Friday's Times Union article on the first page of the REGION section, titled "Hudson's overhauled parking system draws complaints," was interesting (and concerning) for a number of reasons. At the top of the list is that no one from the public nor the Police Department and its Parking Bureau was quoted in the article. It's a little odd that the article's author, Nora Mishanec, either didn't reach out to anyone at HPD -- Chief Mishanda Franklin, Clerk and Parking Clerk (Supervisor?) Doreen Danforth or Captain David Miller (who was quoted in a recent Register-Star article about parking) -- or they weren't interested in talking to her on the record. Instead, three Common Council members were the spokespeople for HPD and all things regarding paid parking.
There was 1st ward rep Gary Purnhagen, "whose recent Facebook post about the [parking] issue garnered hundreds of responses..." Woopdeefuckin' doo! (I guess his comments had to do with the lack of parking permits for Warren Street residents, which he is one of.) Don't you appreciate Common Council members who are more comfortable sharing opinions or grievances and reaching out to their constituents about their professional work to faceless people on social media who may or may not live in Hudson rather than communicating directly with other council members and department heads during informal council meetings at City Hall? When it comes right down to it, behaving so unprofessionally just shows how worthless these people actually are in getting things accomplished, improving life in Hudson and acting like a responsible, professional adult and council member. It's so much easier to go on Fakebook and feel like you're really "reaching the people" and communicating with them, isn't it? ("Look at how many likes I got!") Just like our former worthless, Fakebook-addicted so-called mayor, Kamal Johnson, whose financial and other messes we will be cleaning up for years if we are lucky enough to be able to.
Then there was 5th ward rep Dominic Merante, whose mission as a Parking Study Committee member seemed to be to make sure the new parking payment system is fair to the disabled (this drove committee head Jen Belton nutso). He is quoted in the article regarding that issue, but regarding the bygone parking meters, about which he is obviously well-versed, Merante is quoted as saying that they were "costly to maintain and time-consuming to empty." I'm thinking Dominic got these two bits of disinformation from former fellow Parking Study committee member Tom "Tyranny of the Quarter" Depietro. Because if Merante had ever actually spoken with a parking enforcer about replacing a meter's 9-volt battery or seen a parking enforcer empty a parking meter of its quarters, he never would have uttered such bullshit nonsense. *
 |
| What an embarrassing disgrace! |
It was all a lie, a manufactured problem from amateurs with no abilities or qualifications to manage a city properly, created well before Jen Belton and her Parking Study Committee's began their self-created important task of increasing parking revenue through the use of kiosks. They were given a budget of $400,000 but they had no idea what they were doing, including Dominic Merante. The parking meters, repairable by enforcers trained to do so with simple tools, had never been costly to maintain (or replace). But the kiosks sure will be -- they've got annual service fees and they each cost around $10,000 new! And, yes, it took time (seconds) and effort (one person with a key and a bucket) to empty the meters of quarters, but it certainly wasn't a burden. It was part of the job. By the way, Dominic, are you aware that your beloved parking kiosks accept quarters, which means they too will need to be emptied?! How "time-consuming" will that be for HPD's parking enforcers?
(I believe it was in early December that HPD Captain David Miller announced that parking meters would remain standing at handicapped parking spaces so that the disabled did not have to use the kiosks or scan signs 9 feet above the sidewalk. This was something that Dominic Merante had endlessly advocated for. Last week, an official announcement from HPD (another update!) corrected the previous announcement: "individuals with disabilities... will not be required to pay for on-street parking or short term municipal lots.")
Here is one of those several meters that are no longer needed at handicapped parking spaces. In December, along with all the others, DPW intentionally left this one standing so that it could be filled with tyrannical quarters, an added disability to the diasabled. Someone call Rob Perry! And be sure he brings his snow shovel, jackhammer and sledgehammer!
The third council member featured in the Times Union article, though the first to be quoted in it, was newly minted (one more time again! A glutton for punishment!) first ward council member Henry Haddad. Given what anyone has been easily able to see or bang a knee into for the past 6 weeks (including in the first ward!) along Warren Street's side streets, the 700 block of Columbia Street and in the City Hall parking lot, Henry's first of two quotes in the article was bizarre and concerning.
The author wrote this: The problems have been visible: city workers removed the old meters' heads but left behind the exposed metal poles, which jutted from the sidewalks for several weeks during the holiday shopping season."
In response, Henry is quoted as saying, "We are so very lucky that nobody got injured."
Did he really say that to the author, as if there aren't any more metal meter poles standing in the city waiting to impale someone? Is Henry as blind as Dominic Merante is?
If you still have any doubt that HPD has completely botched the introduction of the ambitious new parking payment system, consider this. By the end of January, HPD (via DPW) had removed all the meters and all (or nearly all) of the poles on Warren Street but 4 weeks later they still haven't removed one meter pole on the side streets, on the 700 block of Columbia and in the City Hall parking lot. Now we have a few feet of snow on the sidewalks surrounding all those poles, likely making them inaccessible to DPW for another few weeks while they deal mainly with removing all the fallen snow and any more that may be on the way. Is Henry Haddad aware that free parking (lost revenue) continues where those meters once stood and the poles still do? Does Mishanda Franklin know it, too? The city is LOSING OUT ON PARKING REVENUE day after day while the delays continue and Common Council members are speaking for HPD?
 |
| A few days before the 18 inches arrived. |
If I were a council member and a journalist asked me for comments on the city's new parking payment program, I would have said, "Sorry, no, I cannot help you. My work on the Parking Study Committee ended at least 7 months ago, and I am not authorized to talk about where things stand now. I don't know everything that is going on, though I would like to know, so I am not the right person to talk to about any of this. I have too many questions and concerns myself about what is and isn't going on with paid parking. I suggest that you call our Police Chief, perhaps she isn't on maternity leave again. If she's not available, I suggest you speak with Captain David Miller, he is second in command. But Mishanda Franklin is the person you should be speaking to, because she is the city official who supposedly has been in charge of this whole thing since July, just before she went on her second maternity leave for 4 or 5 months. Perhaps she will help you with your story. She should. Please talk to her so you can report the facts, or at least the facts according to the person responsible for the delays we are still experiencing. And please ask her when she thinks the new parking payment system will be in place everywhere it is supposed to be, not just on Warren Street. No council members have any idea when the extended delays might end so that we can move on to other more pressing issues than parking revenue, untouched meter poles buried in snow and kiosks that lack solar panels and only accept quarters! I suggest that you don't speak to any council members about parking. Thank you, and good luck with your reporting."
I recently overheard a conversation between the owner of a Warren Street retail business and a customer. The owner said, "The enforcers hate the new system, and they are refusing to go into the parking lots to issue tickets." I don't know how many enforcers he was referring to, if not all four of them, and I don't know why they wouldn't want to enforce parking in the lots, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if what the owner said is 100% accurate.
What I discovered quickly when I became a Hudson parking enforcer in 2015 (when Tiffany Hamilton was mayor) is that working in a dysfunctional system is not good for the spirit and it's no fun, no matter how much money one makes or how little supervision one has (there was none). I lasted no more than 5 months working for Chief Ed Moore at HPD. Boy, could I tell you some stories!
 |
| Some see the top of a metal pole. I see a concussion (or worse) and a lawsuit the city would have no choice but to settle out of court. It's just fucking dumb, careless and disrespectful. But our Police Chief and her clerk are fine with it! |
I have no doubt that the next update from HPD at a council meeting regarding the delays with the rollout of the parking payment program will have to do with all the snow we got that hampered progress. As if that were an acceptable explanation or excuse. And regardless of what common council members may say or tell a reporter about the city's new paid parking program, things are only going to get worse from here on out. You watch!
* There is only one veteran parking enforcer remaining of the four now with us. He recently told me that no one from the Parking Study Committee ever approached him to get his insights or suggestions about how the new parking payment program might be structured. Jen Belton didn't care one iota what any parking enforcer might have to say or what knowledge they might have accumulated from patrolling our streets for eight or nine years, or even two years. The meters were on the way out, why talk to someone who has been dealing with them for years and knows the ins and outs of paid parking like no one else?
No comments:
Post a Comment