According to HPD Detective and longtime Paddock Place resident Nick Pierro, who fancies himself an expert on all things traffic safety and particularly one intersection near his house, the intersection by the tennis courts on Paddock Place is safer without the stop sign that mysteriously disappeared late last year or early this year after being installed last April. For 10 minutes at the end of April's informal council meeting, Pierro made his point mainly to one council member even though the issue of the sign was not part of the meeting's agenda. (Council "president" Depietro never should have allowed the discussion of the stop sign.) One council member I spoke to referred to Pierro's comments as "arguing about the missing stop sign." This is what is has come to: A Hudson resident and HPD Detective literally arguing for ten minutes with a council member about a "dangerous" stop sign (and intersection) in front of his house that disappeared months before.
Of course, HPD Detective and Hudson resident Nick Pierro didn't make the argument that the stop line made the intersection less safe or that it should also be removed. And so DPW allows it to remain ... because, apparently, Nick Pierro has no problem with it remaining.
Apparently, the driver of the DPW vehicle seen at the intersection this morning feels the same way. He didn't bother coming even close to a stop before or after the stop line. Why would he? Because there's no fucking stop sign next to the stop line, that's why! And why, in the year 2024, would there not be a stop sign next to a stop line at an intersection near an elementary school that is busy with vehicles twice a day, including buses and walking children? The answer is simple: Nick Pierro didn't approve of the stop sign that council members requested and DPW installed in front of his house! And he won't allow it to be reinstalled. The stop line? He doesn't give one hoot about the stop line. (Someone tried but failed to erase the line with black spray paint or some other black material earlier this year! It quickly washed off.)
That stop line cost the city of Hudson taxpayers over $126 to purchase and install. If no drivers pay attention to it and there is no associated stop sign, is it even called a stop line anymore? Is it now just a white line in the road to be ignored? Ask Robert Perry what that white line on Paddock Place is, why it was installed, how much it cost the city and what he plans on doing with it, if anything. He'll probably just tell you to go away and speak with HPD Detective Nick Pierro about all the important details.
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| Is this stop sign necessary? Does it and the stop line just make the intersection dangerous? |
If Robert Perry's DPW removed the stop sign on Paddock Place that they had installed in April of last year, why didn't the superintendent include mention of it along with a picture or two showing the sign's removal during his subsequent informal meeting monthly DPW report? You know, to let the council and the public know what the heck was going on, why he would ever have a stop sign removed no matter where it is located, why no mention or discussion of the removal was made before it was done, who ordered the removal of the stop sign, whether or not the sign would ever be reinstalled and what would become of the erstwhile stop line. The removal of a stop sign is kind of a big deal, isn't it, even here in Hudson? Surely, it merits some discussion and forewarning, doesn't it? You would think! Elsewhere, yes! Here in Hudson, absolutely NOT!
At the very least, shouldn't the two 5th ward council members have been informed ahead of time of DPW's plans to remove the stop sign in their ward? It sets a really poor precedent to allow city officials to be so incommunicative, unaccountable and leave people in the dark about a missing stop sign, doesn't it? Heck, maybe Robert Perry, whose salary is over $117,000, made no mention of the missing stop sign to the council members because he knew absolutely nothing about the stop sign's removal, and he just assumed that the sign simply disappeared in the dark of the night, possibly at the hands of a disgruntled resident in the area who knows an unsafe stop sign when he or she sees one.
I could definitely see that being the case!
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| Picture taken last year when the intersection was unsafe and BEFORE the intersection was made safe again! |
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| Why bother with a stop sign? |
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| Why even have a stop sign or a stop line? What does HPD Detective Nick Pierro think of this situation? Is it also "unsafe" and "dangerous"? (Franklin at Prospect) |
To add a lovely bow to this gift of City Hall's, consider this: 5 months ago, during January's informal council meeting, HPD Chief Mishanda Franklin assured Vicky Daskaloudi, the rest of the council and any of the public listening that the missing stop sign on Paddock "will be put back up. I don't know the timeline for that, but it will be put back up." Franklin claimed to have been told this by HPD Commissioner Shane Bower, who does not work for, or at, HPD and never attends council meetings. In February, Mayor Kamal Johnson told me in person that the missing stop sign would be "reinstalled soon." During February's informal council meeting after yet another inquiry from Daskaloudi, Chief Franklin sang a different tune. She said that she wasn't sure what the fate of the missing stop sign was, that there might be some legal issues regarding its reinstallation and that she would "confer with [HPD Commissioner Shane Bower] again about the sign." AGAIN!!!!! Alas, since then Chief Franklin seems to have dropped the issue altogether.
Since February, only Nick Pierro has made mention of the missing Paddock Place stop sign at any meetings, and he certainly wasn't letting anyone know when or if the sign might be reappearing. Quite the contrary! In fact, in the 6 or 7 months since the stop sign disappeared, no one has spoken nearly as much about the missing sign and the intersection where it once stood as Nick Pierro did in April. And for the past two months of meetings there has been zero mention BY ANYONE of the disappeared stop sign on Paddock Place near the elementary school. It has been nothing but absolute creepy silence, if you ask me! The creepiest part of all? DPW Superintendent Robert Perry has never once mentioned the missing stop sign issue nor has one council member asked him to weigh in on it or explain how or if DPW was involved in the sign's removal.
Can't get enough of this nonsense? Read more here: THERE IS NO WAY... ,or here: YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP (the original article before the stop sign on Paddock was installed, reporting on the struggles getting it and another sign installed.)
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