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Publication Date: December 10, 2025
Image remixed from The Economist
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Before we go any further:
Disagreement persists over the definition of Hudson's "community" and whether "neighbour" means someone next door or in the adjacent ward. Yet residency in Hudson remains an objective fact: individuals whose primary domicile is in the City of Hudson, whether they own or rent their homes. Both property owners and renters contribute to city taxes, directly or indirectly. Business owners operating enterprises in Hudson also have legitimate standing, as they pay taxes through owned or leased premises. Equal treatment demands consistency. Those with a voice should include residents who vote in Hudson, whose primary residence is the city, or who own businesses or work in enterprises that pay city property or lodging taxes.
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We received quite a few passionate comments, mostly in our DMs, and did more reading. We urge you to read John Friedman's Letter to the Editor below, and we would also like to draw the distinction between Public Hearings and Public Comment in all other meetings.
In the mundane theatre of local governance a sharp legal fissure divides the town square. For formal Public Hearings regarding zoning or new local laws (ordinances) the legal standard rightly evolves from residency to standing. If you are an "aggrieved party" such as a business owner or a commuter taxed by the town the state forces the council to listen. But general meetings operate differently. Here municipal boards are legally empowered to treat the microphone as a privilege for the constituency rather than an open stage for visiting activists. It is worth remembering that the City of Hudson is a municipal corporation. Its Common Council exists to pass laws and balance budgets. It is not intended as a theatre or soapbox for the performative grievances of paid career politicians seeing who can capture the flag in our local affairs.
Zooming Out, A National Perspective
The geography of this speech reveals that prioritizing residents is the American norm rather than the exception. Only a minority of states (roughly 25% including California) adhere to a true "Open Mic" philosophy where the public square is open to all regardless of residency or type of meeting.
The bulk of the US (approximately 55% typified by New York and New Hampshire) favors a restrictive "Discretionary" model where local officials retain the power to prioritize residents. The remaining 20% sit in a judicial twilight zone mostly in the South where courts frequently uphold the right of towns to mute outsiders entirely. Hudson’s Common Council would hardly be an outlier for reclaiming its own meeting time.
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Hudson’s public meetings have become open-mic nights for everyone except the people who pay for the room. Federal law requires that meetings remain open to the public, but nothing requires the Common Council to hand the microphone to lobbyists from Manhattan, activists dialing in from DC or Albany, or our ever-opinionated Greenport neighbors. Yet, that is exactly what has happened. Residents who shoulder the taxes, use the services, and absorb the consequences of local decisions often find themselves competing for speaking time with people who do not live here, who never will, and who are paid to orchestrate cross-state influence campaigns. A city of fewer than 6,000 cannot afford to outsource its democratic voice, and certainly not to people who will not live with and pay for the consequences.
This goes against Hudson Common Sense’s philosophy that local municipal government should be efficient, non-partisan, and treat all residents as equals. Read more about our philosophy, vision, mission, and values here.
The remedy is straightforward. Public comment should be reserved for Hudson residents and those with direct stakes in the city, renters, homeowners, and business owners who operate within city limits. Verification is simple. The Clerk’s and Treasurer’s office already maintains the records. These verified participants get the floor because they have something the others lack: real-world exposure to the results. Everyone else requests an invitation from the Council President or meeting chair. Consultants, attorneys, developers, county officials, and issue advocates may appear when their expertise is needed, but strictly as guests rather than equal participants in a process designed for Hudson’s electorate. The same rule should apply to official written submissions for the record. Only verified Hudson residents, taxpayers and renters alike, and local business owners should have their written remarks entered into the legislative record as “Public Comment”. Others may send correspondence, but it need not be treated as public comment nor preserved as part of the record, and can be labeled as “Non-Resident Comment.”
Hudson is catnip for people (read, career politicians) who treat politics like a game of Capture the Flag. It is the seat of Columbia County, a cultural shorthand for the Hudson Valley, one of the more diverse cities upstate, and a small media obsession. Win in Hudson and you get to brag far beyond its 6,000 residents. The city is also an emotional home base for people who grew up in 12534 and still carry around memories of Warren Street parades and afternoons at the Boys and Girls Club, now the Youth Center. Hudson grievance-industrial complex raises attention in political and philanthropic circles, and Hudson’s tourism economy raises the City’s profile in glossy magazines and busy blogs. That is why Columbia County press releases, political mailers, and nonprofit websites keep returning to the same shot: the iconic wide angle photo looking down Warren Street, an encyclopaedia of architectural styles in one frame, with the Catskills holding steady in the background.
The perennially popular Phil Haber (Getty Images) photo that is only bested by Olana and the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse, combined.
The problem is not abstract. When Hudson considers something as specific as a local Airbnb tax, the Common Council should not be deluged, and at worst harassed, by statewide realtor lobbying groups, corporate representatives from Airbnb Inc, professional activists from For the Many, the Catskill socialist mafia, or retired protest professionals crossing state lines for one more performance. This is how the city ended up with pro-immigration advocacy groups, most speakers resident in Greenport, Kinderhook, or other towns, taking up valuable time during public hearings that relate to housing that is not open to non-citizens. It is how Manhattan-based Super PACs and Albany-based real estate lobbying outfits have astroturfed our meetings, rallying their statewide lists to spam the inboxes of already overworked council members. Hudson becomes a stage set for other people’s campaigns rather than a chamber of record for local life. It is also unfair to our elected Common Council members who wake up to angry emails from strangers and are then blamed for not responding to actual resident emails, which become a needle in a haystack.
Restricting official written submissions for the record would also spare the City Clerk and her team from the monthly scramble of processing dozens of astroturf emails and rushing to upload them to the City of Hudson public records portal before each meeting. It would prevent a repeat of the unfortunate episode when Hudson chose to pass political resolutions on international wars and hundreds of residents submitted identical robo-letters that consumed staff time and cluttered the public file. A resident-first verification rule, applied to both oral and written comment, restores order to a process overwhelmed by mass-produced advocacy.
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If you like this idea, you will want to follow along as Common Sense suggests 15 Ideas for Hudson in 15 Days. Read our daily updates here. ⏪
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Our Council’s limited time is a scarce public asset and should be guarded as such. It should be spent on charter reform that clarifies governance, on lowering taxes that choke middle class families and critical local enterprise, and on making dangerous intersections safer from trucks and human error. Or whatever the elected officials decide. Instead, too many meetings drift into hours of speeches on foreign wars, national culture battles, and Albany pressure campaigns led by professional activists passing through. Hudson is not a prop in someone else’s congressional run or statehouse strategy. No, thank you.
This approach still respects federal law. Non-residents may attend meetings physically or digitally. They simply do not get the same access to the microphone that a resident with skin in the game does. They also do not have automatic access to the official record through written submissions. No Hudson resident receives privileged speaking or written-submission rights at meetings in Greenport, Kinderhook, Caracas, or New York City. Hudson is under no obligation to grant those privileges in reverse, especially after recent episodes in which non-residents have dominated comment periods and targeted local officials.
Prioritizing residents strengthens democratic clarity. It reduces grandstanding, shortens meetings, and ensures that officials hear directly from the people who will wake up the next morning living with the decisions made inside City Hall. The Council President has full authority to set this structure, and implementing it would restore order to a process that has drifted far from its purpose.
Public comment should belong to the public. In Hudson, that means the people who live here, pay the taxes, and live with the consequences.
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Where National Politics Belong
Residents and nonresidents who wish to influence international, national, state, or Columbia County policy already have proper channels. They may petition the offices of their federal representatives in New York’s 19th Congressional District, contact their New York State Senator Michelle Hinchey, or write to their Assembly member Didi Barrett, all of whom have paid staff to review concerns and respond to constituents. These matters are the work of governments with jurisdiction, budgets, and mandates far beyond the scale of a small city. Hudson’s Common Council, elected by hundreds rather than hundreds of thousands, exists to manage local infrastructure, land use, taxation, and public safety. It is neither efficient nor respectful to redirect the council’s limited time toward world affairs. You would not ask the United States Secretary of State to fix a dangerous intersection on Third and Warren; by the same logic, you should not ask Hudson’s Council President or Department of Public Works to adjudicate America’s foreign trade policy. Engaging higher offices is civic participation; using the lowest rung of government for global debates only clogs the system and wastes local tax dollars.
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Practical Considerations
The mechanics are straightforward. The City Clerk can maintain a confidential verification list using existing tools: tax rolls, utility accounts, voter registration, business licenses, leases, and direct institutional knowledge. Residents, property owners, and local business owners can register once, in advance, to be marked as “verified” for public comment.
At meetings, the Chair sees only whether someone is verified, not their landlord, tax bill, or any other private detail. A resident wishing to speak under a pseudonym may do so while the Clerk quietly confirms that the person is in fact a Hudson resident or qualifying local stakeholder. Written comments follow the same rule. The public sees the pseudonym. The Clerk holds the verification key. Only verified speakers’ written submissions become part of the official record. Others may write to the Council, but their correspondence remains ordinary communication rather than legislative comment.
This protects privacy, elevates genuine local voices, and prevents outside actors from gaming a system meant for the people who actually live within the city.
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Legal Basis for a Resident-Only Comment Rule
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Judicial Precedent
Statutes and Regulatory Authority
Academic and Institutional Guidance
Examples of Existing Municipal Policies:
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