Does Anyone Know Where Our DPW Superintendent's Office Is Located?

Easily accessible for most
(but not yet ADA compliant)

There are a few basic expectations most of us have for our civil servants.  At or near the top of the list, we expect them to be available and approachable -- to be present and accountable.  When those expectations are not met, problems often ensue, and the democratic process usually suffers.  There isn't much that is civil about a city worker who is difficult to track down and check in on, or just try to ask a question of.  Fortunately, nearly all of Hudson's department heads are easy to find and approach, both in person and on the phone.

Tracey Delaney, our City Clerk; Treasurer Heather Campbell; the inhabitants of the Mayor's Office -- usually, they can all easily be found in their offices inside City Hall.  Craig Haigh is usually in the Code Enforcement Office at 751 Warren Street; and Police Chief Ed Moore can usually be found in his office at 701 Union Street.  All of these civil servants have phone numbers for the offices they work from -- their numbers can easily be found on the city's website.  

What about the DPW Superintendent Robert W. Perry, Jr.?  How and where can one find him?  Where does he work from? Can anyone call him easily?  These questions are not so easy to answer with this civil servant.  They can even be unanswerable.

According to both of his clerks in the DPW office on the second floor of City Hall, Mr. Perry does not work from that office.  "He doesn't even have a desk here," I have been told on two occasions.  The best I could get from the DPW clerks is that their boss works "out there," whatever that means. 

I think Mr. Perry once did work from the DPW office in City Hall, but he no longer does.  Prior to Kamal Johnson becoming mayor, Mr. Perry had a designated parking space directly behind City Hall, and his personal and city vehicle could be found parked there.  That is now one of two of the mayor's parking spaces, according to the new sign attached to the rear wall of City Hall.  Mr. Perry's city vehicle is never parked behind City Hall anymore, nor is his personal car.  This is true at the new, temporary City Hall, too.

A few months ago, in City Hall, I asked Mayor Johnson if he knew where I could find the DPW Superintendent.  The mayor replied:  "Down at the water treatment plant."

Actually, I had been "down" there about two years prior asking for Mr. Perry.  I was told by someone in the office building there that Robert Perry did not have an office there; that he was not there regularly; and that I was to get off the property immediately.  It appears that our mayor does not actually know where his DPW Superintendent works.  But he does know that Mr. Perry doesn't work in City Hall, that's for sure.

Inaccessible to most

Surely, I thought, Mr. Perry has to park his personal vehicle and his city vehicle somewhere anyone can see -- it's not that big of a city.  Frustrated, I soon gave up looking.  Then, one day last year, for the first time, I decided to venture up Rossman Avenue to enter the cemetery from the back.  When I got to the top, I noticed what looked to be a city facility and offices, surrounded by fences and barbed wire.  From a distance, at the fence, I could see Mr. Perry's personal car and his city vehicle, both parked in front of a brick building.  Aha!  I followed the fence to try to enter the facility, only to come across a sign along a road that barred me from proceeding. 

Phone number unavailable to the public

The facility at the top Rossman is, as I understand, the water treatment plant for water entering the city.  It is operated by the DPW Water Department, and it appears that the DPW Superintendent works out of the brick building there.  That is where Mr. Perry parks his city vehicle overnight, and where his personal vehicle can be found parked during the day. If they are both parked there, you can bet Mr. Perry is inside the building.

To drive or bike to the water facility (or get near to it), one has to turn off of Ten Broek Lane (the road that splits the cemetery) onto an unmarked, winding road through the older portion of the cemetery, called Cemetery Access Road.  Driving up Rossman Avenue will not get you to the entrance of the facility.

Robert Perry, DPW Superintnedent,
probably passes these signs each
day on his way to work

No one, including any resident of Hudson, is able to show up unannounced to the water facility where Mr. Perry appears to have an office and, possibly, a desk with a phone.  One would be liable to be arrested for trespassing if making that attempt.  You can't even reach the entrance gate to the facility -- that's another few hundred feet beyond the NO TRESPASSING, NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL, and STOP signs.  Talk about inaccessible!  Talk about unavailable! 

How about trying to get Mr. Perry on the phone?  Would that be possible?  There is only one phone number offered on the DPW web page, 518-828-9458, which will get you to the City Hall DPW office where the DPW Clerks work.  You can leave a message for Mr. Perry on his voicemail or with a clerk, but don't expect him to pick up the phone.  Ever.  According to his clerks, the superintendent of DPW does not have an office, or even a desk, at that number.

Listed under Mr. Perry's name on the DPW web page is an email address, but no phone number.  Is there a phone number on the web page for the water facility that Mr. Perry seems to be working out of?  No, there is not.  But that number happens to be 518-828-3291, which I called recently.  I asked the person who answered the phone if Mr. Perry was available, only to be told: "Mr. Huston, you are not supposed to be calling here," then the line went dead.  I had not introduced myself.

I recently asked the DPW Water Clerk if there was a phone number for the water facility at the top of Rossman.  She told me that there was one, but that she couldn't give it out because "we can't have people calling there every 2 minutes."

Just in case you
missed the first one

Robert W. Perry, Jr., our DPW Superintendent, makes over $114,000 a year, the highest salary in all of City Hall (excluding some HPD officers).  He doesn't work from his own department's office in City Hall; no one can approach the building he appears to spend most of his working time in, and it is surrounded by fences and barbed wire;  no one can just walk up and knock on an office door (or even the front door to the building) - multiple signs warn against doing that; and there is no direct phone number listed for the office building he appears to be working from.  By perusing the DPW webpage, or the entire city website, you would have no idea that there are any water facilities run by DPW, or that the DPW Superintendent might be working from one of them.  There is no indication of who is in charge of the Water Department.  It's not just bizarre.  It's spooky and suspicious.

If you are lucky, though, you might come across Mr. Perry attending to the garbage bag vending machine in front of City Hall - the rare time you might find him near City Hall.  Maybe then you could ask him where his office is and what the direct phone number there is, if there is one.  Of course, these are questions no one should have to ask of a civil servant, especially the head of a department with a 5-million-dollar budget and a salary of over $114,000.

Mr. Perry has been giving his monthly Informal Council meeting reports via Zoom since the beginning of the pandemic.  At a meeting last year with all department heads in attendance because the internet was shut down, Mr. Perry was forced to give his monthly report in person at City Hall.  He was not wearing a mask, so it appears that staying on Zoom for his reports has nothing to do with a fear of contracting Covid.  Perhaps he just prefers not to offer his reports and communicate with the council and the public in person.  Maybe he prefers to be elsewhere (in his office?).  We hear him, but, except for that one meeting (which he left without taking public comment), we never actually see him, even on the screen.  His Zoom connection often fails.  

A few months ago, Police Chief Ed Moore stopped giving his monthly report via Zoom from his office and now shows up to meetings in the flesh.  The Fire Department Commissioner now does the same thing, as does the Director of the Youth Department.  That is called being present and approachable -- precisely what one expects of a public servant, regardless of how much money they make or what their responsibilities are.