How To Make Things Worse, Not Better. And Piss People Off! And Create Parking Lot Rage!

If Mishanda Franklin, Kamal Johnson, Jen Belton, Tom Depietro and others have their way, soon the one-person Hudson Parking Bureau will no longer be located in City Hall, around which parking is regularly available on weekdays. The new $17,000 Parking Bureau office at 701 Union Street has been built and is ready to be furnished and occupied when someone says GO. Gone will be the friendly, welcoming, approachable, historic and gentle atmosphere of City Hall, replaced by bullet proof glass and a chute to "hand" someone your parking ticket payment. A lovely pair of vending machines had to be moved out of the way for this change, but they are still nearby for your convenience, as well as being the first things you will see when you step inside the building. At least no one will have to go through the nearby metal detector for the court. Oh, and lots of firearms will be nearby. The way things are headed, we shouldn't be surprised if the next step is to have a beautiful AI robot behind that bulletproof glass.

Is this fit for humanity?  Is this really 
the direction Hudson is headed?

This morning at 9:30, with Judge Connor's Wednesday court in full swing, there wasn't one parking space available in the entire parking area in front of and to the side of 701 Union.  Actually, one of the two handicap spaces was available -- the other was occupied by someone without a handicap permit.  And an enormous pickup truck was parked in a space that is marked off limits for vehicles.  The lot (if you can call it that) wasn't just full; it was overloaded with parked cars, more than it was designed to handle.

Soon:  No parking available to pay a parking ticket! 
Oh, THE IRONY!

Do you think this truck was ticketed for parking in 
a NO PARKING zone in front of HPD AND City Court?

Direct hit to the building, no doubt from a vehicle 
backing out of a space in the very narrow parking area.

This driver had just turned their car around after failing 
to find a space in front! (pic taken a few months ago)

Ten minutes later, ON BOTH SIDES OF THE STREET in front of 520 Warren, there were plenty of metered parking spaces for people to park and walk a few steps into City Hall to pay a parking ticket in person.  Even the new, extra deep never-occupied handicap space directly in front of City Hall (the one that forced the sidewalk to be narrowed to 5 feet from 10) was available for anyone to use for a minute or two without (too much) fear of being ticketed. 

Note to Jen Belton, Tom Depietro, Mishanda Franklin and Kamal Johnson: What are those people hoping to pay a simple parking ticket in person supposed to do when they pull into 701 Union on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday morning and can't find one designated, legal parking space? You do know that parking is not allowed anywhere on the street near the police station in the 700 block of Union, don't you? Instead, should your ticket customers park in the NO PARKING zone directly in front of the front doors and quickly duck into the building to get their ten-dollar ticket taken care of? Or should they turn around and head out of the lot (being sure not to hit anyone or anything in the ridiculously narrow "lot"), then head to the Union Street parking lot several hundred feet away (if they are aware of it) and hope there is a space for them to park so they can put a quarter in the meter, walk the 2 or 3 minutes back to 701 Union, pay their ticket and walk back another 2 or 3 minutes to their car so they can get on with their day and stop cussing under their breath (or out the fuck loud!) at the idiocy, annoyance and waste of time of what you have given them? Why would anyone feel good about living in, or visiting, a city that allows such a thing?

Is this what you had in mind when you decided to move the Parking Bureau out of City Hall and into 701 Union so that HPD can take care of all matters related to parking?  To inconvenience people as much as possible on certain days of the week?   Or did you somehow not see this coming?

Wasn't the following one of the five or six things that former Police Chief Ed Moore warned the council about before he left town?  GET PARKING OUT OF THE HANDS OF HPD!  LEAVE THE ENFORCEMENT TO US AND THAT'S  IT!   Yes, it was.  Then why are you not only ignoring Ed's warnings, but adding more parking-related responsibilities to HPD, even taking up space at the station for the Parking Bureau to relocate to?  Ed wasn't a fool, was he?  Ed wasn't not paying attention, was he?  Were you paying attention to what Ed said when he made his impassioned farewell address, Kamal and Mishanda?

We should all be concerned -- very concerned -- with the direction City Hall is headed in all matters, not just parking.  Kamal Johnson is allowing things to spiral out of friggin' control.