Unlike Hudson, the City of Ithaca is not in the plastic garbage bag buying and selling business and they probably never have been (they certainly weren't in the late 1990's). Instead of plastic bags, Ithaca sell sheets of garbage tags that residents stick to their full trash bags for collection by Ithaca DPW. It works for them. It's cheap, easy and smart. During the most recent informal council meeting, future council president Margaret Morris floated the trash tag ("sticker") idea by Rob Perry, wondering if it might be a cheaper approach than the blue bags sold from the vending machine in front of City Hall. He basically responded, "Yes, it would be cheaper, but it wouldn't work on the ground." He mentioned something about residents using heavy duty plastic bags bought from Herrington's that are beyond the acceptable size, as if there was no way for DPW or Code Enforcement to do anything about such a simple problem that only a few people would create (ever heard of enforcement?). It was typical Perry dismissal. End of story. Stop bothering me! Of course, what no council member seemed to know -- and what Perry would rather not admit -- is that trash tags successfully work elsewhere (and not just in Ithaca). But, somehow, trash tags won't work here in Hudson. Only plastic bags will, and the city needs to buy, handle, process and sell them. It's scary listening to Rob Perry sometimes. (Remember, he is the city official who a few years ago REFUSED to install a stop sign at the top of the 6th Street hill at Washington Street for fear his DPW vehicles would slide down the hill in the snow. Police Chief Ed Moore, the only adult in the room, had to get it done.)
Ithaca offers sheets of 6 trash tags that are available for purchase inside City Hall and at 10 local retail locations, including a few grocery stores. Each tag is good for a trash bag of residents' choosing, weighing up to 35 pounds when full. There is no such thing as a vending machine selling plastic trash bags or trash tags in the City of Ithaca. The City of Ithaca has never had a part-time employee folding plastic trash bags, wrapping each of them with a rubber band and placing them back in a corrugated box. And, also unlike in Hudson, there is not an Ithaca DPW clerk or DPW Superintendent being paid to fill, fix or empty of coins and dollar bills a vending machine that sells plastic trash bags or trash bag tags. Or to even think about such matters.
The latest news out of our sister city is this: Ithaca has announced that the price of an individual trash tag will increase by $1.00 on January 1st, from $5.00 to $6.00 (a sheet of 6 goes from $30 to $36). We should expect the price of our blue trash bags sold from the vending machine in front of Hudson City Hall to increase at some point in 2026. Who knows, maybe the employee folding and rubber banding our blue trash bags is due a raise.
What about parking, the vexing issue that won't ever go away for most busy municipalities, especially those that rely heavily on tourism, as Ithaca and Hudson both do? (TOO MANY VEHICLES!!!!)
Paying for parking is scheduled to change here in Hudson in the first week of 2026, and it's going to be a huge deal. (Or, more likely, a huge and spectacular failure!) Years ago, Ithaca went with kiosks and a parking app (ParkMobile, the same one that Hudson uses) for their downtown parking payment. I guarantee you that the Ithaca Police Department had little to no involvement in that decision, let alone any interest in being involved in the matter. Funny sister that Ithaca is!
As Hudson Police Captain David Miller and Hudson Police Clerk and Parking Bureau Supervisor/Clerk Doreen Danforth announced in a recent Register Star article (and nowhere else!), the city/HPD has scrapped plans to install kiosks up and down Warren Street and its side streets in favor of giving downtown parkers one and only one option to pay for their parking space: by using their phone to access the wonderful ParkMobile app. It's a dream come true! A miracle! Not only are the parking meters gone, but they won't be replaced with kiosks! Need to park for 10 minutes to get your coffee or pick up your medication at the pharmacy? Get out your phone and tap away, please! No phone? Can't find your phone? Dead phone? Bad cell service? Hate your f'ng phone? Wish you could spend less time staring at your f'ng phone screen and tapping away on it, especially standing in the cold rain and snow? What's the matter, the pouring rain getting in the way of accessing the parking app and possibly ruining your phone? Too much snow on your phone to see the screen? What's the matter, can't feel your fingers in the frigid wind? Can't access the parking app with your wool mittens on your hands while bundled like an eskimo standing on an icy sidewalk? Wondering why there aren't any parking kiosks around like other cities offer? Wish there was still a simple and reliable old school parking meter to slip a quarter into and move the hell on? Wondering why the meter poles still haven't been removed? Sorry, we can't help you! Any complaints? Go to hell!
The second bit of news from Ithaca's website is that their parking rate will increase on January 5th, the exact same day that Captain Miller mentioned in his November 17th Commissioner's Order as being the date when "all of Warren Street will be designated as 2-hour metered parallel parking," whatever the hell that means. Miller is no longer the Acting Police Commissioner at HPD. No one is. No one is the Police Commissioner, either!
Beginning in ten days, people parking in downtown Ithaca can use a kiosk or their phone to pay a whopping $2.50 an hour for a parking space, up from the rate of $1.50 an hour. Here in Hudson, also beginning in ten days (supposedly), visitors and residents will be paying a lot less than $2.50 per hour to park along a city street ($1.00/hour?), but, unlike in Ithaca, they won't be able to use a kiosk to take care of the transaction. Why no kiosks, though? Wasn't the plan all along to have parking kiosks on our sidewalks for easy parking payment in place of all those annoying ancient parking meters taking those tyrannical quarters that weren't doing the trick anymore? Yes, that's true, the so-called plan revolved around parking kiosks, each costing close to $9,000. But that was then; that was Jen Belton and her Parking Study Committee. They just studied and talked and hired a parking consultant to help them study and talk; they didn't actually DO or DECIDE anything besides buy $14,000 worth of the wrong parking kiosks. And they closed up shop months ago. Mission accomplished! HPD took over (hell, no one else would!), and as Parking Bureau co-spokesperson Doreen Danforth explained to the author of the Register Star article, "the city shouldn't be spending any more money on parking kiosks." (Not that we have any money to spend on them, but that's another matter.)
If Ithaca is our sister city, who are we to Ithaca? It's lost younger sister trying to follow in her big sister's footsteps but struggling mightily?
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