THERE IS NO WAY ANYONE COULD MAKE THIS STUFF UP AND BE BELIEVED!

Last year, at last!

Regular, long-time Hudseen readers likely remember the article from last February, titled YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP, about the installation of two traffic signs that showcased Hudson City Hall's bumbling, dysfunctional and incommunicative nature.  It's one of those stories that tends to stick in the brain.  It still gets read regularly to this day, and for those of you who haven't had the pleasure, you can read it here: (YOU CAN'T....) If you can believe it, the sad saga has recently been revived, getting better or worse depending on your perspective.  Like the original embarrassment, this continuation of it should concern us all, too.  It shows all too clearly, once again, a City Hall still unable to get out of its own way and uninterested in getting things done respectfully or properly.  This kind of bunk rarely happens elsewhere, and where it does occur (or has occurred) is often in corrupt municipalities.  In my estimation, it is a huge red flag about what is going on at City Hall.  Read and draw your own conclusions.

Yes, the requested signs at 4th & State and on Paddock Place that proved to be so challenging for City Hall last year were ultimately installed, though it was as if the powers-that-be didn't really want to do it.  Shane Bower, Ed Moore, Peter Bujanow and, possibly, Robert Perry finally got the job done, albeit reluctantly, not so much because they saw the signs as needed safety improvements as much as they were forced to install them.  So, of course it took them several months to make it happen because they didn't care one wit about the issues the signs might solve.  Anyway, signs up and story finished, right?  

Not so fast, pal, this is Hudson!

At last month's Informal Common Council meeting, Police Chief Mishanda Franklin offered this at the end of her HPD report, an issue that had not been discussed at any recent meetings: "Regarding the stop sign at Paddock Place that was recently taken down, I spoke with the commissioner today.  It will be put back up.  I don't know the timeline for that, but it will be put back up." (Does that sound eerily familiar, having come from the mouth of her predecessor one year ago?)  Of course, the "commissioner" whom our police chief was referring to is Police Commissioner and mystery man Shane Bower, the person supposedly in charge of all things traffic safety and traffic control devices.  As per usual, Bower was not present at the meeting, so he could not offer any specifics about the missing stop sign on Paddock which I could only guess to be the same sign that the city reluctantly installed 9 or 10 months prior.  Why did DPW remove the sign and when did they do it?  Did a vehicle knock it over?  Alas, no probing questions were asked by any of the council members, and our police chief offered no more helpful information other than "It will be put back up" -- if that can be considered at all helpful.  Robert Perry, the superintendent of the department that presumably removed the stop sign, couldn't address the issue of the missing sign at the meeting because he was not present at the meeting, apparently having been on vacation.

Curious about the missing stop sign on Paddock Place and whether it was the same sign that was installed last year adjacent to the tennis courts, I stopped by the 3-way intersection of Paddock Place and Joslen Place on a recent Saturday.  Sure enough, as I suspected, it was that stop sign that was no longer around!  I couldn't find any evidence of a wayward vehicle having driven off the street to strike the sign, and the $126 stop line was still stuck to the pavement, as white as ever.  It might as well have been a question mark instead of a line, though.  Who is going to pay attention to the line?  Should anyone pay attention to it and stop?  Should oncoming turning traffic assume other drivers will stop at the stop line with no stop sign?

This year, without any explanation!

As I was taking a picture of the intersection, a middle-aged couple with their dog walked by and I struck up a conversation about the sign with the gentleman.  He told me that the stop sign was removed, certain that there had been no accident involved.  He wasn't sure why the sign had been removed or who had removed it but said that "cars and buses were ignoring it anyway, so the city probably just removed it because it wasn't working."  He also said that some of his neighbors were not happy that the stop sign was removed.  He then suggested I speak with a Hudson cop who lives near the intersection to find out the reason for the removal.  That would be one of the four detectives at HPD. (Yes, our little bitty city employs 4 detectives).

"Should I stop, Mr. Bower?"

Instead of the detective, I reached out to a 5th ward council member to see if I could get any details about the missing stop sign, asking why it had been removed.  "From what I understand," the council member wrote me, "there was a complaint for the sign to be removed but ... (I am now paraphrasing) ... subsequently there had been so many more complaints to have it reinstalled that an effort was made to do so."  Can you believe this nonsense!  Want a bothersome stop sign removed from your neighborhood near an elementary school?  All it takes is one complaint apparently, and the deed will be done!  No ward representatives will be notified, and the issue will not be brought up in a council meeting.  Just call the mayor, call DPW, call Shane Bower or Mishanda Franklin.  One or all of them will help you out, and DPW will yank the sign!  Hell, call Craig Haigh and lodge a complaint about a bad stop sign full of code violations, he might be able to get it removed for you, too!  Boom, just like that -- see if anyone notices or complains!

A few weeks ago, I asked the mayor if he was aware of the missing stop sign on Paddock.  He said that he was, though he seemed a bit confused by it, offering generalities and confusing sentences.  As I recall, Kamal told me that the sign had been removed for "safety reasons."  He also spoke of talking to the "county sign (safety?) people," adding that not only would the stop sign in question be "reinstalled soon," but that another stop sign would be added to the intersection, for a total of 3 stop signs.  It's a 3-way intersection, so there should have always been 3 stop signs there.   One was never sufficient, and neither were two.  Well, at least the mayor is on it!  Hoorah!

Do you still consider this a stop line, Mr. Bower?

However, at this month's Informal Common Council meeting, one month after the council was assured that the stop sign on Paddock would "be put back up," Police Chief Mishanda Franklin made no mention of the still-missing sign during her HPD report.   But Vicky Daskaloudi, the 5th ward council member who represents the area where the stop sign can no longer be found, had a few questions for Mishanda following her report.  "On Paddock where the stop sign was removed: Where is the sign?  When will it be put back up?" she asked.  This may have been the most emotionally charged I have heard her speak at a meeting.  She was obviously frustrated by the turn of events in her ward and the lack of disclosure by those involved in the sign's removal.

Franklin offered this to Daskaloudi, essentially speaking for HPD Commissioner Shane Bower, who was nowhere to be seen or heard:  "Yeah.  So, I did ask the commissioner about that after the last meeting, and I know that he wanted to bring it up to the traffic safety commission -- the county traffic safety board -- to see if there was any opposition or any other legal aspect that the city had to go through to put it back up.  So, I can confer with him again and see." (To keep the process as opaque and as difficult as possible, notice that Chief Franklin did not suggest to Daskaloudi to reach out to Bower herself with questions and concerns.  Shield Bower and keep the council members talking to the wrong person!  Keep him away from the meetings!)  

(Also, why would Franklin have spoken to Bower about the sign after January's meeting if, as she had claimed, she had been told by Bower on the day of that meeting that "the sign would go back up"?  It makes no sense.)

Daskaloudi responded:  "Yeah, we need to have it up, because it's also a blind spot and it's by the school."

Franklin:  "Okay."  (How about, "Okay, I'll tell the commissioner again!"?)

1st ward council member Margaret Morris was then recognized and asked this of our police chief, the head of the department charged with enforcing the criminal code:  "You are talking about a stop sign in the City of Hudson, right?  Why would that have to go through the county board?"

Franklin responded, once again speaking for AWOL HPD Commissioner Shane Bower:  "I think it's just for, to just make sure that we follow the correct process if there's any that we would have to do to put that sign up.  I do understand that the commissioner has that capability to do that."

During his DWP report later in the meeting (a month after missing January's meeting), Robert Perry did not mention anything about the sign's removal, and no one asked him about it. (First, and obvious, question for him:  "Who ordered you to remove that stop sign on Paddock that DPW installed ten months ago and what were the reasons given to remove it?")

The commissioner who can't seem to attend meetings 
or speak for himself.

While I was speaking with the mayor in his office about the missing sign, I also inquired about a problem with the traffic light at 6th & Columbia that I had informed him of the week before.  I asked him if he had had a chance to reach out to Shane Bower to try to get the issue resolved.  Kamal said that he had not spoken to him because "Shane hasn't been around."

If you've read last year's HUDseen article about the stop sign, you will know that former Police Chief Ed Moore told me at a council meeting that Shane Bower "is at that station every day."  I didn't believe it then, and it now appears that Ed Moore was indeed fibbing.  I recently received an email from HPD Lieutenant David Miller regarding Police Commissioner Shane Bower, whom I was having a difficult time contacting.  Here is exactly what Lt. Miller wrote:  "The Police Commissioner does not work out of the City of Hudson Police Station.  The Police Commissioner is appointed by the Mayor and works for the CITY administration.  The Police Commissioner position is not a full time position and he does not get paid hourly."

The Police Commissioner never works out of the police station, nor does he work out of City Hall, and he makes no money as the commissioner.  So, from where exactly does our Police Commissioner do all his important pro bono work for us?  His vehicle?  His living room and kitchen?  A coffee shop or McDonald's?  Like his predecessor, does Shane live outside of Hudson?  Why on earth are we relying on the police commissioner to do anything for us if he is so incommunicative and unavailable, even unaccountable?  

3-way intersection, 1 stop sign

Curious about the "county traffic safety board" that our police chief mentioned (an entity that I was unaware of and had never heard mention of in my 7 years of attending Common Council meetings), I reached out to the Columbia County Highway Department last Wednesday.  I was told by the receptionist there that "the safety board used to be handled by this department, but it is now part of the Sheriff's office."  The person answering the phone at the Sherrif 's office was unaware of any such traffic safety board, so she suggested I speak with First Sergeant Boam.  I left a message for him to call me back.  In the meantime, I looked for information about a traffic safety board on the county's website.  I came up empty.

The next morning, I got a phone call from a friendly guy by the name of Henry Swartz, who is apparently the head of the Columbia County Traffic Safety Board.  It exists!  I asked Henry, who is also the Deputy Director of the Columbia County Emergency Department, if he knew who Shane Bower was.  He said that he had known Shane for a long time.

I then asked Henry: "Has Shane ever dealt with the safety board and are you aware of an issue with a missing stop sign on Paddock Place in the City of Hudson?"   He responded that the traffic safety board had never dealt with Shane, and that he was unaware of the stop sign issue.  Of course, the head of the Traffic Safety Board told me this over 4 weeks after our police chief claimed that Shane Bower had "wanted to bring up" the issue of the missing stop sign to the board.  It's mind-boggling.

Seemingly genuinely curious (and certainly perplexed), Henry wanted to know more about the sign issue, so I told him what I had heard at the meeting as well as the story of the sign.  Henry then said this:  "This is not in Shane Bower's purview.  This should be a Hudson DPW issue, it seems to me."  Now Henry was really puzzled and basically told me that there would be no reason for anyone in the City of Hudson to approach the Columbia County Traffic Safety Board about a stop sign, or any other sign for that matter, no matter what the issue with the sign might be, saying "The city takes care of itself."   And he wasn't just referring to traffic signs. 

"Does the board offer legal advice, as the Police Chief claimed was the reason for Shane approaching the board?" I asked.

"No, we do not offer legal advice and we have no counsel on the board.  We are a volunteer crew," was Henry's answer.

I asked Henry why our Police Chief would offer something that was so inaccurate.  He said that he wasn't sure why, adding that, "while the Chief may believe what she said, she is misinformed."

Henry then said that he was going to reach out to the Hudson Chief of Police to find out what was going on.

I also asked Henry if there was any information online for the Columbia County Traffic Safety Board.  He said there was not but that the board was working on it, hoping to post the minutes of the meetings on the County Sheriff's webpage.

With that, we said goodbye and hung up.

Who could make this story up and be believed?

The question is:  Who is shoveling the disinformation and possible outright lies to the Common Council and the public?  Is it the so-called Commissioner of Police through his spokesperson, the Chief of Police?  Or is DPW Superintendent Robert Perry feeding them the bullshit to feed to us?  Could it be the mayor or the council president?  Is it all of them?  It has to be at least one of them!  Or is it the same person who made the complaint that got the sign removed, the person who simply does not appreciate a stop sign for east bound traffic on Paddock Place and may live in the neighborhood and work for the city?  

Here is the icing on this ugly cake, if it is even needed:  Dozens of members of the community, including schoolchildren and their parents, recently signed a petition to create a special pedestrian walkway from the elementary school at the west end of Paddock Place eastbound to the intersection of Paddock Place & Joslen Place and around the corner where Paddock continues.  The special pedestrian lane would go right past the spot where the stop sign is no longer.  The idea behind the petition -- which I believe was brought in front of the council late last year a month or two before the stop sign was removed -- was to create a safer Paddock Place for children walking and biking to and from school where no sidewalks or bicycle paths exist.  In other words, JUST ABOUT EVERYONE WHO LIVES IN THAT AREA KNOWS THAT THE STREETS (WHICH LACK SIDEWALKS) ARE DANGEROUS FOR CHILDREN AND THEY NEED TO BE IMPROVED BEFORE A CHILD OR A FEW KIDS GET RUN OVER BY A CAR, TRUCK OR SCHOOL BUS, POSSIBLY BY A DRIVER THAT HAS NO STOP SIGN AT A 3-WAY INTERSECTION THAT IS VERY BUSY ON WEEKDAY MORNINGS AND IN THE MID-AFTERNOON.

But are three stop signs NEEDED?

Can you understand why so many residents in that 4th ward neighborhood might be pissed that the stop sign disappeared without explanation? Can you understand why so many people lose faith in their local government and just decide not to get involved or pay attention?  Do you see how this apathy works in favor of those in power who don't want people paying attention so that they can do whatever they please?  The more they alienate the public, the less accountable they are.  And the more dysfunctional and unaccountable City Hall becomes, the more it is open to graft and making bad decisions that endanger residents or send them fleeing to greener pastures. Can you see why allowing a police commissioner to not attend public meetings (because "he doesn't have to") and speak for himself only make things worse for the City of Hudson?  But it's beyond damaging. It's absolutely frightening.

What stop sign? What dangerous street?