So Many Questions!

Yesterday was a historic day as far as parking matters (and meters) in Hudson are concerned.  With all 100 of the parking meters in the City Hall Municipal Parking Lot removed in the afternoon, there is not one parking meter left in the city's four downtown lots. Plenty of ancient parking meter poles remain, but no meters top them anymore.  

It will be interesting to see how long the poles remain.  That's a DPW job, and not a cheap, quick or easy one.  I expect it will take years!

This is the Parking Bureau mobile making its way out of the lot with the last of the lot's meters: 

I counted 52 meter-free poles in the lot; 51 if you don't count this one:

Then there is the somewhat historic order signed last week by Captain David Miller, one of four he signed as "Acting Police Commissioner."  Miller is somehow also still wearing the hat of the Police Chief until Mishanda Franklin returns next month to 701 Union from her second maternity leave in two and half years.  Let me tell you, the guy can act!  Academy Award time!

The order, if carried out, would create something that has been talked about at Common Council meetings for years:  making more, if not the entirety, of Warren Street metered parking.  (I think the common council once passed a resolution to have lower Warren metered only to have it vetoed by Mayor Rick Rector.)  But Miller's order is short on details... and somewhat baffling.  Here is the important part, taken from the official order below it: 

Effective January 5th, 2026:  All of Warren Street - from Front Street to Prospect Avenue/Worth Avenue will be designated as metered 2-hour parallel parking.  

That's at least 4 long blocks on both sides. 

Hmmm.... putting aside the fact that "parallel parking" is a method of parking a vehicle and not a type of parking space, you have to wonder how the Parking Bureau (if they are involved) and Chief Commissioner Captain (CCC) Miller are going to pull this feat off in 6 weeks.  6 WEEKS!  

The order to meter all of Warren raises a LOT of questions.

Will the parking meters that were removed from the parking lots be installed along upper and lower Warren?  Or are the remaining ten $10,000 parking kiosks that don't accept paper money going to make their way out of storage?  Are the ten kiosks a sufficient amount to get this job done at all (no!), let alone in 6 weeks?  Are the hundreds of existing street parking meters on the chopping block?  Are we still going to use the term "metered parking" where kiosks have replaced meters?  Does DPW have the time, interest or ability to paint the large number of white lines needed for the hundreds of designated "metered" parking spaces that are going to be created in six weeks (it's certainly not a good time of the year to be painting anything outside!)?  Is Rob Perry even aware of CCC Miller's plans with all these new metered spaces?  How many signs will be going up on Warren Street letting visitors and residents know about this historic and ambitious change, and what color tape will HPD be using to secure those plastic laminated "signs" to streetlight poles and public trash cans?  Let's hope they stick with the bright orange!  No one can claim they didn't notice the "signs" telling them how to pay for their parking space!!!! 

And final question: how much time, energy, effort and brain space is CCC Miller using to get this done?  How much time, energy, effort and brain space will Mishanda Franklin be using when she returns next month to finally rid the city of ALL of the tyrannical parking meters, replace them with $10,000 kiosks no one at HPD, including parking enforcers, knows how to repair, and help get the city out of its revenue shortfall nightmare? (Of course, at least as I understand it, all parking revenue goes to the Parking Bureau, not the general fund.)

The strangest, most concerning aspect of all of this is that none of it has been discussed in public recently.  HPD has it all figured out, I guess.

On somewhat of tangent:  For at least the past year, I've noticed that phone calls made to HPD are just as likely to be answered by a patrol officer as by a dedicated police dispatcher.  Yesterday it was HPD Officer Conn, an officer I have a lot of respect for.  What is he doing answering the phones instead of being out on our streets keeping us safe?  And what is he to do in case of an emergency?  Remain at the phones?  Is answering the HPD station phone really part of his and other officers' job description? 

Second: Until about a year or so ago when he took over duties of caring for HPD's new therapy dog, Wrigs, I regularly saw HPD Sergeant Larry Edelman out and about in a patrol vehicle, driving or parked.  I used to chat with him if I saw him in his patrol vehicle waiting at an intersection to nab a stop sign runner. Not anymore. I haven't seen the sergeant in several months.  Have you?