Who is The Grinch At City Hall This Year?

This year's "tree"

For the first time in my 10 years here in Hudson, this winter there will be no actual decorated Christmas/ Holiday tree displayed in the 7th Street Park. How low can this park go? How low does City Hall want it to go?

Last week, I noticed a DPW crew stringing lights on something over the tree stand in the abandoned fountain pool, but there was no tree involved, which I thought was odd.  The lovely tree stand that children enjoy climbing on has remained in the broken, unused fountain pool for the past two years.  This holiday season, there will not be anything green attached to it.  Instead, what you will see at night from a distance is something that might be mistaken for an actual decorated tree.  During daylight, and up close, what you will see looks like cheap crap befitting a bankrupt city with no sense of charm, which seems to fit the general direction this park (and elsewhere) has been headed in recent years.  It's one thing after another, down down down.  I'm waiting for the squatter in the 400 block of Warren to begin his residency in the 7th Street Park!

Our new vandal-friendly tree!

This morning at the park, a DPW employee told me that, for reasons unknown to him, the mayor's office had made the decision to nix the Christmas tree this year and go with the illusory tree made of strings, lights, and unpainted 2x4 lumber, which had to be purchased this year.  The employee also told me that the lights had already been vandalized by someone yanking on them.  Big surprise there!  

(Wasn't the Christmas tree in the fountain donated by a local tree farm, as a sign posted there always indicated?)

I heard no mention of this significant change during the most recent Informal Common Council meeting, though I may have missed it. Nor is there an "announcement" posted on the city's website regarding the reason(s) for the lack of a tree in the park this winter and what to expect in lieu of it.  

Inexplicably and embarrassingly though, the announcement made 8 days ago about the "Reported Attempted Child Kidnapping" is still front and center on the city's website.  You can't miss it, even though, as it turned out, there was no attempted child kidnapping, it was all a misunderstanding, there has been no "active ongoing investigation" for 6 days, nor any need for the public to "contact HPD with information about the incident" that never occurred.  In other words, a very serious announcement on a sensitive, anxiety-inducing subject that has been full of misinformation and of no help to anyone for a week!

Anyone reading the city website, especially parents of children, might be forgiven for living in fear of a child abductor on the loose in Hudson this holiday season, as well as assuming that, as usual, there will be a bona fide lighted Christmas tree on display in the middle of the 7th Street Park bringing joy to all.

Who, if anyone, is steering our ship, anyway?  

Sorry, no tree this year. Instead,
open container drinking is allowed in the park. 
Happy Holidays from the Hudson Mayor's Office!