He Failed. It Took Me One Phone Call To Succeed. [with update]

The issue of the long out of service public payphones found on the sidewalks of Hudson arises at Common Council meetings every few years.  Outside of City Hall, people make jokes about them. Some graffiti and sticker them.  The "phones" are considered either Hudson shabby-chic or a disgrace, depending on one's orientation.  No one has dropped a quarter in one for at least 7 years.  

At a Council meeting at least 4 years ago, DPW Superintendent Robert Perry told everyone that there was no way to determine who actually owned the payphones and who was responsible for removing them.  He may have mentioned Verizon, whose logo is on all of them, but his conclusion was that there was nothing he could do about it.  He tried to get it done but got nowhere, he said.  He never mentioned the payphones again in a meeting.

Last November, I decided to call Verizon myself and ask them if they owned the payphones in Hudson, NY.  I called the main customer service 800 number anyone can call, and got someone who was actually willing to look into the issue.  He put me on hold for about ten minutes while he talked to his supervisor, then came back with information that Robert Perry was apparently unable to dig up. 

I was told that Verizon got out of the payphone business over ten years ago and had sold off all their payphones nationwide to a company called Pacific Telecommunications Services, Inc. (or PTS Providers) based out of San Ramon, California.  The Verizon person even gave me PTS's phone number.  

Yes, our lovely payphones have been owned by a company from California for the past ten or twelve years.

One call led to another, and the next day I received a phone call from the northeast regional supervisor of PTS, a guy named John Connelly.  He confirmed what Verizon had told me -- that, in fact, PTS did own our payphones.  He even had the locations of our phones in a database on his computer -- he knew exactly where 6 of our 8 payphones were located!  John told me (I'm not kidding) that he "has an old guy in Connecticut with a truck who does the phone removals," and he assured me that he wanted to get Hudson's payphones removed as soon as possible.  I asked John if anyone from the City of Hudson, perhaps someone from DPW, had ever contacted him.  His answer was no.

There was just one hitch, John told me.  He claimed that PTS could not begin removing the payphones until he is assured that any electric lines into the old payphone stalls are not live (they all had lights on top, apparently).  PTS does not have their own electrician, nor do they hire one for payphone removals.  Yes, it is true -- before PTS can touch their own useless payphones in Hudson, the utility in charge of electricity in Hudson must check PTS's phones and, if they exist, remove live power lines or cut off the power to them.  That utility in Hudson would be National Grid.  PTS won't remove their payphones on their own -- they have to be nudged to come do it, and that isn't even a sure bet that it will happen.

John Connelly recently emailed me, over 4 months after my first contact with him, telling me that National Grid had not responded to any of his emails.  (You would think he would have a phone number of someone in charge at National Grid, wouldn't you?).  I gave him an email address for National Grid higher-ups that he was unaware of.

From a simple Google search, it appears that other cities have had trouble getting PTS to remove their payphones.  John told me that years ago the electric utility in Boston refused PTS's requests to check the electricity of the payphones, so the City of Boston took over and successfully dealt with it themselves. 

On December 9th, John included me and the CEO of PTS, Michael Zumbo, in an email he sent to Robert Perry, our DPW Superintendent, asking if Mr. Perry could assist him with the electricity issue at Hudson's payphones.  The subject line of that email was titled Removal of Non-Working/Broken Payphones in Hudson, NY.  I have no idea if Mr. Perry responded to John.

the "payphone" nearest City Hall

It took me no more than 20 minutes, with one simple phone call, to do what Robert Perry claimed he was unable to do.  For this, we pay him over $114,000 a year.

Stay tuned for updates.

Update:  One hour after posting this article, I received an email from John Connelly at PTS.  He wrote: "National Grid will be coordinating with me to send out an electrician to test all locations.  Thank you for your assistance and patience."