Guess What, Jack? The Cracks Are Back!

Ten months ago, on April 8th, HUDseen published an article critical of the city's efforts with its new parking payment program, and it wasn't the first one.  It was titled The Cracks are Starting To Show With The City's Ambitious and Sprawling Parking Kiosk Project: "We Need To Take A Step Back." (You can read it here: Cracks)  That quote was made by the head of the erstwhile Parking Study Committee, Jennifer Belton, who was concerned that things were not going as planned with the kiosks and other parking matters.  We were paying a parking consultant to help us, and the year-old-committee had just seen the involvement of Police Chief Mishanda Franklin.  A few months later, on July 22nd, the committee's work, studying, "parking plan" and recommendations were done and Jen Belton handed off all of her and her consultant's hard work to, as she said, "the Parking Bureau."  While Mishanda and her clerk and new Parking Bureau Supervisor, Doreen Danforth, did attend the last few meetings, Captain David Miller did not.  He was likely dealing with law enforcement issues, the stuff we pay him to do to keep us safe and keep the criminals and bad drivers off our streets, sidewalks and out of our houses.  Well, at least he should have been.

What no one knew just ten months ago was that, when completed, the on-street portion of the city's new paid parking system would have very little or nothing to do with parking kiosks and almost everything to do with small scannable signs attached high upon streetlight poles and to the tops of ancient parking meter poles along our sidewalks.  In other words, just about everything Jen Belton's committee and the parking consultant worked on, planned for and talked about was a complete waste of fucking time and money.  (I'll spare you the details on the wrong $10,000 kiosks they bought and how Mishanda Franklin and David Miller, HPD's top brass, are still dealing with ten of them right now.  Let's just say that Mishanda is "getting quotes" to have them "converted and installed." It's obscene.)

Early this week, after a delay of over a month (also known as free parking), DPW began installing the new parking payment signs on Warren's side streets and on Columbia Street, the last stretches of unsigned (and unkiosked) sidewalks.  The signs are attached to some but not all of the tops of parking meter poles with a metal bracket.  Unlike the parking signs along Warren Street which are made of metal (or appear to be), the signs on top of meter poles are made of plastic.  FUCKING PLASTIC!  FLIMSY, EASILY CRACKABLE AND CHEAP ASS DISPOSABLE SHIT PLASTIC ATTACHED TO OLD METER POLES.  A five-year-old with the ability to grab the top of one of those signs could easily snap the entire thing right off the pole, and I'm not kidding.  And that is what will soon happen, though maybe not by a child.  (Though that would be hilarious.  Can you arrest a 5-year-old for vandalism or destruction of public property?)

Don't you worry, though, because the first missing PLASTIC parking sign from the top of a meter pole that I notice will be featured on this blog.  Give me a month or two!  Three at tops!

In the preamble to his "breakdown on parking" during Monday's inaugural SAFETY Committee meeting, Captain David Miller, who is apparently now in charge of all things parking, had a few interesting things to say.  Here is one of them.  "HPD took over the Parking Bureau a little over 6 months ago, so it hasn't been that long.  We took over parking because we felt it needed to be better managed, so that's what we're doing."

"HPD TOOK OVER THE PARKING BUREAU"?  (What does that even mean and who told HPD to take over the bureau?)  "WE FELT"?  "SO THAT'S WHAT WE'RE DOING"?

Yikes! Has the Hudson Police Department gone rogue?  Or has it been rogue for a while?  Does Captain Miller have the qualifications to completely transform the city's paid parking system and see that it runs smoothly until he retires?  Let's hope basic, good old-fashioned law enforcement won't get in his way!

If Jen Belton handed off her committee's parking plan to the Parking Bureau, why aren't they in charge of the city's new paid parking system?  Is it because HPD brass thought that was a horrible idea and they'd be better suited to handle it (and had plenty of time to)?

"Sorry, try the other side!
Don't fall!"