How To Run A City (Into The Ground)! [with update]

At Monday's Informal Council meeting, DPW Superintendent Robert Perry (on Zoom, of course) failed to mention anything about permanently repairing the water main break under South 4th Street that occurred on July 9th, over two months ago.  This was the second consecutive monthly meeting with no update about the main break, no pictures of the mess still on 4th Street across from the Post Office, and no questions for Perry from anyone on the Common Council about the situation (not even from Art Frick or Margaret Morris, who supposedly represent the 1st ward where the break occurred).  

I saw Mr. Perry downtown yesterday in his Crocs talking with contractors about National Grid's upcoming gas line replacement work on Warren Street (that's going to be a real treat!).  I asked him if he had gotten his hands on Catskill's braided guillotine saw so that DPW could permanently fix the water main.  "No," he replied, "we're on their schedule."  I then asked him why Hudson DPW didn't own this important saw.  He replied with something about budget cuts.

I just got off the phone with Patrick McCulloch, the Assistant Superintendent of the Village of Catskill DPW.  He was very friendly, helpful and familiar with their braided guillotine saw.  He told me that he was unaware of any request from Hudson DPW to borrow their braided guillotine saw.  He also told me that they would never lend the saw out, but that they would come with their saw and do the work themselves.  Robert Perry told us on July 10th that he had reached out to Catskill for help with the water main break on 4th Street, and 9 weeks later the second person in charge at the Catskill DPW hasn't heard of any such request for their saw.  Really?  (The Village of Catskill has a population of about 4,000, or 2,000 less than the City of Hudson.)

Update 9/15/23:  Yesterday, I spoke with Bob Young, the Superintendent of the Catskill DPW.  He was as friendly and helpful as his assistant.  Bob told me that Rob had reached out to him about the saw in July but hadn't heard from him since August sometime.  Apparently, there had been conflicts of available manpower on both sides.  Bob told me that when he noticed that "someone from Hudson had left me a message yesterday" (that would be me), "I called Rob and left him a message about the saw."  In other words, the person with the tool to fix our water pipe is calling the person that needs the tool to find out what is going on.  The first words out of Bob's mouth in his message to our DPW Superintendent yesterday, 9 weeks after the water main break, were probably something like this: "Hey, Rob, I haven't heard from you in a while.  Do you still need us to come over and fix your water main with our guillotine saw?"

9 weeks of this lovely sight.  How much longer
before Catskill finds the time to bail us out?

When Robert Perry concluded his report on Monday night, Council tsar Tom Depietro called on Liz York to give her report next, even though, as a member of the public in the room, Tom saw that I had my hand raised to ask Mr. Perry a question.  (There is no more, or very limited, public participation in the Council meetings these days - things have gotten quite spooky and authoritarian).  Then I said out loud, "What about Peter Bujanow, why haven't we heard about his projects?" (Bujanow is the DPW Commissioner).  Tom said "Oh, yeah, I'm sorry.  We can get Peter on.  Peter, do you want to contribute anything?"

Via Zoom, Bujanow told us about the City Hall renovation project he is keeping an eye on.  It looks like City Hall will be back in 520 Warren Street sometime in late October or early November.  The project was originally supposed to end in July!

After finishing with that announcement, Bujanow can be heard (on the You Tube video of the meeting) saying "About Green..." when Tom Depietro cuts him off and says, "Thank you, Peter."  Bujanow then says, "Yup, thank you," and never offered anything about the Stewart's intersection project he has been managing.  He never offered any information about the mess on Green Street with the cones and the barricades in the street 4 weeks after he said the project was finished.  Bujanow wanted to talk about it, but Tom interrupted him and that was that.   Your time is up, time to move on.  No time to talk about important stuff.

The new and improved Stewart's intersection!

What a group we have at City Hall!

National Grid's contractor left all their NO PARKING signs posted along Green Street even though they finished work there at least a week ago.  You think Kamal Johnson or Robert Perry cares?