POUGHKEEPSIE – Last month, Dutchess County Executive Sue Serino announced that following a successful mediation process, . Serino said the agreement requires both the city’s and the county’s legislative bodies to consider it at their next public meetings. The city council’s next meeting was last night, and the county legislature’s next meetings are Thursday, July 9th for committee meetings, with a full board meeting on Monday, July 13th.
The Poughkeepsie Common Council did not have the agreement on the agenda last night, and Legislature Chairwoman Yvette Valdés Smith has not placed it on the committee agenda for July 9, and does not plan to have the full legislature vote on it at the meeting on July 13.
“This agreement is the result of a closed mediation between County Executive Serino and Mayor Flowers,” Valdés Smith told . “The legislature was not involved, and nothing was shared with us until after the agreement was signed. Our caucus has always stood with the City of Poughkeepsie, and we will stand by the Common Council’s decision, but we need to know what that is before moving forward.”
When Serino was informed that the agreement would not be on the legislature’s July agenda, she claimed it would violate its terms.
Serino, in a memo to legislative leadership, reiterated her claim that the mediated agreement “obligates both the County and the City to agendize the settlement for approval at their next public meeting (July 7 for the City and July 9 and 13 for the Legislature). Valdés Smith claims that the agreement includes a clause affording the County 90 days to take action.
Sources have told Mid-Hudson News that a conference was held yesterday with the County, City, and the judge who mediated the agreement, and the judge indicated that the agreement did not require the plan to be approved by the Council or the Legislature this month.
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