In 2022, someone at City Hall, or some group of people, decided that it was in the best interest of the city to hire a consultant to assess matters related to parking and give us some direction on how to improve things in the parking realm -- the structure inside City Hall related to parking, as well as everything outside related to meters, parking lots, and parking of vehicles in general. While I don't know how much in revenue parking meters, parking permits and parking tickets bring to the city, I'm assuming that if the city felt the need to hire a parking consultant to help us out, that figure can't be insignificant. Let's just say that parking revenue is important and significant, and that the city relies on it.
The consulting firm Fishbeck was hired, and their parking study was presented to the city almost a year ago (it is still available on the Parking Study Committee's page of the city's website. Or read more about it on Hudseen: parking study) The consultant found a lot in the way of needed improvements and changes for us. The top two recommendations were to a) create a Parking and Mobility Director position to oversee all matters related to parking; and b) to invest in some new parking meters (or start anew with parking kiosks). One year later, neither of these things has been accomplished, nor do they seem even remotely close to being implemented.
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| The city paid a consultant over $31,000 to help us with our parking-related woes |
After the consultant's presentation, the Parking Study Ad-Hoc Committee was created. According to the city website right now, here are the members of that committee: Margaret Morris (the head of the committee); Dewan Sarowar and Mohammed Rony (2nd ward council members); Vicky Daskaloudi and Dominic Merante (5th ward): and Ryan Wallace (former 3rd ward member, apparently yet to be replaced on the committee). A few months ago, a parking meter manufacturer gave a presentation to the Parking Committe, and two more companies need to make their presentations before a decision is made on what to replace our present parking meters with. The committee last met in October, and, with one week left in January, I don't see a meeting listed for them this month.
What may be important to note is that what is now known as the Parking Bureau was, until very recently, known as the Parking Violations Bureau (why "bureau" and not "department" is a puzzle to me). One thing has not changed for the Parking Bureau that should change: our City Clerk Tracy Delaney is in charge of it. This is exactly what the parking consultant attempted to tell us we must change. No one from any department outside of a parking department (or bureau) should be in charge of parking matters. Not the City Clerk, and not the Police Chief. The fewer cooks in the kitchen, the better! It's a no-brainer idea, one that we needed to pay someone to tell us and that we continue to ignore.
With all that in mind, let's look at what was said and accomplished at January 16th's Informal Council meeting surrounding a resolution presented to the council with the hopes of voting on it. It's textbook stuff: HOW NOT TO GET ANYTHING ACCOMPLISHED or HOW TO GET THINGS WRONG WHILE WASTING TIME AND MONEY. I will transcribe what was said (directly from the YouTube video), at least what I see as the worthwhile parts of the discussion. Anyone interested in, or concerned with, how things are handled at City Hall (and who didn't attend or revisit the meeting) should find it fascinating, as I obviously did. For those of you who find what transpired unbelievable, I am not making any of this up!
The new resolution was titled A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO EXECUTE A CONTRACT WITH T2 SYSTEMS FOR THE ACQUISITION OF A NEW PARKING MANAGEMENT AND PERMIT ENFORCEMENT SOFTWARE FOR THE CITY OF HUDSON. The cost to sign on with the company was listed at $62,500.
Council President Tom Depietro introduced the resolution, then said, "This comes from the Mayor's Office as well as our Parking Bureau. Right now, we have a very poor system that isn't working out -- it's called Passport. The mayor, the Parking Bureau Chief Tracy, they all worked to find a better system, and this is the one they have found."
New council member Jennifer Belton was then recognized by Tom. She asked, "I was wondering if we've made a decision about what kind of parking meters we're getting..." when she was interrupted by Tom. "No," he interjected, "we're definitely careful about this." Jennifer, who continued to talk while the council president talked over her, also wanted to know if a new software system would be compatible with new meters. Tom told her that any meters we use will be compatible with the new software system from T2.
(I really hope some of the new council members get on Tom for his much too common disrespectful habit of interrupting people before they are finished with their thoughts. It's embarrassing and should not be tolerated any longer. I wouldn't be surprised if he interrupts women more often than men.)
Since the council had heard nothing about this resolution prior to the meeting, there were a lot of questions from members, including: How did we end up with this company? Were there other companies with different rates? Was there a bidding process (RFP) to find a new company to provide new parking software?
Tom was unable to answer any of the questions, just saying "We compared it with our existing Passport, which we have to get rid of."
Tracy Delaney, sitting next to Tom, quietly said to him, "The Chief found them." Tom was clearly surprised by this information, unaware that our Chief of Police had anything to do with the resolution in front of him that he was hoping to have the council vote on then and there.
Tom: "Oh, the Chief of Police found this company. And they did a demonstration here, and that's how it happened."
Mayor Aide Michael Hoffman then interjected: "There were very few options in this software space. So, we were happy with the demonstration from T2."
Gary Purnhagen, a new council member, asked about terms of service and return on investment.
Michael said that he did not have that information.
1st ward council member Margaret Morris then vocalized her concerns that there was no bidding process and asked, "what actually was done here to arrive at this? I don't know who was on the committee to determine that this was the company that we were to go with. And at $62,000, it seems to me that this should have been more of a process..."
New member Rich Volo asked if this resolution had been "bounced into the Parking Committee prior to presenting to us."
Margaret, obviously a bit peeved: "I am on the Parking Committee. I do not recall this coming up to our committee...." before she was interrupted by Tom.
Tom: "Hold on, hold on. Margaret, hold on. Apparently, this came from our city attorney Andy Howard, and he said we can put it forward because it's an emergency."
Margaret: "Why is it an emergency?"
Tom: "Because Passport just isn't answering calls, services aren't being provided, we're losing money. Now, if you want to wait, we can wait. I mean..."
Margaret: "I would just like a lot more information before I vote to commit the city to $62,000 to a company about which we know very little."
Michael: "Chief Franklin is on and has her hand up if you'd like to hear from her."
Tom: "Oh, good, I didn't know she was here. Chief?"
Police Chief Mishanda Franklin (via the internet): "Over the past year, probably longer, the Parking Bureau has had a lack of response from Passport to include for regular customer service and to fix hardware that we have which has caused a decrease obviously in ticket writing and revenue for the city. So, I decided to inquire with different parking systems, who could come and do a demo. I reached out to T2 Parking Systems for a demo and they responded immediately. I did reach out to one other system. I don't have that name in front of me, but they never responded to me. After a demonstration, we moved forward with a resolution to try to have this passed."
For reasons I won't get into, there was no need for an RFP to find a new parking software vendor. Chief Franklin, who obviously does not work for the Parking Bureau, then went on to explain the emergency situation resulting from Passport having breached their contract. "We've had several broken parking units, parking system units that we haven't been able to use. We aren't able to do what we need to do," she said. What is noteworthy here is that all of this was news to every council member, not just the new members. This "problem," as far as I can tell, was never once mentioned at any council meeting in the past year or more, certainly not by HPD at any informal meetings. Any issues related to decreased parking ticket revenues were always attributed to a lack of HPD parking enforcers. The problem, at least as it was explained in the past by Heather Campbell and Ed Moore, was a lack of tickets being written because of personnel issues, not the parking software the city was using!
There has been a "problem" with a paid vendor for over a year and not one council member, including those on the Parking Committee, were made aware of it. In an effort to solve the "problem" with our existing parking software company, a demonstration from a competing software vendor was made without one council member or Parking Committee member being invited to attend or given a notice about the results of that demonstration afterwards. It's beyond astounding -- it's really, really creepy! No, rather, the news to the council that there had "been a problem" for a year or more with our parking software system vendor, including decreased city revenues, came in the form of a resolution to vote on and without one bit of explanation as to why it was in front of the council! And what little information the council got about the reasons behind the resolution had to be pried out of those behind the resolution, primarily the Chief of Police. Meanwhile, other than cluing Tom into who was behind the resolution, the "Chief" of the Parking Bureau had nothing to offer at the meeting. (Tracy is the head of the Clerk's Office, and she is at meetings to take roll call and count votes!!!)
Franklin concluded that "there should be a much higher cost saving for this system" from T2. There was no explanation how that determination was made, nor about what exactly the software does for us, what it entails, or what a "parking unit" or "parking system unit" is.
After more discussion, mainly related to privacy issues, Tom tried to conclude the discussion, saying, "I guess we will have to table this until we get more answers." Get more answers? From whom? The company that already gave their demonstration that the council and the Parking Committee knew nothing about? The mayor? The Parking Bureau? Craig Haigh? Why not get Craig involved! He's not too busy!
Before Tom could end things, new member Gary Purnhagen spoke up again: "I have a question on this before we move on. I'm new, obviously. Is it normal that ... We have a parking committee, and it seems like you guys weren't aware of this at all..." when - wait for it -- Tom interrupted him!
Tom: "No. No, Gary, you weren't there. Sorry, what I meant to say is, this bypassed the committee because it didn't have to go to a committee."
Gary: "I understand it didn't have to go to a committee. But we have a Parking Committee."
Tom: "No, there was no need to in this case because there was an emergency, it didn't have to be put out to RFP. First of all, I can put anything I like on the agenda. That's the privilege of the council president. So, whether it goes to committee or not is really not... you know, it could have but it didn't have to."
Gary: "I understand that. I was just wondering about the communications. Not that it had to go to committee."
Margaret (head of the parking committee!): "Here we are being asked to vote on something that was not presented at the informal meeting so we could have asked these questions and done some digging in so that we could vote. So, that is a problem."
Instead of voting on the resolution to hire a new company to provide the city with parking software, as Depietro had hoped would happen, the council voted in favor of a "special meeting" on the subject. A SPECIAL MEETING!
Tom: "Okay. What would you like to know before we have a special meeting. Let's be clear, let's make this as clear as possible."
Several members offered the issues they were concerned or uninformed about. Then Morris continued, re-summing up the muck that is City Hall: "If this had been presented to us a week ago, we could have done some due diligence and researched it and been able to vote tonight. But now it's here on our tables tonight. We need a little time to look at it and ask questions and talk to people. That's all."
After a few more minutes of discussion, when I thought there could be no more evidence of how dysfunctional a meeting and a common council could be, Council and Parking Study Committee member (!) Dewan Sarowar, in a rare act of speaking at a meeting, offered this: "I have a question for Tracy. The meter you showed me, that's part of this or not? That's different?"
Tom answered for Tracy: "No. That's what the parking committee has been mulling over." OMFG!
Then, unsurprisingly, Margaret Morris tried to reiterate issues she had already iterated at least once, and Tom had to interrupt her once again: "Didn't we just talk about that, Margaret? You really have to pay attention here. We have a motion and a second to table this resolution. All those in favor of tabling, signify by saying aye." And so, the resolution was tabled unanimously, and Tom concluded: "Yes, we will be having a special meeting," without offering any specific date.
This entire fruitless, directionless discussion full of stupid surprises lasted 20 minutes. For five council members, this was their first formal council meeting. What an introduction!
The next resolution presented at the meeting was also noteworthy, I think. It was a resolution attempting to transfer funds between accounts within the Department of Public Works. Margaret Morris and a few new members had several questions about the specifics of the movements of the funds, but the person who brought the resolution to the council was not available to answer those questions. When Tom introduced the resolution, he said, "This comes from Rob Perry, who is not here." Three minutes later, after Tom was unable to answer questions from the council about the resolution, he said this: "I wish Rob were here to explain it, but what can I say?" The resolution, consisting of a few fund transfers, was passed unanimously.
What can I say, indeed!
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