[0:03] good evening I am John Van Tassel
supervisor of the town of phillipstown
[0:07] and I would like to welcome everyone to
this joint session of the village of
[0:11] Nelsonville Village of Cold Spring in
the town of Phillips Town board the
[0:15] purpose of tonight's meeting is to
provide information in response to
[0:19] questions regarding the proposed Hudson
Highland Fjord Trail
[0:23] this is not a public hearing and the
boards will conduct no actions or make
[0:28] any decisions as per our town attorney
the only motion required is to adjourn
[0:33] the meeting which will happen with a
hard stop at 9 30 PM I would like to
[0:39] thank my colleagues for all their effort
this has been put into this elective
[0:43] exercise I would also like to thank the
holiday essential school and Dr Phil
[0:47] benante
[0:53] thank you
the Putnam County Sheriff's Office
[0:58] the culture
[1:03] the Cold Spring Police Department
[1:11] town of phillipstown code enforcement
officer Greg Warner
[1:19] Cecile Roars for recording
[1:26] Damien McDonald for assisting with AV
[1:33] I would also like to welcome
state parks as well as Hudson Highland
[1:37] pure Trail for assisting us and
providing to our information to our
[1:42] constituents excuse me some ground rules
for this evening there is obviously an
[1:47] abundance of Interest as well as a
motion for this topic I am confident
[1:51] that the residents of our town will
remain professional and respectful we
[1:57] will not tolerate outbursts or any
personal attacks I suggest if you feel
[2:02] you are losing control of your emotions
you step out of the room
[2:06] there there will be no warnings again
this is not a mandatory exercise for any
[2:11] of the municipalities that are here and
if we feel it's no longer a productive
[2:15] format we will adjourn
I would now like to introduce the town
[2:20] Board of the town of phillipstown Deputy
supervisor Robert Flaherty
[2:29] council person Judith Farrell
[2:35] council person Megan Cotter
[2:40] and councilperson Jason angel
[2:47] to my left I have mayor Kathleen Foley
from the village of Cold Spring
[2:54] mayor Coley could you introduce your
boards
[2:56] with us tonight is Deputy Mayor tweeps
Phillips Woods
[3:03] trustee Catherine fatty
[3:08] trustee Laura Bosey
[3:12] and trustee Eliza Starbuck could be
managing the timer
[3:17] also to my left is Mayor Chris Winward
of the village of Nelsonville and she
[3:21] can introduce her board please
[3:26] from Nelsonville we have Deputy Mayor
and trustee David moroney
[3:32] trustee Travis Bureau
[3:36] trustee Thomas Campanile
[3:40] and trustee Maria zionovich
[3:46] okay so the flow for the meeting tonight
our first priority is to get through the
[3:51] priority questions which you have
submitted
[3:53] um which with shared moderation by the
Mayors and myself and and councilman
[3:58] Angel who I'd like to thank for putting
together the entire program for
[4:02] submitting the questions as well as
collating the answers and responses for
[4:07] the top questions
uh we we do plan on having an open
[4:12] comment from 9 to 9 30 if time allows
we will have a hard stop at 9 30 and
[4:18] again I request everybody beg everybody
to be to remain respectful neighborly
[4:23] and productive
okay so uh introductions we've been
[4:28] through town jbt
we will go to my my presentation at this
[4:34] point
[4:38] just introduce our guests thank you very
much oh yes I'm sorry
[4:43] um if you guys wouldn't mind please
introducing yourself thank you very much
[4:46] for coming and speaking with us tonight
um we have guests from the office of New
[4:52] York state parks recreation and historic
preservation and the Hudson Highlands
[4:57] York Trail
foreign
[5:03] good evening I'm Linda Cooper I'm the
regional director for the Taconic region
[5:08] of New York state parks Taconic region
is one of 11 regions in the state and
[5:13] that encompasses the parks historic
sites and trails in Westchester Putnam
[5:17] Duchess and Columbia County pleasure to
be here thank you for coming out to
[5:21] listen
[5:25] good evening my name is Matthew Davidson
I'm a Deputy Commissioner with state
[5:30] parks and I'm the commissioners
a designee overseeing this project and
[5:37] our efforts to support it and oversee it
[5:45] hi I'm Richard Shea a lifelong resident
of Cold Spring in Phillips Town former
[5:50] Town supervisor former Town board member
former caretaker at little Stony Point I
[5:55] have over 30 years of community service
in this community so I'm glad to see
[5:59] everybody else it's going to be a great
discussion
[6:01] [Applause]
a board member of the Hudson Highlands
[6:07] Fiora Trail the newest member I I do ask
everybody that they treat Richard with
[6:12] extra kindness because he's a little
sensitive about being in front of a room
[6:19] and hello I'm Amy Kasam the executive
director of Hudson Highlands Fjord Trail
[6:23] and thank you for the to the communities
for organizing this we're really excited
[6:28] to be able to talk to all of you tonight
and answer your questions and I did also
[6:32] just want to assure you I know we you
know there was a prioritization exercise
[6:35] that took a lot of effort for the
communities to organize and we'll be
[6:40] answering 15 questions tonight but we
wanted to assure you uh at the start of
[6:44] the evening we'll be answering all 210
that were submitted well I guess minus
[6:49] the 15 will answer tonight
so thank you
[6:52] [Applause]
but I'm supposed to introduce but we
[7:01] have with us somewhere Lydia biscope
who's the chief of operations for New
[7:04] York state senator Rob rollison
oh way up there hi
[7:10] Victoria cafarelli who's the chief of
staff for our assembly member Dana
[7:14] levenberg
in the back
[7:19] the Putnam County Executive Kevin Byrne
sends his regrets and he has asked
[7:23] Transportation director Vinnie tamanya
to stand in his stead this evening so
[7:27] he's with us for the county
um as is our district one legislator
[7:32] Nancy Montgomery
[Applause]
[7:47] and lastly the MTA was actually able to
send someone to join us may Patel is
[7:51] here she's the assistant director of the
Metro North Railroad and is able to join
[7:54] us
[Applause]
[8:01] so um myself and the two Mayors will
just briefly go through our feelings uh
[8:07] where our jurisdictions begin and end in
this project so I will start off if
[8:11] that's okay yep
I'd like to take a moment to address the
[8:16] sections of the trail that will fall
within the town of phillipstown outside
[8:19] the boundaries of the village of Cold
Spring
[8:21] during my 40 Years of Emergency Services
in the past 14 years on the town board
[8:26] there has been a consistent request that
New York State provide more services to
[8:30] the 9d breaknet corridor we have
continued to work with the Agents of New
[8:35] York state parks towards a safe way to
handle the crowds we often experience as
[8:40] the supervisor I am often addressed by
constituents to do something about the
[8:44] crads I nor the town have the capability
of limiting the number of visitors that
[8:49] decide to come here and take in the
amazing place we live since limiting is
[8:54] not an option we need to prepare and
have resources and amenities to assist
[8:58] with safe enjoyment for tourists as well
as our residents the town of
[9:02] phillipstown provides limited direct
resources to that area of the township
[9:06] we are responsible for providing EMS and
fire service as the budget officer of
[9:11] the town of phillipstown is my
responsibility to address any increase
[9:15] if any in call volume that the proposed
the proposed Trail would cause I have
[9:20] seen estimates that reflect a 20 percent
increase in volume to that area which is
[9:24] just that an estimate
no one has a crystal ball and can give
[9:28] accurate statistics of the future the
demand would also be affected by the
[9:33] increase in the amenities in the region
I look forward to a continued commitment
[9:37] by New York state parks hhft and the
town of phillipstown to provide safe
[9:41] enjoyment to tourists as well as
residents of the Hudson River and the
[9:45] trail system
I also expect any additional Financial
[9:48] demand placed on the town to be
addressed again this is my concern as
[9:53] the town is supervisor and I have a firm
belief in home rule and expect that the
[9:57] sections that fall within the boundaries
of the village of Cold Spring will be
[10:01] negotiated with the village of trust
Village Board of Trustees and mayor
[10:04] Foley and I also encourage the village
of nelsonville's concerns to be
[10:08] addressed with their board and mayor
Windward thank you
[10:15] thank you
[10:20] thank you well the village of
Nelsonville doesn't have any official
[10:25] jurisdiction
um in the area we do have obviously some
[10:28] concerns on the potential impact of the
Fjord Trail
[10:31] the first is the quality of life of our
residents we are an important part of
[10:35] this community too our border is only a
quarter mile from the one traffic light
[10:38] in Cold Spring and our quality of life
suffers when we cannot access the
[10:42] cultural environmental and commercial
hub that we moved here to enjoy and that
[10:46] we help to contribute to
second financially the Nelsonville Woods
[10:51] trails linked directly to the state's
under cliff and Washburn Trails within
[10:56] the Hudson Highland State Park we are
concerned about the potential impact of
[11:00] an already overburdened trail system
spilling into the Nelsonville Woods
[11:03] which we are financially responsible for
including liability insurance
[11:08] similar to what is already successfully
used in other New York state parks it
[11:12] would be great to see what visitor
Management Systems could be smartly
[11:15] employed for the Fjord Trail and
identify a maximum number of daily
[11:18] visitors
we only have we also have two very small
[11:22] parking lots at the Nelsonville
trailheads that could be impacted if
[11:26] there is a strong influx of additional
hikers one of the locks being off a
[11:29] single Lane Private Road
the last area is shared services
[11:35] nelsonville's residents are also served
by contract with the Cold Spring fire
[11:39] department and most of our residents
water is supplied by Cold Spring
[11:43] after last year's drought any potential
additional burden on our community's
[11:46] water supply is concerning
thank you
[11:51] [Applause]
so I don't think there's any question
[12:02] that the village of Cold Spring is the
community and the municipality most
[12:06] impacted by the proposed Fjord Trail
particularly with the route through
[12:11] Dockside that has been described by
senior Parks officials as the donor's
[12:14] preferred pathway
The Dockside property belongs to New
[12:18] York state parks it's a state park
within our Municipal boundary
[12:23] The Village manages Dockside under
contract with no maintenance or
[12:27] programming funding from the state
the current contract is due to expire in
[12:32] 2028 but can be extinguished with notice
at any time
[12:36] twice the property was offered to the
Village of Cold Spring and twice the
[12:42] village declined this is some years ago
now it's not recently
[12:46] the choice is made were Pennywise and
definitively pound foolish
[12:51] we'd be in a very different position
right now if the village had said yes
[12:55] either time
but we're not here we are
[12:59] The Village does have a status in the
State Environmental review for the
[13:03] proposed Fjord Trail though it's limited
the village is considered an interested
[13:08] agency in that review meaning that it
lacks jurisdiction to fund approve or
[13:14] directly undertake the project but can
participate in the review process
[13:19] our planning board is identified as
having site plan approval
[13:24] and our Board of Trustees can comment on
the master plan both boards need to
[13:29] engage and listen to the public
New York state has in terms used by
[13:34] other senior Parks officials Superior
sovereignty over the villages and the
[13:40] town
that means that the state can declare
[13:43] itself immune from local land use
requirements
[13:47] perhaps the state can declare itself
immune but should it that's one of the
[13:53] questions that we need to ask
in recognition a village residence in
[13:57] their quality of life I would say no
with the fundamental impacts this
[14:02] development will have on our village
good and bad I would say no
[14:07] in recognition of all the burdens and
costs of State Park visitation already
[14:12] born solely by Cold Spring villagers I
would say no
[14:17] in recognition of the self-determination
that is enshrined in local government I
[14:22] would say no
we are fully aware that the village
[14:27] cannot solve the challenges of
visitation on our own
[14:31] we need New York State we need Putnam
County and we need hhft to work with us
[14:37] as equal Partners on decisions impacting
life within our Municipal boundaries
[14:43] villagers should have a real say in
whether the trail begins within the
[14:48] village and how it's accessed via our
streets
[14:52] there is no root through the village
that keeps visitors off residential
[14:56] streets they're all residential and they
all deserve the respect of having
[15:01] visitor impacts mitigated by New York
State no matter where the Fjord Trail
[15:05] starts
whatever final form the Fjord Trail
[15:09] takes after the multi-year public
process that's about to come
[15:13] The Village deserves appropriate impact
mitigations ones that we can all live
[15:18] with
I hope that our Municipal Neighbors in
[15:22] Phillips town and Nelsonville will
support decisions that will protect the
[15:26] village long term
we want visitation managed there's no
[15:30] disagreement on that we all want
visitation managed
[15:34] and we want to survive as a vibrant
desirable residential community and a
[15:39] thriving local economy so we need to
keep talking and that's why we're here
[15:45] [Applause]
thank you
[15:58] so just a few words about the process
um as as representatives of your
[16:04] municipalities as community members we
all obviously know that the Hudson House
[16:08] Ford Trail is a issue that people feel
very strongly about both um with
[16:13] concerns both those in support and both
those that fall somewhere in between and
[16:19] so we wanted to organize a conversation
that was as productive as possible that
[16:23] was Community Driven and that Focus this
conversation on the top priority
[16:29] questions of the community uh and so
just a report on the process we asked
[16:34] for any Resident of phillipstown to
submit their priority questions related
[16:38] to Hudson Highlands Fjord Trail we
received 217 questions so for all of you
[16:43] who read them out there congratulations
thank you for doing that it was an
[16:47] educational experience uh we we removed
seven of those questions because of
[16:52] non-residents or because no residents
given that's all we did those 210
[16:57] questions were then included publicly
without any other alteration
[17:01] 146 residents participated in the
ranking process seven were removed from
[17:07] that ranking vote process because they
were non-residents and so we came down
[17:11] to these top 15 questions we're going to
discuss tonight I guess the only word I
[17:16] would say is that there's no such thing
as a perfect process so we all know that
[17:23] um but the one thing I hope everybody
here does realize is that we are trying
[17:27] to organize this meeting in a way that
has a commitment to openness to
[17:33] transparency and to really the idea that
the local community and community
[17:37] members should be a part of kind of
driving the conversation in this process
[17:42] as it goes forward and so just a few
notes
[17:47] um the guests from New York state parks
and Hudson's Fjord Trail we're given 10
[17:52] minutes to respond to those 15 questions
you do not have to take all the time if
[17:56] you don't want it but you have 10
minutes respond to those questions
[18:00] and to each question that's asked and
then we will move on to the next
[18:04] question we'll get to as many of those
top 15 as possible and then
[18:10] um every resident who submitted a
question was asked to read it here
[18:13] tonight thank you for those of you who
could make it if they could not make it
[18:16] then a moderator will be reading it on
their behalf all right thank you and I
[18:21] will turn it over to Mayor Windward
great thank you so let's kick off the
[18:25] questions
um we're going to have kind of an on
[18:28] Deck Circle so I'll I'll call the first
folks and then two if you don't mind
[18:33] being steady and ready to go
um the first section is on
[18:37] accountability and transparency
and the residents who submitted
[18:42] questions first coming up is Alice
krakauer and then on Deck will be
[18:47] Cynthia Kling for her husband Phil Weiss
and Stephanie Hawkins
[18:52] thank you
[19:00] hear me you just go like this it goes
like this
[19:04] your ads claim that the Fjord Trail is
Community Driven I'm sorry can we Alice
[19:11] can you just ask the question as you
proposed it needed to set up I'm going
[19:14] right there so my question is
will the Fjord Trail be built even if a
[19:19] majority of people in the community are
against it
[19:23] thank you
thank you so much
[19:29] thank you
[19:31] so that question feels like something
that's a dialogue Ender not not the
[19:39] beginning of a conversation
um I I understand the question I
[19:43] appreciate that but
I think this is the continuation of a
[19:48] process that's been going on for many
many years I mean since 2015 and prior
[19:53] to that in a more informal way
um it was a Community Driven initiative
[19:59] and I know that because I was one of the
founders of the idea so it was myself
[20:03] Julia femularo Mike McKee Hank Osborne a
handful of other other community members
[20:09] so the idea the impetus for this was to
solve existing problems
[20:16] everyone looks at the 90 Corridor and
they wonder when is that accident going
[20:20] to happen when is somebody going to get
injured there
[20:23] so
taking that as the fundamental basis for
[20:28] solving the issues or that as a an
approach saying what can we do to make
[20:33] sure people are safe when they visit the
area along with residents who used to
[20:37] use the corridor and it's really a
complicated quarter because you have so
[20:42] many authorities in there you have Parks
you have D.O.T you have Metro North you
[20:47] have dep DEC so getting all these people
together is to spend this colossal
[20:52] effort and over the years over a decade
that has taken place brought everyone to
[20:58] the table open discussions there have
been forums in the past where community
[21:02] members have attended those I don't know
if people who here had attended the
[21:05] event at the Chalet but since its
Inception it has been a Community Driven
[21:11] idea and something that I really support
again the future doesn't exist today but
[21:17] the problems do and these problems
aren't going to go away without a
[21:21] solution without people working on it
and I think tonight is not the beginning
[21:25] of the process as I said it's a
continuation we're in the middle of a
[21:28] process so to ask what will happen if no
one wants this well
[21:34] it's sort of a loaded question
um there are also numerous communities
[21:39] involved if you're looking at
[21:44] it there are numerous communities
involved you have Cold Spring you have
[21:48] fish gill you have Beacon there are a
lot more people involved a lot more
[21:52] communities involved and we are looking
for input from everyone this has to be
[21:56] an open and honest discussion and Hudson
House Fury Trail is interested in what
[22:01] people have to say and that input is
taken seriously we need good ideas when
[22:05] I served on the town board any local
initiative that came along you have a
[22:08] public hearing you hear from the public
and then the outcome gets better because
[22:13] somebody comes up with a good idea so
that's what I'm hoping is going to
[22:16] happen out of this process
[22:19] okay next okay let's be courteous
everybody
[22:25] so I'll finish it a little so
as Richard said this so we'll just skip
[22:30] ahead but just to keep in mind this
groove from the locals and yes it feels
[22:34] like a big Coalition project now but
it's really had a long story in the
[22:39] community and I think the answer is
it should never be that you know what I
[22:44] mean it came from the community it's
been refined by the community and the
[22:48] story I think the message I'd really
like everyone to walk away with today is
[22:52] that we're going to keep refining so
it's already refined several times over
[22:57] the past and we're we're continuing to
refine today so if like just a you know
[23:02] not even going back as far as 2006 but
in 2015 we had a safety focus at that
[23:08] time people really wanted to see more
people come to Main Street you wouldn't
[23:11] say that today so we went and we changed
it we got visitation was getting too
[23:16] high the covid pandemic Equity
considerations hit more of in people's
[23:22] minds and we refined and we included
accessibility and we really thought
[23:26] about visitation management versus
encouraging people into the downtown and
[23:31] we really thought if if you have to have
all these people coming by your door how
[23:36] did how can this place be retained for
uses that you currently enjoy and create
[23:43] um
Recreation assets I mean you're the
[23:46] daily users you're not the weekend
people you this is really mostly going
[23:49] to be used by locals we wanted to make
sure those needs were reflected in the
[23:54] design
so
[24:02] okay can we please be polite and
courteous so we can get through as many
[24:06] folks as we can tonight
no you um
[24:11] so and so just to let you know where we
are right now in our refinements we're
[24:15] looking at the environmental review is
underway
[24:18] we're head Consultants look at Ada
accessibility on the project and we have
[24:24] visitation management Consultants just
starting with us to think about what are
[24:28] the tools we really need to have all of
in our pockets and even think about
[24:32] what's on the ground so that we're
making sure this really manages
[24:36] visitation and sustainability is always
a focus for us too so we have the draft
[24:41] Master Plan before that is a final
master plan we will have additional
[24:45] refinements and your input is going to
help shape what that looks like
[24:49] or something
thank you
[24:53] we have our next uh question asker um
[25:00] are you are you guys satisfied with your
own response
[25:04] yeah sure okay thank you sorry I didn't
want to cut you off so
[25:08] sorry go ahead
[25:12] um
uh this is for my husband I like this
[25:15] plan when it was a Wooded Trail back in
1950 in 2015 it transformed into a
[25:21] concrete Extravaganza that will scar the
landscape forever
[25:25] um because of the influence of a private
donor Chris Davis even Parks deferred to
[25:29] him and his grandmother's Vision who
elected him and how is he accountable
[25:34] for the millions of dollars
[Applause]
[25:42] [Applause]
question
[25:47] I I knew that'd get a good response
you know there are a lot more than one
[25:55] person involved in this process and when
you look around this room tonight
[25:59] everyone here is involved in this
process it's not just about one person
[26:04] it never was about one person New York
state parks did not defer to any one
[26:09] individual I've worked with New York
state parks for 20 years I've never seen
[26:13] that happen
to go back to the concept of the trail
[26:17] and you know my I am for public
disclosure Phil Weiss is one of my best
[26:22] friends so
um
[26:25] the concept of the trail has evolved
over time but it is not a concrete
[26:30] extravaganza
and again there are aspects of this
[26:34] trail that are still being designed with
public input and that are bound to
[26:38] change based on community input that is
my hope I'm hoping that people actually
[26:43] feel heard tonight and that their input
has an impact on the process I wouldn't
[26:48] be up here if I didn't believe in this
if I didn't believe it was an open and
[26:52] honest discussion
so it was seen as a good idea
[26:56] fundamentally that's why it attracted
this attention that's why it attracted
[27:01] funding because connecting the community
of Cold Spring phillipstown
[27:06] excuse me with Beacon
is fundamentally a good idea and it's a
[27:11] good idea because it gained it gains
people access to the Hudson River
[27:15] it spreads people out it disperses
people when you have everyone just
[27:20] concentrating in the village of Cold
Spring it's overwhelming anyone who goes
[27:24] down Main Street in this Village on a
weekend knows just that
[27:28] so the idea of spreading people over 7.2
miles developed saying how can we get
[27:33] people off the main street of Cold
Spring and out onto a trail where they
[27:38] can go to another destination and vice
versa so you have the railroad line
[27:42] there
it's not a concrete Extravaganza I know
[27:46] these things like to be banned talk
about Chris Davis in his 20 million that
[27:51] was the question
[27:54] now
now
[27:57] Cynthia and you asked your question and
I'm giving a response and I will get to
[28:01] that in order yes
um so if it's okay with you I'll
[28:05] continue okay thank you
yeah
[28:11] the majority of this Trail is envisioned
as a gravel Trail
[28:15] as sort of the thing you would see at
Hubbard Perkins the sort of thing you
[28:19] would see down at Dockside currently
it'll be wider because it needs to
[28:23] accommodate more people it needs to
accommodate people with disabilities
[28:26] people with different abilities
[28:33] it needs to provide a surface and access
for everyone
[28:38] we love this area look I was born here
my son is the fifth generation we born
[28:43] this community I have worked my entire
life to preserve this community and if I
[28:48] thought this was going to destroy this
community there's no way I would be up
[28:51] here tonight I do not think that
do I think the ideas can get better I
[28:55] think it can get better with your input
but I don't think it's going to get
[28:58] better if we set up camps I think that
we need to be smart these are complex
[29:04] issues they require a lot of thought and
there is a tremendous amount of
[29:09] expertise going into this
to get these experts to do traffic
[29:15] studies to do the impact statements to
talk about the environment to talk about
[29:20] water to talk about all the resources
that we care about you need experts that
[29:26] costs money and the state of New York is
firmly rooted in Partnerships so they
[29:33] have partnered with a group of
individuals they have partnered with the
[29:36] Hudson Highland Fiora Trail Chris Davis
is among those people Chris Davis is a
[29:42] 30-year resident of this community
people seem to glaze that over
[29:48] so what so he has helped this community
I'm I'm getting to that he has helped
[29:52] this community in innumerable ways
he stopped development at the Garrison
[29:57] Golf Course a 300 Acre Site that could
have been heavily developed under pasone
[30:04] I think people forget that
he helped its Community with the
[30:07] rezoning to make sure we would protect
all the resources that we that we
[30:12] treasure here the things that we want to
see protected he helped with simple
[30:16] things like town-wide cleanups he would
provide funding for that he's provided
[30:20] funding for any number of projects for
this town
[30:24] but that doesn't mean that he's the only
person driving the bus here it doesn't
[30:29] mean that New York state parks defers to
Chris Davis they don't they are the
[30:34] authority in this they are the lead
agency in this Chris Davis is a
[30:39] contributor he's a partner there are
other large contributors to this there
[30:43] are over 20 entities involved in this
there are several individuals who have
[30:48] committed large amounts of funds New
York state has committed 20 million
[30:51] dollars to the Breakneck project so that
may come as a surprise to some people so
[30:56] they should but New York state does not
have endless resources New York State
[31:00] needs Partnerships to develop the
programs that will save local
[31:04] environments so I think that in all
fairness it's a it is a fair question
[31:10] and I know that perception is out there
but we can't focus on one individual we
[31:15] can't villainize people we can't try to
create a boogie we're trying to
[31:19] villainize anybody
no one I'm just saying we need to avoid
[31:24] that I'm not saying I'm not accusing
anyone of anything I'm just saying we
[31:28] need to have this be an open and
continuing honest discussion these are
[31:33] Frank questions and these are Frank
answers so I mean give your input but be
[31:39] smart and most of all be nice about it I
know this is an emotional issue people
[31:43] are tied to this landscape like nothing
else I mean I myself I feel that way
[31:49] but you need to be smart about this you
need to consider all the options and you
[31:54] need to give good input so we get a good
outcome
[31:58] thank you Richard you're welcome thank
you
[32:02] thanks very much Stephanie Hawkins
um Can can you hear me I'd like to I'm
[32:08] so sorry please please we've got three
minutes go ahead
[32:11] um I'd just like to say one more thing
thank you Richard that was very very
[32:14] well said I I would like you all to know
that New York state parks is not
[32:20] dictated to by any individual New York
state parks listens to communities we
[32:28] work very very well with the communities
that surround our Parks we are there for
[32:34] all people
I can also tell you that there is no way
[32:39] that state parks would be able to afford
the studies and the analysis that's that
[32:46] is now going into the Fjord Trail in
large part to answer your concerns and
[32:51] there's no way that we could afford to
do that if we didn't have a partner like
[32:55] fjordtrail so please please don't think
that Parks is being influenced
[33:02] by Chris
thank you
[33:08] thank you for being here
um
[33:11] I would have brought it to read but it's
up here
[33:17] um it's understood there's a fine line
in this so-called public-private
[33:20] partnership between New York State and
Scenic Hudson slash Hudson Highlands
[33:24] Fjord Trail if this is truly a public
project exempt from local planning board
[33:28] oversight then agenda and minutes for
meetings under this partnership would be
[33:32] required under open meetings law if this
is truly a private project then local
[33:36] board oversight is required by law and
minutes can be hidden slashed withheld
[33:41] from the public in this case which is it
ethically you shouldn't claim both
[33:45] wouldn't you agree and the question is
there and there isn't it yes or no
[33:49] wouldn't you agree it's in this case
which is it
[33:54] which was the last one Phil thank you
um there there are very clear roles and
[34:00] responsibilities between your Trail and
between state parks I'll get to that in
[34:06] just a second but first I'd like I'd
like to talk about about how Parks uses
[34:13] and frankly needs Partnerships we have
all sorts of Partnerships with all
[34:19] different kinds of organizations
not-for-profits for-profits
[34:24] large small
we really cannot do the we cannot carry
[34:31] out our mission of providing safe and
enjoyable Recreation for 80 million
[34:37] people in the state of New York each
year if we didn't have strong robust
[34:43] Partnerships
we just mentioned our budget is such
[34:49] that we can
we do a tolerable job maintaining our
[34:54] Parks but there is no way that we could
provide the amenities that we do today
[34:58] without Partnerships
in in most cases the partner brings much
[35:05] needed funds as well as expertise
talents
[35:10] all sorts of other qualities to things
that we can't do there's no way that the
[35:18] state would be able to operate a 20
different group camps for disadvantaged
[35:25] children from New York City with our
staffing we can't do that
[35:30] in this case this is a complicated
Richard mentioned all of the agency all
[35:35] of the state agencies there
there is no way that we could we could
[35:43] manage we could conduct this project if
we didn't have strong partners and it's
[35:48] not just with your Trail it's a
partnership with your communities all
[35:53] along the trail that are so important to
us
[35:57] so could you answer the question I'm
getting could you answer the question
[36:00] please I got eight minutes
[36:06] um there are a couple of there are there
as I said there are many partners that
[36:10] we work with the illana partnership and
walkway over the Hudson are two of our
[36:16] our strongest Partners
um and
[36:20] they
[36:23] okay
um anyway those of you who know these
[36:27] Parks know how important the partners
are to us I would like to get to though
[36:31] and I see the time I'd like to like you
to understand the clear roles and
[36:36] responsibility roles and
responsibilities between the two of us
[36:41] so state parks
owns a significant amount of the trail
[36:46] property already we will also be the
owner of the real estate interest
[36:51] through easements from Metro North in
particular
[36:56] and we will hold those and the trail
will then be built on Park land or
[37:03] parked control property for the most
part there are also some private owners
[37:09] that a property that's Trail will will
cross and that is not our purview
[37:15] um we we are collaborating
in no way dictating the plans for the
[37:23] trail
we have our own uh our own needs we
[37:29] would like to make sure that these that
the trail is accessible to all
[37:34] and that particularly people from
disadvantaged communities have the right
[37:38] to use it and and recreate here
um
[37:48] [Applause]
I don't think anybody here is going to
[37:52] argue against like these good
good objectives that you're pointing out
[37:57] but I think the question the very simple
question that's being asked is is this a
[38:03] public project no or is this a private
project it is well it is neither it is a
[38:09] parts project
wait a second this is a project of New
[38:14] York state parks
it's a parts project it's like any of
[38:18] our other projects we go through our
planning we go out to bid for
[38:24] construction this is a Parks project we
are working closely with Partners great
[38:34] the issue that we run into here is not
everything is open to the public right
[38:40] you're saying this is a public project
but there are not minutes to meetings
[38:45] that are that go straight to the heart
of decision making for this project and
[38:50] when people seek them out they are told
oh no no that's this is a private
[38:55] situation okay we've got the question I
really don't want to get into that but I
[39:00] can tell you that we we struggle no I'm
sorry we are committed to being very
[39:07] transparent we we uh hold on hold on we
can't be transparent when we're in the
[39:12] middle of negotiating
uh various things we can come to you we
[39:19] we will make all of the documents
available to anybody who wants to see
[39:23] them but not while they're while we're
making so Matt if I made the existing
[39:29] contract the signed contract is
available on the Village website
[39:33] um that describes the legal agreement
the initial legal agreement between hhft
[39:37] and
um parks and thank you to the person in
[39:42] the room who foiled it and provided it
to the Village so you can see that
[39:46] relationship there
um
[39:53] I really your question has not been
answered but I think that's the answer
[39:55] that you're going to get and so to keep
the flow moving this is a Parks project
[39:59] I I would like to just but the question
was to parks and I thought they had time
[40:03] to respond I didn't realize it was just
going to turn into it I would like to
[40:07] remind uh mayor Fuller can I make it
just a reminder just because the Hope
[40:11] here was tonight uh that we could get to
all top 15 questions and we're not going
[40:18] to be able to do that if we have back
and forth between questioners and I'm
[40:22] sorry to say that and I know that we
said that the question should just be
[40:26] read as submitted because that's what
people voted on so just to remind us I
[40:30] mean and also I think over 30 30 people
sign up for public comment so I if if we
[40:36] could just follow asking a question
allowing for a response so we can get
[40:39] through them appreciate that I just I
think people who submitted the questions
[40:43] and who are asking the questions myself
included do you want the question to be
[40:47] answered and I appreciate it
if you clap it takes up time
[40:54] um but I think that the in in pushing
back here our interest is to try to keep
[40:59] the answer focused on answering the
question not the sort of the
[41:05] the floor the Flora around it anyway
um but I understand that you're what
[41:11] you're saying is that it's a you said
this is a public project that's great I
[41:16] expect that all minutes and agenda for
those meetings to be available to the
[41:22] public
um
[41:25] I'm not at Liberty to say whether they
can be I I I I can tell you that we will
[41:32] let you know what happens we will you
know
[41:38] you know listen
[41:43] right I mean this this supposition that
we're doing something devious behind
[41:49] your back is really detrimental I think
we're not right we're not okay well
[41:55] first of all
we want answers we need to be okay
[42:00] courageous and let them respond so so
the important thing I would like to say
[42:05] is in terms of roles and
responsibilities between
[42:09] the public New York state parks and our
private partner here is essentially that
[42:15] New York State holds the real estate
will hold the real estate for the trail
[42:18] and that the Fjord Trail will operate
maintain repair and staff it
[42:25] right
that's the basic
[42:29] that's the basic responsibilities of the
two different parties okay and the
[42:34] decision making around the development
and the ideation and that goes into
[42:39] creating this Trail
where is that it who holds that so
[42:44] that's the next so so we are in the
process of doing a a generic
[42:49] environmental impact statement along the
whole Trail we are collecting ideas from
[42:56] experts from Park staff from many
different people I think we've all of
[43:03] the input that you've put into the
various meetings that the fjor trail has
[43:07] already have they're influencing that
what you will have the opportunity to
[43:12] review to comment to bicker with to do
whatever you want with that it doesn't
[43:17] move forward without public common
[43:23] and Stephanie also please thank you
Andrew Hall is up we're moving on to the
[43:27] next category I just wanted to follow up
with that I would say Richard as a
[43:32] member Richard we're moving on
still still a minute and a half agreed
[43:39] upon the minute it still has time I
really I appreciate that response I love
[43:43] that yeah
yeah
[43:45] um there's a minute 27 left and believe
me I'm only going to take about a minute
[43:49] okay if that's okay
[43:53] um yeah a lot of that time got taken up
in the in back and forth but anyway
[43:57] My Hope Is that as a member of the
Hudson Highlands Florida Trail board
[44:01] that it's a completely transparent
process that everything that comes out
[44:05] in a minute said I that meetings that I
attend is public
[44:08] it doesn't matter that you know we may
be uncomfortable or something like that
[44:12] I don't know why there would be any
discomfort these are all public
[44:15] transactions we want the input I am
there as a community representative that
[44:20] was my role in getting on the future
Trail board so I could be there in the
[44:25] room so it would be a public process I
don't believe that it needs to be you
[44:30] know closed to the public but
you can't have this sort of meeting
[44:34] every time you have a meeting you'd
never get anything done but the minute
[44:37] should be public I agree with that and
the process should be open
[44:42] people
[44:46] okay
okay so we're moving on to trail design
[44:50] and scale of project
um Andrew Hall is up first and then if
[44:53] we could have Ned Rausch on deck and
Kathy Carnevale on Deck uh and yes
[44:59] so to the point of transparency and
viable options
[45:03] it's understood there is a oh no that's
your question what viable alternatives
[45:08] to the proposed sport trial have been
proposed and evaluated including
[45:12] alternative alignments a no-build no
action options why are earlier
[45:18] iterations much smaller in scope impact
scale and cost to the taxpayer no longer
[45:25] under consideration what is the current
status of any of these and just so you
[45:31] know where I'm coming from that question
is pulled from the scoping document
[45:35] scoping document of which Parks is the
lead agency thank you
[45:41] so so why don't we have after you've
asked your question bunch of and let
[45:47] them respond to respond first please I'm
sorry the parks department to respond
[45:50] first please
what why we have so we have the
[45:55] information on the Alternatives analysis
so this is done is was done as part of
[46:00] the 2015 plan and some of you may have
participated in this and we looked at
[46:04] all of the different segments shown here
in the rainbow kind of display and just
[46:10] segment for Segment what are the
different ways that you could make that
[46:13] connection those were all evaluated they
were taken out to the public the public
[46:18] weighed in on the preferences this shows
the slide from an online survey which we
[46:24] had really as a culmination of multiple
workshops that went into the design and
[46:28] we got input from respondents so 464
people in this specific point of
[46:34] interaction
and really what that showed is that the
[46:37] preferred alignment that was in the 2015
plan which hasn't really changed very
[46:42] significantly was preferred strongly by
the community the red is no and that's
[46:46] like two to three percent on any one
segment so then the neutral is the pale
[46:51] and strongly like is is in the dark
green so including the little Stony
[46:57] Point to Breakneck Ridge Shoreline Trail
and the Metro North Whistle Stop at
[47:03] dungeon
Duchess Junction Park was the part that
[47:07] went up the hill as you go past hartsook
Lane and this was the least liked one
[47:12] back then because it was really just
seen as functional but not desirable
[47:17] so when we went back to the 2020 plan
which in part was asked by the community
[47:24] really strongly at the last the kickoff
to the environmental review process
[47:28] people came out in force to say we live
on Fair Street we feel this is too
[47:33] impactful to us to have all of these
people marching down our houses we don't
[47:37] feel safe with our kids outside riding
bikes people throw garbage on my front
[47:41] lawn please
hold on not everybody so but
[47:47] a lot of people showed up and so we had
the asked mate of us to look at other
[47:53] routes and then mayor mirandy went out
and did some surveys of the communities
[47:58] to say along the Fair Street Route how
are people feeling along you know in
[48:03] this area of the village how are people
feeling about current traffic how would
[48:07] they feel about additional traffic and
so that helped inform Alternatives
[48:11] analysis we looked at all of these roots
so this is the preferred alignment we
[48:15] said what if we go this way what if we
go behind the depot what if we go down
[48:19] fair and all the way up to 90. so all of
those were looked at and evaluated for
[48:24] how they would allow for people to make
this connection again Ada Can it have
[48:29] bikes is it going to overly impact Main
Street how many residents are impacted
[48:34] there's a lot of factors that we looked
at
[48:37] um and they're all listed here so
accessibility so this was thoroughly
[48:41] analyzed that will be contained in the
with the other Alternatives and the
[48:45] whole Alternatives analysis is part of
the environmental review as you said so
[48:49] that'll all be in the G dgeis when it is
made available for public comment but so
[48:54] short answer is yes most of which you've
seen in great detail in Prior iterations
[48:59] of planning and additional content is
going to be available for your review
[49:05] do we have Ned
[49:08] so sorry since we still have six minutes
I can't see that void go unused
[49:14] no I
[49:17] I say just say you
no final decisions have been made
[49:22] preferred routes proposed Trails just
keep that in mind that this is still an
[49:27] ongoing process and you have input
yeah okay now Ned
[49:42] good evening everybody thank you for uh
for having this meeting it's nice to see
[49:48] everybody brought everybody together
um
[49:51] so the trail between uh Beacon and Cold
Spring and Beacon is a great idea but
[49:56] the add-ons and by which I mean things
like the amphitheater and as far as Nets
[50:00] and things like that uh we'll change the
character of the area The Fjord Trail
[50:04] claims to celebrate why must we accept
the add-ons along with the trail thank
[50:10] you
[Applause]
[50:17] so just so that everyone's on the same
page let's just look at that so what
[50:20] happened between 2015 when it was just a
trail
[50:24] and the 2020 master plan
um so it's still a trail
[50:29] it's still for bikes and Peds
it's still connecting Cold Spring and
[50:34] Beacon and connecting people to the
hiking destinations that are already a
[50:38] draw on 90.
we do have visitor orientation that was
[50:43] in the last iteration and wayfinding and
signage was as well
[50:47] so what are these additions or add-ons
well one is bathrooms and garbage bins
[50:54] as much as it might seem surprising that
really wasn't thought through like how
[50:59] is that going to happen and who's going
to manage and pay for all of them
[51:02] um so it does have now an entity hhft to
staff and operate the trail maintain it
[51:08] um and that would be a non-profit funded
thing knots coming from tax dollars and
[51:13] then that staff's also available to help
manage people on the ground and help
[51:17] with rescues
um will have managed parking including
[51:22] new parking at Duchess Manor which would
serve as sort of a main entry of our
[51:27] Visitor Center and staff offices
we have spots to rest and explore now
[51:33] before it was just a straight shot but
now you do have little spots where you
[51:36] could stop and that helps as an
accessibility piece because some people
[51:40] might not you know be in a wheelchair
but they might need to stop and pause
[51:44] every
set distance and so this is sort of
[51:48] something that helps augment that
we also thought again about
[51:53] accommodating existing uses so we we had
listening sessions focus groups and and
[51:59] saw what are the management challenges
on a place like little Stony Point now
[52:02] so any of the red dots were challenges
that Park staff are currently having
[52:07] managing things and a lot of that is
here because it's swimming right
[52:10] swimming is illegal there's picnicking
that's illegal there's garbage so how do
[52:14] we kind of manage the space and when we
think about what happens there what
[52:18] needs to be done to make those safe
those uses safer or to better control
[52:25] them and one idea there is that there
could be an outdoor classroom it had
[52:30] been an Amphitheater in sort of
discussion
[52:33] based on community input we've already
scaled that down just to an outdoor
[52:37] classroom and so that's a good example
of how this is still up for discussion
[52:42] and conversation and we want to we need
to have the input
[52:46] um
and then responding to local Recreation
[52:49] needs so plague spaces that aren't
organized fields or taught lots for
[52:54] small children came up as a recreation
need of the community so we thought
[52:58] about where we might put that in and
this again was posters we had at maple
[53:02] syrup day not this year the year before
and we got input from people all sorts
[53:07] of dots about what people wanted to see
there as activity spaces and so that
[53:13] factored into what we put on the page
right so this is always an iterative
[53:17] process so Stephanie you asked about
meeting minutes sometimes that's hard
[53:20] because it's these sorts of things but
we do put those posters out when we have
[53:25] public sessions like we've had in the
last month those meeting summaries are
[53:29] made available on our website and so it
has all of the input we receive plus
[53:33] sort of a digested summary and what our
takeaways are from what we're hearing
[53:37] and then the next time we come out with
something it should be showing that
[53:41] input on the ground
[53:44] um we're strategically drawing people
away from Cold Spring and that's just
[53:48] part of that visitation management piece
so having that major Gateway for this to
[53:53] be Duchess Manor having things like
maybe Forest Nets we can talk about it
[53:59] um or it could be a canopy walk the idea
there is that you're creating something
[54:03] in a completely defunct unused park
space it was an old Duchess Junction
[54:08] Park
that still has a driveway down to it and
[54:12] some old play equipment and could we put
something there and since you're in the
[54:15] forest what would you put in the forest
is like so the part of what we want to
[54:19] do with this is have it be sort of an
immersive experience maybe an education
[54:23] experience to teach people about a
forest ecosystem so that would be the
[54:27] idea it's not sort of a large trampoline
but
[54:31] um
again we're always looking for input so
[54:35] get involved stay involved we just
started a new series of walk-in talks
[54:40] where we look at one little part of the
project area and talk about what's
[54:43] playing there and get input so those
will happen monthly on every second
[54:47] Saturday
we have committees and working groups
[54:51] that will be formulating we'll have a
community day on January 22nd
[54:56] we put out a monthly meeting and I'm
going to start a new thing I think it
[55:00] seems that questions and answers and
just being able to have dialogue and not
[55:04] Everyone likes to get up to the mic and
so we always try to do different types
[55:07] of Engagement things small groups big
groups
[55:11] um you know open houses where it's a
little free form or major listening
[55:15] sessions like this we've kind of done
all of this through the could you could
[55:18] you just 10 years that we've been going
through quite annoying so if we have so
[55:24] if we're gonna you know keep doing all
that but if people want to just come and
[55:28] ask questions in a smaller setting that
feels a little more comfortable I want
[55:32] to offer that too so we're going to
start a monthly open house hopefully at
[55:37] the watch and then we'll just you know
be there and you can drop in spend as
[55:42] much time ask whatever questions that
you have so we'll be publicizing that
[55:46] and how you'll be able to put that on
your calendar and come talk with us
[55:52] okay have you finished answering the
question
[55:56] um just just for clarity I think that
when the question was being asked about
[55:59] minutes I think it was a reference to
steering committee and other sessions I
[56:04] think Richards made a commitment tonight
that
[56:07] um minutes of meetings like that will be
available going forward
[56:14] okay uh do we have Kathy Carnevale in
the room
[56:18] she's not here so I guess I'm reading
for her
[56:21] okay it's a very cold spring question
given the concerns about 600 000
[56:25] visitors using the Fjord Trail and
potentially swamping the tiny Cold
[56:29] Spring Village on weekends is possible
to have the duchess Manor site be
[56:33] promoted from the outset as the focal
point slash centerpiece for hhft
[56:37] visitors particularly those coming by
car the central point would have Trail
[56:42] info food tons of parking and be the
designated starting point for trail
[56:46] access
all Trail Guide brochures advertising
[56:49] and other marketing information would
direct visitors to the central point
[56:52] noting that other Trail access points
may be available
[56:56] surely some will still come by train to
the Cold Spring Beacon and Breakneck
[57:00] stations and others drive and park at
other areas along the trail but having
[57:04] the focus on this mid-trail site should
cause less stress on Cold Spring Village
[57:08] resources and residents
[57:15] [Applause]
agreed so
[57:19] we have six entries to the park
um and in the in the plan right so one
[57:25] is Beacon train station and long dock
Park
[57:27] Notch Trailhead which is that area that
Duchess Junction Park area which has
[57:32] planned parking Duchess Manor and
Visitor Center and Breakneck train
[57:36] station and the parking that would be
there less parking than there is now but
[57:40] there would be parking there all of
that's in Dutchess County when you get
[57:44] to Putnam County it's the Washburn
Trailhead that's there and Cold Spring
[57:49] train station no we're never going to be
saying go park in Cold Spring we didn't
[57:53] include it in our parking and shuttle
study when we have directions for people
[57:57] it's not going to say go to Cold Spring
to park right so
[58:02] that is the plan and so six entries and
we certainly want to make sure when the
[58:07] first phase opens which is that those
improvements at Breakneck we would like
[58:11] Duchess Manor to open at the same time
so that's part of this phase one
[58:16] um so that that Visitor Center when that
all opens we want people to get used to
[58:21] that behavior like go to Dutchess Manor
if you couldn't find parking at
[58:25] Breakneck go up the hill and park at
Duchess Manor and take the shuttle down
[58:29] so the shuttle would be up and running
the visitor center would be there and
[58:33] then we start that whole behavior of
people knowing this when I'm going to
[58:36] the space I'm hopping into the middle
and I can go up to the duchess Manor and
[58:41] in the long term you know we've started
to think about what we do there this is
[58:45] the site it's pretty big it was a big
facility
[58:48] and so we're thinking this is going to
be our offices for staff so we're really
[58:52] local and we have a presence here we'll
have connections down this very sleep
[58:57] Steep Hill to the the main trail that
will run down behind it um we'll have
[59:03] the shuttle stop there parking there and
then in the future a visitor center with
[59:08] potentially a cafe so then if you're at
Breakneck you want to get something to
[59:12] eat this is another option so again
changing the options and the behavior on
[59:16] the ground with these little moves that
we could do
[59:20] um and just just to show I like this is
my favorite diagram so the the building
[59:24] was added onto over the ages just to
just to demonstrate we've started to
[59:28] think about this building the age of the
building and what we might do as a
[59:31] restoration of the
um historic structure
[59:35] and that'll be coming along soon because
that has to catch up
[59:42] are you finished
[59:45] thank you
[59:48] all right our next section is data
studies
[59:52] data studies reporting and project
process
[59:56] David Duffy is not here to give the
question so I will read it the Fjord
[1:00:01] Trail will have a big impact but we have
no idea no data on what this impact
[1:00:06] social environmental economic will look
like
[1:00:10] where are the studies that typically
accompany projects of this large scale
[1:00:13] can we expect to see such analyzes
so we can have a fact-based debate
[1:00:20] so I'm going to answer that one and that
is exactly what all of the Consultants
[1:00:26] have been hired to do so we are in the
process of gathering or we collectively
[1:00:32] the project is in the process of of
gathering a lot of environmental review
[1:00:36] data and that is what is studied in the
draft generic environmental impact
[1:00:41] statement and when it was set out in
2015 with the scope initial scoping
[1:00:48] document these things are in the scoping
the full scoping document is online both
[1:00:53] on Park's website and on Hudson
Highlands if your trail website so you
[1:00:57] can you can read it but just generally
it goes into what how what are impacts
[1:01:02] of the land what what land use exists
what land you should propose what's
[1:01:07] there what kind of geology what is the
topography what what what kind of soil
[1:01:11] so whatever you're going to do what is
the impact for that kind of soil if you
[1:01:16] what watershed is it in how does storm
water react where do we have washouts
[1:01:20] what happens when there are storms what
happens with Wastewater and and sanitary
[1:01:25] water and well water or public water
should you need it what are the
[1:01:30] biological resources in the area what
kind of floor what kind of fauna where
[1:01:34] do you you know what are the birds how
do we look at them and especially what
[1:01:39] are the rare and threatened endangered
species we look at the historic and
[1:01:43] archaeological resources and when I say
we again we have we Hudson Highlands
[1:01:49] Fjord has using
private dollars hired outside
[1:01:54] Consultants that are putting together a
generic environmental impact statement
[1:01:58] there has been hudsonia has been brought
on to do Baseline studies on a lot of
[1:02:03] the Hudson River material there have
been many many different uh
[1:02:08] Consultants that have been involved
Creighton Manning and Stedman Consulting
[1:02:11] are in doing Transit they're all of
these people are extraordinarily well
[1:02:15] regarded in their fields so they are
helping to to bring that data back to us
[1:02:21] to be in the analysis that will be part
of the environmental statement
[1:02:25] in any Eis the environmental impact
statement you look at Community
[1:02:29] attributes and I know that's a
tremendous concern you wouldn't be in
[1:02:33] this room if that didn't concern you the
most what is the recreational open space
[1:02:38] for the area what is the growth and
impact on community character and I
[1:02:43] think that is really what drives a lot
of the emotional
[1:02:47] response to the project what are the
socioeconomic factors that that are that
[1:02:53] either Drive the project or that the
project will drive and traffic and
[1:02:57] transportation of course near and dear
in any Community these days especially
[1:03:02] with small single single Road systems
where 301 Main Street 90 Define
[1:03:09] everything that happens Fair Street
Define what happens in this community so
[1:03:14] there's a look with both a Transit
consultant a parking consultant somebody
[1:03:18] that actually really knows and focuses
about how do you make a shuttle system
[1:03:22] viable what did you do how would you
make a parking system viable can you can
[1:03:26] you charge for it can you make
reservations how do you do that and that
[1:03:31] coupled with the Villages of Cold
Springs parking study and the move
[1:03:35] towards some form of pay and display or
some form of of time to parking within
[1:03:40] the village probably probably identifies
a solution to some of the parking issues
[1:03:46] just over the years just a small aside
from the Eis over the years we've state
[1:03:51] parks has been working with the dot that
therefore you see a lot of no parking
[1:03:56] signs that never used to be there and
many others
[1:04:00] there was a while where people were
parking diagonally and we put in
[1:04:05] parallel parking only and people would
get tickets and they'd go why did I get
[1:04:09] a ticket and we'd say because it was
parallel parking only and they say but
[1:04:11] I'm parallel to the car next to me no
it's you know you need to we're trying
[1:04:16] to teach new habits so we want to get
traffic calming we want to be able to
[1:04:21] get so that you know you've got a 40
mile below the tunnel we want 40 miles
[1:04:25] above the tunnel we want to be able to
do that and we can't do that without
[1:04:29] traffic calming so some of those are
under study and as we look at that we're
[1:04:34] going to also look at visitor management
that was on the slide before it before
[1:04:38] it before okay visitor management
visitor projections what is the impact
[1:04:44] of construction how does some of this
happen to some of it come from the water
[1:04:47] does it come from the roadway what
happens what are the impacts if there
[1:04:51] when and if there is construction all of
those things are are looked at tonight
[1:04:56] when I was driving down 90 Saturday was
when I was in the village and I'm
[1:05:00] driving 90 and there was there was a
young a young mom and her kid exhausted
[1:05:06] having hiked and just basically just
stopped on the side of the road and
[1:05:10] you're just you're worried that
somebody's going to hit them between
[1:05:13] between Stony Point and the tunnel we're
hoping to address some of those safety
[1:05:18] issues and get people off of 90. that is
a very much a Thrust of what we are
[1:05:22] trying to do here
[1:05:27] Linda Linda next one infrastructure
infrastructure infrastructure
[1:05:33] infrastructure the water supply the
electricity the lighting the roads and
[1:05:36] bridges we heard you we did already ask
the village a number of years ago when
[1:05:40] memorandi was in office
um whether or not we could Connect into
[1:05:43] public water in public so we're in this
is even predates uh a lot of the fewer
[1:05:48] discussion and we were told even at that
time the sanitary sewer was probably
[1:05:52] fine that the water might be a a well
situation and not a public water
[1:05:56] situation that's what that's what
fact-finding does you start to
[1:06:00] understand what it what is possible and
what isn't possible emergency and public
[1:06:04] services we've talked with supervisor
Van Tassel over many many times over how
[1:06:09] can we support the local fire
departments how can we make sure that we
[1:06:13] can can do a good job and I will tell
you over the
[1:06:16] um 12 or so years that I've been
involved in state parks the number of
[1:06:19] rescues has gone down we have done
better blazing our park manager Evan
[1:06:24] Thompson is in the audience though he
really doesn't want anybody to know it
[1:06:34] and Evan On Any Given night or weekend
could be out climbing with staff doing
[1:06:39] rescues he more than you wants to reduce
the number of people who are lost and
[1:06:45] who who lose their way on the Trails um
and so we we spend we have tremendous
[1:06:51] respect for the police and fire and
ambulance and emergency rescue and want
[1:06:56] to ensure both our Patron safety and any
Rescuers safe we we really don't what
[1:07:01] happens by the way most of our rescues
you should know are not because people
[1:07:05] they're people who for the most part who
go out late
[1:07:09] don't realize how long it takes and then
decide to cut straight down the mountain
[1:07:13] instead of following a trail so then
what happens when you go straight down
[1:07:17] one of our one of our mountains around
here you hit a cliff and when you hit a
[1:07:22] cliff you go holy moly I can't get down
and so then you call for help nobody
[1:07:28] wants to be out rescuing somebody who's
in a place where they can't get out of
[1:07:32] and you can't get into so the ninham
trail was built to help address that so
[1:07:38] people can get down easier people we can
talk people on their GPS's out onto
[1:07:42] Trails we're doing that now we'll
continue to do that but that is being
[1:07:46] assessed in the deis can you move on for
a second so the dgis was will be will
[1:07:52] not be ready now this has been a point
that people have had a difficulty
[1:07:55] understanding this document started in
2015.
[1:08:00] it's been updated as the project has
changed so the project has changed it
[1:08:05] has to get more information it will not
be ready by current projections till
[1:08:09] January 2024. I haven't read it you
haven't read it the Mayors haven't read
[1:08:15] it we will all have an opportunity to
read it we will probably we will have a
[1:08:19] public hearing probably in if it's out
in January probably in February could be
[1:08:23] March depending on the Snows of this
year who knows but you would you would
[1:08:27] then have an opportunity to see what's
in the document and then there are
[1:08:32] months
of getting your comments and going back
[1:08:36] and figuring out what what what doesn't
work what does work how does this work
[1:08:40] it's weighing it and then it answers to
those questions that come in the final
[1:08:44] environmental impact statement it's an
iterative process it is not a one and
[1:08:48] done process it's a process that is very
publicly engaged and we want your input
[1:08:54] but we also need your patience because
it's not here today so what we're doing
[1:08:59] today is information gathering and
getting your ideas because it is my com
[1:09:05] My Hope and and and my passion that we
all collectively that the many bright
[1:09:12] people in this in these Villages and
town can come up with a way to take our
[1:09:18] Park and this community these
communities and make an amazing
[1:09:26] publicly accessible trail that works for
all both the visitors and and the
[1:09:32] communities
[1:09:39] and I'll and I'll just add there's a lot
of questions on traffic and when are we
[1:09:44] taking traffic counts and that's
actually one of the things that's going
[1:09:46] to take a while right because we can't
count things that aren't there so we
[1:09:50] have to wait until we go through the
season find different points through the
[1:09:54] season to take those counts so we did
take counts last fall but we wanted to
[1:09:58] get a whole year of data to be able to
inform the updates on those traffic
[1:10:02] projections
[1:10:06] oh in the meantime though so
am I out of time sorry
[1:10:14] uh the next group of questions are
involve increase in visitors the first
[1:10:19] question is from Dave mirandy and I I
believe I'll read it Dave
[1:10:24] how can hhft in New York State Office of
Parks and Recreation claim they are
[1:10:29] solving
the village of Cold Springs tourist
[1:10:32] problems when they are creating a major
tourist attraction that will bring
[1:10:36] thousands more visitors to the Village
of Cold Spring
[1:10:40] [Applause]
[1:10:48] how did I get this question is this
thing is this on still no there we go
[1:10:54] um yeah how did I get this question
um
[1:10:57] the Peoria Trail's not built yet and
there are issues in the village
[1:11:03] um that can't be ignored so there's a
cost to doing nothing there's a price to
[1:11:08] doing nothing
the issues need to be addressed in some
[1:11:11] form and that's what these forums are
about you know that's what this process
[1:11:16] is about
how will this project take shape will
[1:11:20] the project take shape because I you
hear from a lot of people well this
[1:11:24] seems like a fate accomplishing nobody's
listening to us that's not true
[1:11:27] this project isn't done as you can see
by the studies that are happening or the
[1:11:32] death of commitment from New York state
from all the involved agencies people
[1:11:36] realize that this is bound to bring more
people
[1:11:40] the goal would be to disperse people to
disperse more people than actually come
[1:11:44] to get them out on the trail
and it is understood that this is bound
[1:11:49] to be a popular attraction these things
tend to have a peak when the walkway of
[1:11:55] the Hudson first opened the first year
there was huge visitorship since then it
[1:12:00] has steadily declined and leveled off
I'm there every weekend John is there
[1:12:04] every weekend
Saturdays you can ride across that
[1:12:07] bridge and you may see 100 200 people
when they have events there's more but
[1:12:12] that is also at the discretion of the
communities that these events will you
[1:12:16] know impact so if Cole spring doesn't
want to have events they don't have to
[1:12:21] have events we've heard a lot about
concessions and things like that well
[1:12:24] this is going to be like Bryant Park or
Prospect Park that's up to the Village
[1:12:28] of Cold Spring nothing is going to
happen without a decision from the
[1:12:32] village of Cold Spring nothing's going
to be foisted upon the village the
[1:12:36] village is in control of the village so
it's not as if state parks or Hudson
[1:12:40] Highland Fjord Trail is going to come in
and say hey we decide to have a concert
[1:12:43] down at Dockside this weekend that's not
going to happen nothing's going to
[1:12:46] happen without discussions with the
village because the village is the
[1:12:50] authority
so people should be more comfortable
[1:12:53] with knowing that these things that are
being thrown about as if they were
[1:12:57] afraid of complete they're not they're
not at all and I'm not denying the fact
[1:13:01] that this may cause more people to build
to visit the area but the idea of doing
[1:13:06] nothing the cost of doing nothing when
you look at the things that happen to
[1:13:10] bull hill before the new trails went in
before they started wayfinding before
[1:13:15] they had directing people to keep them
on hardened paths you had a path that
[1:13:19] was 100 feet wide the mountain was being
destroyed the same thing with Breakneck
[1:13:23] the front of the mount was being eroded
the degradation was happening all over
[1:13:26] because it was just a free-for-all
that's not tolerable and you have people
[1:13:30] going around tagging when you have
people spray painting they were
[1:13:33] spray-painted rocks you could see from
across the river you need management at
[1:13:37] these places people need to be directed
and people need to take a sense of
[1:13:41] ownership when they're out there and
just saying if you see something like
[1:13:44] this and look this is not appropriate
this is crazy you can't go around spray
[1:13:48] painting rocks the size of cars it's
ridiculous
[1:13:52] um so I mean this sense of ownership is
what needs to happen and I again I
[1:13:57] understand
there is bound to be a spike in
[1:14:00] visitorship getting people out on a 7.2
Mile Trail is the goal of that and you
[1:14:06] talk about okay 600 000 people there's
already 480 000 people a year visiting
[1:14:11] this corridor
so that's a baseline number they're
[1:14:14] talking about 120 000 additional
visitors over the course of a year not
[1:14:19] over the course of a day or a month is
over the course of a year if you can
[1:14:22] spread these visitors out from Cold
Spring to Beacon
[1:14:26] the hope is and the studies will
hopefully bear this out that you will
[1:14:31] have a much more positive experience
that the village will see fewer people
[1:14:35] clogging the streets or clogging the
sidewalks that you can spread them out
[1:14:40] sorry
[1:14:44] sorry so we understand the anxiety of
even hearing it it's just a hundred and
[1:14:50] you know more it's it's it's it's a big
number but the number is not six new
[1:14:55] though I think that's important for
people to understand it's you already
[1:14:58] have 480 so it would there be some more
um and we are saying we're going to
[1:15:04] spread those out some of those people
are arriving from Beacon or from the
[1:15:07] north right it's not all coming through
Cold Spring which I think is commonly
[1:15:11] thought of because that's kind of the
existing Behavior now right
[1:15:15] um so what we're starting now and this
is the slide I'll go back to we start
[1:15:20] we're starting a visitation management
Consultants work on this so that's one
[1:15:24] of the refinements I talked about
earlier on the master plan we want to be
[1:15:28] able to have some experts who've been
doing this for 30 years each come in and
[1:15:32] say okay sounds nice on paper Amy but is
it really going to work when you start
[1:15:36] to look at a model build it into a model
see how this is going to work with the
[1:15:41] expectations of the projections put them
across the six entries and then we talk
[1:15:46] about controls right so right now anyone
can hike Breakneck anytime do we think
[1:15:51] about things like reservation systems or
things that can limit the numbers so
[1:15:56] you're getting a limitation above what
you have right now so it's not just a
[1:16:00] free-for-all like let's see as many
people as we can get here what you want
[1:16:04] to do is manage for a desired condition
so I want more people over here because
[1:16:09] it's quiet and Beacon is okay with more
people they want less people like how do
[1:16:13] we make that happen with attractions
with demand pricing whatever these guys
[1:16:18] list like so many tools and we haven't
even really started working yet but
[1:16:21] that's going to be a big important
Community conversation to have is to
[1:16:25] think about what do you want your
experience to be in the downtown what do
[1:16:29] you want experience to be at Little
Stony Point is there too much program
[1:16:34] there do we have to think about scaling
things down maybe something needs to
[1:16:37] move to another location this is where
we get to kind of move all of those
[1:16:41] levers to see if that's going to perform
the way we're saying it's not like we're
[1:16:45] just walking in here saying trust us we
got this right like we do want to kick
[1:16:49] the tires on this and we want you to
help us kick those tires so that's going
[1:16:53] to be a process there'll be a local
committee we want to really look at the
[1:16:57] projection assumptions to look at the
traffic counts we're going to allow like
[1:17:02] when we form from that committee we're
going to give them a stipend to hire
[1:17:05] their own consultant so that they can
have them review the traffic study or
[1:17:10] you know methodology and everything so
that you guys have full confidence when
[1:17:13] the data comes back that it's not
something like I understand
[1:17:18] that people are thinking like we're
paying our Consultants to say what we
[1:17:22] want them to say so
we're not but I understand you feel that
[1:17:28] you that's a possibility or risk to you
so we're willing to put that extra layer
[1:17:33] of um insulation or whatever insurance
on it for you and then more public
[1:17:38] meetings that we hope people engage in
and so that's you know we really need to
[1:17:42] get into those tools and um
infrastructures so that we can get to
[1:17:47] the right point
and I think
[1:17:51] I think
that the point needs to be stressed the
[1:17:55] local committee
people from this room with the authority
[1:18:00] and then also a stipend for their own
consultant who will independently verify
[1:18:05] the results of the studies even though
it goes through the Seeker process which
[1:18:10] is you know State and quality
Environmental Quality review act that is
[1:18:13] a law
that the state has to adhere to and that
[1:18:16] this whole project has to adhere to so
on top of that a local committee with
[1:18:21] resources to hire an independent monitor
for that
[1:18:26] um
could I say thank you to that this is
[1:18:30] something that the village has been
asking for and we're very pleased to
[1:18:33] hear that it's the first that we're
hearing it tonight so thank you for that
[1:18:37] um it would be good to have
clarification on how those how that
[1:18:40] committee is selected at some point
next up uh Michael Bowman
[1:18:47] go back two or three slides because
there was a an important point up there
[1:18:50] that you're Gathering is it your
question can you address your question
[1:18:53] Michael just real quick though you're
gathering information this year but you
[1:18:56] have the Breakneck Trail closed so how
is that information accurate
[1:19:00] Breakneck will
Breakneck will be reopening in July 1.
[1:19:05] all right so all these studies will be
done after the after the trail reopens
[1:19:09] okay thank you uh what is the projected
increase in visitation to Hudson
[1:19:14] Highlands State Park the Breakneck
Trailhead the village of Cold Spring and
[1:19:18] what methodology was used to arrive at
these projections specifically what time
[1:19:22] of year was the traffic data gathered
and what other projects parks and
[1:19:26] attractions were used as comparables
[1:19:35] so I think we've covered a lot of this
um
[1:19:41] I'm just starting the
we've we've covered a lot of this in
[1:19:47] different pieces but let's go through it
again so projected increases in
[1:19:52] visitation
um so this is current this is without
[1:19:56] fjord
and this is what Richard says when he
[1:19:59] says there's a cost to not doing nothing
there's not you know a no action
[1:20:03] alternative is not meaning that this
projected growth is not going right so
[1:20:08] this has been the trend line with real
data that's been coming in and then this
[1:20:13] is you know
where the future based on that trend
[1:20:16] line what the future would mean in terms
of it going up up up up
[1:20:21] so
that's sort of the the crisis moment
[1:20:25] that we're looking at trying to get
ahead of and this infrastructure
[1:20:28] projects are very slow to move
um but you know this trend has been
[1:20:34] going up I started and I'll just say
in 2016 is when I had that public
[1:20:40] hearing for the start of the
environmental review and it was at that
[1:20:44] meeting that everyone said in the last
year from 2015 to 2016.
[1:20:49] it's gotten too much we feel like we hit
a Tipping Point with what I was hearing
[1:20:52] and that was that's here down here
versus where we are today right so it's
[1:20:58] going up and that's part of the so
that's the answer to the projected
[1:21:03] growth to Hudson Holland State Park
preserve Breakneck we have similar data
[1:21:08] about which we've shared at different
times I didn't bring that graph with us
[1:21:13] today but it's been going up it went
down a little bit because of bad weather
[1:21:16] one year you know it's starting to
moderate a little bit post-covered
[1:21:21] because people are back to not you know
doing other things they don't always
[1:21:25] have to be outside
um
[1:21:28] and so this has been off-cited but what
we have is you know some additional
[1:21:34] visitation on top of what's already
coming
[1:21:37] to the Hudson Highland state park
preserve that would result we expect as
[1:21:41] as a result of the project and again
some of that's in Beacon it's never
[1:21:45] coming this way right but there would be
some extra visitation on top of your
[1:21:51] already growth however I think it's
interesting to think about how we might
[1:21:55] be able to reduce or control some of
those Peaks and valleys of through the
[1:22:00] year you get these mat weekends where
you get people hiking Breakneck it's
[1:22:04] over you know around 2000 it can max out
at so if we had a reservation system
[1:22:09] that could control that number down it
might actually helps move that out a
[1:22:13] little bit and reduce a total number
from a hiking perspective so a care so
[1:22:18] we've looked at that that's all data now
so I hate saying that because it's like
[1:22:22] it's old data and I really want I've
been pressing a caref to really review
[1:22:27] the projection so they're updating that
projection right now and that's what
[1:22:31] that committee is going to review and
make sure they agree with the
[1:22:34] methodology and they'll kick the tires
on the number before we take it back out
[1:22:39] to the public so it's worth talking
about but it's being updated so it kind
[1:22:43] of makes me squirm
um
[1:22:46] and then the visitation management
Consultants like I said will take that
[1:22:49] and apply that across and do this whole
model so we'll look at that as part of
[1:22:54] the projections in terms of where we
expect those people to go so there's a
[1:22:58] whole number but it's not expected that
all of those people are coming through
[1:23:02] Cold Spring so where are they going and
what are the assumptions that make us
[1:23:07] think they're going to go to Beacon
instead right so we want to we want to
[1:23:10] be able to talk that through
[1:23:15] you good
okay
[1:23:20] well we already talked about the traffic
data that we're Gathering through the
[1:23:25] air
and parks and comps that's going to
[1:23:28] matter more for the visitation
management techniques we might try then
[1:23:34] I think the projections right so it can
New York state parks talk about your
[1:23:39] Park
because you're gonna
[1:23:44] is this
[1:23:47] one what Amy said is correct I don't
think it's on
[1:23:52] because I don't hear it do you hit it in
the back
[1:23:56] no
huh
[1:24:00] it's green go closer
[1:24:04] anyway
it just went on I have no idea what
[1:24:09] happened anyway what Amy said is
accurate and if you're just looking for
[1:24:13] some comparables just because walkway
was up there as as a comparable walkway
[1:24:17] when the walkway opened that everybody
sees the iconic picture of the first day
[1:24:21] when Pete Seeger was up there and they
opened the walkway in I don't know 5 000
[1:24:25] people came out and they jammed full of
people you never saw that ever again we
[1:24:29] have averaged between 500 and the max
we've ever had is 700 000 we're really
[1:24:34] around 500 to 600 000 a year they're two
fairly small parking lots flanking it
[1:24:40] and there's always a space
it's never crowded the City of
[1:24:45] Poughkeepsie has benefited restaurants
stores places to be and Tom Hyland town
[1:24:52] of Lloyd's a village of Highlands
it just has not been the the monster
[1:24:58] that that this is portrayed to so
same thing with the Empire State trail
[1:25:03] 750 miles of Trail going from New York
City to Buffalo and going up to the
[1:25:08] through the Northway the rail trails are
going and connecting and they're
[1:25:11] connecting all over and I don't know
about you but I love to get on a rail
[1:25:15] trail point a stop and have lunch in
point B then ride back do something and
[1:25:21] it's and you don't usually see crowds
and crowds of people what you see are
[1:25:25] lots of people if you look at the
statistics it's going to be in the
[1:25:28] millions but they're spread out all over
the length of the trails and that's in
[1:25:34] all of the years when I've gone through
many hearings over putting in new
[1:25:38] large-scale projects especially rail
Trails all the a lot of the people would
[1:25:43] say no no we don't want them we don't
want
[1:25:47] those people on that trail we don't want
other people coming and those people is
[1:25:52] anybody that wasn't in their Community
you know we don't want anybody I'm just
[1:25:57] saying I've been through a lot of
hearings and and inevitably when those
[1:26:02] trails are built and some get built and
some don't but when those trails are
[1:26:07] built you do find because I heard some
laughter earlier when the statement you
[1:26:11] do find local people use them through
people use them visitors from out of
[1:26:15] state and visitors from out of the
country just as if you're walking them
[1:26:18] out Taurus you will find people of every
nationality because people do take the
[1:26:23] train up here when they go to the city
to visit and they come up and they walk
[1:26:26] through and go and walk but so do locals
so do I so do you so do people from the
[1:26:31] from the local catchment area and and I
think that that's just what I urge you
[1:26:35] to to think about in terms of
comparables we would not be proposing a
[1:26:40] project that we thought would be
damaging to the communities in which we
[1:26:46] exist what we hope is that we can all as
I said earlier put our minds to figuring
[1:26:52] out what do we need to have as
safeguards what do we need to do in the
[1:26:57] planning process and how do we
appropriately assess the information
[1:27:01] that comes in to be able to make a
reasonable decision and that's that's
[1:27:07] where we are yeah and I think also this
we had it up earlier but the phasing
[1:27:12] this project isn't going to be built in
a year even right just break net
[1:27:18] improvements at Breakneck are going to
take two years to build and then there
[1:27:22] will be another phase so it's not like a
walkway where it all opened one day it
[1:27:26] was not open and then it's open this is
going to be improvements here and then a
[1:27:31] couple years later some more
improvements so you get this kind of
[1:27:35] incremental so there shouldn't be that
big opening day moment that for 7.5
[1:27:40] miles and all the attraction that might
get it'll sort of become like oh we're
[1:27:45] opening a new Wing you know it's just a
different type sort of pacing and we
[1:27:49] have some control and discretion I think
that's an important conversation to have
[1:27:52] too is sort of what's the strategy on
the phasing what should we open first to
[1:27:58] kind of Olay concerns or trying to test
things out in a way to make sure that
[1:28:03] again it's behaving the way we want it
to
[1:28:08] okay Mr May is uh coming up and the
topic is parking transportation and
[1:28:14] pedestrian safety
I guess one of the comments begged my
[1:28:18] question because she talked about the
Poughkeepsie Bridge and there's there's
[1:28:22] access from all different directions and
all different sides to the Poughkeepsie
[1:28:26] Bridge and and these other these other
kind of trails
[1:28:30] the Hudson Highland Fjord uh Trail
trust predicts an increase of hundreds
[1:28:36] of thousands of visitors annually with
upwards of 66 percent arriving by
[1:28:41] vehicle
that's at the firehouse
[1:28:43] all vehicles arriving from the south and
the East must pass through the traffic
[1:28:49] light at the intersection of routes 9d
and 301 in the village
[1:28:55] this does include cars heading to
parking lots between Cold Spring and
[1:28:58] Beacon
will the
[1:29:01] dgeis
address this increase in traffic
[1:29:06] specifically how will the obviously
adverse impacts impacts be mitigated
[1:29:11] pursuant to section
617.9 of New York codes rules and
[1:29:16] regulations governing the State
Environmental Quality review
[1:29:22] between a rock and a hard place in Cold
Spring
[1:29:27] I got it so part 617 is the regulations
that implement the Seeker regulations
[1:29:33] the State Environmental Quality review
act that is what the draft generic
[1:29:36] environmental impact statement is doing
so that those that will be addressed in
[1:29:41] that document we are very lucky our
sister agency the New York State
[1:29:45] Department of Transportation has just
amazing talent in its Engineers
[1:29:50] designers traffic control people traffic
access people they have already been out
[1:29:55] working with us and with your Trail on
you know how do we look at safety in
[1:30:02] that Corridor I personally have not been
part of conversations and on the on the
[1:30:07] intersection of Route 301 on D and 90
because it's not part of the park but I
[1:30:12] believe such conversations have happened
there are conversations with the D.O.T
[1:30:17] as to whether or not somewhere along
this Corridor should a roundabout go in
[1:30:21] that becomes a traffic calming device
there are there are discussions of
[1:30:25] should there are discussions of good
speed go down there are discussions of
[1:30:30] how do you narrow a road how do you make
it how do you make it so that people are
[1:30:34] forced to go slower all of those things
go on the table I'm not saying any of
[1:30:39] them happen but they are all the regular
traffic calming tools that we have to
[1:30:46] consider when you start to look at how
do you make intersections and junctures
[1:30:51] safer so I think that we are lucky that
we have a sister agency and we have
[1:30:57] conversation there will be a lot of data
collected in the course of the
[1:31:04] um draft generic environmental impact
statement and then that will then inform
[1:31:11] what what the what Solutions are
proposed
[1:31:14] yeah but we're not sitting waiting for
someone to tell us we have to do
[1:31:20] something we want to be helping these
conditions so we've already been meeting
[1:31:24] with the mayor and trustee starbook
and have agreed that we're going to work
[1:31:29] together with DOT to evaluate solutions
to the 90 301 intersection because it's
[1:31:35] already failing right now and so I think
dot has some ideas for what could be
[1:31:40] done there and we want to be able to it
kind of work those through with them a
[1:31:44] bit
and for clarity
[1:31:48] these are initial conversations with Dot
and they come back to public session
[1:31:52] where minutes are taken and the public
can comment
[1:31:55] um these are their Village discussions
that'll happen at Village Hall
[1:32:00] um oh I am I continuing for you I am
good okay okay you're all finished with
[1:32:05] answering Mr May's question
so we're moving on to
[1:32:09] um environmental impact and climate
change
[1:32:15] um Grace Kennedy is first and on Deck
should be Lauren Martin Adam osterfeld
[1:32:20] and Susan peel please
hi Grace
[1:32:25] uh Metro North has requested a 25-foot
buffer between tracks and Trail
[1:32:30] between little Stony Point and Breakneck
meaning that every tree along the river
[1:32:36] would have to be removed to accommodate
a 14-foot wide Boardwalk
[1:32:41] cantilevered shading the shoreline and
preventing regrowth how does this
[1:32:45] protect against flooding
[1:32:51] [Applause]
[1:32:56] okay
so yes we did have to meet setbacks with
[1:33:01] Metro North yes they are holding us to a
25 foot setback that's 25 feet from
[1:33:07] Center not the edge of tie so it's maybe
a little narrower than what you thought
[1:33:12] um it's also not 14 feet wide in this
area because it's such a highly
[1:33:16] constrained area so we are as wide as 14
feet in areas like Breakneck connector
[1:33:23] where there's going to be a reasonable
expectation of a lot of traffic with the
[1:33:27] train arrivals Etc we need more width to
make that accommodated here we will have
[1:33:33] more width where we can given the
constraints of the corridor but we're
[1:33:37] not playing to a 40 14 feet straight
shot sort of concept here because it is
[1:33:43] a complicated area so we've had a study
this was the alignment we worked on with
[1:33:48] a committee that was basically half
Metro North interest and half River
[1:33:53] focused interests and we really hammered
through you know what the those
[1:33:58] competing interests it was literally
threading a needle here so I gold is
[1:34:03] golden means we can meet all of the
regulatory requirements of Metro North
[1:34:08] in terms of setbacks and all of the
protective kind of measures for the
[1:34:14] river so like mean high high top of bank
there's different regulatory levels that
[1:34:20] are used as sort of if you're in that
that might be problematic for us we have
[1:34:24] to talk have a serious conversation if
you're out of that you're out of the
[1:34:27] regulatory Zone it's an easier
conversation so where it's gold it's
[1:34:31] golden and as you can see that's most of
the way so it's 84.5 percent of the way
[1:34:37] where it's blue at the time we did this
it meant we knew we had to go around a
[1:34:42] culvert there's a six foot buffer we
need to go around for things with Metro
[1:34:46] North so we did have to go into the
water for a little bit there how we go
[1:34:50] into the water is important though and
where it's pink that's where because we
[1:34:54] didn't get a smaller setback where it's
pink we're going to have to go into the
[1:34:58] water in some way does that mean it's
heavily in the water no we still have to
[1:35:03] engineer that out and see how much we go
into the water as it cantilevered is it
[1:35:08] Center pile there's a lot of engineering
conversations to still take place
[1:35:13] however we have interviewed we have done
a natural resource inventory on the
[1:35:17] whole Shoreline Trail place we have done
a tree inventory on this whole stretch
[1:35:23] and please know that this includes these
trees right because that was part of the
[1:35:27] thought process there but 674 trees
greater than six inches of caliper
[1:35:33] between little Stony Point and Ray
connect connect Breakneck Ridge
[1:35:39] and only some of them if you see in this
Zoom are actually near the pink line of
[1:35:44] the trail
and we also had to think about sea level
[1:35:48] rise right sea level rise is hitting
this area and here's that little Stony
[1:35:53] Point that really has some inundation
and then in this area just south of the
[1:35:58] tunnel at Breakneck also being heavily
impacted so what does that mean and if
[1:36:03] you remember this is where this is here
so we looked at that and then scape
[1:36:10] who's our landscape architect they have
expertise and sea level rise they do a
[1:36:14] lot of work in shorelines including New
Orleans kind of areas
[1:36:18] and what the the trees that were growing
there as those sea levels rise go
[1:36:23] rise then you have a salinity right so
you're getting more salty water it's
[1:36:28] slowly killing the trees so they went
and looked at these trees and said with
[1:36:32] the sea level rise projections which
ones are already sort of being
[1:36:36] compromised which ones as the levels go
and the red is compromised by 20 50 and
[1:36:43] the yellow is by 2080 and green is 2010.
so the where there are ones that are
[1:36:50] going to stay healthier longer we really
want a tree to keep those on the site
[1:36:54] but the other ones that are already dead
and dying they're kind of they're going
[1:36:58] so we we factored that into our design
process and thought okay well this is
[1:37:03] the tricky spot where we actually have
to go into the water a little bit but
[1:37:05] those tree trees
might need to be cleared for that but
[1:37:10] they're also on their way out whereas
here is a fairly healthy spot of trees
[1:37:15] and we do have a little bit more room to
literally wiggle with so here we put in
[1:37:20] Wiggles to try to avoid the trees as
much as possible and now it is a
[1:37:26] structure I think there's been a lot of
conversation about this as a structure
[1:37:29] but the structure in the case of the
trees I mean it's a structure because
[1:37:33] you have to stay out of sea level rise
it has to be able to handle water in a
[1:37:38] storm event and then you have
um
[1:37:42] the ability to keep more trees because
if you were doing more site grading or
[1:37:46] even if you thought you're going to pile
up a lot of fill you'll bury the roots
[1:37:49] too deep on the tree and kill the tree
anyway so actually doing the pile driven
[1:37:53] is going to help us retain more of the
trees
[1:37:56] and where we do have to go into the
water we've given some special thought
[1:38:00] and attention to that to say if we are
going in can we do something like down
[1:38:05] here where you put in a planted shelf
and help build out some Shoreline
[1:38:10] resilience so you can have some planted
shelves with submerged aquatic
[1:38:14] vegetation and as the sea level rise
come up and over this Boulder you'll
[1:38:19] have some migration routes for those Sav
Beds which are important habitat areas
[1:38:24] so when we do an intervention in the
water we're also going to be doing a
[1:38:29] habitat and resilience protection
underneath
[1:38:33] is Lauren Martin in the room are we
finished with your response one more oh
[1:38:37] sorry and this this just shows other
places where we have that where we might
[1:38:42] have to go around infrastructure of
um Metro North and we could also do a
[1:38:47] planted shelf piece there so
um we're still in early design we just
[1:38:53] brought in a new structural engineer so
that's just started this week actually
[1:38:57] on the 15th they put their pencils to
paper in Earnest and they'll start
[1:39:01] design and we'll bring out those ideas
as they evolve
[1:39:06] thank you
I'm having a I'm having a terrible time
[1:39:12] reading Andy's cues
sorry about that for cutting you off is
[1:39:16] Lauren Martin here no okay so I'll read
her question if the environmental review
[1:39:20] reveals that there will be significant
impacts to species such as the New
[1:39:24] England Cottontail Cerulean warblers and
submerged vegetation will the project be
[1:39:29] canceled
[1:39:33] [Applause]
so we are state parks
[1:39:40] we care deeply about our the habitats we
have several biologists in our own
[1:39:49] staff right within the region and
certainly Statewide
[1:39:53] and we
first we have a process so you inventory
[1:39:57] you look at your Baseline you look at
what's out there and we have in fact
[1:40:01] this picture is a natural resource
inventory of little Stony Point and that
[1:40:06] led to sort of changing things around as
the design team was looking at what
[1:40:10] might go there and what might not go
there and how it would be placed on the
[1:40:13] site so you then the first step that you
do when you're looking at any of these
[1:40:19] particular endangered threatened special
concern natural resources to seek to
[1:40:23] avoid their habitats and seek to avoid
any impacts built into many of our our
[1:40:29] project permits are you can't tree cut
between you know in November you can
[1:40:35] only treat cut after October 31st and
and until March 31st because of the
[1:40:40] long-eared back northern long-eared bat
because they're dead stick and doing
[1:40:44] things so unless it's a hazardous tree
or other things and same thing we have
[1:40:48] we we seek to
avoid and in cases where you can't avoid
[1:40:55] you mitigate and that that determination
of mitigation really won't come until
[1:41:01] the very end when you determine that
whatever your projects is and you have
[1:41:06] to do something in an area that may have
an impact and how would you offset that
[1:41:09] impact but
always first is a void
[1:41:13] plan around it see what you can do
minimize
[1:41:17] and then mitigate this is the the steps
that we would go as we look for how do
[1:41:23] we deal with any of the various animals
and plants that are that are that are
[1:41:29] not invasive that are that are
threatened and and uh special in the
[1:41:33] area
[1:41:35] um
seem finished with that one
[1:41:38] okay Adam osterfeld
[1:41:45] I
[1:41:48] um I worked at Duchess art camp for
seven years every summer while the long
[1:41:54] dock was being created so I watched the
Waterfront front development at Beacon
[1:41:59] station for seven years from the start
and we know that much of the river
[1:42:03] Shoreline has been Disturbed for over a
hundred years
[1:42:07] the restoration at long dock brought
back wildlife and habitat including
[1:42:13] the pollinators and the native plants
what kind of plants are there to restore
[1:42:18] the natural habitat that existed
pre-industrial Revolution and how will
[1:42:23] the restoration help mitigate the rising
water levels caused by climate change I
[1:42:28] think some of my question was answered
with those last few
[1:42:33] um
okay but that's it thanks Adam
[1:42:37] [Applause]
so hopefully you can see this I know
[1:42:44] there's a little bit of a glare this is
a historic map that scape pulled that
[1:42:49] shows in the dotted line and this is
Breakneck I believe the dotted line
[1:42:56] shows the original Shoreline so you can
see how much fill was put in to the
[1:43:01] river when the railroad was put in so
that's so this would be the Breakneck
[1:43:06] connector project area right so this is
a significant amount of fill which is
[1:43:11] just to say it's a highly Disturbed
Shoreline on top of the railroad you
[1:43:15] also had other
um
[1:43:17] activities this is the coring I love
this image the quarrying activity and
[1:43:22] this is a little Stony Point see so all
of this area was fill and and if you
[1:43:26] remember the sea level rise projections
this C is going to take it right back so
[1:43:31] that's where the sea level rise comes up
is where there was this fill put in so
[1:43:36] that also had impacts and north of that
and there's a lot of Brickyard activity
[1:43:39] so there's different
um kind of impacts on the landscape from
[1:43:43] that prior activity
um when you have a lot of disturbance
[1:43:47] and especially if you're by a highway
court or a railroad cord or you get a
[1:43:51] lot of invasives then established in
that Disturbed area so between the train
[1:43:55] and Highway and the brake neck connector
and Adam I just used Breakneck connector
[1:43:59] since that's the most
um
[1:44:02] designed at this point in time just but
see treat it as a case study for what we
[1:44:06] would do other than other places as well
so right now mostly settled in with
[1:44:11] invasives as we do the restoration when
the improvements are made it will be
[1:44:18] using a native plant palette improving
the soils which are fairly poor right
[1:44:24] there and adding new plants that are
sourced from local nurseries so this is
[1:44:29] a bit of the plant palette that would be
in
[1:44:32] put into the Breakneck connector area
and this just shows you the planting
[1:44:38] extends in those locations so it's
basically 5.4 Acres of native planting
[1:44:43] Restoration in this whole area kind of
in this case not all cases we're really
[1:44:48] planting the whole area because it was
so highly Disturbed that includes 430
[1:44:54] native trees being added to this part of
the project area as well as over 2 000
[1:45:00] shrubs that are native and that doesn't
get to the other little perennials
[1:45:06] um and then just tune to note that we're
including where this culverts or where
[1:45:11] we might want somebody to be able to
crawl underneath the trail we are
[1:45:14] putting in different little Wildlife
Crossings into this and in the fencing
[1:45:18] that's in there right now there are
Wildlife Crossings in that too
[1:45:23] additionally we have water managing
water in this area is important
[1:45:28] um Metro North we'll say keep the water
off my tracks so what we want to do is
[1:45:33] improve the storm water drainage off of
that very steep slope above you know
[1:45:39] better than what it is right now in
terms of storm water management here so
[1:45:43] and try to create it into a sort of a
wet Garden that would be seasonally wet
[1:45:49] or when there's a storm event it's wet
but then it'll dry out but we'll have
[1:45:53] plants that can handle that in that
location and then maybe through the
[1:45:57] culverts some water will be pushing in
at times and similarly this planting
[1:46:01] palette will be able to handle that
[1:46:07] okay
[1:46:13] hi
Jason you were going to help me with
[1:46:17] this with them with the explanation
a quick explanation of a positive
[1:46:24] declaration and a secret finding this is
just from the New York State DEC website
[1:46:28] for some context to your question Susan
a positive declaration is issued if an
[1:46:33] action is determined to have potentially
a significant environmental impacts and
[1:46:38] in environmental impact statement is
required an applicant must submit a
[1:46:42] draft environmental impact statement in
that finding thank you and that triggers
[1:46:47] a public comment period
so seven significant ecological
[1:46:52] communities identified by the New York
natural heritage program as well as
[1:46:57] endangered and threatened species exist
in the trail corridor
[1:47:04] a far more modest floor Trail proposal
was given a positive declaration
[1:47:10] which is a negative in 2015. what has
changed to make these habitats and
[1:47:17] species less vulnerable now than they
were then
[1:47:21] [Applause]
[1:47:27] so if you understand Seeker that
positive positive declaration that was
[1:47:34] just um described
is the trigger that allows us to do an
[1:47:38] environmental impact statement so if you
get what would be called a neg deck we
[1:47:43] might have turned around and just said
okay you have a neck deck you can go
[1:47:46] ahead do do your Trail so a pause deck
is always used where there is the where
[1:47:51] you want to do those studies you want to
engage in the public comment you want to
[1:47:55] have this process and the analysis that
we're going through the pos positive
[1:47:59] declaration that was issued in 2015 is
the same positive declaration in which
[1:48:04] we are operating under right now
it is carried through this is still a an
[1:48:11] environmental impact process that is
going on and that declaration basically
[1:48:17] and I have it here talks about the trail
that runs from City Beacon train station
[1:48:22] down to the Village of Coldspring train
station along the Main Street
[1:48:26] um you know in Putnam County that's the
wording in the in in
[1:48:31] in this it's the type one action under
Seeker under the regulations that
[1:48:35] Implement Seeker so it nothing has
changed this this really complicated and
[1:48:40] funny looking slide if you look to the
very left
[1:48:43] step one and you can't read it but I'll
just explained that dark box says is the
[1:48:47] action subject to Seeker the answer is
yes anything almost anything is subject
[1:48:53] to Seeker these days if you go to the
yellow box that's where we are and if
[1:48:57] you go to the far right that's where we
end up so all you need to know is this
[1:49:01] is a process and it's a process that has
sort of UPS downs and sideways depending
[1:49:06] on what comes out of the of the
different information that's collected
[1:49:09] you can move to the next slide because
if you so we're in a process the process
[1:49:15] is the draft environmental impact
statement nothing has changed in terms
[1:49:18] of the X7 ecological communities at an
ecological Community says what do you
[1:49:23] have in plant life and an animal life
that impacts sort of what uses a common
[1:49:29] environment and these are just
identified by the state to help you
[1:49:33] understand sort of what might be in a
particular
[1:49:38] ecological community so if you go to the
next site so we have and many of you
[1:49:43] will recognize this from your own
neighborhoods or your own backyards we
[1:49:47] have Oak tulip tree forests in this area
that's one of our ecological communities
[1:49:52] and certain plants grow in Oak and
certain animals live in Oak tulip tree
[1:49:57] Forest because we have Summits on our
Highlands we have red cedar Rocky
[1:50:01] Summits we have Chestnut Oak Summit
forests we have Appalachian Oak Hickory
[1:50:06] Forest those are four of the sort of
plant communities that we have that are
[1:50:10] considered E coli logical communities
out of the seven
[1:50:13] because we're on the river we have
brackish in our title mud flats and we
[1:50:18] have brackish tidal Marsh and then again
to the very top of the hills we have
[1:50:22] that Pitch Pine Oak Heath Rocky Summit
where you see the the wind more wind
[1:50:27] swept lower lower scrubby growth those
are the seven identified ecological
[1:50:32] habitats that we have that we plan
around look to see what see what's there
[1:50:38] and what is impacted by any of the trail
the trail doesn't necessarily
[1:50:44] go through all of those or any of those
but it is in this catchment area
[1:50:49] go to the next slide
so again as I said earlier with the
[1:50:54] question that Lauren asked we evaluate
an inventory and study the area
[1:50:59] the first thing that happened when the
discussion was for the causeway was came
[1:51:04] for and linking little Stony Point to
Dockside was hudsonia was called in to
[1:51:08] do a baseline evaluation of what was
again along the shoreline and what was
[1:51:12] around little Stony Point and there are
just a a a well-known
[1:51:18] scientifically based organization
we assess the impact
[1:51:24] what happened so for instance we are in
an eagle catchment area so we always
[1:51:28] have to know where are nesting Eagles
what is the impact of of construction
[1:51:32] how does it do it interestingly enough
most of the Eagles don't seem to mind
[1:51:36] most of the construction but we have a
lot of noise tables and you see the
[1:51:39] nests right above the highways all the
time but we have um and and Eagles you
[1:51:44] know are are no longer on the endangered
uh uh list but the peregrine falcon is
[1:51:50] and the bat is so we have a bunch of
different things that we have they're
[1:51:53] different levels whether you're
endangered or threatened or a special
[1:51:55] concern we avoid the impact to this
extent you can you shift you shift the
[1:52:02] what might be on a site plan or you can
have restrictions for when you do your
[1:52:05] construction or you have monitors and
you mitigate if there's anything that
[1:52:10] you can't remove so it's the same answer
really as as before
[1:52:22] we've arrived at the last question of
the evening which is coming from Teresa
[1:52:26] lagerman and then we'll roll into the
comment period
[1:52:30] good evening
hi what how will hhft or the state
[1:52:36] anybody's welcome support the village of
Cold Spring to handle the increased
[1:52:41] strain in its infrastructure that the
fuel Trail will bring this is very much
[1:52:46] not a bathroom question the village as
it is can barely keep up with sidewalk
[1:52:51] repairs garbage pickup payments of the
water treatment plant Etc thank you
[1:53:01] thank you
so as I mentioned we're already at the
[1:53:05] table with the village on this the next
meeting we have planned we're going to
[1:53:09] have a map in on the table in front of
us and
[1:53:13] really map out issue areas that the
village has or needs that the village
[1:53:16] has and then we're going to talk about
which of those maybe Fjord helps with or
[1:53:21] which ones we might be able to help the
village identify resources for so that
[1:53:26] includes like we mentioned working on
the dot 90 intersection function
[1:53:31] sidewalk improvements from the train
station would be part of what we would
[1:53:35] think about doing if we went to Dockside
sidewalk extension on Fair Street I
[1:53:40] think in any event
foreign
[1:53:49] I'll take it
evaluate other pedestrian Improvement
[1:53:53] needs is something that the village has
been asking for we're going to that's
[1:53:57] part of the study realm that happens
over this year
[1:54:01] um
possible garbage emptying on the
[1:54:04] waterfront if we go through the Dockside
route we know that's a high volume area
[1:54:07] it's a little separated from the rest of
Main Street so it's a sort of
[1:54:11] a time probably time consuming thing for
staff to go that extra way just for
[1:54:15] those
um
[1:54:17] retaining Village events at like
fireworks and movie Nights at Dockside
[1:54:22] we've always committed that if we go to
The Dockside route we would be working
[1:54:26] with the village about how that happens
the plant there would be a special
[1:54:31] community-based planning process to
identify what occurs on that site and we
[1:54:35] wanted to always make the commitment
that if the retaining of those events
[1:54:39] that happen there now should always be
on the table is sort of a given so that
[1:54:45] would be a process that would move
forward with all of us at the table
[1:54:48] right now it's just a very swirly site
plan
[1:54:53] um and then helping the village like I
said identify potential funding
[1:54:56] opportunities and we could maybe even
help with grant writing for those since
[1:54:59] Seth can be a big lift especially with
state grants
[1:55:03] um and then we've essentially evolved
you know and we are continuing to hone
[1:55:08] ourselves as a visitation management
strategy
[1:55:12] and so that means you know looking at
infrastructure
[1:55:16] providing the infrastructure through the
project to help manage visitation
[1:55:20] offering the Staffing at our cost to
maintain the Park area and to help
[1:55:27] manage visitors including implementing
different tools like reservations
[1:55:31] systems
and then emergency response assistance
[1:55:36] offering those services like garbage and
bathrooms like putting them in and then
[1:55:40] maintaining them
technology and tools to help manage
[1:55:44] visitation and that includes demand
management like pricing reservations Etc
[1:55:49] so
the project has it baked in to help do
[1:55:53] that and we'll continue to refine that
with your input
[1:55:59] that's I don't know I don't read slides
but yes
[1:56:04] so that's it
[Applause]
[1:56:17] okay okay you guys are all set so so we
have a sign in
[1:56:22] yes so we uh we do have the sign-in
sheet which was available from 6 30 to 7
[1:56:27] P.M sorry did you hear me
[1:56:30] can you hear me now
okay thank you so there was a sign-in
[1:56:35] sheet that was posted between 6 30 and 7
PM we will try to get through as many of
[1:56:40] these
um speakers as possible on between now
[1:56:44] and 9 30. so uh the first one is three
minute limit yes there's a three minute
[1:56:50] limit on speaking so first up is
Gretchen Dykstra
[1:56:57] good evening so just for just to give
Gretchen space the more we applaud the
[1:57:04] fewer questions we get to so let's just
keep moving through questions
[1:57:08] I oppose the fewer Trails current design
for the many environmental and
[1:57:13] logistical reasons that others have
cited how did a Community Driven modest
[1:57:18] and realistic scheme morph into
grandiose attraction on public land
[1:57:22] already receiving millions of taxpayers
dollars I choose to focus on the money
[1:57:29] there is no overall construction budget
at least that the public has seen but be
[1:57:36] but before final approvals final
drawings and value engineering
[1:57:41] responsible developers including large
not-for-profit organizations always
[1:57:47] estimate construction costs Scenic
Hudson and its subsidiary should be held
[1:57:53] to that same standard and most
importantly Albany should demand it I
[1:57:59] have equally deep concerns about the
lack of long-term operating budget and
[1:58:04] the total lack of any public discussion
on that essential issue staff say
[1:58:10] parking and fundraising will support the
project but more than two years ago the
[1:58:15] New York state parks gave the tiny Fjord
Trail project the right to sell
[1:58:20] sponsorships encourage paid promotions
and establish concessions along the
[1:58:26] trail staff never mentioned that the day
they take possession of Dockside and
[1:58:31] little Stony Point budget realities will
hit liability and Insurance alone will
[1:58:38] be astronomical and the higher their
costs the greater the incentive to
[1:58:43] monetize public space I am opposed to
privatizing public land and if they
[1:58:49] cannot raise money to maintain 7.5 miles
of Trail guess who will pay the
[1:58:56] taxpayers
so New York state parks signed a
[1:59:01] contract with a new small not-for-profit
organization with no guarantees from its
[1:59:07] parents Cena cutson that shows raw
political power on the part of Cena
[1:59:12] cutson and poor judgment on the part of
our elected and appointed officials I
[1:59:18] worked for I worked for several
high-profile public-private Partnerships
[1:59:23] in the city one was driven by ethical
public servants and experienced
[1:59:28] volunteers who cared about transparency
and true Community participation and had
[1:59:34] no Financial conflicts the Times Square
bid was a model of openness and
[1:59:40] efficiency another was messy and
wasteful the public was told that the
[1:59:45] private donors would pay for the 350
million dollar project but when it
[1:59:52] ultimately cost 1.3 billion guess who
paid the difference the taxpayers our
[1:59:59] elected officials are way behind the
eight ball all across the nation under
[2:00:04] growing pressure state and local
governments are developing better
[2:00:09] policies and procedures to guarantee
that local communities
[2:00:15] thank you
foreign
[2:00:22] [Applause]
[2:00:38] is not written down and or my comment is
not written down so I may stumble my
[2:00:43] original question was if the whole
Community is against this is there any
[2:00:48] legal way anymore that we could stop
this if we wanted to but that seems like
[2:00:52] that's been answered because this is
state land
[2:00:55] and at the end of all the studies when
it's all done and here's the final plan
[2:01:00] this is the plan this is it
we don't want it the stake as you say
[2:01:04] This Is Our Land go ahead and do
whatever they want we can't stop this
[2:01:10] um
[2:01:12] you know that being the case I was
wondering because you folks have spoken
[2:01:16] about this being not only a partnership
but public-private partnership but also
[2:01:21] with the community meaning phillipstown
Cold Spring Nelsonville I guess Garrison
[2:01:25] or all of the philipstown villages
um would the state be willing to submit
[2:01:31] at the end when the final plan here it
is this is the plan guys would the state
[2:01:36] be willing to submit to a binding
referendum for all the citizens of
[2:01:39] philipstown to vote you just yes or no
no comments vote Yes or no and if the
[2:01:44] nose rule that's the end of the project
and maybe it would go back to the
[2:01:48] original small trail that was proposed
[Applause]
[2:02:01] sorry
[2:02:04] Sheila Roush
[2:02:12] I'm really very quick the problem for me
is that you guys understandably talk
[2:02:17] about a world-class linear Park and you
know proudly and then you also say it's
[2:02:24] not going to bother you you know it's
just going to be locals that use it and
[2:02:29] we're worried about traffic you haven't
done a traffic study I understand you're
[2:02:34] doing it
but
[2:02:37] to have us in this state of anxiety
about traffic and you have nothing to
[2:02:42] say about it and when you do I'm really
thankful we're going to have a traffic
[2:02:46] monitor ourselves I'm really thankful
about that but when you do
[2:02:51] deliver the dgeis
apparently they're only 30 days to
[2:02:57] review it not so
well that's good
[2:03:01] but
you've already begun the Breakneck
[2:03:06] connector at least your literature says
so
[2:03:08] yes
Laguna you got a pause deck a neg deck
[2:03:14] what's the good one the negative you got
a neg deck
[2:03:18] and and and you can understand that that
causes a lot of anxiety we're very
[2:03:24] worried about traffic
and
[2:03:28] just complete swarming of Cold Spring
so you know there are these two things
[2:03:38] [Applause]
Rick Franco
[2:03:48] ah hi Rick thanks
a question
[2:03:54] um
so
[2:03:58] I don't know I guess it was about four
years ago
[2:04:02] when I got one of your glossy magazines
and it said that
[2:04:11] you were going to reimagine
the trail
[2:04:18] and that scared the heck out
because that means that meant
[2:04:24] you were starting from scratch
so starting from scratch
[2:04:32] oh Anything Could Happen
um
[2:04:37] and anything did happen
um
[2:04:42] we went from
I've been following I've been going to
[2:04:47] all of the the meetings
um
[2:05:04] I
um
[2:05:12] the
[2:05:15] at this point here
uh
[2:05:19] the trail was and I think somebody
mentioned that it was pretty much
[2:05:25] graveled with a little bit of
pebbles in between
[2:05:33] and then all of a sudden it became
apparent that there was going to be uh
[2:05:41] a concrete walkway
and and that that was a lot different
[2:05:48] so
um
[2:05:52] at that point I I gave up on the project
and
[2:06:00] there was no way
to
[2:06:03] now that the project got to that point
there was no way to deal with it so I
[2:06:13] just you know stood back
and all I'm doing at this point
[2:06:19] is is hoping somebody can you know put
their
[2:06:24] their foot out and and trip it
[Applause]
[2:06:34] thank you
[2:06:40] so we're struggling with handwriting it
looks like maybe Jack Robbins Jeff
[2:06:44] Robbins or maybe
[2:06:53] so it's clearly the problems of over
visitation and traffic and safety have
[2:06:59] been core that was in the original
proposal and yet we have a new proposal
[2:07:05] now that is greatly expanded with many
amenities with a Riverfront Boardwalk
[2:07:13] those are all things that are going to
increase visitation perhaps
[2:07:18] exponentially and these are the very
problems that the proposal was
[2:07:23] originally slated to address
so
[2:07:29] this is something that many are
concerned with because I see in the
[2:07:32] questions that were submitted my
question is how can this project be
[2:07:37] restored to its original scope
which can protect the quality of life
[2:07:43] here and the environment
so if it is a question and you'd like an
[2:07:48] answer we will allow them to provide an
answer would you guys be interested in
[2:07:52] answering that
[2:07:55] we
okay but we had decided if there was a
[2:08:00] question we would respond to a question
is that a question that you'd like
[2:08:05] but John others have asked questions no
they've made statements
[2:08:16] write up some answers to these questions
since we're not doing equal treatment on
[2:08:20] all of them right now but the the I
think there's a lot of misinformation
[2:08:24] about what the plan used to be and how
simple and it was and there's just
[2:08:30] certain realities of building something
on the Metro North right-of-way for
[2:08:34] example right where you're going to have
to have fencing or you have sea level
[2:08:37] rise and it's going to have to be
elevated so I think there's a a
[2:08:41] perception of Simplicity in terms of the
main trail let's forget about the
[2:08:45] add-ons that Ned asked about but in
terms of the main trail there's a sense
[2:08:50] of Simplicity out there that I don't
think ever really was on paper so I just
[2:08:55] want to add
there is a an alternative we've talked
[2:09:00] about Fair Street 9d a simpler
alternative would be less costly less of
[2:09:07] an attraction actually for
visitation
[2:09:11] that could connect to Cornish
and why is that you know not not being
[2:09:17] considered it's in the alternative so we
have the preferred alignment and then
[2:09:21] that's going to get run through all the
paces on the environmental review and
[2:09:25] we'll see and we'll keep talking about
this but I do think we should be seeing
[2:09:30] how this works like does it work the way
we think I always think about it like a
[2:09:33] water balloon if you want to get people
out of town as quickly as possible maybe
[2:09:37] you need three holes in that water
balloon instead of just fair streak
[2:09:40] right so do we have more than one route
that people can take and then you sort
[2:09:44] of Distributing that impact someplace so
I'd like you know the answer is there's
[2:09:49] still time to talk about this but I
think we need to really look at each of
[2:09:53] these from all sides thank you thank you
miss me thank you very much
[2:09:59] [Applause]
[2:10:03] Derek Derek Graham 32 West Street
[2:10:09] hi Derek
[2:10:14] um thank you for allowing me the
opportunity to speak prepared a uh a
[2:10:19] brief statement for you and I'll read
from it the idea of the trailhead at our
[2:10:24] dock side is antithetical and
counter-intuitive to the present
[2:10:28] challenges our village Endeavors to
remediate to this very day it will
[2:10:33] exacerbate what is already epic levels
of traffic compression and visitor
[2:10:38] saturation while at the same time the
developers boasted the addition of the
[2:10:42] Dockside Trailhead will in fact somehow
solve or mitigate these problems not
[2:10:47] only along its Seven Mile Corridor but
specifically our village in other words
[2:10:52] more is less
however there is not a single document
[2:10:57] published that bears out this fantasy
and I fear no document will ever support
[2:11:01] this Fiasco this we call conjecture
the developer team understands these
[2:11:06] challenges has been gracious in
providing opportunities for the public
[2:11:10] to comment the team includes Stellar
designers professionals professionals
[2:11:14] and they're good at most of what they do
however Pro Form and feasibility studies
[2:11:19] are not their strong suit there are no
such studies for our village this week
[2:11:23] we're putting the horse before the car
the developer promises amenities to
[2:11:28] Dockside Trailhead that purportedly fall
under the category of enhanced
[2:11:32] infrastructure such as restrooms and
refuse collection these amenities are
[2:11:36] chiefly in service of enhanced tourism
The Village would only need these
[2:11:40] services to support these additional
tourist loads although the developers in
[2:11:46] our village offices have scheduled local
studies I can't think of anything they
[2:11:49] would draw out
that which we don't already know such as
[2:11:53] the Lower Village master plan was
developed well before the Civil War and
[2:11:57] was never intended to be a mega volume
tourist destination the physical space
[2:12:01] simply isn't there until 19 2016 the
trail plan made at least some sense when
[2:12:08] it did not involve a fourth and
redundant Boardwalk to little Stony
[2:12:12] Point like is not these access Thor
Affairs including 90 and Fair Street
[2:12:17] will continue to be used by tourists to
access the trail system for the reasons
[2:12:22] that they are the shortest routes and
The Dockside is generally inaccessible
[2:12:27] access to a Dockside Trailhead would be
limited by the scarcity of parketing and
[2:12:31] even walking space for a potential
tsunami of tourists most Village
[2:12:35] residents understand these realities and
see Dockside is one of the last natural
[2:12:40] refuges of our within our boundaries
[2:12:45] [Applause]
well Landing a Trailhead at Dockside
[2:12:50] would be an existential threat
tantamount to dropping a nuclear warhead
[2:12:53] on Hackensack
[2:12:57] it's simply too big and the benefits are
equally as small as a constituency who
[2:13:02] Advocates such following as I have said
the Dockside Trailhead represents a
[2:13:06] Superfluous burden and compromised the
smallville's way of life our ability to
[2:13:11] peaceably enjoy our own backyard without
having to compete with them thank you
[2:13:15] sir
next up
[2:13:18] thank you sir thank you time is up thank
you very much sit down thanks
[2:13:23] thank you
[2:13:28] Paul Cotman
[2:13:32] what
hi Paul
[2:13:36] don't worry I'll continue where Derek
left off
[2:13:41] um
so from what I understand I'm really
[2:13:45] addressing this to the trip to my
neighbors so I'll turn this way my
[2:13:50] understanding is that we we don't have
the authority to cancel the the project
[2:13:54] what we do have is the chance to
influence the final form it will take
[2:14:00] so for those of us with deep concerns
about the potential impact of the park
[2:14:04] on our village we should collectively
think about how we can effectively exert
[2:14:08] the influence we have in the short time
available to us
[2:14:12] as a resident of fair street I'm aware
of the dangers of too much foot traffic
[2:14:18] in the village and initially I was
intrigued by the possibility that some
[2:14:22] of that traffic would be diverted for
safety reasons above all but it's
[2:14:26] becoming clear to me and here I agree
with Derek that the plan to start and
[2:14:31] end the Fjord Trail at Dockside would be
I like the image of a nuclear weapon I
[2:14:36] think that's about right would be
extremely disruptive as what I had
[2:14:40] written to the village and perhaps do
little or nothing to improve the
[2:14:43] situation on Fair Street or Garden
Street
[2:14:45] moreover Dockside Park is the nicest
public park in New York state seems to
[2:14:52] putting the Fjord Trail there would ruin
it create a traffic snarl in the village
[2:14:58] worse than all the problems it allegedly
was there to address and forever turn
[2:15:02] Cold Spring into a very different and
from my point of view less desirable
[2:15:06] place to live so I would urge that we in
the room who care about this get behind
[2:15:12] the plan to push the start of the trail
at least to little Stony Point
[2:15:18] and at the same time that we push for
the changes that were put on the slide
[2:15:22] to be made to Fair Street to make the
foot traffic there less dangerous
[2:15:26] I believe little Stony Point had been
the original or one of the original
[2:15:30] starting places for the park and it may
be one of the better options available
[2:15:33] to us I'm happy to push it back further
if we can let's get behind in any case
[2:15:38] let's get behind our elected officials
and bolster the influence they still
[2:15:42] have over the next year or two to make
sure the new park starts further north
[2:15:46] than darks than than dark side
thank you
[2:15:53] thank you
[2:15:58] Patty D'Amato
[2:16:04] my Patty
[2:16:07] good evening
I live on Stone Street in the village
[2:16:12] one block north of Main Street
one block west not east of The Depot
[2:16:19] restaurant
it was my husband's childhood home
[2:16:24] we decided to leave our quiet street in
Nelsonville after living there for 40
[2:16:29] years to move into his parents home
because it was a good house in which to
[2:16:34] grow old
as much knowledge as we had of the
[2:16:40] difficulties in Cold Spring prior to
2020
[2:16:44] nothing could have prepared us for what
has happened
[2:16:49] we welcome Taurus Phil and I are out on
our porch all the time
[2:16:55] we give directions we give restaurant
recommendations
[2:17:01] we suggest places for people to visit
one couple came from Long Island with
[2:17:07] their toddler
and they said to us
[2:17:11] is your town like this all the time
I said it's become like that
[2:17:19] I said ask let me ask you something
how did you find Cold Spring
[2:17:25] well we googled nice places to visit
then there are the people who ask for
[2:17:31] directions and I'll make conversation
and I'll say what do you think of our
[2:17:36] Waterfront
what you have a waterfront
[2:17:40] people don't do research before they
come
[2:17:45] they're coming here to have a lovely day
[2:17:50] I tell them about the beauties of this
community
[2:17:55] but we're losing the beauty of this
community
[2:17:58] we can't walk on Main Street during the
week
[2:18:02] on the weekends and now during the week
as well
[2:18:07] I was driving down Main Street the week
after Easter a beautiful day
[2:18:12] somebody was parallel parking in front
of the coffee house
[2:18:15] I waited for that person and the cars
behind me started laying on their horns
[2:18:22] because they didn't have the patience to
wait
[2:18:25] you're also assuming that people are
going to go and take the shuttle
[2:18:30] that's not going to happen
they're going to drive down Main Street
[2:18:34] even
they're going to drive down Main Street
[2:18:39] go past Susie's dance dialogue over to
the street that goes to mumus and
[2:18:47] they're going to drop off their families
there
[2:18:51] if I want to bring my parents in their
80s I am not going to go to Duchess
[2:18:57] Manor which only has 200 parking spaces
and I'm not going to make them get on a
[2:19:04] shuttle that on some days is going to
run from eight in the morning till 8 at
[2:19:09] night I'm coming to Cold Spring thank
you
[2:19:13] [Applause]
[2:19:25] Peter Henderson
[2:19:33] good evening first of all I'd like to
say that I share my fellow residence
[2:19:37] concerns that this project will
overwhelm this community
[2:19:42] especially if it starts the dark side
but I did want to ask
[2:19:48] Parks who is in fact a project sponsor
as well as the lead Agency for this
[2:19:55] project
to provide some clarification on the
[2:19:59] town's role in this process so Parks has
told us tonight that this is a Parks
[2:20:05] process project and we are in the
process of conducting the environmental
[2:20:10] impact study additionally supervisor Van
Tassel has said on multiple occasions
[2:20:15] including at last month's board meeting
that this is not a town project
[2:20:21] but the record says differently
I've looked closely at all the
[2:20:26] documentation related to the
environmental review process so I'm
[2:20:30] familiar with everything that's part of
the public record for this project
[2:20:33] including the 2015 draft master plan
the scoping documents outlining exactly
[2:20:40] what will be covered in the Eis
and the towns application for local
[2:20:44] Waterfront revitalization program grant
money for the design work for the
[2:20:49] shoreline portion of the trail
and the town's contract with akrf for
[2:20:55] all the work related to the
environmental impact study
[2:21:00] so regarding the grant money back in
2016 the town was awarded four hundred
[2:21:06] thousand dollars from the Department of
state's lwrp program
[2:21:10] and receive matching funds of four
hundred thousand from the Hudson
[2:21:14] Highlands Land Trust Finance design and
Engineering work for the trail and to
[2:21:20] complete the environmental impact
statement which isn't yet finished
[2:21:24] then in 2017 the town of philipstown
signed the contract with akrf and became
[2:21:30] the designated contract administrator
for the Eis work
[2:21:35] the new 2020 plan
represents
[2:21:39] the grandiose vision for the trail as a
linear Park and a major tourist
[2:21:44] attraction starting from dark side with
a two plus Mile Stretch a 14 foot wide
[2:21:50] elevated Boardwalk
and it also turns little Stony Point
[2:21:54] into an amusement park
none of which was part of the 2015
[2:21:59] draft master plan which was supposed to
be the Central Study point or the Eis
[2:22:09] there's nothing in the public record to
indicate what took place between the end
[2:22:12] of 2017 and 2020 when a new and
completely different master plan was
[2:22:17] published
I don't think many people knew if this
[2:22:21] plan's existence before hhft started
promoting it in 2021
[2:22:27] yet it was at that time that the town
adopted in its new 2030 comprehensive
[2:22:32] plan and action item to support the
Hudson Highlands field Trail thank you
[2:22:37] Paul
[2:22:40] [Applause]
[2:22:50] foreign
would you like a response to that
[2:22:54] yes
yes
[2:23:02] Richard would you like to respond yeah I
would I think it's unfair to John to be
[2:23:07] saddled with this you know supposition
that he has control over the Fjord Trail
[2:23:13] um
that was during my tenure
[2:23:17] those grants were given to the town for
studies when we were the grant
[2:23:22] administrator at that time so the town
was acting essentially as a
[2:23:26] Clearinghouse with akrf to do the
studies about the original master plan
[2:23:32] now since then this is
this process has gone on and there have
[2:23:37] been other studies and as was alluded to
there are several other studies pending
[2:23:41] in the secret process so when you're
saying the town has control over the
[2:23:47] project that's not true the town was an
administrator for a grant so that's the
[2:23:54] fundamental truth there and the town was
fully reimbursed for every dollar that
[2:23:59] was spent was no Pub No public money
spent
[2:24:04] no absolutely not thank you
[2:24:10] yes next person on the list John zubik
[2:24:29] John I'm surprised
[2:24:36] you want to start the clock
I'll tell you when ready go
[2:24:43] but we're ready we're ready let's go
we're running out of time here
[2:24:52] everybody can hear
[2:24:56] that okay
um
[2:24:59] when do I still don't know where to
start I've written about a half a dozen
[2:25:03] different uh statements uh
[2:25:09] since before Thanksgiving I've had
meetings almost every day on this after
[2:25:12] March Madness
it's been meetings with people or groups
[2:25:16] every day being conflicted is to put it
mildly
[2:25:22] someone in this room was in this room
right now asked me which which uh which
[2:25:27] side it was on and
I'm a team player I don't profess to be
[2:25:31] on sides I'm trying to move this forward
so I'm not on a side I'm very conflicted
[2:25:39] um I'm seeing a therapist for the second
time in my life every two weeks
[2:25:43] [Applause]
[2:25:48] um
the first time I had to see the
[2:25:52] therapist was when I got married to my
wonderful wife the second time
[2:25:56] well can you decide this is a serious
impact statement in endangerment
[2:26:00] endangerment across the spectrum of Life
as we know it around here is in many
[2:26:04] ways of positive declaration translation
not good for the neighborhood
[2:26:09] somewhat like the last hurricane that
came through that killed a lot of deer
[2:26:13] and introduced more weeds for us to go
through
[2:26:16] to cut to the chase right now I urge
parks to truly be the lead agency and
[2:26:22] issue a work stop order on this somewhat
ill-conceived project
[2:26:25] I'm upset that uh Breakneck was
segmented and the whole project should
[2:26:31] have been considered and they should not
proceed on uh with breaking as far as as
[2:26:35] far as I believe so I urge parks to put
a stop recorder on this if they can
[2:26:40] oprhp the office of parks recreation and
historic preservation some parks please
[2:26:45] put some emphasis on the preservation
piece that's surely in their our mission
[2:26:50] statement
around around here
[2:26:54] I'm not sure how many times
the well-meaning designers have been
[2:26:58] back at the get-go on the drawing board
but it's time to again to
[2:27:02] re-visit that and go back to square one
um I know for a fact
[2:27:09] this is a fact that some of the partners
that have been listed by hhft claim to
[2:27:15] have had input from on this project
through a steering committee has been a
[2:27:21] name only I've been involved with those
20 point for since this Inception about
[2:27:25] 40 years now and I was waiting and
looking for the invitation to uh hit my
[2:27:32] two cents in and it never never came we
had Representatives but was never going
[2:27:37] that way always came this way what this
sketchy proposed plan was going to be so
[2:27:42] now recently thank you John
to be continued thank you
[2:27:48] we're going to take one more
[Applause]
[2:27:52] okay we have two minutes left John
schinemann
[2:28:00] facing all of us
um
[2:28:03] I do not live in the village I live up
on Jake Hawks in phillipstown so my
[2:28:09] perspective is a little bit different
but
[2:28:13] all the concerns I share we are
overloaded already and I think one of
[2:28:18] the things which they've said which
hasn't resonated is that the problem is
[2:28:22] here now whether this gets approved or
not we have a huge over visitation
[2:28:27] problem
now
[2:28:30] The Fjord Trail
is an attempt to deflect some of that
[2:28:35] traffic off of Fair Street 90 and all
the rest of the things give another
[2:28:39] option for people who are already coming
they're already here
[2:28:44] to get to the trails now I have some
specific concerns one without a traffic
[2:28:51] study to have even this level of
discussion is sort of stupid honestly
[2:28:55] because we're talking Spanish if we
don't know what proposals are out there
[2:28:59] or even know what they're going to be
saying are the criteria
[2:29:03] but let's talk about the trail itself
I'm a cyclist I've stopped cycling in
[2:29:08] this area because it's just too bloody
dangerous
[2:29:11] it's overloaded the drivers are texting
there are no shoulders on roads so I am
[2:29:16] delighted that there's a rail trail
somewhere that I don't have to drive 45
[2:29:20] minutes to get to however
if you are constructing this thing to
[2:29:26] accommodate everybody I don't see how a
12 foot 10 foot or 14 foot wide Trail is
[2:29:34] going to accommodate cyclists
pedestrians who are walking to hiking
[2:29:39] trails or walking to some of the other
venues people with disabilities now I
[2:29:44] worked in Mass tourism over at West
Point I ran the public tourism program
[2:29:47] over there I am very familiar with ADA
requirements even though they don't have
[2:29:51] to follow them
but I don't see how that limited space
[2:29:56] is going to accommodate all these
different
[2:29:59] uh audiences that you have that you're
projecting are going to use it cyclists
[2:30:05] alone on a two-way 10 foot wide that is
very narrow that's like one cycle going
[2:30:12] one way one cycle the other where are
all the rest of the people going to be
[2:30:16] and I'd also like to put another comment
out there what are you going to do about
[2:30:20] electronic bicycles because if you allow
things to go 30 miles an hour on that
[2:30:26] there will be bloodshed
enjoy thank you
[2:30:30] [Applause]
[2:30:40] that'll be it for the public comment we
are now going to get a closing statement
[2:30:45] Chris
and
[2:30:48] just like to say on behalf of all the
all the words we greatly appreciate
[2:30:52] everybody coming out tonight to tell us
your opinions your views your thoughts
[2:30:57] and your concerns
we greatly appreciate Hudson Islands
[2:31:01] viewer Trail and the parks near state
parks for coming I know that this is
[2:31:06] very difficult we really appreciate you
being willing to do so
[2:31:16] can I get a motion to adjourn for the
town board please
[2:31:21] second all in favor and for the village
of Cold Spring a motion to adjourn
[2:31:27] please
second tweets all in favor
[2:31:33] aye
and for the village
[2:31:36] for the village of Nelsonville can I get
a motion to adjourn the meeting
[2:31:42] promotion Maria second Dave thank you
[Music]
[2:31:55] foreign