The Flat Tire Says It All!

The teal blue car in the picture is as perfect an example as one can have of how Hudson City Hall is simply not paying attention. 

It turns out that anyone can pay the Hudson City Clerk's office $250 for a municipal parking lot permit, hang the permit from a rear-view mirror in a car of one's choice, park the car in a metered space in a municipal lot and leave it there for the year without ever moving it, receiving a parking ticket or having the car towed.  

Case in point: I first noticed the unregistered teal blue car with Maine plates and one flat tire parked in a metered space in the city hall lot in early December of last year.  In late December, the city gave the owner of that car (or whoever paid for the permit) permission to park their car for the entire year in a metered space and never have to move it.  For all we know, that car is dead and abandoned.  But the city doesn't care.  "Someone paid for the permit, so the car can remain in that metered space unmoved for all of 2024 if the owner wishes to," seems to be the takeaway.  In over 3 months, the unregistered car from Maine with a flat tire has never received one parking ticket. Not one quarter has been inserted into the parking meter for the parking space that the car from Maine with a flat tire has been occupying for three months and may be occupying for the next nine months.

Until a few years ago, there was an alternate side overnight parking rule in the City Hall lot which would have allowed HPD to issue a $15 ticket every other night to the teal blue car from Maine with the flat tire.  If the rule were still in place, the car would have likely been towed by the city by now or the owner would have replaced the tire and maybe returned to Maine in the car.  

But, according to Robert Perry at this past November's informal meeting, the overnight rule in the lot was nixed "based on a discussion with, I believe the mayor, the police chief and the Planning Board about opening up space for the various development projects."  In other words, City Hall determined that the parking rule in the public parking lot was a hindrance for free parking options for upcoming nearby developments such as Galvan's 140 apartments at 7th & State and the Pocketbook Factory, each located two and a half blocks away.  So, the rule was erased by the simple act of removing the two overnight parking rule signs in the lot.  This happened without any input from council members or discussion at council meetings.  There is no paper trail, either.  The signs were just removed by DPW, and Mr. Perry claims that others made the decision to do it. 

The lack of an overnight odd/even side rule in the lot means that the lot produces less revenue in the form of overnight tickets that HPD can no longer issue.  (A parking lot permit did not shield cars parked overnight on the wrong side of the lot from being ticketed by HPD.)  Galvan and the Pocketbook people pleaded with the city for parking for their projects that wouldn't be finished for many years, so the mayor (among others) did away with the overnight rule in the lot behind his City Hall.  And the city is poorer for it.  How much poorer?  It's impossible to know, really, since the change was made after a "discussion" of some sort somewhere and the council was never made aware before or immediately after the signs were removed.  One wonders if lost revenue was even part of the "discussion."

The lack of the overnight rule in the City Hall lot also means that a car with a parking permit can remain in a metered parking space for as long as the owner likes without ever being issued a ticket of any kind nor getting any attention from anyone at City Hall.  The car doesn't even need to be parked in one of the several "permit only" spaces in the lot, opening up a parking meter to be filled with quarters by someone else -- maybe even someone visiting Hudson!  A metered space will do just fine for a car with a flat tire, thank you!  For the entire year if the car owner desires!  

Genius!

Here is a copy of the application for the parking permit (#42) that is hanging from the rear-view mirror inside the teal blue car with Maine license plates and a flat tire parked for the past 3 or 4 months in a metered parking space in the City Hall municipal parking lot. Someone from Baltimore paid for the permit which was mailed to someone in Hudson so that a car with Maine plates and a flat tire could sit unmoved and unticketed in a city parking lot.  Notice that the application does not require any information from the applicant regarding the vehicle for which the permit will be used.  It is as if the city doesn't care what vehicle, or what kind of vehicle, the permit is used for. Out of state? Flat tire? Unregistered and uninspected car?  Dead, unmovable car?  Apparently, none of that matters at all.  Purchase a permit, place it inside any vehicle you like.  Leave vehicle for as long as you like in any parking lot space you desire, even in metered space!  Reapply at the end of the year.

It appears that someone from Baltimore is taking advantage of a poorly considered parking lot permit system that allows anyone unlimited days and nights to park a car in a metered parking space in the city's largest and busiest municipal parking lot, situated directly behind Hudson City Hall.  Of course, the former overnight parking rule in the lot would have prevented this.

Two meters, taped and unusable
for over one year

I recently asked City Clerk Tracy Delaney where all the revenue from parking tickets winds up.  She told me that it all goes to the general fund and is eventually distributed to various departments. 

None of this is the fault of Tracy Delaney or Kim Gaylord, the employee at City Hall dealing with all the parking tickets -- they are both doing the best they can do given the circumstances they find themselves in. (Tracey does not work for the Parking Bureau!  She is essentially just helping out, as she was asked to years ago.)  The fault lies with a system that is flawed by design, one that may have worked fine 30 or 50 years ago but is no longer.  In short, there is no one supervising the underfunded so-called Parking Bureau.  It's a rudderless ship.

Need proof?  Go to the CITY OFFICIALS page of the city's website where you will find a list of all the city's departments and the appointed or elected officials running those departments.  All city departments, that is, expect for the Parking Bureau!  Even if the Parking Bureau were on the list, there would be no one to include as running that bureau because there is no one who is supervising the day-to-day activities and helping to move the Parking Bureau forward into challenging, unchartered territory!   And so, someone from Baltimore can purchase a $250 parking permit for an unregistered car from Maine with a flat tire and keep it parked for as long as they like in a metered parking space in the City Hall municipal parking lot directly behind City Hall where the unsupervised Parking Bureau is located.

Meanwhile, the Parking Study Committee (as well as Tracey and Kim) is considering which newfangled high tech mobile on demand blah blah parking system to implement city wide, hoping to rid the city of the old-fashioned but mostly reliable parking meters.  Without someone supervising the Parking Bureau? This is a joke, right?