Given City Hall's concerning budgetary woes, HUDseen will publish the occasional article with the title seen above, focusing on a simple something that shows how wasteful certain departments are with our money. Highlighting things that, from a practical and financial perspective, make absolutely no sense. Our DPW Superintendent, Rob Perry, with a salary over $125,000 and in charge of multiple departments (DPW, Water, Sewer, Cemetery), as HUDseen has attempted to point out for the past two years, is particularly wasteful.
First up is a new -- not a replacement! -- public trash can on the northeast corner of South Front and Columbia just a few feet from a stop sign. That type of can -- black painted metal -- is not in the style typically found downtown. That's because the designers of the DRI Streetscape Project, Arterial, thought black metal trash cans would be a nice touch to go along with our new sidewalks and trees, so they included at least three of them in the plans for Front Street. And since Rob Perry didn't reject Arterial's idea for more trash cans on the city's west end (if he was even aware they were coming), they appeared this year. Yes, a "street design" company in New Jersey thought it would be a great idea for the taxpayers of Hudson to figure out a way to pay for that trash can and its contents once it was put in the ground. While the city did not purchase that can and the others, they certainly aren't free. Not now and not well into the future.
Did anyone from Arterial ask Rob Perry if Front Street needed more public trash cans? Was Arterial told there was a litter problem along Front Street, particularly at the northeast corner of Front and Columbia? Did Rob Perry announce to the common council how much money servicing the new trash cans would cost city taxpayers over the following year, years and decades? Did Rob Perry ever announce to the common council that Front Street and elsewhere (like at the top of the new 2nd Street stairs) were in need of more trash cans for DPW to empty every few days and to maintain when they become damaged and full of graffiti? Did Rob Perry ever have to justify his department's servicing and maintaining of additional trash cans in the city, regardless of where they are located (especially if they are not in the commercial district) and no matter how much it might cost taxpayers? (If they won't cost us "much," then tell us!) If Arterial hadn't decided that Hudson needed some "free" new black public trash cans, would Rob Perry (via taxpayers) have bought them and had his department install them instead? Of course he wouldn't have! But now we're stuck with them, and we are all paying DPW to empty them, service them, keep them looking nice (ha!) and possibly even replacing them when the time comes. Even if no one in Hudson -- including residents and visitors -- asked for them, needs them or uses them. The wa$te of the waste.
That new trash can of ours on the northeast corner of Front and Columbia is a dark symbol of a municipality that is mismanaged and not minding its dollars and cents. It, along with the 3 or 4 other cans that Arterial "gifted" us, might as well be graffitied with dollar signs, question marks and WHY's.
Wanting to go beyond the proverb A FOOL AND HIS MONEY ARE SOON PARTED, I went searching online for apt quotes. There were many to choose from. Perhaps, if it's not too late, these two should be posted on a wall somewhere inside Hudson City Hall, maybe in every department's office:
You've got to tell your money what to do, or it will leave. (Dave Ramsey)
If you buy what you don't need, you steal from yourself. (Unknown)
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