It took only about 60 years after Urban Renewal demolished Broadway East in Rondout, but the city finally has plans to do something with a 3.5-acre parcel known as “the bowl” to area residents.

Earlier this week, Kingston Mayor Steve Noble unveiled a plan to create 200 units of housing in a long-vacant former Urban Renewal Parcel across from what was once “Rondout City Hall” and which now houses the city’s Police Department and court offices.

According to the mayor, the parcel, situated on the corner of Garraghan Drive and Koenig Boulevard (Route 9W), is owned by three private entities. Heretofore, it was used for overflow parking (for a fee) for special events, like the 4th of July fireworks. Anything built there would front on Garraghan Drive.

A preliminary suggestion to address what the mayor calls the city “housing crisis,” it will no doubt take years for the first shovel to break ground. However, if the city can demonstrate a “housing crisis,” something more than the outrageous rents now being charged by landlords, building new housing might qualify as an urgent public need.

While all this was very preliminary, the mayor was clear about one thing: If necessary, the city would use its powers of eminent domain to secure the property if the owners either refuse to sell or a “fair price” cannot be reached. That alone could add years to the process.

Eminent domain is a legal device available to municipalities and other governmental authorities, utilities included, to secure property by force from unwilling owners. Think of a new road or a power line. Much of the properties under the New York City reservoirs were secured through eminent domain at the turn of the 20th century.

Noble also noted in a conversation with this reporter that the city’s new zoning code, adopted in recent years, would make it easier to build housing in that area of town.

A cautious man by nature but a reformer at heart, I think the mayor should tread carefully before he employs eminent domain for what he considers urgent public purposes. The city may well prevail in court, but what would it say to other property owners who might own plots of land they maintain for scenic purposes or future building projects of their own if eminent domain is broadly exercised?

The Common Council, all too eager to adopt mayoral suggestions, might take a closer look. A public hearing on the proposal is scheduled at City Hall on Oct. 29 at a time to be announced.

Goodbye Print

I’m probably in denial on a subject so close to my heart, but the Freeman’s annual report on circulation confirmed my worst fears. Print is dead.

I’ll pause for a moment while a chorus of moderns sing, “You just figured this out?” Actually, no. The trend to digital has been apparent for a long time.

I came up through the newspaper business where small-town monopolies along our Hudson River were dominant. Digital began making inroads 20 or so years ago and now it rules.

One need look only at the Freeman’s annual “Statement of Ownership, Management and Circulation” required by the Postal Service for evidence of print’s demise.

According to the Freeman’s Sept. 17 filing with the Postal Service, its total “paid print circulation” was 2,965. Under “paid electronic copies,” the paper reported 11,351, almost four times more than print. Why the Post Office is interested in electronic copies escapes me.

You can take these figures to the bank. While newspapers might fudge their circulation numbers with advertisers, they do not mess with the Postal Service. It is accurate up to the “nearest filing date” or Postal authorities will come knocking.

On one level, the paper has done a credible job in soliciting digital customers. On another, daily print circulation exceeded 15,000 just 20 years ago.

In terms of revenue from circulation, a full subscription could cost $700 a year. Digital circulation would be a fraction of that.

The paradox is that the local news being gathered by reporters and photographers is the same on the web as in print.

For the newspaper’s hedge fund owners, headquartered in Denver, Colo., it’s all about cutting to the bottom line. The consequences of that policy are evident every day.

If it’s any consolidation, and it isn’t, I’m told by persons with access to the circulation reports of other once-proud newspapers in the Hudson Valley that for them, things are much worse.

I for one will miss my morning newspaper, spread out on my kitchen table, clutched in my ink-stained hands. Truly there is something about the feel of a newspaper. I’ll probably switch to wire when that time comes, but it will never be the same.

I suppose younger folk will say, “Who cares? We don’t have horses and buggies anymore, either.” They may be right.

While I can’t end on a positive note, there is this: Next to the Freeman’s quarter-page statement of ownership was a canned filler, used when copy runs short. It read “wash your hands.”

Me, Mario, Jen and Alison

This Friday will be a busy morning on the long-running Me and Mario call-in show on WGHQ-AM 920, what with County Executive Jen Metzger joining us in the first segment and Republican candidate for Congress Alison Esposito in the second. Metzger will appear at 7:30 a.m. to discuss her actions regarding the recent controversy over her nominating Eve Walter as the county’s first Director of Public Health. Esposito will be on from 8:05 to 9 a.m. Call (845) 331-9255. We tried to get Gotham’s Mayor Adams, but he was busy.

Esposito seems to be doing a Trump in campaigning in Democratic strongholds. Trump shows up a few times in New York and predicts he’ll carry the state. Esposito appeared at the annual Town of Ulster picnic last weekend at Post Park to huzzahs. Imagine?

She’ll face Democrat Pat Ryan who carried heavily Democratic Ulster County by an almost 2-1 margin two years ago. To stream the show live, or listen to it later, click here: https://vimeo.com/user173056939