Tuesday, January 6, 2015

I'm Not an Architect, But . . .

The City desperately needs a new police and court facility--it has for almost twenty years--and that need is finally being addressed. After months of planning to satisfy the myriad requirements of the Hudson Police Department and the New York State Office of Court Administration, as well as Amtrak and the Department of Homeland Security, the project was expected to go out for bid in the next week or so. But this morning, John Mason reports in the Register-Star, the new facility "may have entered some rough political waters": "Mayor questions police/court process."

The mayor has two issues with the project. He reportedly feels that mayor's aide Gene Shetsky, whom the mayor has designated "clerk of the works," just as Cappy Pierro, mayor's aide to Rick Scalera, was the designated clerk of the works for the Central Firehouse, has been "left out of the loop on recent decision making regarding the design the building." The mayor's other issue is with the design itself.

On December 16, Alderman Nick Haddad (First Ward), who is the point man on the Common Council for the project, presented a progress report at the Council's regular meeting. As part of the report, he showed a rendering of the proposed design for the building, which differed from the rendering created by John O'Connell early in the planning process.

The next day, Gossips published the rendering Haddad had shown at the Council meeting, explaining that some refinement of the design was still to come.

According to the mayor, the appearance of the rendering on The Gossips of Rivertown led to "an outcry of opposition." The Register-Star quotes him as saying:
I am finding there are many residents who are not happy with the exterior design of what this building will look like. I have had several people over the month of December who have contacted me expressing their concerns with the outside building design. While I'm in no way looking to delay this project, I am suggesting that simultaneously to the project moving forward, a public review of the design of the outside of the building take place as the city has done with several other projects along the way.
It's not clear what "several other projects along the way" the mayor has in mind, but he is calling for a public hearing on the design for the police and court building. He is quoted by Mason as saying, "We should be open to allow for a public hearing for people to voice their approval or opposition to these plans. If there were not people saying they were upset, it wouldn't be a problem."
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3 comments:

  1. is it possible to put the design up for bid to any and all architects who can bring it in for a pre approved price ?

    A competition so to speak?

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  2. It's amazing just how difficult it is to find out who is doing what when, to whom, and end up being out of the loop, apparently from the Mayor on down, depending on what is coming down, in a city within but 2 square miles hosting 6,000 denizens. That needs to change. We all should be in the loop all the time, without having to pound the pavement, and be pushy, and devote a lot of time to it. Period. Thanks for listening.

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  3. I am with the mayor on this one, just plain ugly iz just plain ugly. I doubt the sanity and any future decisions of anyone that thought this acceptable. if my daddy sent me to the store with three million dollars and told me to come back with a courthouse and i tried pass this off he'd want 2.99 million change and my bottom would hurt. a big insult to the citizens and the Police Department. best thing to do, i can remedy the whole situation with one word, only one word to make everyone happy, call the place "temporary" until proper leadership iz in place to build a proper facility at another location.

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