Dave Gargill of Livingston reports seeing The Cars’ Ric Ocasek and his gal Paulina Porizkova on upper Warren Street late this afternoon. (I not only trust Dave’s eyes, but that’s not a pair easily mistaken for someone else.) Above, the couple were photographed in 1990 with Bowie and Iman—a client way back when of my grandfather—at an AIDS benefit.
Scenes from this weekend’s art events in and around Hudson... First up, Abel Ramirez’s pop-up gallery of paintings in the 500 block:
Anton Ginzburg’s NADA installation, Flood, for Braverman Gallery at the Basilica Hudson:
Chair installation by Bill Stone at the inaugural exhibition of CR10 in Linlithgo:
Performance downstairs at CR10 by Rhys Tivey:
Site-specific building design (after Adolf Loos) by Polly Apfelbaum at A Native Hill in Hudson:
Laetitia Hussain’s open studio in Hudson’s 600 block:
Laetitia Hussain work at A Native Hill:
Performance at A Native Hill by Brian Dewan:
Monica Mechling sculpture opening at Henry Hudson Studios:
Back to the Sunday scene at Basilica Hudson:
Mark down yesterday’s date—Tuesday, July 24th, 2012—because in years to come we may look back and consider it a watershed in the evolution of local media.
On that date, the three top headlines in the County’s only daily paper, The Register-Star, all were stories previously reported on a “micronews” blog, Carole Osterink’s The Gossips of Rivertown.
Their first top story on Tuesday concerned a vote by the board and members of Acres Co-op to continue their pursuit of establishing a local food market, despite repeated setbacks. The second reported the decision by Premier Brands to abandon plans for the former Emsig button factory building. The third updated the mistaken debate about the location of shacks at the Furgary Boat Club.
Osterink beat the Register on each of these stories on the previous Sunday, Friday and Monday, respectively, forcing the paper (which did not publish online until late 2002, and does not publish a print edition on Sunday or Monday) to play catchup.
“Most of the time, it’s just a case of us both attending the same meeting and me getting my story up sooner,” said Osterink, a former Hudson alderman, in an interview on Wednesday. Clearly, Osterink is faster to the punch when it comes to leaving a meeting and typing up her account. But in some instances, such as the Premier Brands revelation which came as a result of a question asked solely by Osterink at a sparsely-attended commitee meeting, the scent from blog to print is easy to track.
Reflecting perhaps its sense of embattlement, and the frequent criticism it receives from independent media, the Register has rarely if ever recognized area bloggers’s existence—let alone crediting them with breaking stories the paper later picks up. (In this site’s case, the Register even has stopped authorizing my rare posts in its comments section.) When serious news organizations such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post piggyback on each others’ leads and stories, they consider it good form to acknowledge who got there first.
Now, given its far greater infrastructure, resources, and coziness with official sources, The Register does still get stories first sometimes, and it reports many events not covered by any area blogs, however cursorily or shabbily. Moreover, many posts on blogs like Gossips are reactions or simply “of interest” links to stories and opinions posted in the Register. Furthermore, it can be beneficial for local news sources to duplicate efforts when they ask different questions or present different points of view. The relationship between traditional and independent media can be, at its best, symbiotic.
But the striking sequence of the paper’s top Tuesday headlines is at minimum a strong indication of the ability of independent online media to beat traditional media in both thoroughness and timeliness. If every Columbia County town had as much blog coverage as Hudson, the public would be far better informed, and both the media and politicians would be held more accountable.
According to a longtime member of the Furgary Boat Club, Hudson Common Council President Don Moore has stonewalled that person’s efforts to discuss the fate of the 100-year-old local fishing encampment with him—going silent for over a week, after demanding to know where the member lived, and being told that member resides outside of Hudson.
If Moore, fashioning himself a man of principle, intends to adopt a consistent policy that he won’t discuss City of Hudson issues with non-residents, he may wind up with a long list of people with whom he’d have to stop talking. Don’s Don’t Talk List would also have to include, among others:
Moore’s (alleged) new law of discourse would also preclude him from discussing concerns with most every lawyer, banker and accountant in town; several Hudson police officers; all of the non-Hudson County Supervisors who represent other towns; all the non-Hudson members of the County Democratic Committee; and about half of the shop, gallery and restaurant owners on Warren Street.
N O T E : About 10 years ago, when the right to speak at Common Council meetings was finally granted to the public, the Council President at the time briefly attempted to prevent non-residents from speaking at meetings. When the unwise, impractical and probably unconstitutional nature of this idea was decried, the then-President relented—recognizing that nonresidents often have business, family, property and other personal ties to the City which may require discussion. Perhaps Moore wants to turn back the clock, and try that gambit again.
Miscellaneous notes from around Hudson and its environs:
Dana Wegener, the proprietor of MOD Restaurant who was unceremoniously locked out of her own Front Street establishment earlier this summer, is said to be reopening as a breakfast/lunch spot in the former Strongtree location, across from the Amtrak station in Hudson.
Rapport Meyers, the same firm which represents the City of Hudson on many legal matters, received a tidy 35% reduction in their tax assessment from the local Board of Assessment Review. The lawyers’ local property tax valuation was dropped $320,000 (from $920K to $600K) by the Board of Assessment Review. Hudson Corporation Counsel Cheryl Roberts joined the firm within the past year, and at least one member of the BAR has used the firm for legal work.
As previously reported, Holcim received a $1.5 million tax reduction from the BAR, while nearly half of all other grievers got no tax relief at all.
Holcim has received a whopping $1,563,000 reduction in its property tax assessment from the Board of Assessment Review in the City of Hudson, according to publicly-available data.
The BAR decision, signed by members Philip Forman and Rachel Kappel, brought Holcim’s assessment down 33%, from over $4.5 million to just $3 million.
The reduction was by far the largest reduction in valuation, in terms of dollars, provided by the BAR this year. Out of some 148 property owners who appealed to the BAR for help this year, nearly half (70) received no reduction at all.
The Swiss-owned multinational, which has been a constant source of controversy locally over the past 15 years, has been simultaneously suing the City over its taxes. It’s unclear if the reduction will cause Holcim to withdraw its (even greedier) legal complaint, which in 2011 argued it should be assessed at less than $1.6 million. According to some reports, State approval of the City’s deeply flawed Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan has been stalled due to Holcim balking at transfer of some South Bay acreage while that suit was still in court.
This site will be reporting on other notable tax discounts provided by the BAR in the coming days.
