How Many Hudson Taxpayers Are Taking Advantage Of The Porta John We Are All Paying $225/Month For?

If memory serves me well, the lovely porta john at the entrance to Oakdale Park appeared sometime during the Covid pandemic, maybe 5 years ago. A few years ago, I assumed that someone had forgotten to remove it, that its usefulness had long passed. I was wrong. The permanent porta john is still there, 365 days of the year, available for
anyone to pee or poo in, even for those not actually enjoying the park. But why, you ask? What the hell? Very good questions!

Note: As difficult as it may be to believe, our Youth Department is responsible for maintaining the entirety of Oakdale Park 365 days a year. Every year a part of the Youth Department budget gets spent on maintaining the park, including mowing the grass, maintaining the trails, emptying the trash cans, painting (or ignoring) the benches and tables, screening the sand beach, putting up signs, and on and on and on.  Yes, the Hudson Youth Department is responsible for grass mowing and weed whacking at Oakdale Park!

Even a few weeks after I asked Youth Department Director Calvin Lewis in person at the Youth Center on 3rd Street why the porta john is still in the park after so many years, why it is the first and last thing that everyone entering and exiting the park is forced to see and walk by, if it can be moved to a less conspicuous spot, if it is required to be in the park and who it is there for, I still don't know the answer to the WHY/WHAT THE HELL question.  All Calvin could do was repeat this line to me at least three times as I repeatedly tried and failed to get one sensible answer from him:  "Bill, it serves our purposes where it is."  I did not think to ask Calvin how much that porta john is costing city taxpayers (not that he would have revealed that info).  So, I recently made a FOIL request.

Here is the most recent monthly invoice from the septic company that services the porta john taxpayers do not need (and most would likely not be happy to have to pay for). 

Click on to enlarge

For the most recent month of September (and possibly the past 5 Septembers!), city taxpayers helped pay for a plastic porta john located at the entrance to Oakdale Park that included the following: "rental and one cleaning per week" ($195); a "monthly fuel surcharge" ($20); and last but not least, "hand sanitizer" ($10). Big Top Portable Toilets is located across the river in Cairo, nearly 20 miles away. It's entirely possible that when Big Top empties the park's porta john of its human waste, they drive it (along with all the other waste they've collected that day) to the DPW water treatment plant on Dock Street to pay to dispose of it.

That's a total of 225 fucking dollars per month, or $7.50 per day (!!!!!), for a porta john located at the entrance to a public park that simply does not need to be anywhere in that or any other public park, and certainly not at a park entrance.  I don't know about you, but before that porta john appeared at the entrance to Oakdale Park, I never saw anyone peeing or shitting in the park during any of my regular walks around the lake.  Not once.  Nor did I see any evidence of such activity, not even at the entrance.  Maybe Calvin Johnson is aware of something I'm not. 

$7.50 every day of the year.  31 cents every hour.
For what?  For whom?  

What is the total dollar amount of $225/month when multiplied by 60 months (5 years)?  You do the math!

Oh, by the way, those two bathrooms in the Riverfront Park that DPW maintains?  They are closed for several months when cold temperatures keep residents and others out of the park and THE BATHROOMS ARE NOT SOUGHT AFTER.  They're probably locked right now, or soon to be.  And I looked it up:  In the State of New York, there is no requirement to offer bathrooms (or porta johns) in a public park.  Not that Calvin Lewis, his predecessor, the current and most recent Youth Commissioners, anyone on the budget committee or our mayor cares or cared about any of this, of course!  $4,700 a year?  It's chump change to Hudson City Hall and the taxpayers that keep City Hall afloat and our parks looking decent! Chump-fucking-change!  Can you imagine?  Nearly $5,000 of the Youth Department's total annual budget this year was spent on a fucking porta john found at the entrance to Oakdale Park that is mostly ignored and rarely used!  Was $5,000 for the porta john also figured into the recent calculations for next year's Youth Department budget (and the city's overall ballooning budget)?

Or it could be kept with the other ugly plastic crap
that is mostly out of sight!