Thank You, National Grid, For Allowing This Long Overdue Public Service Announcement!

He is the only City of Hudson department head who does not work from his own department's offices.  He is arguably the most influential and powerful Hudson city official.  He takes home over $117,000 a year.  He no longer parks his personal car behind City Hall. In fact, he had one of the two designated spaces with a sign on the wall behind City Hall until Kamal Johnson arrived and immediately made the space and the sign his own.  His two clerks who do work in his department's offices in City Hall have both told me on several occasions that he is "never" at City Hall and that he works "out there."  When he does find the time to visit his clerks at City Hall, he usually does so by means of the staircase leading to the back roof of City Hall where there is an outside door to his clerks' offices.  Last year at a council meeting I asked him where his office was located, and he responded in his typical dismissive and evasive fashion: "The city is my office" whatever that is supposed to mean.  (Tom Depietro had no problem with the department head's "answer.")  His supposed boss, the so-called Hudson Mayor, Kamal Johnson, isn't even sure where this department head's office is located, nor does he seem to care.  His department has an annual budget of around 6 million dollars.  He is the supervisor to more than 40 city employees over 4 separately named departments, with additional workers in the summertime.  He hasn't showed up in person to an informal council meeting in at least four and a half years and his monthly department reports to the council only involve his voice and pictures, many of which are presented sideways.  He lives on the rare block of a city street that has no overnight parking regulations at all.  He is considered by HUDseen to be a slob.  In fact, his first name rhymes with the word slob.  And finally, it's difficult to find anyone who has a positive thing to say about him. 

Of course, the mystery department head is our own DPW Superintendent, Rob Perry, a difficult guy to figure out and even more difficult to communicate with.  He's a difficult guy, period!  But I am happy to report that the communicating aspect might get a little easier from here on out.  The opaqueness surrounding Perry just cleared up a tiny bit.

If you want to speak to a department head in person, you had better know where their office is located.  Unlike every other department head, that's not so easy with our man Rob.  In fact, it's nearly impossible.  What's the old adage that I just made up, Find a man's car and you can bet he's not far from it?  Yeah, that's the one!  It turns out that during the workweek you can find Perry's personal vehicle or his city-issued vehicle, or both, parked inside the barbed wired-topped fences surrounding the DPW Water Plant at the top of Rossman Avenue.  The winding road through the back of the city cemetery leading to the drinking water facility has a few NO TRESPASSING signs before you reach the plant, barring anyone from entering who doesn't work there.  Make no doubt about it, though, Rob Perry spends a heck of a lot of time in there.  He just doesn't want anyone to know he is there, and he doesn't want to be bothered, particularly by any mayor who might be down at City Hall wondering what he is up to all day.  Speaking of pesky mayors, Rob's boss, Kamal Johnson, is fine with Rob spending his workdays incommunicado and as far away from City Hall as possible, even guarded from the public by barbed wire and NO TRESPASSING signs.  The public phone number to the Water Plant is not easy to come by as it is nowhere to be found on the city's website, but here it is: 518-828-3291.  Kamal Johnson may not even know that phone number.  Anyone who answers the phone there (it's never Perry) will deny that Rob Perry has an office there or that he is available to speak.  Ever.  When someone does answer, they always sound annoyed.  (The general DPW phone number gets you to the DPW offices in City Hall where Perry is not to be found.)

Who to call?

But if 518-828-3291 is not the phone number to our DPW Superintendent's office where he can be found, what the heck is?  Mr. Perry is, after all, a department head with a hell of a lot going on, so he's got to have a phone at a desk somewhere, doesn't he, possibly in the offices of the water plant at the top of Rossman Avenue?  Maybe.  If he doesn't have an old-fashioned desk phone, what he most definitely has is a cellphone that he carries around with him all day to take care of business (as seen in the lead picture that was taken last spring).  And that's got to be a city-issued phone, right?  Wrong!  It turns out that our DPW Superintendent uses his personal cellphone for work.  Why?  Who knows, maybe that's just the way he prefers to operate, and no one (including the many mayors he has served under since 2009) has told him it's unacceptable and improper.

Early last year while visiting City Hall, I asked the City Clerk, Tracy Delaney, if she knew if the phone that Rob Perry uses for work was issued by the city.  Tracy told me that as far as she knew Rob had never been issued a cellphone by the city.  (If anyone would know, Tracy would!)  

(I am paraphrasing here.)  

I asked Tracy, "If Rob Perry were to have a city-issued cellphone, the number for that phone should be accessible to the public and, like any department head, it would be easy to get that number, right?  You would have it or it would be found on the city website somewhere, wouldn't it?"  

Tracy concurred. 

"Well, if Rob or any city official is using their personal phone for work, can I make a FOIL request for the number of that phone?"  I asked. 

"You can request it, but we can't reveal anyone's personal phone number through a freedom of information request, no matter who they are or what phone they are using for work.  If it's a city-issued cellphone, then yes, the request for that number will be granted."

"Thank you, Tracy."

"You're welcome, Bill.  Stay out of trouble!"

Last week, I wasn't even looking for our DPW Superintendent's personal/city business phone, but I found it.  At long last.  Of course, the phone number that Rob Perry or any department head relies on for city work should not be nearly impossible to track down.  HE IS A PUBLIC SERVANT, AND ALL PUBLIC SERVANTS WHO USE A PHONE TO CONDUCT CITY BUSINESS -- WHETHER IT'S ON A PERSONAL PHONE THEY PAY FOR OR ON A CITY-ISSUED ONE -- SHOULD BE ABLE TO BE CALLED ON THAT PHONE BECAUSE THE NUMBER FOR THAT PHONE SHOULD BE PUBLIC INFORMATION.   

Here is what it took HUDseen to (accidentally) locate our DPW Superintendent's most direct work phone number, important public information that we have National Grid to thank for.  Until late last summer, the multinational utility with such a big presence in Hudson owned and was responsible for every single streetlight in Hudson, whether they were hanging from one of their wooden poles or at the top of one of DPW's short fiberglass poles found on and near Warren Street.  National Grid offered a streetlight map on their website to allow anyone to report street light outages so that they could repair them.  The map is still there, including all of Hudson's pole locations (and their numbers), but if you click on any pole number it now tells you that "National Grid does not own this light.  View your city directory using the button below."  Clicking on that "button" (it's called a link, National Grid!) will get you to a page titled Streetlight Municipality Directory which lists the contact info for every municipality across New York State that have taken over ownership and responsibility of streetlights on National Grid poles.  And wouldn't you know it, there toward the bottom of the non-alphabetized list, between the City of Saratoga Springs and the City of Amsterdam, is The City of Hudson.  Next to that is our DPW Superintendent's name along with -- get ready for it!!! -- a phone number that is nowhere to be found on the city's website, one that no Hudson residents are aware of (except possibly for another blogger by the name of Carole Osternik), and a number I never thought I would come to know.  It is a phone number which every Hudson resident should be aware of or, at the very least, be able to easily be aware of.  Write it down!  Put it in your phone's memory bank!  Never lose it! Send it to your neighbors!   It is the most direct phone number to our DPW Superintendent, the city official we are relying on to keep our small, crumbling, neglected, heavy truck riddled city from completely coming apart at the seams. The phone number is 518-965-5235, and anyone can call it.  ANYONE!!!  

While the outgoing voicemail message for this number does not identify Rob Perry as a city employee, do not let that deter you should you want to speak to him directly about DPW business.  (His outgoing message is kinda creepy, if you ask me.  Big surprise there, right?!  Call and have a listen just to see if you agree with me.  Don't worry, Rob won't answer a phone number he doesn't recognize!)

So, if you see a streetlight that is out, especially one that has been out for months or years, or you feel the need to complain to Rob Perry about some DPW-related nonsense that bothers you (potholes, potholes, and more potholes!!!), do not hesitate to call 518-965-5235 Monday thru Friday from 8-4.  Do not feel like you are intruding on Mr. Perry's personal time and affairs even if you are calling his personal cellphone!!  If he tells you to stop calling his phone, tell him to stop whining and get the city to issue him his own work phone.  If Rob asks you how you obtained his phone number, tell him National Grid and a blog called HUDseen provided it as a service to the public.  (I guarantee you that National Grid did not ask Rob Perry what phone number they should publish on their Streetlight Municipality Directory for Hudson!  And I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow Rob demands that it be changed to the general DPW phone number.)

 

Hell, just for the fun of it, call and ask him where his office is located so that you can stop by to say hello and be sure he is earning his $117,000 salary.  Perhaps he will let you drive or walk past the NO TRESPASSING signs leading to his lair.  And if he never answers your calls (or stops answering) or never responds to your voicemails (or stops responding), march over to his boss' office on the second floor of City Hall and ask the guy in the baseball cap what the fuck is going on with his highest paid department head being so creepy, unaccountable and unresponsive.  I'm sure Kamal will help you out and get the problem solved pronto. 

Who to call about "day burners" that
waste money and electricity?