A City That Is Not Able To Boot Vehicles is Failing Its Residents!

The vehicle shown in the picture above is a perfect representation of a mostly unmentioned problem at City Hall that affects us all.

According to the city's online parking ticket portal, the most recent unpaid parking ticket this white pickup with Massachusetts plates received was in March of this year, a meter violation of $10 that has been $45 since early April. The oldest unpaid ticket which HPD issued the pickup is from mid-December, a $25 NO PARKING ZONE ticket which has been $75 for over 7 months. In between those two tickets, the vehicle has 4 other unpaid tickets, each of them with a price tag of $125 (for parking in a FIRE ZONE, originally $50). The total which the owner owes the city is $620. It just as easily could be $3,620.

In a small city with its act together (and with a proper parking department), this pickup truck would have been booted as early as the first day of April, 5 months ago, and the city would be $620 richer.  Why, you wonder, is the owner of this pickup truck allowed to drive and park around Hudson with over $600 in 6 well-overdue tickets?  Why is this vehicle allowed to incur more parking tickets that won't be paid?  Can't the city make the fucker pay his tickets (the owner is definitely a "he")?  Can't the city boot his vehicle, or any vehicles with at least 3 overdue tickets, let alone 6 or 66 of them?  The answer is no, the city is powerless to force scofflaws to pay up by immobilizing their vehicles.  And in so doing, the city is LOSING MONEY LIKE A SEIVE!

Here is the problem, as was recently explained to me by the person behind the counter at City Hall, Kim, who is essentially the Parking Bureau. The city recently hired a new vendor to track parking tickets because the old vendor was apparently no longer getting things done. But the transition has not gone smoothly because of the "bad parking ticket data" from the old vendor that the new vendor cannot rely on. To avoid any problems because of the "bad data," the city long ago decided to stop booting vehicles for fear of booting vehicles that did not deserve to be. This is still the case and likely won't change any time soon. Can you imagine? The city has to rely on some outside company to keep track of the simplest of parking tickets, but because that company screwed up, scofflaws with hundreds of dollars' worth of overdue parking tickets continue to do as they please and no one is forcing them to pay their tickets!
The weird thing -- the really creepy thing -- is that none of this is mentioned during council meetings (or it rarely is, and never in detail). It doesn't help that the so-called Parking Bureau is not required to give the council a monthly report. (This is unforgiveable!)
A few days ago, I asked Kim how often the city sends out reminders to car owners with overdue tickets. She told me that reminder notices stopped being sent out "a year or two ago" because of "the bad data" thanks to the former parking ticket vendor.
"Was it the city that used to send out the reminders?" I asked her.
"No. That was the parking vendor's responsibility," she replied.
"The city didn't send out the reminders? You relied on someone else to do it?" I asked in disbelief.
"That's right."
"Did they go out by snail mail?" I asked.
"Yes, only by mail."
"So, when do you suppose the new vendor is going to start sending out reminder notices to car owners with overdue tickets?" I asked.
Kim shrugged her shoulders and pointed at the computer in front of her, saying, "That's what I'm trying to straighten out right here."

No BOOT!  And the owner has owed the city
$620 for the past 5 months but has not received
one reminder notice.

Apparently, one person sitting at a computer is trying to get the "bad parking ticket data" from the former vendor straightened out for the new vendor so that, among other things, vehicles can once again be booted and reminder notices can once again be sent out. You know, so that the city can resume collecting money it is owed from long overdue tickets. (Boy, would I like to know what that amount is!)

If I were a member of the Common Council, I would make sure that either Kim or Tracy Delaney come in front of the council each month to give an update on where things stand with the following: the "bad data" becoming good data; how well the new vendor is or isn't handling things; how much revenue in unpaid tickets is outstanding; and how much closer the city is to resuming the booting of vehicles and sending out reminder notices to vehicle owners with overdue tickets. Alas, there seems to be no sense of urgency among council members to get this issue resolved and get the parking ticket payment system back to how it should be operating.

What we seem to have is a two-year old parking ticket shitshow that most, if not all, council members are completely unaware of or completely unconcerned with. If they are not asking to be informed about the progress with the new vendor and when there will no longer be any "bad data," they are all in the dark about what is going on with money the city is owed. Possibly oodles of money. This is not encouraging at all.
Meanwhile, the Assessor's Office seems to be abandoned (who can blame the assessor for not feeling welcome and not wanting to show up at City Hall?).

Once again, like a broken record, no one seems to be paying attention, no one seems to speak to one another, and City Hall acts as if everything is just hunky dory.  But the owner of a vehicle with over $600 in unpaid parking tickets continues to park in town with impunity and the city is powerless to do anything about gathering that money.  To repeat, that truck could just as easily owe the City of Hudson over $3,000 in parking tickets!  And if the pickup owner from Massachusetts decides next week never to return to Hudson or to sell his pickup, then what do you suppose the city will do about the $620 it is owed?  How about "tickets dismissed," "tickets voided," or just "WE GIVE UP!"?

Weren't computers supposed to make life easier for humanity?  What a crock of shit!

What if our latest parking ticket vendor creates some "bad data" that mucks up the system?  Then what?  Find another parking ticket vendor that we have to rely on to get a vehicle owner to pay a simple $25 parking ticket or $620 in long-overdue parking tickets they refuse to pay?  Wait for years to straighten out the "bad data" that prevents Hudson from booting vehicles whose owners have owed the city lots of money for months or years?

What an ugly, ugly mess that no one wants to talk about.