4 DAYS FOLLOWING SNOWFALL! AND ONE YEAR AFTER THE 16 PARKING KIOSKS ARRIVED!

 

The solar panels for the city's year-old parking kiosks (those that have panels, at least) are located on top of the kiosks, where they should be.

Friday's Times Union article about our new paid parking system had two hilarious things to say about the kiosks that the city ordered over a year ago and were delivered in early February.  Here is one of them:  Some units had to be returned to be converted to run on solar power.  As I understand things (though the TU article doesn't specify), 4 of the 16 kiosks we purchased were only capable of running on traditional AC/DC power, making them impossible for HPD (!) to use and help possibly create millions in parking revenue ($1.5 million annually, according to estimates from former Parking Study Committee head and general parking guru expert, Jen Belton, and others!).  You gotta wonder if someone ordered those four wrong kiosks or if the manufacturer just sent the wrong ones. Because we all know that all 16 of the kiosks were the wrong ones in that they cannot accept paper currency (that being the second hilarious -- and concerning -- aspect of the purchase of the kiosks).  Of course, it's difficult to know for sure since HPD has never mentioned anything about those 4 solar panel-free kiosks, not at council meetings nor on their Fakebook page.

Tom Depietro's name is at the top of the $139,000 invoice for the purchase and delivery of the 16 kiosks, a price that excludes warranty and annual service fees. (I have not come across those figures yet.)  

Tom Depietro?  Remember him!???  Haven't heard much from him lately, have we!  Wonder how he is feeling about HPD's handling of the paid parking mess that is getting such bad press, even in good old fashioned printed newspapers.  Hell, Tom and Jen Belton were two of the original driving forces behind this whole mess.  Shouldn't they both have been interviewed for the Times Union article?  How friggin' hilarious that would have been!  "Sorry, no comment.  Gotta go!"

Everything about this paid parking overhaul was wrong from the start, beginning years ago when the city (Kamal Johnson) hired a parking consultant.  Kamal who?

 And it's only getting wronger!  Badly wronger!  We ain't seen nothin' yet!  Wait until the next Times Union article on our failed paid parking overhaul, sure to come this summer!  You watch!  And maybe -- if we're lucky -- the Register-Star will actually print an article that shines a negative light on Hudson City Hall.  And the Police Department.  And their Parking Bureau.  And the Common Council.  And anyone else who is or was behind this boondoggle fiasco.

This never should have happened!

"Hello, is this the parking kiosk maintenance
supervisor I'm speaking to?"