A Committee and A "Bureau" Barely Treading Water

According to a discussion at the Parking Committee meeting a few nights ago, the Amtrak parking lot is presenting some issues that are flummoxing the city.  The lot appears to be more popular than ever, resulting in the single person Parking Bureau having issued more parking permits for the lot than the limited number of reserved spaces in the lot can accommodate.  Apparently, this is forcing permit holders to park in numbered (non-reserved) spaces and eventually being ticketed for doing so.  The city charges $1,000 for a one-year permit.

The tickets are issued by HPD parking enforcers, the ticketed permit holders complain, they do their best to appeal the tickets and the tickets are voided.  We are paying a city employee over twenty dollars an hour to take the complaints on the phone and in person (no doubt some of the people being irate), then voiding the tickets that had been issued by a parking enforcer getting paid twenty dollars an hour.  It's a lovely dance, isn't it?

I hope to take a deeper dive into the Amtrak lot fiasco in a future Hudseen article, but there is one interesting thing that I noticed in the lot today.  Of the 100-plus cars parked in the lot, just 3 of them had multiple tickets on their windshields.  One car had at least 7 tickets, and all 3 of them were sporting license plates from Massachusetts.  They don't like to play by our rules?

6 or 7 on the windshield 
and one behind the rear wheel!

While only one of those three cars from Massachusetts was displaying a parking permit, there seems to me to be an obvious partial solution to the crowding problem at the Amtrak lot.  If there is a limited number of reserved spaces for Amtrak lot permit holders, there is no reason that the City of Hudson, New York needs to issue any parking permits to residents of Massachusetts or any other state.  Out-of-state residents can pay the daily rate of $10 to park in the more numerous and usually available numbered spaces.  If they have to park in the far reaches of the lot, so be it.  Leave the limited number of reserved spaces at the front of the lot for Hudson residents first and other local New York State residents second.  If the commuters from Massachusetts don't like it, they can build their own parking lot and commuter train line to New York City.

10 minutes into the committee's 15-minute discussion of the Amtrak lot issue, a question was raised by 2nd ward council member and Parking Committee member Dewan Sarowar while he was sitting on a cushioned chair or couch, possibly located in the house he owns in Greenport. "The short-term parking next to the Amtrak. Whose property is that -- Amtrak or is that Hudson property?" he asked.  He was immediately told that it was owned by Amtrak. "So, we can't do nothing on that then?" he asked.  A committee member replied emphatically, "No, we're only talking about the long-term parking across the street!"

We in deep trouble.  And it will continue until the city hires a professional to supervise a proper parking department that will guide us through all the upcoming changes and improvements the Parking Committee talks endlessly about.  What we have now just ain't working and will only make matters worse; problems pop up and they are completely unprepared to deal with them (whoever "they" are).  

"Which lot are we talking about?"