Patting himself on the back for a job poorly done, Hudson Council President Don Moore awards himself a gold star in the pages of The Register-Star. The achievement of which he’s so proud? Ushering through a sorry excuse of a Waterfront plan, one which doesn't guarantee Hudson any new jobs, or any meaningful environmental protections, or even a realistic new location for a boat launch... The one thing it does guarantee is plenty of headaches for future leaders and residents alike.
If Moore actually believes any of what he’s written, why have few if any of the concerns that he himself raised in his own March 2010 letter been addressed in this plan?
For example, Moore argued last year that if a certain zoning change demanded by Holcim/O&G were made, the City would lose control over its activity, and (in his words) there would be “no longer any restriction” on their South Bay activity.
Yet exactly that change was made for H/OG—with Moore’s apparent blessing—and now he ignores his own warning. Instead, he attempts to place gauzy halo over a Plan that has gotten weaker with each revision that he’s overseen in office.
If the Council President actually believed any of what he has written, he presumably would not have been so afraid to allow any of the 80+ people in the audience who attended the recent “special meeting” on this plan to speak, before rushing it to a vote.
What was he afraid of, exactly? That if the public were allowed to participate, this carefully-manicured veneer of responsibility might be punctured by actual facts— from both citizens and legal experts, who were waiting to speak?
Moore’s Politiburo-style move was un-democratic and un-American no matter what your position is on this plan. It was conduct ill-befitting any Common Council President, and something his precedessors such as Mary Anne Lemmerman, Mike Vertetis and John Cody never stooped to, even in the midst of other controversies.
As to the tissue-thin “substance” of Moore’s commentary, it reveals that he either does not understand his own Plan, or simply does not want to understand it—because to do so would be to require him to show some political mettle. (Moore has been heard many times to make bilious remarks about Linda Mussmann as a public figure, but his current position on the Waterfront is indistinguishable from hers.)
Moore apparently doesn't want to understand that the issue is not whether such activity stems from the cement, or gravel, or some other industry. If it were garbage hauling, or incineration, the concerns would be fundamentally the same, just with slightly different particulars. The public's concerns have been, for years now, the impacts.
Can Moore look the owners of, say, the Basilica, and tell them that a four- or five-fold increase in trucks running all day past the entrance used by their patrons and workers is not new "industrialization"? Can he tell us that the dust and fumes and noise from such a major increase is not further "industrialization" of the dock area, with no impact on neighbors trying to enjoy the publicly-funded park next door? (If he can, then he is sadly self-deluded, because such impacts have not even been assessed in the shoddy Generic Environmental Impact Statement associated with the Plan, and would likely never be assessed in the future he extolls.)
As a State attorney at the meeting said, as currently constructed the City would not be able to place limits on either trucks or the volume of gravel at the Waterfront. If that is not heavy "industrialization," what is? When attorney was asked after the meeting if Holcim were to increase the amount to the levels of the SLC Greenport Project, could that be limited or stopped under the current Plan, he could not say that it would.
The hard facts are that Holcim and O&G have estimated in a various applications that they intend to increase existing activity from the current baseline 100-130,000 tons per year to 500,000 tons per year, some 4-5 times the current amount. In 2005, the amount was zero. That is a massive increase in industrial impacts by any measure: many more trucks, many more barges, many more rail crossings, much more noise, and much more fugitive dust and fumes wafting over the Waterfront Park.
Yet the latest version of Moore's vaunted plan actually makes it harder to do anything about the industrial impacts, not just to the environment, but to neighboring businesses and public resources. Future Zoning Enforcement officers and future members of the Planning Commission, Zoning Board of Appeals, or Coastal Consistency Board would have neither clarity nor many tools to deal with an ever-escalating situation.
What are the effects of trucks, or a conveyor, or diesel fumes, or fuel spills, or constant barge traffic? How are neighboring businesses or public activities (from kayaking to concerts) or habitats limited or made impossible by severe nearby impacts? Since the 1970s, local and State and even Federal planners have recognized that Hudson's waterfront is very small, and produces "use conflicts" of this kind. Moore prefers instead to stick his head in the mud and pretend that he is not rushing ahead with a plan that gives the City few real controls over these very real concerns.
At the Valley Alliance website, you can see that the group has sent an authoritative legal memorandum detailing the issues with this plan, as well as 24 pages summarizing continued citizen concerns. The Register-Star and Columbia Paper have been provided with both.
