Funding for Hudson, Champlain events expected soon by director
First published: Sunday, October 17, 2004
Donald Kasprzak, who has been appointed executive director of the Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Quadricentennial Commission, said the historical celebration has a promise of $150,000 in state funding.
Those two announcements are being praised by people who expressed concern planning had lagged for the major anniversary in 2009 -- the 400th anniversary of the voyages of Henry Hudson and Samuel de Champlain and the 200th anniversary of Robert Fulton's inaugural steamboat run.
"I don't have an office yet and a lot of issues need to be worked out, but I'm on the job," said Kasprzak, who was formerly regional director of the Saratoga-Capital District State Park Region.
Kasprzak will oversee a 21-member commission planning the celebration. He said a tentative agreement has the Assembly, the state Senate and Gov. George Pataki each budgeting $50,000 in funding.
A bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, an Ulster County Democrat, calls for a federal commission to plan the commemoration. It passed the House earlier this month. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton introduced an identical bill in the Senate and a committee held a hearing on it this month.
"We're still at the one-yard line in the planning of this anniversary, but that's a big yard we've gained with an executive director named and the bill passing the House," said Paul Bray, an urban planning commentator and founder of the Albany Roundtable lecture series. Bray has urged more state and federal action to prepare for the anniversary.
In 1909, for the tricentennial anniversary, tens of thousands packed parades and events along the river. President William Howard Taft attended events in Albany, which included a replica of Hudson's Halfmoon and a two-volume book chronicling the anniversary. --
-- Leigh Hornbeck