Be Careful Out There. Or Just Move To Oswego.

 

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine tripped and fell on a nasty sidewalk tripping hazard near the curb along Warren Street that had been around for a long time and, as I soon found out, was well known to the property owner.  About a week later, I noticed that that hazard and another one nearby, both in front of a popular retail business open 7 days a week, were each marked with two lines of white tape.  Problem solved... I guess.

A few days following my friend's spill, an employee of the store, possibly the manager, told me that they were aware of the hazard "but it's the city's responsibility to fix it."  One wonders if anyone (property owner, business owner, manager) had ever reached out to "the city" to get the known tripping hazards removed or to verify whose responsibility it is to fix dangerous sidewalks and who is legally liable should someone trip, fall and be injured or killed.  Or, rather, as it seems, were they certain that the city was well aware of the tripping hazards and they were just waiting for DPW to make their busy and narrow sidewalk safe for everyone and not just their customers?

Besides a few scrapes, bruises and lots of frustration, my friend suffered no apparent health consequences from her fall.  She did not hit her head on the concrete as she did several years ago after stumbling over a hazard in the 600 block of State Street.  That hazard, which still spans the entire width of the sidewalk but has lost nearly all of the spray paint that showed up after the fall, cost her two front teeth.

In the upstate city of Oswego, if you want your old and dangerous sidewalk replaced, all you need to do is ask the city to take care of it! (Whether the city follows through is another matter.)  Here is easily accessible information found on the City of Oswego's website: "Sidewalk repair requests must be approved by a ward councilor before being forwarded to the DPW.  The DPW will repair as many sidewalks as time allows between May and November each year."

What a stupid f'ng idea that is!  Can you imagine?

The latest census info for the City of Oswego indicates their population is over 17,000, about 3 times that of Hudson.  Oswego is comprised of 7 wards, as opposed to 5 for us here in little Hudson.  Quick math: each ward in Oswego has well over 2,000 residents, as opposed to about 1,000 residents for each Hudson ward.  Guess how many ward councilors represent each ward in Oswego?  The answer is NOT TWO!  

And get this.  Not only can Oswego residents easily find a helpful map of their ward on the Common Council page of the city's website, but also on that page there is a link to a Councilor Contact Information page which includes a picture of their ward's one councilor, their email address AND THEIR F'NG PHONE NUMBER!  Picture, email, phone number!  One councilor per ward, not two!

Can you imagine?  Can you f'ng imagine a city making such a foolish effort to be professional, transparent, efficient, accessible and helpful?  Who could possibly have come up with such a dumb idea?

This 12-inch wide, 4-inch deep hole in the sidewalk along Warren Street and adjacent to a parking space has been ignored by Hudson City Hall for over a year.  More than one fucking year! For how long do you suppose the Oswego mayor and the Oswego DPW Commissioner would ignore something as obscene, disrespectful and dangerous as this?  How long do you suppose an Oswego ward councilor would allow his or her city to do nothing about such a clear legal liability to the city?  For a day or two at most?

The sidewalk in front of 412 Warren, where the city's most obscene tripping hazard (it's beyond a tripping hazard, in a league of its own) has been waiting to ruin someone's day or life for at least the past year, is in either the 1st ward or the 4th ward.  In the past year, has anyone noticed either Kamal Johnson (lame duck), Justin Weaver (ADA Coordinator) Craig Haigh, Rob Perry, Jen Belton, Rich Volo (the tree alderman!), Margaret Morris (future Council president) or Gary Purnhagen walking the sidewalk along the north side of the 400 block of Warren Street?  Does anyone have their direct phone numbers, including Rob Perry's?