Who Paid? Who Care$!

At the informal Common Council meeting 3 weeks ago, DPW Superman Rob Perry mentioned that his department had "averted a crisis" by power washing the stains off of the new and very expensive stone steps at the entrance to Promenade Park.  His explanation didn't make any sense and appears to have been one big lie, the subject of which may be an upcoming HUDseen article.  But there was another recent improvement at the two and half year-old park entrance, one that should have happened a year ago and that Perry failed to mention during his most recent DPW report.  You have to listen carefully to what our $123,000 DPW boss says just as much as TO WHAT HE DOESN'T SAY!

Anyone who has been to the park in the past two years might have noticed that, in addition to the ugly stained steps, the seven benches in the entrance were peeling their green paint badly and quickly.  Welcome to the new park we are all so proud of!  I think it took 7 or 8 months for just about every slat on all seven benches to begin to show signs of peeled paint, some worse than others.  It was ridiculous.

DPW didn't do any maintenance of the 
benches last year. NOTHING!

Above is a picture of one of the benches from June of last year, less than two years after the park was reopened to the public in October 2022.  Of course, Perry never acknowledged the problem with the paint peeling from the benches.  "Problem with the benches, you say?  What problem?  What benches with peeling paint?  What public park with an expensive new entrance I had been updating you on for years before it was finished?"

But a few days ago, I noticed that the seven benches were no longer a depressing, uninviting sight fit for a public park in a bankrupt city with no ability to maintain its own property.  To my surprise, what green paint that had been on the benches was completely gone, the original slats of only 2-plus years having been replaced with bare wood that looks to be some sort of rot resistant variety, possibly cedar (not cheap!).  The slats are most definitely new, not the old ones with all their paint removed.  And they are not recycled plastic, thank goodness! 

Who paid?  How much?

The question is, during his report next month while he may be sipping a beer on his couch at home Zooming into the meeting, will Mr. Perry bother to let the council know who paid for all that new wood now on the seven benches?  And if he doesn't bother to offer any details (or inadequate details), will a council member or two bother to force it out of him by asking the following?  When the new bench slats were installed and by whom; why the council wasn't informed that the slats were going to be replaced and why it needed to be done; what kind of wood we now have to sit on and touch; if the wood is bare and rot resistant; how DPW will do its best to maintain the slats (unlike the original slats); how long he expects them all to last; why he didn't bother to mention anything about the peeling paint on the slats for the past two years; what contractor installed the benches in the first place; and, finally, whether or not taxpayers are paying to replace the slats of the contractor's abysmally painted benches and how much the new wood slats and the labor to install them may have cost the city?

Why go into such detail and worry, Mr. HUDseen, you ask?  Well, I say, because there is reason to be concerned about DPW beyond the typical nonsense HUDseen reports on regularly, much of it having to do with their bad habit of wasting money.  They don't seem to understand how to properly protect wood at all, which, of course, is a wood-wasting and money-wasting issue.

How old do you think that wood is, and 
how much did it cost the city?

Some of you old timers may remember that the mostly unused wooden bleacher benches at Oakdale Park were finally replaced 3 or 4 years ago soon after Liz York took over the reins at the Youth Department early in 2021.  The old, weathered, cracked, splintered, ugly and disgraceful wood benches were replaced by brand new wood that had been given a shiny coat of polyurethane or some sort of sealant to keep out moisture and give the wood a chance to be useful and attractive for decades.  When I first laid eyes on the refreshed, respectable bleachers, I almost fell into the lake, pleasantly surprised and impressed! (I wish I had a picture to show!)  However, in typical Hudson fashion, within months the protectant began peeling away!  Fooled again!  It looked as if the sun just melted the sealant right off.  Soon it was all gone, probably within one year.  By then, the fading and the cracking was evident.  When, perhaps two years ago, I asked Liz what was going on with the bleachers, she explained that DPW likely didn't let the pressure treated wood dry out, so the sealant couldn't adhere to the wood.  She told me that she would make sure DPW was made aware of the situation.

(It's true -- unlike untreated lumber, pressure treated wood is wet when it is new, so it needs to completely dry out before paint or sealant is applied.   Though pressure treatment protects against decay, it does not waterproof the wood over the long term.  Applying a sealant every few years is highly recommended, as Rob Perry should well know.  Just don't seal the new wood right away!)  

So, for the past few years, the 20 long pieces of lumber (they weren't cheap!) that were meant to be protected from the elements have remained unsealed, raw pressure treated wood, battered continually by the elements.  It is clear that none of the wood that the city purchased a few years ago is holding up well, even though someone tried their best to a few years ago.  Rob Perry could have had those bleachers resealed (properly) by now, owning up to his mistake, but it seems that he's chosen not to.  Apparently, it doesn't matter to him (and possibly Liz York) whether those wooden bleachers need to be replaced in eight years or twenty or thirty years.  It's no skin off of their backs. 

When the funds are taken out of DPW's budget some year (too) soon to replace the battered bleachers (once again), Rob Perry will not have to explain that his department didn't know what they were doing the first time around and that the wood should have lasted much, much longer.  "Hey, these things happen. Wood doesn't always behave like you want it to.  It really takes a beating in the elements," he might offer, deflecting blame to defenseless Mother Nature.  Maybe by then someone else will be in charge at DPW, and the same stupid, costly mistake will be made with no one taking responsibility for it.  And we will live with ugly for far too long in our largest and wildest public park until money comes along and makes everything better for a little while.  

Do you see the trend?

Unsealed wood, just 3 years old.  There should 
be some sort of penalty for this!  Or, at the very
least, an admission of "I screwed up and it
won't happen again!"

Dry, faded, cracked and splintered already

Unable to withstand the elements.  Why 
should Rob Perry care?  No one cares that 
he doesn't care!

There you have it, two clear examples of why DPW stands for Department of Public Wa$te here in Hudson.

Any questions?  Here is DPW Superintendent Perry's unpublished work celphone number that he doesn't want anyone to know, available only here on HUDseen:  518 - 965 - 5235.  He will not answer the call (it goes immediately to his recorded voice), so you'll have to leave him a message and hope he finds the time to respond to you in a timely fashion like any decent public servant is expected to do.