Have They Given Up On The City?

A few weeks ago, 2 old friends from Virginia visited for the night, their first time in Hudson.  We took a few walks, including through the 7th Street Park.  They were not impressed with the sidewalks or the park.  One friend's comment was, "Bill, what's up with this park?"  I did my best to explain how screwed up things are in Hudson and how little accountability there is at City Hall.  "Is there corruption in this city?" he asked, in all seriousness.  I told him that there most likely was, and that Hudson has a long history of corruption, bad actors and dysfunction.

After exiting Promenade Park at about 9:00 on a Saturday night (they were impressed!), the three of us were headed up Warren Street when a young woman with a frantic look approached us from across the street and asked, "Are you all going to Second Street?"  I told her that we were indeed headed that way.  "Well, be careful," she warned us, looking quite serious.  "There's a crackhead waving around a machete there right now, and he looks angry."  Welcome to Hudson!  Undaunted, but with a few awkward smiles at each other, we remained on Warren Street and made it home without incident.

Earlier this week, I noticed a bench in the 7th Street Park surrounded by cigarette butts.  Yesterday, the butts were still there, probably a few more added in the meantime.  I took pictures and tried my best to count the cast-offs -- there were at least 125 of them.  

Let's say that smokers at that bench produced an average of 5 cigarette butts a day (it can't be more than that, can it?).  That would mean that DPW has not touched any of that most despicable form of litter in at least 25 days, or nearly a month.  My guess is that it has been a whole lot longer than that.

Not long ago, every bench in the park had a legible no smoking sign on it.  I have watched over the years as these signs have been defaced, removed, painted over or faded away naturally while DPW does nothing about replacing them.  Most benches in the park no longer have the sign anymore.  In fact, you can see where a no smoking sign was once attached to the bench surrounded by all those cigarette butts. 

Also, I never see any HPD officers on foot patrol in the park (or anywhere else in town) to make sure things are good and that no one is drinking, smoking, or otherwise violating the rules of the park.  Even just to let park patrons feel a little safer in a park that is no longer very welcoming and has had its share of incidents in recent years -- you know, a police presence in a park that the police even acknowledge has issues.  I do, however, see plenty of HPD vehicles regularly passing by the park, on their way to and from their station on Union Street.

If one park bench in a public park in the center of the city can accumulate well over 100 cigarette butts in plain sight, I'm thinking that both DPW and HPD have given up on the park, if not the entire city. 

We all deserve so much better!