Where Has Claire Cousin Disappeared To?

Monday night's monthly Informal Common Council meeting was the 3rd consecutive gathering in which 5th ward member Claire Cousin has been absent.  She's only been in attendance at this year's first two meetings.  2 for 5 is a 40% attendance rate.

I seem to remember talk about Claire Cousins not showing up to meetings when she was representing Hudson's first ward as a member of the Columbia County Board of Supervisors a few years ago.

As all council members do, Cousin serves on two committees: the Services Committee and the Safety Committee.  While she hasn't missed any of the five Safety Committee meetings, her ability to show up to Services Committee meetings has been as bad as it's been at the Informal meetings.  According to the minutes from the five Service Committee meetings, Cousin was present in February and March, but she skipped out in April and May (there were no council meetings in January).  June's meeting minutes does not list Claire Cousin as being present or absent.  But I attended that meeting virtually, and I led off my speaking time with this: "Hey, is Claire Cousin there?"  After a long pause, Jen Belton simply replied, "Not today."   Of course, committee chair Dominic Merante should have been the one who responded to my question, but he often seems flummoxed.  He's the one who didn't bother to have a roll call at the beginning of that meeting.  So, we can forgive the minutes taker for not knowing if Claire Cousin was present or absent.

At the beginning of this past Monday's Informal Council meeting, with Claire Cousin the only absent member*, Council president Morris announced that the council needed to "go into executive session to discuss personnel issues."  Oh, to be a fly on the wall for that private chit chat!

*  I'm pretty sure Claire was the only absent member, but it's difficult to know for sure because there is no roll call to be heard on the two videos that comprise Monday's meeting, one before the executive session lasting a few minutes and one after lasting over an hour.  If roll call was taken, shouldn't it be at the beginning of one of those videos?  If roll call was not taken, what is up with Margaret Morris?  Perhaps she's the personnel with issues.