Hugh Reynolds: Full to the rafters

The columnist Reynolds.

Noble had neither a corporation counsel nor a secretary in place on inauguration day. The mayor says he was seeking a young attorney on the move, which to some sounds similar to a city manager. Fortunately, former assistant counsel Dan Gartenstein has agreed to stay for a few months, a transition Noble was not afforded by Gallo.

Noble’s mother Jackie was filling in as secretary for a few hours a day this week while the mayor sifted through numerous applications. The plan is to staff the position by Monday.

Many in the crowd remarked in sadness on the passing of former Kingston teacher Wendell Scherer. A well-respected and even lovable educator, Scherer, 66, touched many lives in a most positive way with his contagious enthusiasm. He embraced his students as if they were his own children. His wake on Sunday was attended by hundreds, testimony to the esteem in which Scherer and his family were and are held.

Jail talk

Ulster County just can’t seem to get things right when it comes to its jails. Recall the $95 million debacle called the Law Enforcement Center in Kingston, two years overdue and almost 30 percent over bid. Left standing empty when cops and cons moved into the new facility in 2007 was the old jail on Golden Hill.

Out of sight but not out of mind. Various schemes were advanced for its re-use, none of which got past the speculation stage. Among the ideas was a federal lockup for customs violators and a site for new Family Court facility. Alas, renovation costs, not counting demolition, would have been exorbitant. What do you do with a 40-year-old building built like a fort, with tiny rooms and iron bars?

In any event, it was an impossible sell. It quickly fell off the radar as county government dealt with things like dog parks and propane-powered prowl cars. Last year the county renewed its efforts to market the property, hiring the redoubtable Joe Deegan for the job. With almost everybody re-elected and back home for the holidays, it was announced last week that a recently secured state grant of $200,000 would be used to begin demolition of the old jail. My guess is they will discover tons of asbestos which will render that state money little more than a down payment on the millions it will take to level the old fort.

After that, say officials, the plan is to market what could be one of the lovelier hilltop sites in Kingston.

Restoring old buildings

Which brings me to outgoing county legislature chairman John Parete’s last hurrah. Parete didn’t say much about a new site for a Family Court building during his two years as top dog in the legislature. Perhaps he was saving the best for last. Parete’s idea, raised almost offhandedly at his last press conference in the office he will vacate this week, was for the county to purchase the Kingston school district’s Crown Street administrative headquarters in Uptown Kingston for conversion to a family courthouse.

Hailing a century-old landmark with 30,000 square feet of space and parking for at least 50 cars, Parete reasoned the so-called Cioni Building could be a good fit. Considering the school district rejected two bids in the $660,000 range in 2014, the price was probably right. If it took a couple of million more to fix the roof, make other repairs, install an elevator, and pave the parking lot, what the hey. You can’t build an outhouse for $70 a square foot these days.

Meanwhile, with the state hounding the county to do something yesterday about its decrepit courthouse on Lucas Avenue, once the site of an auto-repair business, Parete’s parting shot may have been on target. I wonder.

Experience should be a teacher. Renovation of very old buildings can be expensive. Kingston’s 1875 city hall, with an original budget of about $4 million, wound up at almost twice the price. The renovation of the 50-year-old Sophie Finn school in Kingston into a SUNY Ulster adjunct ran over budget by quite a bit. That most of it was made up in grants hardly made that acceptable.

If the administration is serious about Cioni, they might better consider leveling the old brick barn and building a modern, three-story structure. Or better yet, some taxpayers – and district Superintendent Paul Padalino himself – might say, sell it to a private entity and put it back on the tax rolls.

The year closed with no news on the sale of another substantial county-owned property, the former alms house on Flatbush Avenue on the Kingston-Town of Ulster border. Brokers I’ve talked to call it a tough sell. A third of the 15-acre property is virtually unusable. Historic designation  of the 140-year old structure will only complicate its sale.

But there may be some synergy here. The old alms house was for several generations used as a county office building, with major renovations in the 1980s. The parts of the property facing two of the city’s busiest roads could, if marketed separately, be attractive to developers. Kingston could probably use another gas station or a drug store. Proceeds might go toward renovation of this newly discovered historical building. Could this be a courthouse of the future?

Missing Chris

Two things retiring U.S. Rep. Chris Gibson probably won’t talk about when he addresses the Ulster County Regional Chamber of Commerce breakfast on Jan. 20, the beginning of Barack Obama’s last year in office, will be his own political plans and his thoughts on the candidates seeking to succeed him next January.

Zephyr Teachout. (Photo: Phyllis McCabe)

The usual suspects have been well-documented, but here’s another attractive potential warrior. Remember the unforgettably named Zephyr Teachout, the Fordham law professor who challenged Andrew Cuomo for governor in a Democratic primary last year? Turns out she has a summer/weekend place in Dover in eastern Dutchess County, which incidentally is in our 19th Congressional District. The web is abuzz about her possibilities, and Teachout has indicated to a few media outlets that she’s thinking about it. If she’s really interested, she’ll have to move quickly.

She is nothing if not a crowd-pleaser. The progressive Teachout might be a tad too liberal for this moderate to conservative district, Ulster County excepted, but she would be running on a ticket headed by the unbeatable Hillary — in blue states, at least — and is a proven campaigner.

A Teachout candidacy could be bad news for County Comptroller Elliott Auerbach, currently pondering a run for Gibson’s seat. Or good. Auerbach could lend his influence to a Teachout campaign without all the bother and expense of running himself.

But don’t ask Chris Gibson about any of this stuff. He’s already moved on.