What The Heck Is Going On At HPD? How Would Anyone Know?

You have to wonder: if there were no such thing as Facebook, would our Police Chief still have failed to mention anything during her most recent HPD report to the Common Council and Hudson residents about her two new HPD officers who joined the force two weeks ago?

That's right, just 2 months after failing to mention that she had secured a coveted police officer in late January during her report less than two weeks later, Mishanda Franklin once again didn't bother to mention anything about TWO NEW OFFICERS BEING HIRED TO KEEP US SAFE! How is it possible that such a bizarre, inexplicable and concerning omission from our police chief has happened twice this year already? What do you suppose she would she have said if asked by a council member (what a concept!) why she hadn't mentioned the good news in public about her new officers? "Well, I didn't think any of you needed or wanted to know when we hire new officers.  I assumed that mentioning the good news on our Facebook page was adequate and that you would all get the word. This is the first question or concern I've gotten about this. You all do read our Facebook page every day, don't you? If you explain to me why revealing news about new police officers solely on Facebook is inadequate or inappropriate, next time I hire any officers I will be sure to include the news in my monthly report to you all. You never told me you wanted to be informed about new hires, so I just assumed you weren't interested in it, and for that I apologize."

If Mishanda isn't going to bother mentioning the news that three new officers have arrived to her force in the span of just two months, why would she bother to mention that her force is short-staffed (or possibly even critically so), that she has no option but to make her officers work 12-hour shifts (which I believe is the case), or that morale at HPD is low?

But the head scratching lack of information from our Police Chief doesn't end there.

Recently, I've noticed two new faces enforcing parking meters. Mishanda has made no mention of these new hires, even though enforcers work for HPD.  No postings on the city's "JOBS" page regarding available enforcer positions have been made since the page was created over a year ago.  In that time, I have noticed at least three parking enforcers come and go (a woman lasted all of one or two weeks last summer). 

It's possible that the first of the two most recent hires -- a middle-aged male I saw a few weeks ago but have not seen since -- quit and was replaced by the second new face I saw just the other day.  Parking enforcement is a horribly dull, thankless job, and workers often do not last long, one reason being that the city (indeed, Mishanda herself) prefers that the position remains part-time.  Enforcers (typically we have four of them) tend to be retired men (many seem to be former corrections officers, though there are two younger men who have been around for about one year), all of them expected to walk for miles every day while stepping down and up from curbs along the way and standing in the street a foot or two from passing traffic. Rain, snow, ice, heat, cold, sidewalks full of tripping hazards, meters that are difficult to read or 3 feet off the ground -- our four enforcers are out there issuing parking tickets, unable to work more than 20 hours a week.  

Last year at a meeting, I asked Chief Franklin
if her enforcers were allowed to jaywalk. "Yes,"
she replied, "as long as they make it to the other side."

Just last week, the latest in a never-ending parade of hired enforcers (this one told me that he was 58 years old) informed me of what I had assumed for the past month or so: veteran HPD parking enforcer, Jeff Zito, had retired.  Jeff had been issuing parking tickets for at least 15 years! (10 years ago when Jeff was training me to be a parking enforcer, he told me that he once slipped on an icy sidewalk while on duty and damaged his ankle so badly that it needed screws to be repaired.) 

Mishanda Franklin, Jeff's boss, chose not to mention a word to the council about our recently retired long-time parking enforcer who served this city by walking a million miles up and down Warren Street over his several years of issuing parking tickets that brought in tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue to city coffers. Our so-called Police Chief didn't even have the decency or respect to mention to the council and the public, let alone make the announcement on Facebook, that Jeff Zito had decided to call it quits after all those years of laborious, thankless work.  Jeff Zito?  Who the fuck was he?  Oh, that guy; he was just another parking enforcer.  They come and go all the time.  I didn't think any of you council members cared a bit about him or even knew anything about him!  Yeah, well, if you must know, he had some health problems and had to retire.  Not to worry, though, we quickly found another old guy to replace Jeff.   And that enforcer's replacement is working out just fine.  Like most of the others, he's a retired guy, happy to be making some money, getting some exercise, and having something to do with his days. He tells me he loves the job.

(I was told that Jeff retired due to health reasons.)

20 seconds of Mishanda's once again very brief minute and a half monthly report to the council and the public last Monday was spent describing an incident involving a rider on an ebike running into the side of a vehicle at 6th & Columbia in March. 

And here is how our Police Chief was quoted in a recent article in the Register Star regarding the arrests of five teenagers who assaulted a customer at the laundromat on Green Street last month.  "Keeping our community safe requires us all working together.  We will continue working alongside local agencies, community partners, and residents to address acts of violence."  Talk about empty words!  What is she even talking about?  What local agencies and community partners is she referring to exactly? Did she pull those two sentences straight out of a HOW TO EXPLAIN AWAY POLICE EMERGENCIES textbook from the chapter titled Meaningless But Effective Press Releases Any Police Chief Can Easily And Effectively Use?

Then there's this.

Mishanda Franklin, the Police Chief of the City of Hudson, has attended the entirety of the two most recent parking study Ad-Hoc Committee meetings.  Ten days before the gang assault at the laundromat, a uniformed Mishanda Franklin spent 40 minutes of her time at February's meeting.  Sitting in the public seating area in her uniform, she had questions for Jen Belton about the parking lots at the Amtrak station, including the lot next to the station that is not on the committee's radar because it is not owned by the city.  Then, two and a half weeks after the gang assault at the laundromat that put the victim in the hospital, Mishanda, with her clerk by her side, spent an hour of her time AS OUR POLICE CHIEF at March's meeting.  Once again in uniform, at one point she wanted clarity about who owned the parking lot "adjacent to 253 Columbia Street."  No one in the room was quite sure what parking lot she was referring to, so Mishanda eventually described the lot as being located "next to where the old junkyard used to be," as if that would be any help.  

Can someone please explain to me what parking meters, parking lots, parking enforcement and parking kiosks have to do with law enforcement, violence prevention and keeping Hudson residents safe?  Anyone?! 

Time for a break!

Wouldn't it have been more accurate if Mishanda had stated something like this to the media after the gang assault arrests?:  "Keeping us all safe requires that I spend a large portion of my work day, even in the evening, dealing with and thinking about parking matters, including hiring parking enforcers and making sure that moving forward my department is in complete control of all aspects of parking and all the revenue it brings to the city."