HUDseen: Communication Just Ain't What It Used To Be

One thing I noticed long ago about inter- and intra-departmental communication at much of Hudson City Hall is that it is often poor and sometimes frighteningly non-existent. (I made this point clear in Hudseen's most widely read article, titled YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP, from February). Then there's this:

On Friday afternoon at 12:45, I called HPD to let them know about a large fallen sign (3 signs on one pole, really) in the street at the end of Prospect Avenue at Warren. As I was speaking to the dispatcher, a driver pulled over on Warren, got out of his car and moved the heavy sign to the sidewalk. "Now it's on the sidewalk," I told the dispatcher, who told me that he would "let DPW know about it," and thanked me.

Temporary stop sign at the end of Prospect

52 hours later on Sunday afternoon, essentially for the entire weekend, the mangled signs on a heavy pole are still in the sidewalk at the end of a Warren Street crosswalk in downtown Hudson, NY. The year is 2023, soon to be 2024. Our DPW Superintendent lives no more than 40 yards from the damaged intersection.

I know what you are thinking! "Well, Bill, why didn't you call DPW directly or knock on Mr. Perry's front door?" I would have, but someone at DPW recently decided to block my number so that I am not able to call them, which I am pretty sure is illegal. Anyway, for some reason they (including Mr. Perry) don't want to hear from me (can you imagine!), so the police were the next logical step. Boy, that worked well! One wonders where that line of communication fell into the abyss.

The steepest portion of Warren Street

Why the sign damage and temporary signs, you ask? Sometime last week during work on the house surrounded by yellow tape at this intersection, 2 stop signs were knocked over, and the signs you see on the ground attached to the pole, still standing, were mangled badly, also probably loosening the pole which fell over soon after on a gusty day.

Before it fell, showing signs of being
swiped by something large

Something heavy on wheels must have come careening down the steep 900 block of Warren (partially on the grass to the right) taking out that stop sign. Then across the end of Prospect, across the sidewalk while taking out that stop sign and swiping the post with the 3 signs, and continuing into the yard, leaving a trail of damage. It appears that the (runaway?) vehicle was stopped by a tree in the yard of the last house on Warren's 800 block. There is a large and fresh gouge in the tree, as well as tire tracks on the lawn headed directly to the tree. Who will pay to replace all the signs and poles that were destroyed, including the ones still blocking the sidewalk 2 days after I notified City Hall about them?