How One Pair of Small Traffic Signs Reveals Underlying Problems At DPW

Approaching Green Street from upper Columbia

Sign meant for Green Street traffic,
mostly facing Columbia Street for at least
the past year, possibly two.

This morning at 11:00

Heeding the sign by crossing the truck
route and onto State Street headed west

Continuing along the Truck Route Alternative

The left turn signal was on briefly before 
the intersection at 5th but no turn was made.

And onto 3rd Street, without destroying
 the street sign or trash can on the NW corner.

Back on the truck route!

Idling at the Allen Street red light for 30 seconds...

...And out of town!

That was today...

...Last week while headed west on State Street, I found myself behind a 53-foot tractor trailer rig.  A Hudson police cruiser passed us both in the 500 block while headed east.  Did the officer in the cruiser turn around to issue a ticket to the truck driver off of the truck route? Of course not.  HPD stopped issuing tickets to errant trucks long ago.

This morning at about 9:00, a 53-foot tractor trailer rig passed by me in the 500 block of State Street.  The driver, whose upper torso I could clearly see, was gazing at his phone in his right hand with a confused look on his face.  

The driver of the tractor trailer that I document pictorially above was likely heeding the sign facing his way at the bottom of the Columbia Street hill.  The driver could read the words TRUCK and ROUTE and see the arrow pointing straight ahead!  Issuing that driver a ticket or reminding them that they had strayed off of the truck route would be unfair and absurd.  So, who do we have to blame for a truck driver following a sign that keeps a 53-foot tractor trailer from turning onto the truck route and instead driving on State Street to get out of town?

One person and one person only: DPW Superintendent Robert Perry, Jr., a 15-year city employee currently making over $117,000 a year and the only department head whose office desk is not located in City Hall or elsewhere downtown.

In July of 2020, Mr. Perry's department installed two pairs of signs above the intersection of Columbia, Green and State Streets (at Speedway), both meant to prevent trucks headed into town on Green Street from turning right onto State Street or left onto Columbia Street.  Within a year or two, one pair of those signs had blown off the wire they had been poorly attached to.  2 or 3 years later, the signs have yet to be replaced.  The other pair, which were hung directly over the outbound Green Street traffic lane, are the ones that today's driver likely saw and obeyed.

July 2020.  The sign on the right fell off 2 or 3 years ago, and the 
sign on the left has mostly turned to face Columbia Street.

At the same time, two pairs of signs of similar intent were hung over the intersection of 3rd & Columbia at the turn in the truck route.  The pair on the left fell off after about a year (maybe in the same gust of wind that knocked down the others!) and have also never been replaced.  Just another pair of disposable, optional and useless truck route signs that the city paid for and installed but has no interest in replacing!

To understand why dysfunction like this is so common at DPW, I think it's worth examining exactly what is expected of the person in charge of the department.  According to the city's website, the Department of Public Works is responsible for the following: Maintaining city streets and parks; trash pickup; public water supply; maintains city sewer system; maintains cemeteries.  And we expect one person to preside over all of this, including his 30-plus employees, and somehow do a thorough job all around by paying proper attention to everything?   It's laughable!  Obviously, it's simply not possible, no matter who is in charge or how much they are paid.  So, to cite just one example, signs will go missing for years and trucks will be ROUTED AWAY FROM THE TRUCK ROUTE because one person is expected to do WAY TOO MUCH.  And who suffers?  The residents of Hudson do, of course.  And the DPW has to replace the street signs and the trash cans at the corner of 3rd & State every 6 months.  Who pays for that? 

Mr. Perry doesn't live on State Street, and even if he allows trucks to be directed onto State Street, his job and salary remain fully intact.  He is not only okay with being asked to do too much, he's also likely okay with doing a subpar job in some or all aspects of his duties.  It's no skin off of his back and he knows it.   Until Kamal Johnson or some future mayor (or city manager!) wakes up and creates a sanely and properly structured DPW, we will continue to suffer the consequences of one person not being able to do a particularly good job in all phases of what he is asked to do, be it Mr. Perry or someone else in charge of DPW.  

This, my friends, is nothing less than stupidity, and it has gone on for far too long.  Any professional city supervisor worth his or her salt would agree with me.  Overworked and unaccountable employees tend to forget, overlook and ignore things, make mistakes, get tired and lazy and become complacent or just unreliable and incommunicative.  Shenanigans and corruption are never far behind. 

Our DPW needs to be split up into at least two separate departments with individual supervisors -- and now.  We currently have a Water & Sewer Department within the Department of Public Works.  That is our DPW problem in a nutshell, the incoherence of a department within a department with a 5 million dollar budget.  And Robert Perry is perfectly fine with it.

Like it is done outside of Hudson, we need a Water & Sewer Department (or just name it the Water Department) that is not under the umbrella of DPW and that is supervised by one person with the appropriate and unambiguous title of Water Department Superintendent.  (The Town of Greenport has a Water & Wastewater Department, supervised by James Rutkey.)  Everything else not below the ground that Mr. Perry handles right now -- garbage and recycling, streets and parks, etc. -- needs to be supervised by the DPW Superintendent.  Two separate departments, each supervised by a different person.  Unlike the present situation at DPW, this would allow 2 people to each handle a manageable amount of responsibilities.  (Ideally, we would have a Parks Department, but that is another can of worms.)

The question is, who is going to ever make this happen?  Who can make it happen?  Until it does, expect more of this nonsense at the hands of Robert Perry that keeps Hudson from ever becoming a city with a handle on its myriad of issues, including drivers of 53-foot tractor trailers following a sign directing them OFF OF THE TRUCK ROUTE for several years.

I would say that on an average weekday, at least 6 tractor trailers with no business or deliveries on State Street travel west on State from Green Street.  Some days are much worse.  Almost every one of them is trying to get out of town, and not all of them turn at 3rd Street.