For all of 2024 and the first half of 2025, 4th ward council member and (now former) Parking Study Committee chairperson Jen Belton poured much of her time and effort into ridding the city of parking meters and replacing them with parking kiosks, a task she may not have originally realized would be so immense, difficult and costly. She wasn't paid a quarter for her efforts (and that fact is showing), but boy did her committee spend some coin!
There were monthly meetings with lots of talk and lots of plans; silent committee member and 2nd ward council member Dewan Sarowar was often in attendance, either in person or via his phone (once in his car!) but rarely had anything to say or contribute; there were three well-detailed phases for the kiosk rollout that kept changing, getting pushed back and that were ultimately ignored; there was a pathetic and unhelpful flyer composed and sent to all residents in their water bill that included the details of the laughable three phases; there was a hired parking consultant from Long Island who usually appeared at meetings virtually; Common Council bully, Parking Study committee member and parking study-master guru Tom Depietro twice explained that the only way to rid the city of "the tyranny of the quarter" was to get rid of the parking meters the city had relied on for decades; there was talk of sign designs, material and sizes and, of course, whale smiles and colors; the committee, with a budget of $400,000, purchased sixteen $9,000 parking kiosks that turned out to be the wrong ones (ten are still in storage after 11 months, and they probably never should have been purchased); there was talk early last year, without Rob Perry in the room, about the need to completely replace the entire asphalt surface of at least one of Warren Street's two municipal parking lots before the kiosks were installed, though the lots are still to this day, in Belton's words, "a disaster that no one want to park in"; there was talk of kiosking the entire downtown paid parking district plus four more blocks of Warren without ever mentioning how many kiosks would be needed or how much it would ultimately cost the city. In July, Belton handed off all of the committee's accomplishments, plans, phases, ideas, sign designs and 16 kiosks that don't accept dollar bills to Police Chief Mishanda Franklin, basically saying, "Here, do the best you can. We've done our job."
Then, HPD, with the help of longtime Police Clerk and newly hired HPD Parking Bureau supervisor, Dorreen Danforth, immediately got to work by basically completely ignoring everything that had been handed to them by Ms. Belton and her Parking Study committee. So much for studying. Within 5 months, during a period when City Hall suddenly realized it no longer had any spending money, kiosks on sidewalks for on-street paid parking spaces were completely out of the picture. Personal cell phones would suffice for those people parking downtown where meters once stood (plus 4 more blocks of Warren where they never have been). Rather than providing a kiosk to conduct a transaction, parkers would have to provide their own means of paying for a space. Hell, everyone's got a cell phone with them at all times, right? What idiot doesn't? But, as far as Jen Belton and her Parking Committee had been concerned (and discussed endlessly), paying to park by scanning a sign with a phone had always been the secondary means of payment for those parking downtown, not the primary or only means. The primary means of paying for all on-street and lot parking spaces was supposed to be handled by $9,000 solar-powered parking kiosks that the provider charges a $1,900 annual service fee for. So much for Belton's committee (and the parking consultant's) plans and efforts!
With all that in mind, it should be interesting to most readers to know how Captain David Miller responded to a question from council member Belton during last month's informal meeting. While it's difficult to know what Miller's involvement has been, or continues to be, with the changes to parking (at one point for a few months late last year, he was simultaneously HPD Captain, Commissioner and Chief), he did answer the question offered to him. If he didn't know what he was talking about, he should have deferred the question to someone else, such as his boss. In light of recent developments along Warren Street, Miller appears to have not known what he was talking about. Or the plan for signs changed soon after the meeting. Yet another change in plans.
On December 8th, Captain Miller explained to council members and the public that HPD parking enforcers would be removing all of the city's parking meters in December, adding, "DPW has to take the [parking meter] poles out. It's gonna take some time."
Belton then asked Miller: "When they take the meter heads off, are they replacing some of the meter heads with caps so that they can put signage?"
Miller: "Yeah. Some of them will stay because the signs will go up. But not all of them."
Belton: "So maybe every seven or ten spaces or something like that?"
Miller: "Yes."
Belton: "Okay, thank you so much."
Sometime in past few days, DPW began removing all parking meter poles along our sidewalks. Not just some of them, leaving some to hold signs, but all of them. Parking signs affixed to the top of old meter poles are out; scannable signs 9 feet above the sidewalk and in parking lots affixed with heavy duty plastic zip ties to city streetlight poles are in. What Captain Miller told Jen Belton one month ago was false information. A DPW worker I spoke to yesterday on Warren Street confirmed what I was pretty certain of: the new scannable parking signs were only going to be attached to streetlight poles, not parking meter poles.
Plans? Sorry, there's no such thing as any cohesive, sensible plans here. The whole thing continues to be an incoherent mess, and you can't help but wonder if we're even getting the truth from anyone about how this is all playing out. And if this whole thing fails, who is going to take the blame? Kamal Johnson? Dewan Sarowar? Tom Depietro?
Free parking in downtown Hudson continues through this coming Friday. Or so HPD says. On their Fakebook page.
A fair question or ten to Captain Miller, Mishanda Franklin or whoever winds up giving next week's HPD report, are these:
Have you calculated how much in lost revenue the city has experienced as a result of free parking for the past two weeks following a full month of free parking in December? Can you give us a ballpark figure? Finally, who is the city official responsible for overseeing parking matters, including parking payment, now and for the foreseeable future? Why isn't that person in front of us today? Will that person be giving the council a monthly update on how parking matters are proceeding and how much monthly parking revenue is? Or will we be relying on someone else to give us that information? Who should council members be directing questions and concerns to regarding all things parking, including kiosks, signs, parking apps, missing parking space lines, parking lots that are a disgrace and, most importantly, complaints and questions from constituents that we can't address on our own? We need to know who is in charge of the new parking scheme and we need to have accountability from that person as well as easy access to them. Who is that person? The City of Hudon cannot afford to be embarrassed by this enormous transformation and expansion of parking payment. This cannot fail! We have already lost too much money!
Oh, and one last question, please. Are there any plans for the ten remaining kiosks that are still in storage after one year? Is it true that we are paying an annual service fee of $1,900 for each one of them, as well the six that were installed for parking lots?
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| ALL meter poles out. There's no going back now. |
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