HUDseen: 9 Days After Just 4 Inches of Snow Fell...

... the message from HPD, the Parking Bureau, Rob Perry, his foreman, and Kamal Johnson is as clear as ice: We don't give a flying poop about visitors, shoppers, local businesses, Hudson residents or anyone driving or parking on our streets. We don't care if you wind up in the hospital or if your car is damaged. We have more important things to worry about! Like collecting yard waste bags in alleys and removing every one of the city's parking meters. Got a problem? Find someone who cares and whine to them!

8 fucking days and nights! How many more?

Something is wrong at DPW if they feel no sense of
urgency to remove piles of snow in parking lots. There
are still three in this lot after 9 days.

The black vehicle parked on North 6th Street pictured below was snowed on last Tuesday in the same spot it has not moved from for the past 8 days, just as a black car two spaces ahead of it has not moved in 8 days. Of course, both vehicles may have been parked there for days or weeks prior to the snowfall. And neither vehicle has been issued one parking ticket of any kind, not even a warning. Why? Because the city decided long ago that there shouldn't be any overnight parking regulations on the only side of North 6th Street that can be parked on between State and Washington. And plenty of vehicle owners with a need for free long-term parking take advantage of this ridiculousness.

The message to those people from Rob Perry and Mishanda Franklin is so very clear: Go ahead, park on 6th Street for as long as you like. We don't care, and we don't live nearby so it doesn't affect us. We don't care where you live or why you want to park in this neighborhood. Yes, we know that parking is limited in the area and that the Pocketbook Factory is making things a lot worse for the locals. But no residents -- even those with cars they must park in the street -- will care at all how long you park here, and you are not hindering DPW's efforts to make the street as safe, free of snow and ice, and as cleared of debris as possible. Yes, that's the same debris we do our best to keep out of the sewer system that is regularly cleared from both sides of other streets where parking regulations do exist. But be careful, you just might be in the way of a DPW snowplow or the DPW street sweeper if you park overnight on the wrong side of those other streets, and you just might get ticketed by the police. Stick to 6th, we like to say, where no annoying overnight parking rules or stupid $15 parking tickets will ever bother you and where the west side of the street is never the WRONG SIDE to park on! You're good, friend. Just leave your enormous pickup truck parked on 6th for as long as you like, even if you don't need to use it for a while, it breaks down, or if you'll be out of town for weeks or months. And do it as often as you like, because nothing ever changes around here. We got you! We understand you! We feel your pain!

To hear a sensible explanation from Rob Perry or Mishanda Franklin as to why there is no overnight parking rule on two blocks of one street in a residential area full of streets with different types of overnight parking rules would be worth at least a five dollar admission charge to me. I'd pay another five bucks to hear Rob Perry explain why there has never been any overnight parking rule in the portion of Prospect Avenue where he sleeps at night. A response of "I don't know," or "I don't know what you're talking about" would require a refund.

Another not unrelated diversion: One month ago, HUDseen published a short article about a small but very dangerous and ugly square of damaged and loose plywood barley secured to the sidewalk in front of Lucky's gas station on Columbia Street. The wood cover is now completely unsecured, revealing a hole in the sidewalk next to and in line with the pedestrian crosswalk across the truck route. It happened sooner than I expected. Of course, the city (DPW, Code Enforcement, the ADA Coordinator, etc.) will allow Lucky's to just cover the hole again with another piece of plywood that is poorly screwed into the sidewalk and certainly not meant to be a permanent solution. On a new concrete curb ramp with a new ADA rubber mat and inches from and directly in line with a pedestrian crosswalk!

Whatever!