Brother, Can You Spare About Three-Quarters of A Million Dollars? I Need A Place To Park My Car!

During his brief HPD report at Monday's informal Common Council meeting -- while standing in for one last time (for now at least) for the actual Police Chief who is apparently back on the job of law enforcement at HPD following her second maternity leave in two and a half years -- Captain and Acting Commissioner David Miller had a few things to say about his department's continuing efforts to completely transform and expand the city's parking payment infrastructure through the use of parking kiosks.  What Dave Miller did not mention, nor was he asked about by any of the bumbling council members (including a few on the way out the door), was how many kiosks HPD was going to need to get the job done and done right.  Not one of the council members, including former Parking Study Committee chairperson Jen Belton, seems to grasp the difficulty and scale of this project, how much attention and serious work it is going to require over the long term, and, most importantly perhaps, how many expensive kiosks it's going to require to do the job that hundreds of parking meters have been quietly and efficiently handling for the past many decades.  

Here is what the person who is apparently in charge of arguably the city's largest, most ambitious and transformative project related to city revenue had to say about it.  It was very short on details.  Practically void of helpful details. No, it was completely void of any helpful details.  It wasn't an update on the project so much as an offhand comment:

"Just so you know, parking is going to start this month removing the meter heads from Warren Street because we are going to the kiosks and the digital." ("Parking" was likely a reference to parking enforcers.)  After a question from a council member wondering how parking enforcement officers were keeping busy during this month of free parking, Miller responded, "They will be removing meter heads off of Warren Street and side streets." (Notice that there was no mention made of installing kiosks this month.)  And that was essentially it, save for two answers to questions that had nothing directly to do with parking kiosks. Jen Belton asked a question related to locating signs on the top of meter-less meter poles.

So much for the Parking Study Committee's plan to swap the meters out for kiosks in three phases in 2025.  Indeed, much of what the committee talked about, and ideas they came up with, are being ignored by HPD, including, it seems, the issue of how many kiosks will be needed on each side of each block of Warren Street (I never heard the committee discuss how many kiosks should be on side streets or on upper Columbia Street).  It's entirely likely that we (HPD, really) would be in the same place we are right now if the city had never hired the parking consultant last year to work with Jen Belton and her parking committee.  Which is also to say that it was a complete waste of money to have hired the guy.  With the possible exception of the HPD Clerk Doreen Danforth, a somewhat shadowy figure in all of this, the consultant never dealt in any depth directly with anyone from HPD. Certainly not Captain David Miller!  We can only hope he was too busy solving crimes and arresting perps. Not anymore, though.  It's time to solve the parking revenue problem plaguing the city.

Though the Parking Study Committee did have a few short discussions about how many kiosks should be installed on any block of Warren, they never settled on a formula or specific number (as we all know, there are short blocks and long blocks).  They didn't have to, I guess, and HPD probably would have ignored the suggestion anyway.  The maximum distance any driver should have to walk to pay for a parking space is a critically important issue that was never answered or agreed on, as far as I know.  So, I will do my own conservative calculating to see how many kiosks the city needs to bring downtown Hudson into the parking kiosk era without confusing and pissing drivers off and making an absolute mess or failure of this entire project.  If you're thinking ahead just a bit, you realize things don't look viable.  Work with me here.

It's obvious that each side of each block of Warren -- 9 blocks total, from Front to Worth -- will need the same number of kiosks, the kiosks being directly across the street from one another.  (People cannot be expected to, and will not, cross the street to pay for a parking space.)  Two kiosks per street side, with one near each end, will not be sufficient, even for the street's shortest blocks.  So, without getting too technical and throwing walking distances around, let's say that AT A MINIMUM we need 6 kiosks (3 on each side) for Warren's short blocks and 8 kiosks (4 on each side) for the longest blocks.  It might be more than this, but it certainly can't be less.  How many short blocks are there on Warren?  Let's say there are 4.  How many long blocks are there?  We're left with 5.  

4 blocks with 6 kiosks each equals 24 kiosks.  5 blocks with 8 kiosks each equals 40 kiosks.  40 plus 24 is 64.  Voila, we need at least 64 kiosks JUST FOR WARREN STREET ALONE.  And what about the side streets of 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, one side of Park Place, a short span on one side of the 600 block of Union, and, finally, one long block of Columbia Street?  How many well-spaced, conveniently located kiosks will those streets require?  I have no idea, but let's just say that it's more than a few.  It might be 20.  It might be more, it might be less, but not by much.  Let's stick with 20.  64 plus 20 equals WAY TOO MUCH MONEY THAT WILL BANKRUPT HUDSON!

Late last year, the city spent just $139,000 on 16 kiosks ($8,700 apiece); they were delivered in early February and 6 of them were installed for parking lots. Considering that there are already two kiosks in the 300 block of Warren and (hopefully) there are still 10 available parking kiosks in storage, the city will only need to buy at least an additional 72 parking kiosks to cover downtown's widened and expansive pay-for-parking district (the "plan" is to include the first 3 blocks and the last block of Warren, where no meters have ever existed).  Assuming that the city sticks with the same kiosks it bought last year -- the ones that only accept quarters as currency! -- we're looking at the city needing to spend over $625,000 on new parking kiosks.  This is not a typo or miscalculation.  My conservative estimate is that the City Of Hudson will need to spend at least $625,000, or well over a half million dollars, on new parking kiosks.  If the city decides to purchase the type of kiosks they had hoped to purchase last year -- the ones that accept paper money -- $625,000 will not cover the cost, because those kiosks likely cost more than $8,700.  And the price ain't gettin' any cheaper the longer the city takes to get this project done. 

If HPD's plan is to be "going to the kiosks" and having them all out conveniently located on the 9 blocks of sidewalks by the first week in January, 3 weeks from now, are the $625,000 in kiosks already in the city's possession?  Or are they on the way to town right now?  Have the 72 parking kiosks even been ordered yet?  Among all the recent discussions the common council has had about unsustainable budgets and revenue shortfalls, did they approve the purchase of over a half million dollars' worth of new parking kiosks? (Forgive me if they did, but I certainly didn't hear or read about it!)  Of course, on Monday night, no one bothered to ask David Miller how even just the 9 blocks of Warren Street will be covered in expensive kiosks if there are only ten of them in storage.  Jen Belton didn't think to offer that question to him, and she well knows that those ten kiosks are still in storage. She knows ten kiosks will barely suffice for two blocks of Warren Street.  She knows how much the kiosks cost city taxpayers.  She knows how much the city needs to spend on signage for the kiosks ("thousands and thousands," she said at a meeting). But all she could offer on Monday were claps when Captain Commissioner Miller announced that HPD is "going to the kiosks and the digital."

And what about those important signs for the kiosks, the type that are not made of paper?  How many "thousands and thousands" in expenses will it add to the total for the kiosk project to get off the ground?  Is the conservative price tag for the kiosk project approaching $700,000 now?  Do I hear 3/4 of a million dollars?  Do I hear boondoggle?

The most frightening thing about all of this is that if this kiosk project goes south (which is where it appears to be headed), we don't want our Police Captain, Police Chief or anyone else at HPD dealing with the fallout and cleaning up the mess, do we?  Don't they have actual law enforcement meant to keep us all safe, happy and free to deal with?  Our previous police chief sure thought so, and he let us know about it!  A few years ago, as HPD Chief Ed Moore was saying his public farewells to the council, he offered a few bits of advice and concerns of his. He didn't have to, but he did.  It was refreshing and startling to hear him being so sincere and thoughtful.  One of his cautions/bits of advice was this: keep parking matters out of the hands of HPD as much as possible. HE WARNED THE CITY THEN NOT TO DO WHAT THEY ARE DOING RIGHT NOW!  He warned the mayor!  And no one listened to him, including his successor.  

Equally frightening, perhaps, is if HPD fails to get all the necessary kiosks in the ground in the right places by the beginning of January.  3 weeks from today, and the timer is ticking!  Every day the kiosks are missing will be LOST REVENUE in the form of lost payments for parking spaces and, more importantly, lost $10 parking violation tickets.  And the losses will add up faster than you can ask, "SO WHERE DO I PAY FOR MY PARKING SPACE?  OR ARE THEY ALL FREE NOW?"!!!!!  

When Captain Miller informed the council on Monday that parking enforcers would be busy this month removing parking meters, he did not mention who, if anyone, would be installing kiosks this month, did he?  The kiosks so central to this project need to all be in the ground, properly spaced and operational by January 5th, ready to accept quarters and cards, also known as city revenue. This is the only month to do it!  Half the month is already gone and there are still plenty of parking meters still to be removed.  Does the city even have the kiosks it needs?  Are there more than ten kiosks in storage?  A lot more than ten?  How many total on-street parking spaces will the kiosks need to cover?

Unsurprisingly, not one council member asked the person supposedly in charge of this project when the many kiosks would be installed this month (or next) or how many kiosks were going to be needed to get this project done completely and properly.  If it takes three or four weeks to remove hundreds of old parking meters, how many weeks will it take to install dozens of enormous parking kiosks and their associated signage?  No one asked Miller how many kiosks he was planning to install throughout downtown or what the projected cost of the project is looking like or who will be paying for it.  No one asked Captain Miller anything important enough to allow him to give the council and public any confidence that this huge and complexly transformative project is headed in the right direction, in the right hands, on schedule, and that it won't bankrupt the city.  Of course, no one should have had to ask him for any helpful details and insight.  Maybe he had none.

Did our law enforcement department (or Miller himself) decide to remove all the on-street parking meters only because the meters were not being used this month, the enforcers needed something to do, and HPD had to get this project moving to meet the stated January 5th start date deadline?  That's what it seems like to me, because if Miller (and Margaret Morris) had gotten their way (and Kamal Johnson hadn't gotten in their way) by not having free downtown parking this month, parking enforcers would not have been able to remove any of the parking meters this month.  What you start to realize after just a bit of even casual observation is that there is no plan at all for the important and expensive kiosks.  There is no coherent plan at all with this project, much like the incoherence so common in City Hall itself.  This is all seat of the pants nonsense, and we are all in deep, deep trouble.  Prepare yourselves -- it's going to be painful to watch. (HUDseen has been warning about this inevitable calamity since early this year, well before HPD completely took over all parking matters.)

It seems HPD's only plan for the on-street kiosks is removing the on-street parking meters.  Suggestion:  DO NOT SCRAP ANY OF THE METERS! HANDLE AND STORE THEM WITH CARE.  AND LEAVE THEIR POLES ALONE WHERE THEY ARE STANDING -- YOU WILL NEED THEM AGAIN!  (I know that Ed Moore would agree with me!)