HUDseen: "What Does It Matter?," Indeed.

This past Sunday, I came across one of the two new poorly located and unneeded bicycle racks in the 7th Street Park. Neither rack had a bicycle near them nor attached to them. The rack I focused on was no longer secured to the soil, because someone had yanked it out of the ground. This was easy enough to do since it had been "secured" to the ground with some sort of long screw or nail, probably the common 7-inch dirt screw or nail. The screws were gone, and the rack, while still upright, was a few feet from where it had been installed and at an unhelpful angle.

I looked across the street to the coffee shop and noticed our Common Council President Tom Depietro sitting out front at a table sipping a drink with someone else. Tom noticed me and said "Hi, Bill" as if we were best buds. I returned with a nod and a question: "Hey, Tom, do you have any idea who put these bicycle racks here?" He asked me to repeat, since a truck was rumbling by, and so I did.

Tom didn't reply with a yes or a no, or, for that matter with anything helpful. Instead, he replied with a question of his own, even if it was rhetorical in nature. Tom replied to me: "What does it matter?"

What does it matter if the bicycle rack
is not needed and no longer secured to
the dirt and could easily be tossed
into the street?

While his response made me roll my eyes, it was exactly what I should have expected from Tom. I would also expect the same response from our mayor: "What does it matter?" Or from DPW and Code Enforcement: "What does it matter?"

The next time you see something in Hudson that makes no sense at all or that might put you on your face as you are walking a sidewalk, remember that there is likely at least one person at City Hall, if not several people, who would look at the same thing and say, "What does it matter?" and continue on with their day. "What does it matter?" is no different than "I don't care!" And that is essentially the problem and the overriding ethos that I have felt coming from much of Hudson City Hall for years.

I heard it come straight from the mouth of the guy who calls himself the President of the Hudson Common Council. Thank you, Tom, for your pithy insight. Keep up the good work, my friend.