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General News: Questions Raised About 2009 Celebration
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| A commemorative postcard from the 1909 celebration of Henry Hudson's voyage. |
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| A drawing of Robert Fulton's Clermont, the world's first successful steamboat. |
October 15, 2008
Cornwall-on-Hudson trustees Barbara Gosda and Rick Gioia want the village to appoint new chairs of the local committee for the 2009 celebration of the quadri-centennial of the voyages of Henry Hudson and Samuel de Champlain, as well as the 200th anniversary of Robert Fulton’s steamboat. At Monday night's board work session, Gioia suggested that the current chairs should be removed for "complete inaction."
Since the summer Barbara Gosda has been planning a day-long celebration at the riverfront and she submitted a grant proposal in September for $15,000 to pay for the event. She has also worked with artist Barbara Gioia, Rick Gioia's wife, to plan a series of sculpture installations in Donahue Memorial Park. The work would be chosen for its real and metaphysical connection to the Hudson River and the concept of a voyage, Gosda said.
Gosda told her fellow village board members on Monday evening that she is concerned because two people, Deke Hazirjian and Lee Murphy, were already appointed by the village board to serve as chairs of the joint town-village committee and she is seeking legal guidance from the village attorney about how to appoint new people to those seats. She said the step was necessary because the other chairs had done little to apply for $10 million in funds available for the celebration. “There were really nice funding opportunities out there,” she said, “and they went by the wayside.” Trustee Gioia suggested that there is still potential for the celebration to go well with other people stepping up.
Mary Beth Greene-Krafft, a town of Cornwall board member who also sits on the joint town-village committee, paints a different picture, saying that state funds were very limited for communities the size of Cornwall and Cornwall-on-Hudson. Greene-Krafft says that the committee decided not to create a separate event but to promote the quadricentennial through events that already occur annually in the town, like the Fourth of July celebration and Riverfest. She oversaw the town’s successful application for a $1,000 matching grant.
Last week, grants also were made to other Cornwall groups, including $1,000 to the Cornwall Independence Day Committee, $1,000 to the Cornwall Historical Society, and four $1,000 grants to the Hudson Highlands Nature Museum for historical and ecological lectures and exhibits for children and adults. The town’s grant money will be used to promote and advertise the year-long string of celebrations.
Cornwall-on-Hudson has already received a $1,000 mini-grant for a bandstand concert by local artists and school children reflecting a concert held in 1909 for the 300th anniversary of Hudson’s voyage.
Trustee Gosda told the board on Monday that she expects an answer next month regarding her application for a $15,000 grant to bring in puppets, a one-act play and banjo players for a one-day celebration at the riverfront. The joint town-village committee is also meeting in early November, Greene-Krafft said, to discuss how to spend the mini-grant.
As for replacing the current co-chairs appointed by the board in 2006, one of them has already stepped down. Lee Murphy says that he resigned from the committee last spring after investing two-and-a half years into developing proposals for not only Cornwall-on-Hudson but the entire mid-Hudson Valley. Those proposals included a light show at the top of Mount Beacon, Bear Mountain and Storm King Mountain, as well as water taxis that would allow people to connect with communities on both sides of the river. Co-chair Deke Hazirjian says he intends to continue supporting the local committee's effort to raise more funds.
To learn more about the plans across the state for the quadricentennial, visit www.exploreny400.com.
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