making it safe. And they're interested. I'm not working with anyone. This suggest a petition from the family members in let's say.
1:40:43Margaret Morris, Council Member: No, no, I understand. But is there, I'll call you tomorrow. Just if there's a particular person in Greenport that I could reach out to and talk to, I'd be happy to take it on.
1:40:55Tom DePietro, Council President: Great, thank you.
1:40:56Margaret Morris, Council Member: Okay, thank you.
1:41:00Tom DePietro, Council President: Anything else? Remember tomorrow Ner day? Anybody wants to march you say I chair I would. In favor. You might say aye. Aye.
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