Bottom line is this - if not even one person is criminally prosecuted for this and/or loses a professional license, then this is just another complete sham - again at tax payers expense; how dare the tax payers cry out for justice!!

But Melissa, what is the mission?

1/To affix blame?

2/Or to return the DPW building to functional and habitable condition?

If it's #1, it seems to me that we could spend years of litigation determining this and be left with nothing but a local contractor who says, "Okay, I'm bust, your million-dollar judgment is blood from a stone." Or a judgment against some amorphous "engineering firm" that in fact no longer exists by the time that judgment is won.

If it's #2, we need to say, "Okay, incredibly stupid mistakes were made by individuals we ourselves elected, we're partially to blame for not having paid attention, and the clock can't be turned back. You want to live in a Village run by amateurs, you pay the amateur piper." (And remember, there was a time this village wasn't run by total amateurs. Indeed, our current mayor, doubtless a nice guy, spoke openly at a voter meeting of having read a book that was basically "How To Win a Local Election for Dummies.")

Melissa, I completely see your point here and sympathize with everyone who is struggling in this economy. I for one do not look forward to an additional tax burden. However, all the Village residents are currently being burdened by paying for the initial cost/investment of the building, to the tune of I believe $900,000. That ship has already sailed. I feel like we need to make the repairs that are needed, keep it maintained and make good use of it to get our money's worth out of it.

Here is a novel concept.
The land with its majectic views are worth a lot of money. Rather than argue the fact that our citizens are imperiled by the economy and who is to blame, simply SELL THE LOT. Yes sell it. Recoup every dollar and move on. I am sure there are other places in the village for the DPW garage. There is land for sale up and down 9W. Perhaps we could strike a deal with NYMA or merge the village DPW with the Town of COrnwall, absorb the employees and use the town facilities. On another note I do not profess to be a professional elected official myself but I do believe that the statement amateur is a bit harsh, albeit humerous and somewhat of a reality check.

"The land with its majestic views are worth a lot of money. Rather than argue the fact that our citizens are imperiled by the economy and who is to blame, simply SELL THE LOT."

As somebody who lives maybe a quarter-mile above the railroad tracks, on Grandview, I can promise you that only a fool would live that close to the tracks. That land certainly is worth something for a limited kind of industrial development, but not "a lot of money..."

Stephan, I respectfully differ. Real estate pricing is subjective. Your assumption that I was only thinking about residential is wrong. In consideration of residential reality is that there are many high priced homes throughout the Hudson River Valley along that same track, look at the marlborough area, Stony Point - across the river, Cold Spring Dobbs Ferry, Tarrytown, Sleepy Hollow (ever see those homes). Considering the land only forindustrial use is short sighted. How about a boat rental business that is also a restaurant? foolish is not considering options and belittling out of the box thinking.

"...Tarrytown, Sleepy Hollow (ever see those homes)..."

Ira, I've not only seen them, I lived in one. My parents' house in Sleepy Hollow was as close as anyone's there to the railroad tracks, smack on the bluff over the Hudson. Yet they weren't physically much closer to the tracks than we are here on Grandview, and I can assure you that there's an enormous difference between electric commuter cars humming past and the triple-Diesel-engine, clatter-wheeled, 100-car-long trains driven by horn-happy engineers who keep Cliffside Park awake all night.

Oh, and about an hour ago, I drove by the sewage plant, right next to that property, and they were doing one of their routine sludge pumpouts. The stench was bracing,

I'm not trying to belittle out-of-the-box thinking, I'm just saying come down to Shore Road for a couple of hours, just sit in your car with the windows open while trains go by and smells waft past, and then tell me how valuable the land is for anything other than warehouses.

How many people out there have read the 2010 Tectonic engineering report? The weibolt "fix" seems more like a patch, as far as the foundation is concerned - They are still not driving piles down to a stable base; they are adding 19 point loads of weight onto a decomposing subsoil ... We are adding more weight onto what is the true problem - The unstable ground underneath - Does everyone want to KEEP paying to fix this year after year, and let the people who pushed it through just weasel through the cracks with no personal responsibility - Seems like another case of personal responsibility no longer being a factor that we consider ... Can we fix it AND hold those responsible to be accountable? There are many in this community that WILL lose their homes if we keep going like this

Yes, Melissa, I've read it through four times now over the last several months, and I'm struck by the amount of guessing, "possible" and "maybes" there are in it. Which is not surprising since the engineer couldn't be expected to predict accurately everything from four borings. But nor should we be pumping another third of a million dollars into this thing based on such assumptions.

Other interesting phrases and sentences, which I quote from memory, not dead-nuts accurate transcription:

"The building load is relatively light..."

"Most settlement occurred during the first three to five years of the building's life."

"I expect .3 to 2.6 INCHES [my emphasis] of settlement in the next 50 to 100 years...with VERY [ditto] isolated settling of 4 to 12 inches..."

"Future settlement is expected to be very small, less than 0.25 inches..." {That's a quarter of an inch, guys and gals.]

I realize that I'm taking these out of context, but I see nothing in the report that says the building might fall down, and the general recommendation seems to be that settlement "be monitored annually."

Let's have Chicken Little stand down.

My opinion stands regarding considering another use for that land. Perhaps there are shortfalls with the rail and the treatment plant. As a kayaker and bike rider I have experienced both at that site in the past. But on other occasions I have experienced the wonders of the Hudson River and again, majectic views of Storm King, Bannermans and kids jumping off the rail bridge - sorta like Tom Sawyer stuff. There is nothing lost considering removing the DPW facility from that site. It should be a natural setting, not more commercialized. The direction citizens and government have taken through partnerships and efforts of Land Conservancy organizations State Departments and the general public to enhance the river outweigh any benefits of an unsightly DPW garage being there. Afterall what is the benefit of it being there, simply because it is?

The best estimate I've gotten of that land's and its present building's value--meaning what he'd START asking for it--from the person I consider Cornwall's most experienced realtor is $400,000. Not much help there... And by the way, my wife and I are kayakers, and she's a serious 4,000-miles-a-year road biker. We're not the enemy.

I can live with that response and we need to come up with really creative solutions to our 21st Century problems.

I have created a Google Groups page, as per the editors suggestion

COH DPW is the name of the group. It is a public group, and anyone can join