Albany Commission postpones Historic District vote

ALBANY — As the marathon Albany City Commission meeting Tuesday night closed in on the four-hour mark, the obviously weary, seemingly punch-drunk members of the commission started tossing out motions like random stream-of-consciousness thoughts that popped into their heads.

Trying to come to a consensus on the proposed expansion of the city’s historic district, and facing an equally weary and simmering audience that had shrunk from around 120 to less than half of that as the meeting dragged on, there was first a call to table a vote on the issue for a year, then two weeks, then a month, then two months. Then there was a call to vote right then.

All died for lack of a second.

In between all that drama, Mayor Dorothy Hubbard had to gavel down Ward VI Commissioner Tommie Postell, who, in turn, slammed his palm on the commission dais in defiant response, and had to caution Ward II Commissioner Bobby Coleman about arguing with a member of the audience.

Eventually, with Ward V’s Bob Langstaff admitting he was “trying to find a solution I can vote for,” the board — much to the dismay of most in the crowd who came to the meeting looking for a resolution to the ongoing issue — decided to table the matter until its Aug. 22 meeting. That four-month window, the commission agreed, will give staff enough time to come up with maps offering options to the expansion area of the district and to create a survey that they say will give residents in the area an opportunity to weigh in on the matter.

“I’m tired of this; I’m ready to do something and move on,” Postell said as the various motions kept dying on the vine. Ward III’s B.J. Fletcher, who had advocated for sending a survey to residents of the Rawson Circle and Palmyra Heights neighborhoods that would be impacted by the proposed expansion of the district, finally called for an immediate vote. That, too, did not get a second.

Coleman, in whose ward the impacted neighborhoods lie, tried to find a way to “make everybody happy” by proposing that the commission vote to approve the Historic District expansion but allow those who didn’t want to be a part of it to “opt out.”

“We can find a solution for people on both sides of this issue,” Coleman said during discussion of the expansion. “But we have to be willing to sit down and talk as adults. I believe there are too many egos involved in this, people who want the right to their opinion, but don’t want to allow other people their right to a different opinion.”

At that point, Postell chimed in: “It doesn’t make sense to keep going back and forth. This has been going on since 2012 … ‘13 … ‘14 … ‘15 … ‘16 … and now ‘17. Let’s do something.”

Adding to the circuslike atmosphere of the proceedings was a lineup of citizens who offered their opinions on the matter.

Jackson Murphy told the board, “I am opposed to the expansion, and I feel a large majority of the people who own properties in the (proposed district) are against it, too. If you called for a vote, I feel those opposed would win the day.”

Property owner Stan Logue offered a passionate rebuttal.

“I’d like for this commission to show some leadership,” he said. “It’s evident that you care about the city and the pockets of neighborhoods where people actually take care of their property. What has been done in the last 20 years simply is not working. I’d like for you to try something different, allow for the expansion of the Historic District. It’s not going to magically change things, I know, but it adds one more layer of protection to the people who care for their property.

“I’m asking this board to consider the 35 percent of the people who actually live in their houses rather than the 65 percent who rent theirs out and simply want to minimize the amount of money they have to pay to keep their properties up. I can’t find anything detrimental about being part of a Historic District.”

Langstaff engaged Logue in a discussion about the city’s ordinance concerning its Historic District, and he pointed out elements of the ordinance that he noted were in opposition to state law.

“I’m not voting for a blooming thing until our website (on which the ordinance is found) is cleaned up,” the Ward V commissioner said. “This city has neglected itself for decades. It’s going to take a targeted effort — rather than a little bit in each ward — by Code Enforcement and other agencies to really bring about change in our neighborhoods.”

Logue responded, “What I’m hearing from this board is that you’re looking for a reason not to act.”

Ward IV Commissioner Roger Marietta had gotten a taste of the crowd’s anger when, before the public hearing started, he offered a motion to table the matter for a year to “give the community time to recover from the storms (of January).”

“Are you kidding me?” one audience member shouted, and Marietta’s motion became the first in a long line to die for lack of a second.

Greg Fullerton, who heads the joint city/county Historic Preservation Commission, told the board the expansion of the Historic District provides economic development opportunities. “We want something that will benefit everyone,” he said.

Coleman reluctantly agreed to hold off on the vote, but he said before the motion to table was approved, “I will support this if I have everyone’s promise that when this issue comes up again, we vote on it, yeah or nay. At some point, folks, we have to vote.”