Robert Perry, Working His Magic!

According to my notes, in mid-November of last year a new utility pole was installed on North Sixth Street at Prospect Street on the northwest corner of the intersection.  The NO PARKING ANY TIME sign located several feet from the old pole was removed and, within weeks, it was reinstalled by taping it to the new pole. (I'm pretty sure DPW had no hand in the matter, but I could be wrong.  At the very least, they allowed it to happen).  Anyway, the sign was now no longer lined up with the end of the yellow curb as it had once been.  Last week, DPW repainted that curb, leaving the sign taped to the pole at least ten feet from the end of the yellow curb.  So, apparently, DPW is perfectly fine with confusing residents and visitors about where they can and can't park.

Isn't the taped-to-pole effort and look so impressive?

Today, as a test, I called HPD to let them know that a car was illegally parked almost entirely along the yellow curb at 6th & Prospect.  I did not say that the car was parked legally according to the NO PARKING sign.  One year ago, that car would have been unmistakably illegally parked and deserving of a ticket.  Within an hour or two, the car was issued a $25 NO PARKING ZONE ticket by a HPD parking enforcer.  

If the owner of that car is smart, they will appeal their ticket.  Included with the written appeal should be a picture showing how the sign and the end of the yellow curb do not come close to lining up.  The end of the written appeal should say something like this:  "Until DPW and HPD get their fucking acts together, HPD should stop issuing tickets to cars whose drivers can't fucking make heads or tails about where NO PARKING ZONES start and end.  We will obey your rules if you can start to show one ounce of common sense and even a bit of respect for drivers.  Until then, you can take this ticket and shove it where the sun don't shine!"  The recipient of that appeal would be our city attorney Andy Howard, and he would have no reason not to accept the appeal.  While the city would be paying him to do that work, Robert Perry would be somewhere taking pictures for his next DPW report to highlight issues the Common Council doesn't care about.

Also according to my notes, in October of last year, DPW extended the yellow curb on the northeast corner of the intersection of State & 7th by about 17 feet.  They did this after I made a point that as long as cars were allowed to park so close to the intersection, the increasingly busy intersection was a perfect candidate for a T-bone accident due to drivers exiting 7th Street not being able to see oncoming westbound State Street traffic.  Within a month of DPW painting the curb, I noticed the paint was falling off in big flakes.  Within 4 months, every bit of paint on top of the curb was gone and there was very little on the side.  Cars began parking in the space again and the intersection was as dangerous as it was before being painted.  Welcome to Hudson, welcome to Hudson DPW land.

Here are a few pictures of two cars parked in the once yellow NO PARKING ZONE, taken in July and August, just 9 and 10 months after DPW extended the yellow curb well beyond the intersection.

9 months later, not a spec of yellow paint 
remains on top of the curb.

Last Monday, I showed the free-of-yellow-paint curb to officers Randy Strattman and Reid Ferris while a car was parked in the space the city doesn't want anyone parking in.  They had a difficult time believing me when I told them that the curb had been painted just 10 months ago.  I heard one of them say, "It looks like they [DPW] didn't use the right kind of paint."  The officers told me that they would reach out to DPW to see about getting the curb repainted.  In less than 24 hours, the curb was repainted, same as it had been in October.

This morning and this afternnoon, I took these pictures. 

The red car parked completely alongside the freshly painted yellow curb (the same car that used to regularly park there when the curb was missing its yellow paint) was issued a $25 NO PARKING ZONE ticket within an hour and a half of my call to HPD.   Given how busy the area has now become (even prior to Galvan's apartment building being occupied), this will continue to be a problem until (or after) DPW installs a NO PARKING HERE TO CORNER sign that may or may not line up with the end of the yellow curb.  Don't expect that to happen anytime soon, if ever.  Robert Perry only has so many tricks up his sleeve.