The Hudson Register-Star is today reporting that the state is pressuring Columbia County to make its county courthouse accessible to the disabled.
Hudson is a long way from Schenectady, but we here at The Gazette care about their courthouse.
In April, our reporter Steve Cook covered the retrial of Warren Powell at that courthouse. Powell was charged with murdering his wife in 1994. The victim was from Schenectady County and the couple lived in Saratoga County, making the case of interest to our readers.
Steve physically has difficulty climbing stairs. To reach the second-floor courtroom, he had to, slowly and with great effort, climb a staircase. There was no elevator and the only railing was too wide to be of any use.
Steve isn’t the complaining type. He didn’t rant or rave. When he was told the only way up was via the big marble staircase, he just started climbing, lugging his laptop with him.
Back in Schenectady, it was only after we got a call from our old friend Mike Goodwin, an editor at the Albany Times Union who heard about Steve’s climb from his reporter at the courthouse, that we realized how much of a challenge the stairs were for Steve.
I remember Steve returning to the newsroom after that first day. He mostly wanted to talk about the trial itself and who might testify the next day. Yes, the stairs were difficult, he acknowledged, adding that there was a very bad moment once he reached the top when he thought he’d have to go back down to retrieve a camera battery from his car. Thankfully, the camera powered up.
Once Columbia County Court Judge Jonathan Nichols learned of the problem, he kindly offered to move the trial to a smaller first-floor courtroom when Steve was in court. We weren’t covering the trial every day.
The trial did move downstairs, although when it came time for closing arguments, Steve declined Judge Nichols’ offer to move to the first floor. The downstairs courtroom was so small he knew there wouldn’t be room for all the people who wanted to hear the summations and he didn’t want to be responsible for keeping anyone out of the courtroom.
Today’s Hudson Register-Star story says that Judge George Ceresia, the chief administrative judge for the Third Judicial District, met with Columbia County officials about the lack of progress in making the courthouse accessible to the disabled. The story, which mentions Steve’s problems at the Powell trial, can be read here.
Judy Patrick is the Gazette’s managing editor.
