It's A Good Thing City Hall Is Paying Attention To What Is Going On Around Our Planet And Underneath Their Own Sidewalk

While our earth and surrounding atmosphere are in the throes of an obvious human-caused climate change free fall death spiral, there is no shortage of evidence showing that Hudson City Hall has its collective head in the sand, treating the local environment and the entire planet like a toxic waste dump not worth any respect. Isn't it a fact that the U.S. federal government is the nation's biggest polluter? This appears to also be true on a local scale here with Hudson's government.

First there is this:

This past Sunday morning, while walking in front of 520 Warren Street, I felt a distinct warmth come over my body, especially at my feet.  It was a different kind of warmth than my typical blood boiling as I approach the new and improved dangerous 5-foot-wide sidewalk in front of our City Hall and do my best not to fall off the narrow sidewalk and land on my chin in the new handicapped parking space that I might have to use when I get out of the hospital to return to City Hall to announce to the mayor that I will be suing the city for creating such a dangerous situation for pedestrians, especially when more than one person is trying to pass in front of City Hall at the same time.  No, this heat was coming from below me, not within me. I bent over to touch the new concrete in front of City Hall and noticed that it was warm to the touch, as if it had been baking in the sun for several hours, which it had not been. I backed up several steps and touched the concrete sidewalk in front of the adjacent building. It was not warm at all, but rather cool to the touch as one would expect on a cool morning.

Warming planet, warming sidewalk

City Hall sidewalk on a 70-degree morning

I returned a half hour later with a small thermometer and placed it on the sidewalk in front of City Hall.  I checked the Hudson weather report on my phone: 71 degrees Fahrenheit, nearly identical to my thermometer.  I stood over the thermometer and watched the red liquid rise.  It stopped at 80 degrees, the ideal temperature to melt snow.  I then placed my thermometer on the sidewalk in front of the adjacent building and watched the red liquid drop back down to about 70 degrees. 

Taking the temperature of the sidewalk
adjacent to City Hall minutes later

This was on a Sunday during a long weekend with no one actually inside City Hall nor any recent snowfall.  Not only was hot water flowing through the radiant heating pipes below City Hall's brand-new narrow sidewalk, but I also noticed that the large air conditioner in the window next to the front door was on, cooling the inside of the building.  You know, keeping the pens and files from getting too hot and sweaty for 4 days while no humans were inside using those pens and files.  Except that the temperature outside was a cool 71 degrees, with no need for air conditioning even if there were humans inside City Hall!  Temperatures were not at air-conditioning levels for the entire 4-day holiday weekend -- not for humans, certainly not for pens or file cabinets full of paper, and certainly not on a Sunday morning in spring.

For how many weeks or months do you suppose that radiant heating system below the sidewalk in front of City Hall had been on 24/7 without anyone being aware of it?  Since it last snowed in April?  Or, perhaps, since January when HUDseen speculated that the new sidewalk did not have radiant heating when, in fact, it did?  How many dollars did the energy required to keep the sidewalk CONSTANTLY heated at 80 degrees cost us, and how many pounds of carbon dioxide were released into the atmosphere as a result of City Hall not being able to pay attention?  Was it hundreds of dollars and hundreds of pounds?  What else is City Hall not able to pay attention to that is unnecessarily costing us money and unnecessarily contributing to global warming and the destruction of humanity's one and only habitable planet?

As I made my way home at 9:30 that morning, I noticed that all the working lights in the parking lot behind City Hall were on.  The sun had been up for more than 3 hours.  About 5 days prior, at around noon under a partially cloudy sky, I noticed those same lights were on.  Yesterday, Wednesday at noon, it was the same sight:  Mostly blue sky, lights on.

Lights on, planet in distress!  Hudson 
City Hall doing its part and
making its contribution.

I checked the City Hall sidewalk again on Monday morning -- it was just as warm to the touch as the previous morning.  On Tuesday, I told City Clerk Tracy Delaney that the radiant heat system under the sidewalk out front appeared to have been on for at least the past two days.  She shook her head, wrote a note and told me that she would tell "the maintenance people" about it. 

And then there is this: 

Idling the huge engine, 1:33 pm

On Friday, May 3rd, in the early afternoon on a mild and beautiful spring day while walking near the intersection of Green & Fairview, I noticed a white DPW vehicle parked in the Stewart's lot, far from the designated parking spaces.  At least 4 minutes later I was close enough to the vehicle to hear that its engine was idling.  Even from the sidewalk I could hear the unmistakable sound of a heavy-duty, thirsty engine as it consumed gasoline or diesel and spewed all sorts of toxins from its over-sized exhaust pipe.  Even when idling, the engine is quite loud, almost whining, and the monster exhaust pipe is a sure sign of a gas guzzler (bigger pipe equals more air, more gas, more exhaust, more pollutants and, thankfully, more noise!).  No one was seated inside the vehicle or near it.  I took a picture of the idling DPW vehicle at 1:33 pm.  9 minutes later, at 1:42 pm, I took a picture of a DPW employee entering the vehicle, having just exited Stewart's.  Off he went, not having had to turn the key already in the ignition of his idling vehicle.

1:40 pm, still idling -- and loudly

You have to wonder:  When that DPW employee parks his personal vehicle at an eatery, does he intentionally leave his engine idling for the entire time he spends inside?  Of course he doesn't -- not if he is paying for the fuel!  But since he doesn't pay for the petrol in the DPW vehicle he drives around in all day and no one has told him that he cannot idle his engine while shopping or eating lunch, he is perfectly comfortable leaving that engine idling for at least 13 minutes while he shops or eats. This is not a criticism of that employee, whoever it was, because I don't care who it was. It could have been any DPW employee!  I've smelled and heard the idling DPW engines of unoccupied DPW vehicles so often for years that it is obvious to me that all DPW employees are allowed to idle their city-issued vehicles for as long as they like, whatever the circumstances are.  They do it all the time because they are allowed to!

If there is any justifiable criticism to be had, it needs to be levelled against -- you guessed it -- HUDseen's favorite city official and DPW Superintendent, Robert Perry, who allows the engine idling so common among his employees and who is likely a climate change denier (or at least unperturbed by climate change).  He doesn't care about the health of our planet or how much particulate matter from his department's vehicles enter our lungs.  And he is perfectly content with city taxpayers paying for the gasoline and diesel fuel necessary for his employees to idle large DPW vehicles while they shop or eat lunch inside Stewart's and elsewhere. Or while they are working on a task when there is no reason for the engine to be idling and when the vehicle could and should be shut off! It is as simple and obscene as that. Heck, Robert Perry is probably an idler himself. Perhaps he is Hudson's Superidler!

1:42 pm, engine still idling and
vehicle ready to roll!  Was the engine idling
for more than the 13 minutes I noticed it idling?

There is no engine idling policy at DPW in the year 2024, and there won't be one as long as Robert Perry is the DPW Superidler -- at least not a policy that he would enforce or take seriously.  He would laugh out loud (and/or offer a snarky, disrespectful, dismissive and childish response) at any Common Council member who would dare to suggest that he create an official written anti-idling policy that every DPW employee must sign.  How do you suppose Mr. Perry would respond if someone were to ask him how it could be possible that a DPW employee feels it is perfectly acceptable for them to idle a heavy-duty diesel engine in a DPW vehicle for at least 13 minutes while getting lunch?  Would he respond, "What is your problem with engines idling while my employees are eating lunch?  Why are you concerned with what my employees do while they are working?  Talk to the mayor if you have a problem and leave me the fuck alone!"  

Floods, severe storms becoming more common, increasingly fiercer and more destructive, fires and smoke a common summer event, droughts, temperatures that kill, ocean levels and temperatures rising, icebergs melting, and the list goes on and on.  All signs of a planet pushed to the brink -- or already past the brink -- thanks to an overload of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases.  Meanwhile, our $117,000 Superintendent of the Department of Public Waste allows his employees to enjoy a 15-minute lunch in an eatery while their heavy-duty, carbon-and-particulate matter-spewing vehicle idles outside unoccupied.  Something they would likely never do with their own vehicles!

You have got to be kidding me!

Finally, there is this, perhaps the iceberg on the cake:  On the agenda at April's Conservation Advisory Council meeting was the anti-idling law that the CAC has been considering for some time.  CAC head honcho Rich Volo introduced the agenda item, then immediately had this to say:  "I have mixed emotions about the anti-idling law only because, number one, it only applies to gas cars.  And number two, a lot of the new gas cars already have automatic shut off.  I mean...  (Anyone can easily track down the video of the meeting and hear Volo actually say this!)

CAC member Michael O'Hara, the apparent voice of reason at the CAC, then tried to set Volo straight, reminding him:  "There is a statewide diesel idling law already on the books." (Michael's implication being that the city should be enforcing that law, or a similar law or laws, with the help of the CAC, and that there are vehicles which run on gasoline and there are vehicles which run on diesel fuel, and they are both problematic.  In other words, contrary to Volo's view of idling vehicles in Hudson, this is indeed an issue worthy of the CAC pursuing and doing something about!)

Robert Perry AND Rich Volo don't care
if DPW vehicles idle unnecessarily or for 
how long they unnecessarily idle!  Want to 
bet that Mayor Kamal Johnson
doesn't care either?

Volo continued, "Okay.  I mean, [absent CAC member] Marie [Ball] introduced this to the group.  If she wants to move it forward, otherwise ... I don't know.  I have no ... It's not Bernie [burning?] enough for my carbon."  Volo had a loud laugh at his own "joke," though Michael did not join him in the frivolity.

On to the next agenda item Volo went: "Okay, tree grants.  Where are we?"

Rich Volo drives a fully electric vehicle and -- big surprise here! -- he doesn't feel that the City of Hudson needs an anti-idling law after all.  Why?  Because the law wouldn't apply to him or his car, so why would he waste his time with anything that wouldn't affect HIM?  Apparently, though, he isn't able to comprehend (or care about) what is going on around him.  Specifically, that other people actually drive diesel vehicles -- PRIMARILY TRUCKS! -- which are some of the most toxic, polluting, climate change-causing vehicles on the planet and that none of them are going to be powered by electricity instead of diesel fuel anytime soon, if ever.  It's also possible that CAC Chairperson Rich Volo is under the impression that all of DPW's, HPD's and all the world's vehicles, diesel or not, will suddenly be running on 100% electric power starting next month as all the gasoline and diesel pumps in America go dry for lack of any demand from old-fashioned, obsolete vehicles powered by internal combustion engines.  Of course, somehow every city and town in America will find the space to install dozens of electric car charging stations so that Rich Volo and every other car and truck owner in the country (including myself) can power their cars and trucks whenever they need to.

I believe that what Mr. Volo is afflicted with is the non-medical version of myopia.  He's just the kind of person we need making decisions for the future of Hudson, the air we all breathe and the entire planet's well-being.

When the head of the Hudson CAC considers an anti-idling law to be a complete waste of his, Hudson's and his environmental advocacy group's time and effort, we are all in serious trouble.  But this is just a reflection of City Hall as a whole, where myopia and selfishness might be rampant.  Alas, Rich Volo and Robert Perry are on the same page and the wrong side of history.  The two should do lunch sometime if they haven't yet (invite the mayor too, why don't you!).  They might have more in common than they think they do.  Prior to last month's CAC meeting, I never would have thought that the two would have anything in common to talk about.  Boy was I wrong!

When does the nonsense end?  Will it ever?  Is it too late for it to end anyway?