Will ‘someday’ ever come to the city?
by Sam Pratt
It’s good to see that Rick Scalera is suddenly remembering his 1993
campaign pledge to make the Waterfront “one that we all can be proud of
someday.” Seventeen years later, residents are still wondering if
“someday” will ever come.
Rick’s 1993 Waterfront pledge is much
like two others he made that year. On election night that November, the
Register-Star reported that the newly-elected mayor “renewed his pledge
to eliminate the city’s meter maids and to rid the city of its drug
problems.” How’s he coming along with those promises?
I fully
agree when Rick says that progress on the Waterfront “speaks for
itself.” Even one look at the so-called “progress” there speaks
volumes. But the words it’s speaking are: “Is that all there is?”
If
only the Waterfront could talk, it would tell a tale of neglect,
inaction, indecision and political shenanigans to fill a very long book.
He’s forgotten, among other things, his spiteful move to derail the 1995 Vision Plan for the Waterfront. He doesn’t mention the more than $500,000 in Waterfront funding that was readily obtained when he was out office in 2000-2001. He’d like people to overlook his 1999-2005 support for a dry cleaning waste and a cement facility by the river, which made Waterfront planning pretty much impossible during those years. And then there were all the other years going back to 1993 when the LWRP process got becalmed under Rick’s “leadership” —until others jump-started it, again when he was again out of office in 2006-2007.
(And by the way: My own office is still in Hudson. Also, since Rick seems to think that proof of ancestry is necessary to have an opinion about Hudson, it happens that my great-grandfather’s grandfather used to buy quahogs from ships in Hudson’s South Bay, and peddled them along what’s now Route 23.)
A detailed review of the sorry history of the Waterfront’s snail’s-paced progress is too long for a letter to the editor, and this back-and-forth could no doubt continue indefinitely. But those interested in reading a full chronology of the missteps and evasions and obstruction which have taken place under the watch of the current and previous mayors can do so at http://tinyurl.com/hudsonwaterfront
At that link, readers will likewise find other detailed information about the more positive, forward-looking vision along the river that citizens have called for, but the city has thus far ignored.
