Next DSS meeting is Thursday at 4:15 p.m.

Franceseca Olsen in the Register-Star reports that Columbia County Board of Supervisors’ Space Utilization Subcommittee, which is trying to find a location for Department of Social Services within 60 to 90 days, meets today at 4:15 p.m. at 325 Columbia St., Hudson. Olsen reports that at a Columbia Economic Development Corporation meeting this week, BOS Chairman Roy Brown, R-Germantown, and Supervisor (and county budget/corporate compliance officer) Art Baer, R-Hillsdale, “vocally opposed the CEDC’s plan to use $14,000 to fund a study of the economic impact on moving DSS out of Hudson.” The CEDC will pay Camion and Associates from New York City, “for the purpose of conducting a study on the economic impacts derived from the location of … DSS.” Read the entire story in the Register-Star.

UPDATE: Register-Star’s Olsen attended meeting and says, “the Board of Supervisors’ Space Utilization Subcommittee Thursday evening… voted unanimously to, ‘limit site selection to only within the city of Hudson without documenting the need for DSS to remain within the city limits.'”

DSS back to Ockawamick?

After months of protests, accusations, anonymous internet slander, and controversy, Columbia County’s Board of Supervisors chairman Art Baer held a love-in press conference last July announcing the county was bidding on One City Centre, on the corner of Green and State streets in Hudson, to use the building for county office space and make room at two other county office buildings (401 and 610 State St.) for the Department of Social Services, allowing DSS to remain in Hudson after the county’s lease on DSS’s home at 25 Railroad Ave. ends in 2011. Now we are back where we started, as the county’s bid of $2.6 million was significantly lower than three other bids. “I guess the question of what happens with DSS goes back to the (county space utilization) subcommittee for further review and research,” new BOS Chairman Roy Brown (Germantown) told The Daily Mail today. Which means several supervisors will be trying to move DSS to the Ockawamick property several miles outside Hudson, which caused all the initial controversy. Brown recently would not rule out such a move in an interview with The Register-Star.

Brown speaks to Register-Star

Francesca Olson holds the Register-Star’s annual interview with the current Board of Supervisors chairman, now Roy Brown R-Germantown. Brown wants Kohl’s to get their PILOT tax break to move into Greenport; is against hiring new workers to handle the increased workload at the Department of Social Services; will not rule out moving DSS to Ockawamick; and does not have enough money budgeted to bring the county courthouse in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.