Welcome To The "I HAVE NO IDEA" City

A few weeks ago, in front of the municipal parking lot on Warren Street that is closest to 4th Street, I came across one of the two longtime HPD Parking Enforcers.  We were talking in front of the lot with the very old MUNICIPAL PARKING sign along the sidewalk that has been increasingly leaning to the west for several years.  You know that sign, don't you?  It's the one that looks like it was installed in the late 1970s and has never been touched since by DPW.  

The frame of the sign is literally falling apart (the bottom is missing), and, as of about a year ago, a 6-foot-tall person could slam their forehead into the bottom right corner of the sign if they weren't looking straight ahead or were blind.  Recently, someone wisely and helpfully applied a strip of white cloth to the dangerous and unwelcome corner of the lovely sign.  The entire sign and its leaning post deserve to be covered in a white cloth -- just maybe that would get someone's attention two blocks away at 520 Warren.

Pointing to the sign, I asked the friendly parking enforcer if he knew why the sign remained ignored and in such horrible condition for so long. His reply? "I have no idea."

"If the city were to replace the sign, do you know what department would do the work?" I asked. 

His response?  "I have no idea."

Now you understand why none of the four parking enforcers have told anyone about the leaning and dangerous parking lot sign next to the sidewalk on Warren Street.  If they have no idea who to tell about the sign that has been needing attention for years, then they will continue to walk past it and ignore it.  For years.  "It's not my problem, and I don't even know whose problem it might be."  Problem solved! 

The enforcer went on to tell me that former Police Chief Ed Moore had suggested long ago that the city should create a parking department to remove the responsibilities of parking matters from the hands of the Police Department.  I guess the enforcer was suggesting to me that a proper parking department would never allow a sign in a parking lot to be so decrepit, ugly, dangerous and neglected as the one we were standing next to.  The enforcer was also possibly implying that a proper parking department would allow everyone at City Hall to know precisely who would be responsible for replacing a sign in a parking lot that might cause someone to lose an eye and can generally be considered a nuisance eyesore.

Meanwhile, two weeks ago on his facebook page, our so-called mayor posted this:  I will be suspending weekend alternate side parking starting this weekend!  Official notice coming soon.  Enjoy the good weather.  What a pal!

However, the following day on the city's own website, the official notice of the suspension of the parking rule was announced and it had nothing to do with the mayor at all.  The announcement says this:  Per Police Commissioner's Order 2024-05, beginning on March 14th, weekend overnight parking in the city of Hudson shall be suspended until further notice. 

Guess who signed that Police Commissioner's Order?  Guess whose name is nowhere on that order?  Guess who had nothing to do with that order?

While our so-called mayor was busy on facebook -- the platform of fake news and other useless nonsense -- trying to take credit for something he had no hand in, for years he can ignore a dilapidated and leaning sign along a sidewalk that is ready to put someone in the hospital, found in a city parking lot just two blocks from his City Hall.  Hell, he too probably has "no idea" who is responsible for that sign, and he probably doesn't care to know, either.   For this, Kamal Johnson is allowed to be paid over $35 an hour to occupy the City of Hudson Mayor's Office.

Does he have any idea what he is doing?

One would be extremely hard-pressed to find another municipality in the entire State of New York that operates with such dysfunction, lack of decency and disregard for safety.  I'm thinking that it is possible that no other such town or city exists.