Dear Mr. Perry: Are You Okay? Do You Need Help? Are You Having Trouble Getting Your Work Done?

 

As HUDseen has pointed out a few times in the past year and a half or so, our Department of Public Works decided (or was told by HPD) to extend the yellow curb on the northeast corner of 7th & State.  The idea was to remove a parking space or two to allow for better visibility of westbound State Street traffic for drivers on 7th Street stopped at the only stop sign at the intersection.  Since painting the extra 17 feet of curb to make the intersection safer, DPW has repainted it twice.  They just can't seem to make their yellow curb paint stick to that curb for more than a few months, even though that is not the case with the yellow curb that wraps around that corner.  For the past 8 months, DPW has been having trouble repainting the curb for the third time.  Cars regularly park along the curb with the missing yellow paint.  There appears to be something wrong with our $123,000 DPW Superintendent, and I'm not being facetious. 

These pictures were taken this morning:

On Monday morning while walking past City Hall, I noticed one of the DPW clerks attending to the garbage bag vending machine out front.  That's the one that has had graffiti on it for months and was recently tagged once again, though this time with a larger amount of dark paint.  That's the large vending machine along the sidewalk in front of City Hall that once had a handwritten sign taped to the top letting everyone know what the blue things inside the machine are. That sign faded to nothing and, months ago, fell off or was removed but has not been replaced.  That's the vending machine that Mr. Perry had covered in large stickers to resemble the marble pillars of City Hall, or something to that effect. Anyway!  I asked the clerk if her boss, DPW Superintendent Perry, was "in today," upstairs in the DPW office.  She gave me the response that I have gotten dozens of times from her and that I now expect every time.  But this time she yelled at me louder than usual, I guess because we were not inside City Hall where the mayor might have heard her.  "Why do you even ask me that?  He's never in there!"   Once again, there was no need for me to respond.  

Boy, did I touch a nerve!

Where the sign was, but for no more than 8 months.

Rob Perry's pride and joy!

The most recent act of vandalism known 
as graffiti on city property. Now what?  
Think Rob Perry cares?

DPW has been ignoring this pothole in 
Rope Alley for several months.  Yeah, people 
walk in that alley.  DPW vehicles even use the alley. 
Cop cars use the alley.  All sorts of vehicles 
and people use that alley!  Rob Perry may not 
know that Rope Alley exists!

The two chunks of asphalt appeared 
yesterday, widening the pothole that 
Rob Perry couldn't care less about.

Yesterday morning, less than 24 hours after the DPW garbage crew had picked up blue city trash bags on the city's northside, I noticed four blue bags full of trash in Prison Alley at 6th Street.  The bags of trash appeared after DPW removed blue bags in the alley on Tuesday morning.  If left untouched, as they should be (pickup is only on Tuesdays!), they will remain there until next Tuesday.  Bags will be added, and farmers market patrons will all be able to see it and maybe smell it all.  It's such a classy touch, isn't it?  A pile of trash bags sitting out for days ignored by Hudson City Hall!  Yet another quality-of-life issue and code violation that our DPW Superintendent has no interest in bothering with.  We obviously do not pay him enough!