Friday night show: No supporters of town’s eminent domain plan speak during four hour public hearing

Over 500 people packed the auditorium at Red Hook High School on Friday night for a public hearing on the town board’s proposal to take over the Red Hook Boat Club by eminent domain and convert it into a public waterfront park. 

More than 90 people signed up to comment during the public hearing, though not one speaker expressed their support for the town’s plan during the nearly four hour meeting. 

The town’s proposal consists of opening the site to provide public waterfront recreational facilities including a boat launch, boat slips, clubhouse, picnic area and related facilities based off of the town’s 1993 comprehensive plan. 

“Have you changed since 1993?” One speaker, Sarah Imboden of Tivoli, asked the board. “I’ve changed, and so has the world around me.”

While there were five other sites considered – at the end of Broadway in the Village of Tivoli, North Tivoli Bay, South Tivoli Bay, Heron Point and Astor Point – the Red Hook Boat Club, according to town officials is “the only site in Red Hook with the potential for providing direct access to the Hudson River for an active recreational asset for the Town residents. Of the areas where deep water is available close to the shore, only the Barrytown area has direct access to the shoreline because of the railroad line.”

Residents, boat club members and supporters, commodores of regional clubs, and others who “don’t have a boat in this fight,” as local farmer Norman Greig noted, questioned the town’s transparency to communicate with boat club operators and the community, the lack of traffic impact studies, the potential burden on taxpayers, and using its power to seize private property. 

“I get the mail,” Bonnie Day, secretary for the boat club, told the board. “And I’ve gotten no mail about a public-private partnership [between the boat club and the town]. I did get a certified letter about this public hearing though…”

A group of neighbors from the Hamlet of Barrytown, where the boat club is located, coordinated a multi-part message to the board, as well as T-shirts and keychains saying “Protect the Historic Hamlet of Barrytown.” 

The youngest speaker of the evening told the board about the first time she caught a catfish alongside her family at the club. “Please don’t take the boat club,” she added. “I’m 11 years old and even I know stealing things is wrong.”

Throughout the evening, speakers noted the dangers of the site, including the narrow, winding road heading down to the waterfront, the deep drop off of the shoreline, and the turbidity of the waters on the east side of the Hudson River. Several boaters commented that they launched in Germantown or Rhinecliff because the tides were safer, and those launch sites were easier to navigate than the tight turnaround at the end of Dock Road. Kids at the boat club have to wear life vests close to the water’s edge, one club member said, and one local volunteer firefighter asked the board if they were going to get a boat in order to perform water rescues, “because right now, we just use rubber rafts.”

At the end of the hearing, a member of the crowd asked the board if there was anyone who has voiced their support in favor of the town’s proposal.

The town-hired eminent domain attorney responded that they could FOIL – file a Freedom of Information Law request – to obtain that information.  

The Town of Red Hook planning board will review the proposal during a meeting on Monday, May 19, 2025. Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86511309862

Public comments will be accepted until 4pm on Wednesday, May 21, 2025: townclerk@redhook.org 

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