For More Information Contact:
Alana Sawchuk, Executive Assistant to the Comptroller
asawchuk@dutchessny.gov / comptroller@dutchessny.gov
(845) 486-2050
Dutchess County Comptroller Dan Aymar-Blair has completed a special Comptroller’s Report on the years-long proposed revitalization of the parcel at 35 Montgomery Street in the City of Poughkeepsie. Since 2020, this parcel has been intended for the construction of a vibrant, multi-purpose community space known as the “Youth Opportunity Union,” or the YOU. This space was meant to replace the now-demolished YMCA of Dutchess County, which closed its doors in 2009.
“This is a high stakes project for taxpayers,” said the Comptroller. “Particularly those living in the City of Poughkeepsie, which is also home to a jail and a proposed homeless shelter, with little in the way of community space as imagined by the YOU project.”
In an effort to bring clarity and transparency to an embattled project, and with the hopes of providing policymakers with substantial enough detail to move forward, this report attempts to provide a complete picture of what occurred in the years following the 2020 agreement between the City of Poughkeepsie and Dutchess County to develop the YOU. This report lays out the timeline of the project, enumerates its costs, and describes the latest efforts to rehabilitate the YOU brand, with or without a physical building at 35 Montgomery Street.
“After five years and almost five million dollars of our COVID-relief funds, all the taxpayers have to show for it are some impressive design schematics and an empty lot,” said Comptroller Aymar-Blair. “To build and operate a $160 million ‘cathedral’ of a community center, the County was going to need money and solid planning. The results show us that the County had neither.”
The Office of the Comptroller will continue to monitor developments related to the County-owned parcel.
Comptroller Aymar-Blair will be presenting this Special Report and taking questions on the Youth Opportunity Union to the City of Poughkeepsie’s Common Council this coming Tuesday, July 1, at 6:30 PM at City Hall.
Link to Dutchess County Comptroller’s Special Report on the Youth Opportunity Union (.pdf).
