With HPD (yes, our law enforcement officials) pushing back the start of downtown paid parking yet another week -- until the 16th of January -- while they try to figure out where the new signs are and where they will be posted on sidewalks all over downtown, it's fair to ask how the hell we got here in the first place. This whole thing reeks of incompetency and unprofessionalism (not to mention money-wasting dysfunction). THE POLICE CHIEF OF THE CITY OF HUDSON DECIDED THAT IT WAS IN THE CITY'S BEST INTEREST FOR HER DEPARTMENT TO TAKE ON THE TASK OF TRANSFORMING AND IMPROVING THE CITY'S PAID PARKING SYSTEM BY EXPANDIDNG IT CONSIDERABLY AND BRINGING IT INTO THE 21ST CENTURY WITH HIGH TECH GADGETRY, ALL WITH THE STATED INTENT OF INCREASING PARKING REVENUE.
Much of what the aptly named Parking Study Committee studied and blabbered endlessly about never came to fruition. It was all talk, an activity our Common Council members (and committees) excel at. (Actually, committee member Dewan Sarowar, as is his wont, didn't have much of anything to talk about or offer to the committee, so we'll give him kudos!) In July, after a 2-plus year run, Jen Belton announced that her committee had completed their work and that HPD would take over the reins of actually implementing the new paid parking plan so that parking revenue would increase dramatically and everyone parking downtown, including residents, would feel loved and appreciated by the City of Hudson.
Try not to howl with laughter when you read the following transcript of the minutes from the Parking Study Committee's final meeting on July 22, 2025, just over 5 months ago. (Thank you, Linda, you do an amazing job!) Keep in mind that two days ago, for the second time this month (when parking is not supposed to be free), our police chief, just back from her second maternity leave, delayed the opening date of paid parking on all of Warren Street and its environs for one more week. (This announcement, like the previous one, was only offered on HPD's Fakebook page!) If, by some miracle, paid parking does resume on the 16th, the city will have lost out on 14 days of parking revenue this month in the form of payment for hundreds of parking spaces and scads of ten-dollar meter violation tickets issued by HPD parking enforcers. Add that to the entire month of lost parking revenue in December.
The minutes of the meeting are in bold, beginning with its first sentence and followed by its final few paragraphs.
Ms. Belton announced that after review of the proposed parking plan, the project would be handed off to the Parking Bureau. (The committee's so-called parking plan was for an undisclosed number of $9,0000 parking kiosks to be the primary means of parking payment where meters once ruled (both in parking lots and on streets), plus an additional four blocks of Warren where no meters have ever existed. This "plan" is no longer the "plan." The Parking Bureau was created as an arm of HPD; the HPD clerk serves as its supervisor.)
"We would potentially gain $150,000 a year in the long-term parking lot. For short-term municipal lots we stand to gain 50 percent revenue after phase two and the addition of kiosks and 5 additional blocks of kiosks," Ms. Belton said. "We have a potential to create 50 percent more Warren Street parking revenue after phase 3 and the replacement of antiquated meters with kiosks, and we can prevent piggybacking. We can double on-street parking revenue."
Discussion followed on repairs to parking lots, the possibility of decked parking facilities, an EV trolley to take people from the lots up and down Warren Street and reinstating parking minimums for developments and payment into a fund when the minimum could not be met.
The committee stayed within its $400,000 budget. She also offered a revenue projection of a half-million dollars. With 17 kiosks*, recurring fees would total $19,000 a year.
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 6:38 pm.
Yesterday at about noon, I saw a parking enforcer walking in the 500 block of State Street dressed in his dark uniform (better to not be noticed by drivers!) and carrying his ticket machine. (As you might guess, this is a very rare sight over here.) The HPD employee looked bored out of his skull. Fortunately, he did successfully walk over what is possibly the most dangerous section of sidewalk along all of State Street (and certainly one of the worst in the city). That enforcer, like the other officer on duty at the time who might have been patrolling Allen Street or Union Street and also looking for an illegally parked car to ticket, was being paid $20 an hour. All four part-time enforcers will be doing the same thing for at least the next ten days -- wandering the city hoping to find a car parked next to a fire hydrant or pointed in the wrong direction -- the same thing they've been paid $20 an hour to do for the past 5 weeks, since December 1st.
Perhaps the most notable detail in HPD's latest "Warren Street Parking Update" announcement on Fakebook comes at the end of the long list of TMI insanity: "There are plans to add parking spaces to both the upper and lower sections of Warren Street, including handicap accessible spaces, in the spring." Can someone please explain how this would be possible? Could it be part of the "tiered parking facilities" Jen Belton spoke of so confidently in July? Is HPD really going to follow through with something the Parking Study Committee recommended for our new paid parking system? For answers, stay tuned for next week's Warren Street Parking Update and Delay Information Announcement on FB.
There is going to be only one way out of this mess for City Hall: put the parking meters back on the poles they were just removed from and turn them on again. Then stop obsessing about parking revenue and concentrate on more pressing matters that actually affect all Hudson residents' quality of life, like preventing crime and dangerous, distracted drivers! Stop creating ugly and expensive messes for us!
* "17 kiosks" was likely a typo error. At the up-front cost of close to $150,000, 16 kiosks were purchased in late 2024 and delivered in early February, nearly one year ago. Jen Belton was expecting the kiosks to accept paper money but this turned out not to be the case. In early July, 6 of the kiosks were put out for use in parking lots anyway, while the remaining10 are still in storage on Dock Street. Apparently, 4 of those 10 kiosks do not have solar panels, so there is no way we can ever use them. Presumably, regardless of where the 16 KIOSKS are located or if they are being used, they are all incurring annual fees. Annual fees, monthly fees, weekly fees, daily fees, fees by the minute. However you break this down, none of it ever should have happened. I was the only person who ever stood up at a council meeting to tell Jen Belton and Tom Depietro that their plans for kiosking downtown parking spaces would fail (and fail miserably). And you know what? I was right, even though Belton shot back at me and told me I had no idea what I was talking about! Well, the Police Department made sure that Jen and Tom's kiosk plan went nowhere but down the toilet. Hell, none of it made any $en$e from day one.
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