SamPratt.com

Election Roundup for 2021

2021-11-03T15:36:18-04:00

Local Turnout Plummets

In the 2020 Presidential election, a whopping 35,000 people came out to vote in Columbia County, with Biden winning handily. Data circulated this evening by the Board of Elections indicates that only about 20,000 voted this time around—meaning that 43% of those 2020 voters didn’t show up this time.

Voting is generally lower in local cycles compared with Presidential contests, but the precipitous drop suggests that there are many voters who only care about national politics. That’s something for both parties to work on, since in many ways local races affect our day-to-day lives far more substantially.

The full 2021 Columbia County unofficial results spreadsheet can be found here. These await the counting of absentee ballots, followed by official certification, and thus will change somewhat over time.

No Headway for Dems on Board of Supervisors

Despite a lot of big talk in the past month of a sweep which would take over the Board of Supervisors from Republicans, the Columbia Dems failed to make any progress toward that longterm, elusive goal. Dems lost key races for Super in four large towns (Claverack, Germantown, Ghent and Kinderhook).

In Taghkanic, two Democratic candidates for Town Board both won by a very large margin over the lone Republican opponent, 56% vs. 44%. Yet the Taghkanic Democrats, who enjoy a 4-1 majority there, allowed incumbent Republican Supervisor Ryan Skoda to run unopposed. So that Taghkanic seat would appear to be quite winnable by the Dems; but Town Board member Joyce Thompson has been instrumental in convincing them to leave the Republican Supervisor unchallenged.

In Stuyvesant, Democratic Committee officer Lee Jamison may have set some sort of record by losing yet again, having run repeatedly there over the past 20 decades. Other Supervisor races were uncontested, leaving the balance of power on the Board still firmly in the Republicans’ hands.

Meanwhile, the apparent winner of the Ghent Supervisor position, Craig Simmons, recently appeared in a social media video of a Chatham School Board meeting stating that he does not support vaccine mandates, much as he also “fought against helmet and seatbelt laws here in New York.” Simmons was formerly Chatham’s School Board President, but his nomination to be reappointed apparently received no second from any of his colleagues earlier this year. His term on the School Board expires in 2022, so presumably he will relinquish that position once his Ghent victory is certified.

A Taste of Tammany Hall in Ghent

Also in Ghent... The County Board of Elections decided to add a polling place due to shifts in the population, and chose the Ghent VFW as its extra venue. This raised some eyebrows among Ghent Dems, since the Post is traditionally used by the Republicans as their clubhouse, and also a site for GOP fundraisers.

It seemed an even odder choice given that another polling place, the Town Hall, is just a stone’s throw away, meaning it did not help many voters get closer to the polls. Other rejected suggestions had included a site closer to Hawthorne Valley, or another of the Town’s firehouses not already used for voting.

Of particular concern was the fact that the VFW Post has an active bar downstairs from the main space where the election was being conducted, including both an interior staircase from that room and an exterior entrance as well. This raised the specter of old-school Tammany-style politicking, which in the 19th Century often involved promising voters drinks as an inducement for voting.

That has not been alleged so far, let alone proven. But one Democratic poll watcher noted that the bar’s parking lot was very full in the afternoon and early evening of Election Day, and complained that a Republican inspector was telling some voters they could go downstairs for a beer after they finished.

(Note: This author also served as a poll watcher at the VFW in the early morning hours of Election Day... Much too early for a Budweiser.)

Krapf Holds his Own Party

According to Democratic committee sources, after beating incumbent David Bartlett, the party’s nominee for Sheriff decided to hold his own victory party, separate from the party’s event.

After besting Bartlett, Don Krapf reportedly held his own private (less “transparent”?) event in Hudson at the Power Boat Association, after briefly stopping by the Dems’ event in Chatham.

Krapf is a former Republican, who according to multiple sources voted twice for Trump and said voting for Hillary Clinton would be like voting for “the devil.” Sources have further indicated that his commitment to the platform advanced for him by the Dems is tepid at best.

Dem Committee members may consider this a win, but now seem stuck with a Sheriff with deep conservative roots. The party tends to be reluctant to abandon its own nominees, even if they prove problematic in office. Barring some major scandal, Krapf will now be likely to serve until retirement, unless eventually there were a Democratic primary—which could be bruising and vicious. This site will have some thoughts on the futures of both major parties in a future post.

Statewide Setbacks for Dems

One local Dem Committee member described last night’s results as “a bloodbath across the whole state, really” for the Democrats. Particularly disappointing was New York’s failure to approve ballot access referenda backed by the Dems. These would have loosened requirements absentee voters, as well as allowing same-day registration of new voters.

In better news, a referendum supporting stronger protections for clean air and water in the State did pass. But overall, results across New York suggested that Republican voters still fuming over the 2020 Presidential election were in a mood to strike back. There are national concerns that this foreshadows more trouble in the 2022 mid-terms, which are typically challenging for the party controlling the White House.

Hudson Results are Too Berserk to Parse

Meanwhile in Hudson, where Democrats have had a virtual lock on most offices going back 16 years to the hotly-contested Grandinetti-Tracy mayoral race, the results are so hard to comprehend as to defy analysis by an outside observer—even one with a lot of experience in Hudson politics.

Hudson has a remarkable number of positions: Three citywide offices (Mayor, Council President and Treasurer); 10 Common Council members, a/k/a Aldermen; and five County Supervisors. Sometimes, there are also primaries for Republican and Democratic Committee seats. In the above-mentioned 2005 contest, there were something approaching 50 candidates for various positions.

This time around, some key offices were uncontested, but the subject of (mostly) futile write-in campaigns. Other races involved candidates who had asked too late to be removed from the ballot, at least one of whom appears to have won. For more close-to-the-ground details, try reading coverage at Carole Osterink’s The Gossips of Rivertown.

Hudson seems to be becoming a textbook example of the perils of one-party rule—resulting either in a herd mentality among members of the same team, or else vicious infighting among elected officials and Committee members of the same party.

Multiple factions now exist among the Dems, each jealously defending its piece of the party pie. Despite sharing a party affiliation, there seems to be less not more cohesion and cooperation over time. It almost makes one nostalgic for a time when there were a few moderate Hudson Republican aldermen like Ed Thompson and Kathy Harter, with whom one could have open and reasonable discussions.

The Hudson Waterfront: Decades in the Making

2020-02-12T12:05:02-05:00

Peter Jung and Sam Pratt of The Valley Alliance gave a presentation last night on the past and future of the Hudson Waterfront. The slides of the presentation can be viewed by clicking here. [large file, be patient!]

Pratt reviewed more than 40 years of citizen and official efforts to protect the Waterfront against threats such as an oil refinery, a toxic waste dump and a massive cement conveyor and barge operation.

These struggles, combined with City efforts (such as developing its Waterfront park, the Vision Plan, the Comprehensive Plan, et al.) have secured the opportunity for a healthier outcome which benefit a wide spectrum of Hudson residents.

Peter Jung focused on the promise the Waterfront still holds: the opportunity to deliver economic, social, cultural, recreational and conservation benefits to the whole Hudson community.

The Valley Alliance agrees with the findings of New York’s Secretary of State in 2005 that both the most jobs and the most enjoyment is to be had by creating a Waterfront where heavy, polluting industry does not prevent the success of parks, marinas, stores, restaurants, housing, entertainment, community gatherings and other mutually-compatible uses.

The presentation took place before the Hudson Planning Board, at the City’s central fire station on North 7th Street. Both of the two adjoining rooms were full, reflecting the widespread community concern about A. Colarusso & Sons’ plans to use the central piece of the Waterfront as a major gravel loading operation.

Dolan disappears from Board of Elections

2019-09-24T13:54:08-04:00

James J. “Jimmy” Dolan Jr. is no longer working at the Columbia County Board of Elections, where he had served as the Democratic Election Specialist.

On Monday night, multiple sources in both the Democratic and Republican party establishment claimed that Dolan had been fired by Democratic Commissioner Virginia Martin, who had hired him several years ago.

However, during a visit to the Board’s temporary offices at 401 State, a visibly tense Martin insisted on Tuesday that Dolan had chosen to resign.

When asked about one source’s claim that Dolan had been fired initially, but then offered an opportunity to quit instead, Martin repeatedly intoned, “I’m not going to comment on personnel.”

Two requests for comment from Dolan, a current Greenport Committeeman and until 1991 the highly controversial Hudson Police Chief, were not returned.

Columbia County Democratic Chair Keith Kanaga said in email that it would be “inappropriate” for him to address the matter.

Local Republicans and Democrats have long had a tacit agreement to not interfere with each other’s BOE appointments. As a general rule, it would be out of character for such moves to be made without an intense discussion happening first among party leadership.

The split between Martin and Dolan doesn’t come as much of a surprise to longtime observers of the County political scene. It seemed less a question of if but when the two would come to loggerheads.

His appointment to the BOE, raised many eyebrows, given the former Chief’s past legal problems.

Dolan’s case in The New York Times in 1991

Dolan was sentenced in 1991 “to five years' probation and fined $8,000 for obstructing justice by interfering with drug investigations by other law-enforcement agencies,” according to reports in The New York Times and many other papers.

At the time of sentencing, State Supreme Court Justice Joseph Harris “criticized Mr. Dolan for trying to consolidate all police power in the city in his own hands and setting himself above the law,” according to the Times report.

“He is not psychologically suited for this line of work,” Judge Harris stated at the time.

His prosecution was led by District Attorney Paul Czajka, who per the Times brought charges that Dolan “tried to keep law-enforcement agencies out of Hudson, a city of 8,000, to protect ‘friends, relatives, subordinates and himself,’”.

In 1992, Dolan was briefly remanded to the Columbia County jail by Harris “for failure to pay his fine [and] to perform his mandated community service,” according to a report in the Albany Times-Union.

Along with Dolan’s prosecution, 1991 featured a flurry of other legal action against past and present members of the Hudson Police. An HPD detective was charged in Federal court “with soliciting cocaine and crack for his own use,” and another officer was “accused of lying to a grand jury about drug use.”

A close friend of the then-Chief was also “accused of setting fire to the car of Jill Hazelton, a reporter for a local newspaper who wrote articles containing criticism of Mr. Dolan,” according to the Times.

Asked whether she now regretted hiring Dolan, considering his history, Martin exclaimed “Oh for God’s sake!” before resuming her mantra about not commenting on personnel decisions. Martin absolutely refused to address how much or even whether she knew about Dolan’s past when he was hired.

The most recent episode at the Board of Elections was not Dolan’s first attempt to make a comeback on the area political scene.

In 1998, then-Mayor Richard Scalera appointed Dolan to head up the Hudson Community Development and Planning Agency. His appointment immediately ignited a firestorm of protest, with then-activist Daniel Region pointing out that during his first election campaign Scalera had promised “never” to include Dolan in his administration.

Dolan’s brief tenure at HCDPA was marked by more controversy over inaccurate grant applications and disastrous proposals such as a toxic waste processing plant to be sited in what is now Basilica Hudson.

When later appointed Commissioner of Grants for the City, this reporter was charged with attempting to make sense of HCDPA’s files. Those files were found in almost complete disarray—apart from one neatly-kept file in Dolan’s desk drawer, which contained highlighted articles about public critics at the time, such as Time & Space Limited’s Linda Mussmann.

After resigning from the Hudson Police force, Dolan ran into problems as he sought employment with New York State.

An Appellate Division decision from 2003 found that he twice misrepresented his record on employment forms. In applying for a State job in 1996, the Court found that he “failed to mention that he violated the terms of his probation, which resulted in his incarceration and the imposition of additional community service.”

Finally securing an appointment February 2000, Dolan was dismissed less than 8 months later after his full record came to light. He sued the State for wrongful termination; but according to the court ruling denying his claim, “[T]he Director of Human Resources Management for Taxation and Finance discovered that petitioner had violated probation and had been sentenced to jail. Doubting petitioner's credibility and honesty, the Director contacted Civil Service and requested that petitioner's appointment be revoked.”

Dolan eventually moved to the Carolinas, and was seldom seen in Hudson until his return several years ago (when he actually bought this reporter a beer while we were both watching football at Melino’s).

Dolan appeared to have become much milder and more agreeable, and eager to start anew.

At the time, Martin privately justified Dolan’s appointment to some who questioned it with the notion that “everyone deserves a second chance.” (Some might argue that this was actually his third or fourth chance.)

Democratic Commissioner Virginia Martin

There have been only a few known complaints about Dolan’s tenure at the Board, although Dolan reportedly blew up at Czajka earlier this year when the D.A. visited the Board of Elections and greeted him with a sunny “Good morning, Chief!”

Dolan was still on the job as of late morning Monday, if not later, according to one Democratic official.

But during a Tuesday morning visit, his desk chair was conspicuously empty in the Board’s temporary quarters at 401 State. (The BOE has had to move from its usual offices due to a persistent infestation of fleas.)

Democratic Committee Vice Chair Erin Stamper was working at the office on Tuesday, but declined to address Dolan’s situation or his replacement. When asked what her position at the Board is, Stamper replied “part-time Election assistant.”

However, Martin separately affirmed that Stamper is replacing Dolan in his capacity of Election Specialist, the third-ranking position for each party under the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner.

It’s unclear whether Stamper will retain her role as the second-ranking CCDC officer given the promotion, which puts her in the dual role of both being the #2 County Democratic party decision-maker, and also processing essential documents related to the outcome of local elections. Kanaga also did not respond to a query about whether such a dual role was proper.

Asked whether Dolan’s disappearance from the Board would leave it in a difficult position with barely six weeks left before Election Day, a tight-lipped Martin said “There is no good time for a transition here.”

State: Yes, the Freedom of Information Law applies to that Hudson agency

2018-05-18T13:31:28-04:00

The New York State Committee on Open Government today issued an Advisory Opinion, disagreeing with a recent contention by Sheena Salvino of the Hudson Development Corporation that HDC is somehow exempt from the requirements of the State’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).

A FOIL request was submitted by this writer a month ago regarding HDC’s controversial relationship with the Colarusso company. FOIL requires an agency not only to reply within 5 days, but to either decide on the request in that timeframe, or to give a reason why an additional 20 days are necessary.

When only a terse acknowledgement of the request was issued by Salvino, the law’s deadlines were brought to her attention. Salvino then refused to give any firm timeline for responding, adding that based on the advice of “legal council” [sic] she believes HDC “is not subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Law.” As such, she implied, any documents produced would be produced voluntarily, not as required by law. This would allow HDC to pick and choose what it produced, rather than having to follow the narrow limits of FOIL.

As of yesterday, Salvino indicated that she was assembling some documents for my review, but again did not provide a date or any acknowledgement that these would fully cover what was required in the law.

Today‘s State findings, dated May 18th, 2018, indicate that whatever “council” gave Salvino this advice was mistaken. NYS COOG Assistant Director Kristin O’Neill writes that “I believe that HDC constitutes an ‘agency’ required to give effect to FOIL,” adding that she would likewise expect “a court to conclude that HDC is an ‘agency’ subject to FOIL.”

An added wrinkle is that because HDC is an agency as defined in the law, this means that it is also subject to Open Meetings Law. Of late, HDC has appeared to treat making its meetings open to the public as something of a voluntary undertaking.

A copy of the Advisory Opinion can be downloaded here, along with a copy of the submission made to the agency which prompted its issuance. [PDFs]

Note: HDC has yet to produce any documents, though it has exceeded the maximum 25 days to do so.

UPDATE: Fair & Equal resolution passes in Hudson

2016-11-08T21:37:50-05:00

According to Hudson’s Peter Jung, Proposition 1 in Hudson—which would alter the boundaries of the City’s wards to give each Alderman an equal vote share on the Common Council—passed tonight by a vote of roughly 1440 to 560. Jung believes it prevailed in all five Hudson Wards, with the vote being close in only the 5th.

R.I.P. Da|Ba Dan

2016-02-04T18:34:47-05:00

UPDATE #4: Da|Ba was packed on Saturday night for dinner and drinks for a remarkable, impromptu gathering of friends and family. The restaurant’s final service was Sunday, with people invited to visit with the family today (Monday) from 2-6 pm.

UPDATE #3: Over $45,000 in donations have been raised from the community as of Sunday at 1 pm to assist the Nilsson family. You can donate here.

UPDATE #2: Bob Rasner posted the following message on Facebook from the Nilsson family:

A Message from Daniel Nilsson’s Family

We are very grateful for the outpouring of affection for our Daniel. We all miss him.

We invite everyone who wishes to share their memories to meet on Monday, February 8th between 2pm and 6pm at DA|BA.

The funeral will be private and no charity has been designated. We are planning a memorial service open to everyone in the community for Daniel’s birthday, March 18th. More information will be posted at a future date.

UPDATE #1: Philmont native and Da|Ba regular Bob Macfarlane, who was also at the restaurant the evening before Dan’s death, turned up this 2014 article which captures some of the essence of Dan’s work and presence.

Hudson is awash in tears today over the untimely, unfathomable and genuinely tragic passing of Da|Ba owner Daniel Nilsson, said by a source in contact with the State Troopers to have died by his own hand on a family member’s farm.

I saw Dan just last night at his restaurant. We didn't get a chance to speak, as he was in conversation with another table. His rich chanterelle soup and clever tacos were as splendid as ever, and there was no sense of anything amiss. In recent days he had been posting hilarious photos of customers, his family and himself taken in a temporary Da|Ba photobooth.

I met Dan at the moment he landed in Hudson, while out canvassing for voters with Abdus Miah, probably in Spring 2005. A jolly young man was standing by his car near Jubilee (now Savoia), and we tried to register him to vote. He explained that he couldn't yet, but that he was here to look at the Paramount building across the street. If he bought it, he vowed to register right away.

Dan was full of life, and larger than it. He made friends easily, kept things fun, cared about his customers, provided countless people with needed work, and made a beautiful family.

That he is gone is deeply upsetting and baffling. If there was one quality to learn from Dan, it might be his absence of judgement toward others—his embrace of the many personalities and foibles which came through the Da|Ba door. And so one must honor his painful choice, even as we bitterly regret his sudden absence.

That’s the ticket

2015-10-20T13:45:22-04:00

If you received a lovely, handwritten Invitation to the Policemen’s Ball (as my friend Steve Sigler likes to call them), you won’t be able to pay your Hudson parking ticket online—unless you use this One Weird Trick.

Most Hudson parking tickets are now electronically-scanned and generated. But on occasion, the HPD for some reason still uses the older, yellow, handwritten tickets (probably because their system was down). But the City’s new online payment site requires you to enter a 10-digit ticket number, whereas these older ones only have a six-digit number.

According to Pat in the Parking Ticket Bureau, there is a workaround: put four zeros (0000) in front of the ticket number. Thus with the (fictional) number above, instead of just 212277, you would enter 0000212277.

This post is offered as an incredibly trivial yet essential community service.

Open house at the Rivertown Lodge

2015-08-28T19:17:01-04:00

Formerly The Warren Inn and before that the Royalton, The Rivertown Lodge in the 800 block of Hudson’s Warren Street held an open house Friday night to show off its understatedly clever renovations.

Realtor Steve Kingsley, who was involved with the building’s sale, recalled renting a room at the Warren Inn in the 1980s with six friends in order to watch a Mike Tyson fight they could not otherwise see on TV.

This writer stayed there one night in the 1990s, sleeping in his clothes on top of the coverlet, and praying there wasn’t a fire—given the very complicated route necessary to reach the upper rooms.

A couple who grew up in Hudson lamented the decline from better days as The Royalton (which had, they said, a nice banquet room) into “more of an hourly place” They seemed gladdened by the new owners’ work.

With the closing of The Iron Horse, the bar—with its oldschool jukebox, pool table, semicircular booths, and shuffleboard—in its final year was frequented by both an older crowd and younger hipsters, despite some well-loved cats making themselves more than at home.

But the clean, stylish renovation is both appealing and overdue, given both the previous condition of the place and the lack of enough beds for visitors at many times of year. With prices expected to be comparable to The St. Charles but with far more amenities, The Lodge ought to do well.

Sat., 6-8 pm: Laetitia Hussain installation opens at John Davis Gallery

2015-08-21T14:28:22-04:00

A new installation of sculpture and paintings by Laetitia Hussain opens Saturday, August 22nd from 6-8 pm in the “barn” at John Davis Gallery.

The gallery is located between 3rd and 4th streets at 362-1/2 Warren Street, and the installation will remain on view until September 20th.

Eliminate Hudson agency, State recommends

2015-08-08T11:05:05-04:00

The City of Hudson has no further need for its Industrial Development Agency, according to a review and recommendations by New York State’s Authorities Budget Office (the “ABO”).

Though the report was issued three weeks ago, news of the State’s conclusion has been slow to hit the local papers, creating an impression that local officials may not be eager for word to get out. The report can be downloaded as a PDF file via this link.

Dated July 14th, 2015, the ABO report concludes that

“there is no demonstrable need for the IDA to continue in existence. The potential economic development functions provided by the IDA are being accomplished by other entities within the City of Hudson and any financial assistance benefits in the form of tax exemptions can be provided by the Columbia County IDA.”

The ABO’s main reasoning for this conclusion appears below:

“Since the IDA has only one active project, the project’s purpose is to provide low- income housing and not to create jobs, similar projects are administered directly by the City, the IDA is not actively marketing the property it owns for economic development, and other economic development entities are serving the City of Hudson, we question whether the IDA is needed.

Section 882 of General Municipal Law states that when all of the bonds or notes issued by an IDA have been redeemed or cancelled and all straight lease transactions have been terminated, the IDA ceases to exist and its rights, titles and interest and all obligations and liabilities are to vest in and be possessed by its sponsoring municipality. The IDA has no outstanding debt, and the existing lease and PILOT agreements could easily be transferred to the City, since the City already administers similar agreements.”

The report found a number of reporting and accounting errors by the agency regarding rents and tax abatements issued to various project. The agency reports only one active project, the Hudson Terrace Apartments, though the State found five other affordable housing projects on its books as of 2013, but no longer generating payments to the agency.

For as long as the IDA remains in existence, the ABO further concludes that

“it should take appropriate action to correct the PILOT allocation and lease revenue errors that occurred during 2011 through 2014 as identified in the report, and obtain and ensure that all data is accurately reported in PARIS.”

The findings likely did not come as a complete surprise to IDA members, as the ABO noted that in March 2011, the City agency’s board “considered the possible dissolution of the IDA, noting that the City could continue to administer the IDA’s PILOT agreement and that the Columbia County IDA could take over the IDA’s duties. However the board has not taken any formal action to begin the process of dissolution since.”

The current Hudson IDA members are Mayor Bill Hallenbeck, Treasurer Heather Campbell, Common Council Majority Leader Tiffany Garriga, 5th Ward Alderman Bart Delaney Jr., Planning Commission Chair (and Taghkanic resident) Cappy Pierro, and assessor Cheryl Kaszluga. There is also one vacancy on the board.

The report notes that the Hudson IDA has “no staff since all functions are performed by board members or obtained under procurement contracts.” The agency’s auditor is Shallo, Galluschio & Bianchi, whose most recent (2014) audit also can be downloaded as a PDF via this link.

The Departed: Phyllis, Fran & Vinny

2015-05-03T15:29:18-04:00

Phyllis Herbert was not one to go gentle into that good night. Living out the last decade of her life in Hudson, she could be at times, well, ornery.

As memory failed her, she was prone to frustration with both herself and her interlocutors. She loved conversation, dropping by my office almost every weekday for years. Though her mind was full of both probing questions and lively anecdotes, as the fight got busier and busier I often had to instruct my staff not to let her know I was working downstairs, since such conversations could prove difficult to wind up.

In saying so, I am not trying to tarnish Phyllis’ memory, but to conjure up her intense sense of self and willpower. She prided herself on her independence of mind and lifestyle. To the last, she could be seen chugging up Warren Street in practical sneakers and a long jean skirt, pursuing some errand she insisted on completing herself even after driving a car became impossible. She resisted many attempts by worried relations to move her to assisted living, and finally succeeded in her effort to die at home in Hudson.

She could try the patience and generosity of friends who did their best to help with housework and repairs around the small home she bought in 1998 in the 100 block of Warren Street, after a bitter divorce from her longtime husband. (I discovered, after we’d known each other for a time, that they had lived next-door to my grandparents on Grove Street in the West Village. That explained a lot to me about her character and interests—she brought to Hudson a whiff of old Village contrarianism.)

She was an excellent cook, but could be the victim of her own perfectionism. During the period of the cement controversy, those of us living in “The Flatlands”—the level blocks at the end of Warren—would take turns hosting impromptu neighborhood potluck picnics. Phyllis was invariably too ambitious in her choice of a dish—preparing, say, an elaborate potroast. Wanting to get it just right, she would miscalculate the prep time necessary. Arriving very late to the cookout, bearing a delicious dish which no one had any more room to eat (having already finished dessert), she could become furious at both her neighbors and herself.

Phyllis was smart, warm and cynically humorous when she wanted to be. She had an extensive collection of discarded (often academic) books she had picked up at library sales and thrift stores, and had clearly paid a lot of attention to the theories of Jane Jacobs, another Villager. Among those she loaned me was a 1958 tome called “Small Town in Mass Society: Class, Power, and Religion in a Rural Community.” She thought it might provide some insight into how local officials and their constituents view issues like the St. Lawrence Cement proposal, and she was right. In particular, the book helped crystallize for me how going-along-to-get-along is a powerful force in local decisionmaking, and helped me see ways to break down that predictable dynamic which favors the status quo.

Phyllis contributed to the cement struggle in other unexpected ways. She was something of a hoarder, so a neighbor and my part-time employee Maiysha Kramer tried to help tame this vast collection of books and papers. Her habit of never throwing anything away turned out to have an unexpected benefit: the little house (which is now the Davis-Orton Gallery) contained virtually every issue of the Register-Star and Independent from the day she arrived in Hudson.

In a time when few papers were digitized, this had a great value to our opposition research against St. Lawrence, since one of our favorite strategies was to catch the company contradicting its past claims. So Phyllis—despairing of ever sorting through the entire informal archive—agreed to donate it to the cause. This was turned into a sort of reference library at my office, and it proved helpful time and time again.

Two neighbors who tried their best to help Phyllis manage things were Fran and Vinny DeGrazia, a not-quite-as-elderly couple who lived directly across the street. Fran had been a stewardess, and Vinny a musician and bartender. For a brief time, they kept an antique shop—a tchotchke shop, really—several doors upstreet from their two-story house. They loved yardsaling, and it kept them busy in retirement.

They loved jazz, and carried around with them an oldschool vibe of the Ratpack days. One could easily imagine them taking in a Dean Martin or Sammy Davis, Jr. show in Atlantic City, and dancing up a storm. (Occasionally, that oldschool vibe would include some salty or outmoded language, the latter which I took as testament to the ingrained, inherited prejudices of their generation than any mean-spritedness, especially given the diversity of their neighbors and circle of friends. The 100 block of Warren was unusually close-knit back then, but virtually every house has changed owners in the 17 years I’ve been here.)

I remember Fran and Vinny as among the very most reliable volunteers for the cement cause. Putting labels on 5,000-piece mailings was a frequent task, and the two of them never failed to show up to help. Vinny also consistently donated his bartending services to Stop the Plant fundraising events, often working in tandem with Bob Mechling. They died within a relatively short time of each other, and it was indeed hard to imagine one without the other.

Phyllis, Fran and Vinny taught me, among other things, that it takes all kinds of people and personalities for a community to beat back a multinational corporation. As did each of the 4,000 members of the group that prevailed against SLC ten years ago, these three friends and neighbors contributed in their own idiosyncratic and surprising ways... the point of these remembrances not being canonization, but to be as true as possible to their presences.

The Departed: John Flynn

2015-04-27T11:33:54-04:00

Fifth entry in a series about people who have passed
away in the decade since The Plant was Stopped

Oddly enough, John Flynn and Charlie Butterworth both died last month, within a couple of weeks of each other. I say oddly, because John preceded Charlie as the engineer for the City of Hudson.

John was a Hudson native who graduated from St. Mary’s Academy in the 1940s before studying at Harvard. He later worked for General Electric in Schenectady, and on nuclear submarines. In the late 1960s, he negotiated with the remnants of the Lone Star Cement company for the City to buy its quarries on the east side of Newman Road, with the intention of them serving as a backup water supply.

The sale went through, but John was later chagrined that Charlie never hooked these up to the City water system. Every time there was a water alert in Hudson, John would remind me of this inaction by his successor—who he believed to have done work early in his career for the Colarusso gravel mine next door. His suspicions only deepened when then-Mayor Rick Scalera made a long-term lease-to-own deal with Colarusso to mine around the quarry lake, eliminating any realistic possibility of using it to keep the City wet.

His history of negotiating with Lone Star, as well as his memories of the dirty brown snow that would rain down from that plant and the old Atlas, made John a skeptic about the St. Lawrence Cement proposal. (Butterworth, by contrast, made every effort to grease the skids for SLC, for example by making sure the Hudson Waterfront Committee took no action that would jeopardize the company’s plans.)

John also had no use for the company’s divide-and-conquer strategy of trying to pit neighbors against each other based on their backgrounds and lifestyles. He once commented at a public meeting about one of Holcim’s p.r. flacks, Phil Pepe, who was caught ghostwriting letters-to-the-editor in favor of his client, and the local newspaper which gullibly printed them:

The Swiss cement company has retained a propaganda outfit. Their representative is Pepi Le Pue—or that's what I call him, anyway. He writes these letters for others to sign. And there's a recurrent theme through the whole thing that these “newcomers” are the ones who oppose this wonderful plant. In quotation marks: these awful “newcomers.”

I was born here in 1931. My mother was born here in 1893, and my grandfather was born in Saugerties in 1853, eight years before the Civil War began. So we've been around for a while.

I leave my feathers at home, but I consider myself a native.

So who are the newcomers?

Certainly, a Swiss cement company.

And certainly, the present owners of the Register-Star, who support the Swiss cement company to the very best of their ability. They’re owned by the Johnson Publishing Company, which is in upper New York state near the Canadian border. So they're pretty safe.

John then expanded his critique to the bigger picture, of how a foreign-owned corporation proposed to exploit local residents’ health for their own profit:

The Swiss engage in one thing, and have one primary interest, and that is making money. That is what they propose to do here. All of those letters saying that, “Oh, we need the employment and we need this and we need that.” Of course, there will be no new employment.

The reason for the Swiss proposing to construct this plant is that it will be at least three-and-a-third times larger than the plant they have in Cementon with the same number of people.

So they will decrease their production costs by at least 70 percent. There will be 70 percent less work input per ton of cement produced. And if anyone considers that my categorizing the Swiss as being interested in money, well, this is history.

When the Nazis invaded Denmark they issued and edict that all Jews were to wear a Star of David on their clothing. The next day Christian X, the King of Denmark appeared in public with the Star of David on his coat and all the days followed suit. And Denmark, of all the occupied countries in Europe, the Jews survived the best.

Now when Jews fled Germany and came to the Swiss border, if they made it, if they didn't have enough money on them the Swiss turned them back. And those who were admitted to Switzerland land when their money ran out the Swiss sold them back to the Nazis to be exterminated.

These are the people who have our interest at heart and propose to operate in Columbia County. Thank you.

As you can see, Mr. Flynn pulled no punches. That is not automatically a virtue, if such outspokenness is not combined with good sense. But combined with his long memory and fierce intelligence, it made John a valuable ally and sounding board. I miss seeing him with his pal Larry Marinelli, who videotaped many of the cement plant meetings, and was a great friend to John in his later years.

ENDNOTE: Though Charlie Butterworth and I were often on opposite sides of local issues, our relationship always remained cordial and straightforward. We debated many topics intensely, but not bitterly.

When, for example, it was decided to have the City sidewalks redone (by Colarusso, natch), there was an uproar about all the mature black locust trees which would be uprooted from Warren Street. Almost all of these were lost, but a few residents were able to negotiate with him to save their tree.

In my case, I approached Charlie with a different idea, since the roots of the locusts in front of Curtiss House had pretty severely pushed up the existing sidewalks and could not be salvaged. I asked Charlie how much he intended to spend on the two replacement trees, which were going to be a generic form of flowering pear or the like—the type of tree one sees in mall parking lots.

When he gave the amount, I asked if Charlie would object if I spent that money plus some of my own on a different, more distinctive tree. He agreed, and I instead had two 10-foot-tall sycamore saplings installed by Windy Hill Nursery. I since sold 32 Warren, but the sycamores—a classic and stately New York tree, well-suited for urban environments—reamain, and have tripled their height. Arguments about one controversy did not prevent Charlie from being open to reasonable solutions to another.