"We're still fine-tuning which departments will be going out there," Baer said.

Baer said the relocation process will occur over time, as the renovation is completed. The order in which the departments will move has yet to be determined. "A lot depends on design and engineering," he said. The design process, Baer said, is expected to be completed twelve months from now.

Asked if an accompanying transportation plan is in the works, Baer said it is in process and "won't take long" to finalize. "We can move relatively quickly on that. We're already talking to the bus companies that are under contract with the county. . . . That contract will have to go out to bid," Baer said.

Baer expects the resolution to pass with little or no opposition Wednesday. "I'm confident the resolution will pass by a large majority," he said.

Baer and the majority of supervisors have remained committed to the plan despite a dearth of supporting public opinion. Public resistance to the proposed dismantlement of the county seat—specifically the removal of DSS—has continued since the plan was unveiled in April 2008.

"Human services need to remain where the majority [of recipients] live," said Linda Mussmann.  (More than 50 percent of all DSS clients live in the 12534 zip code, which includes Hudson, Greenport, and small portions of other nearby towns.)

Columbia-Greene NAACP President Alan Skerrett views the plan, and the supervisors' actions to date, as a "callous attack on people in need."

"I see this as an impulsive act of political monopoly. They are acting without any sense of the needs of those being served. There is no sense of accountability to their constituents," Skerrett said.

In conjunction with the board's vote Wednesday, members of the community will gather to rally in support of keeping county services in Hudson. The rally will take place at 401 State Street, immediately before the supervisors meet.

"We would like people to come to the rally to show support for the people who are living at the edge," said Mussmann, one of the rally's organizers. "We need to have support from all over the county. This is not a 'Hudson issue'; this is a social justice issue," she said.

Notices in circulation urge attendees to request the board to postpone the vote until "important questions are answered, and every supervisor has the information required to make a fully informed decision."

The hope is to convince individual supervisors that a vote now is ill-considered because it will be done without a full understanding of the options available. "The more who show up, the more it will help to say we are opposed to just a swift and unjust vote," Mussmann said.

Mussmann and Skerrett are calling for the board to postpone the vote until after a thorough cost analysis of the Ockawamick plan and “Plan B” are conducted and complete. (Plan B calls for the construction of new buildings on the north side of Hudson.)

As proposed, the plan for Ockawamick would include the following departments:

• Department of Social Services
• Office of the Public Defender
• Probation Office
• Planning, Tourism, and Economic Development
• Columbia County Economic Development Corp.
• Office for the Aging
• Environment Health Department
• Central Services offices and storage
• Central Printing
• Back-up 911
• Youth Department
• Veterans Office
• Facilities Administration
• County Historian
• Engineering

The plan also calls for a classroom/training room, short-term and archival storage, and possibly an exercise facility.

The REACH Center, an independent, nonprofit sexual violence crisis center, currently located on Route 9 just south of Hudson in Greenport, was rumored to be a potential Ockawamick tenant. Calls to the center seeking confirmation were not returned.

The building at 325 Columbia Street in Hudson will house:

• Health Department
• Health Care Consortium
• District Attorney
• Mental Health
• DSS satellite office (500 square feet)
• Records management

DSS Commissioner Paul Mossman is on the record in support of establishing a DSS satellite office in the city. Calling it an excellent idea, Mossman told the Workspace Evaluation Subcommittee that if set up properly, the office "will minimize the need for the City of Hudson residents to go out to Ockawamick."

According to the subcommittee minutes, Mossman also advised the members at the February 23 meeting, the satellite office must be ready to "address the needs of the financial programs, including public assistance, Medicaid, HEAP (Home Energy Assistance Program), and food stamps, while taking care of the clients’ immediate needs including [the] initial upfront registration of clients."

The subcommittee selected departments for relocation based on information collected during interviews with county department heads during the month of January. Interviews, critics allege, that should have been conducted long before the Board of Supervisors approved the purchase of the 77,000 square foot abandoned school building for $1.5 million in October. Following the purchase, the subcommittee was formed and charged to decide, within 60 to 90 days, which departments would go.

Department heads were asked a variety of questions, including:

• What is the full-time equivalent employee base for your department?
• Who are your customers?
• How many customer visits did you have in 2008?
• What is the average number of customer visits per day?
• Is it important to understand the demographics of your department's customer base in consideration of relocating your office space to the Ockawamick site in the Town of Claverack?
• Is it necessary for your customers to visit your department?

Columbia County DSS administers more than $35 million in social services programs. Of that, $16 million is paid directly by county taxpayers, according to Baer.

According to information provided by the Board of Supervisors, at the end of 2008, DSS had "a caseload of nearly 8,000, providing benefits to almost 14,000 individuals, some of whom received multiple benefits through the system."

The department's caseload included:

• Temporary assistance—197 cases, 469 individuals
• Safety net—178 cases, 231 individuals
• Medicaid—4,976 cases, 6,694 individuals
• Food stamps—1,119 cases, 3,412 individuals
• HEAP (Home Energy Assistance Program)—1,522 cases, 3094 individuals