All day on Wednesday, we paid for a DPW laborer to keep traffic moving across North 3rd Street from one section of Long Alley to the other. Why? Because, as part of the 800 or 900 thousand dollar CHIPs contract they were awarded for being the low bidder, Luizzi did not have to provide their own traffic flaggers. At one point on Wednesday, I noticed three DPW workers on traffic duty AT THE SAME TIME at different locations. One of them was in an idling DPW truck in the middle of State Street at 4th Street. All day he sat there, for at least 8 hours and possibly more than ten. He's just doing what Rob Perry wants him to do and what Rob wants Hudson taxpayers to pay for.
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| 10 am. DPW truck and employee making sure drivers remain in the alley. He had probably been there since 7:00. |
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| 6pm. Same worker. "Keep going, sir, this road is closed." |
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| 10:30. DPW worker in an idling truck, assisting Luizzi while they repave 3rd street north of State, one very long block away. |
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| 6:30. Same worker, still inside truck. |
Last week on Union Street, I asked one DPW worker doing (not much) traffic directing adjacent to a busy Luizzi crew if he knew why Luizzi didn't provide flaggers for their repaving project.
"I don't know, but you'd think they would have," was his response. And you'd think Rob Perry would absolutely refuse to create or sign a contract that doesn't require the contractor to provide their own goddamn flaggers for their own goddamn million dollar, two or three week project blocking streets all over town.
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| More overtime for the DPW foreman, cleaning up a Luizzi messon Wednesday at 1st & Warren well after his normal quitting time. |
CHIPs projects are paid for with NY State funds, so the burden on Hudson taxpayers is miniscule. But the funds used to pay DPW workers assisting Luizzi (or any other CHIPs contractor) come from Hudson taxpayers' pockets. When Luizzi's CHIPs project is finished (possibly today), I would not be one bit surprised if the total amount of DPW labor costs associated with assisting Luizzi were to be well over $10,000. A DPW worker making $20 an hour standing at an intersection for 10 hours will cost us $200, likely a lot more considering overtime. Same for a worker sitting in an idling vehicle, only we pay for all that gas burned as well. Three workers, now we are at least at $600 per day. The project has lasted two weeks, or ten days. Now we are at $6,000. What about Frank Rogers, the DPW foreman, running around town all day cleaning up Luizzi's messes and checking on his traffic flaggers making sure they haven't fallen asleep? Voila, $10,000. All because Rob Perry doesn't want a paving contractor to provide their own traffic flaggers to sit in their vehicles or stand at a corner doing not much of anything. That task is better suited for Rob's special DPW unit. And he has plenty of money in his DPW budget to pay for it.
Last spring when Colarusso handled the CHIPs repaving project, Rob Perry also provided his finest DPW traffic experts so that Colarusso could concentrate on their street paving task. Probably because Perry felt his workers had nothing better to do. Like emptying the public trash cans, picking up litter or filling a pothole or twenty.
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| Last Saturday, emergency on Worth Avenue forcing DPW Water employees out of bed. Notice the cheap sneakers on the worker with the hoodie. Wearing slip ons and a hoodie advertising a local contractor while scooping water and mud out of a hole to get at a busted water valve with Luizzi workers nowhere to be seen. HELLO OVERTIME!!!!!! |
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