24 hours after the Hudson Pride Parade festivities ended, and several hours after DPW had removed all the orange NO PARKING signs from Warren Street yesterday morning, it took me no more than fifteen minutes to find and photograph ten discarded strands of multiple disposable plastic zip ties that had secured the signs to poles for no more than 48 hours. It was no "accident" that they were all dropped or thrown into the street by a DPW worker or workers. This is how Rob Perry's DPW operates. He is a slob, and he allows, perhaps even encourages, the same from his workers.
Is anyone else besides me concerned with Rob Perry's mental health and ability or willingness to do his job? Do you think he actually gives a crap about Hudson, particularly with what it looks like and what gets into his precious sewer system that is a central issue in each and every one of his monthly DPW reports to the council? Has he checked out? Is he with us?
When was the last time, if ever, that you saw Mr. Perry walking downtown while not working, say, on a Saturday or Sunday? How often have you seen him out and about, not in a car going somewhere else? Ever seen him at the farmers market or the grocery store?
I would bet a few dollars that within a year of retiring Perry will have sold his house and moved to Florida with his wife.
Anyone at the helm of a Department of Public Works who allows their own used zip ties to be deliberately left in the street simply can't be trusted to give a shit about much of anything. They have already checked out. And whoever might be that person's boss has also checked out and/or is incompetent and entirely useless. This, unfortunately for all of us, is the situation we find ourselves in here in Hudson. And it seems to be getting worse by the day. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Kamal Johnson has never had any interest in being anywhere near Rob Perry and vice versa. They just might despise one another to the point of not being able to talk to one another at all. If they do communicate, it's likely only by email or text. Kamal Johnson is, at least on paper, Rob Perry's boss. That fact is laughable.
This must be remembered: For probably as long as Mr. Perry has been our DPW Superintendent since being appointed by a mayor in 2009, he has had a designated parking space behind City Hall, with a DPW Superintendent Parking Only sign attached to the back wall to prove it. That is, until Kamal Johnson entered City Hall over 5 years ago. Johnson had Perry's sign and parking space removed, installing a new (and larger) sign indicating that only the mayor could park there. (If Johnson gave Perry a heads up about the change, I wonder how that conversation went!) The creepy thing is that Kamal has never parked his car in that designated space of his that he created. It is always empty during the work week. Our lovable mayor prefers to park his car in the parking lot across the alley with the regular people he so readily connects with. And, according to Rob Perry's two clerks in the DPW offices 40 feet from the Mayor's Office, Kamal Johnson's DPW Superintendent is "never" in that office. (I have been told this on numerous occasions.)
The zip ties that DPW workers so casually and obscenely discard in the street after parades are more than a litter or behavioral problem; they are a symptom of a hugely dysfunctional City Hall where accountability and proper communication are scant or non-existent. For what it's worth, Kamal Johnson and Rob Perry are two of the most immature and unsavory adults I have ever had the displeasure of interacting with. I have no doubt that those two thoughts are deeply connected and always will be as long as the two of them are "in" City Hall.
What we are dealing with here in Hudson is not tolerated elsewhere -- certainly not in any self-respecting municipalities. But that's what you get when a man-child is supposedly in charge of City Hall and his $123,000 DPW Superintendent, for his own amusement, allows the streets and sewers he supposedly maintains to be littered with disposable plastic by his own workers. It's a wonderful combination, and we are all reaping the benefits.
Hudson Pride!
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How many DPW laborers do you suppose actually live in Hudson? One? None? Would a DPW worker who lives in Hudson do this or tolerate seeing it being done? |
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