When Will The Ribbon Cutting Ceremony Be Taking Place This Year? Or Will It Be In 2029?

What I am looking forward to -- and what all council members should be looking forward to (and demanding to know) -- is when someone from HPD can confidently announce to city residents and the council that their new, expanded paid parking system is completely implemented, that all the necessary changes have been made and the serious kinks have been worked out.  So that, just maybe, the city can have a ribbon cutting ceremony or christening of the new paid parking system that is supposed to make things better for everyone and create millions of dollars in parking revenue annually for the city for decades to come.  This announcement should include, of course, the important detail that no more signs or kiosks need to be installed anywhere.  But, from the looks of things, it appears that HPD Captain David Miller, Chief Mishanda Franklin and, possibly, Doreen Danforth have a long, long way to go to make such an announcement or even consider one.  They probably have no idea when all of the parking changes will be complete, when the new system is in fully in place, 100 percent "up and running."  They probably have no idea when the answer to the question ARE YOU DONE YET WITH THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CITY'S NEW PAID PARKING SYSTEM? will be a definitive YES.  Heck, they can't honestly say that everything is in place even on the half block of North 5th Street in the heart of downtown, that's for sure!

There are just six (for lack of a better word) metered parking spaces on North 5th Street -- 3 on each side -- all of them found between Prison Alley and Warren Street.  There are two city-owned streetlight poles among the spaces on the east side but just a pair of wooden National Grid utility poles on the west side, with no city streetlights there.  Each side has one plastic paid parking sign attached to the top of a meterless parking meter pole, both of them found between the second and third parking spaces away from Warren Street.  Those two signs are the only option that people parking on North 5th have to pay for their parking space -- unless, of course, they walk to Warren Street and find a sign on a streetlight pole to their liking, assuming they are even aware that paying for parking in downtown Hudson is necessary.  Both of those paid parking signs -- part of the city's latest effort to make parking in Hudson easier, more streamlined and more convenient for everyone parking downtown, including first time visitors of which there are many -- face the asphalt of North 5th Street.  YES, THEY FACE THE F'NG STREET, NOT THE SIDEWALK, JUST LIKE THE DOZENS OF OTHER SIGNS RECENTLY INSTALLED ON METER POLES IN THE BUSINESS DISTRICT OFF OF WARREN STREET.  (At a recent council meeting, someone from HPD made it clear that the new scannable paid parking signs are being installed on meter poles where city-owned streetlights are not available.  The signs cannot be installed on National Grid's wooden poles.)

Two city-owned streetlights, with no signs on either one!  One sign on a meter pole facing away from the sidewalk toward the street and surrounded by snow one month after a snowstorm!

Good luck getting to the sidewalk one month 
after it snowed!

Someone at HPD or DPW (or both) decided that it would better for everyone parking in a metered space on North 5th Street -- including people visiting from out of town intending to spend money downtown -- to not put any scannable parking signs on the two available streetlights on the west side of the street.  Rather, just one scannable parking sign was deemed sufficient for each side of the street, with both of them facing away from the sidewalk so that anyone wanting to pay for their parking space must -- if they even notice the one scannable sign on their side of the street -- walk in the street to stand in front of a sign to scan it, with a high likelihood, especially on a Friday or Saturday, of being forced to stand between two parked vehicles while staring at and fiddling with their phone, possibly in the rain, snow or frigid temperatures.

Of course, Hudson City Hall is right around the corner, with a new mayor on the second floor who might have no problem with what the parking experts at HPD and the sign installers at DPW are doing to inconvenience and confuse visitors and put them in harm's way so that HPD can maximize parking revenue and squeeze every penny out of every downtown parking space that exists to allow a vibrant downtown business district to flourish.  It's all about money, not at all about convenience, safety, respectfulness or regard for downtown businesses.  Or common sense.  (Have you noticed all the vacant store fronts on Warren Street lately?)

I recently received an automatic email reply from Chief Franklin informing me that she is "out of the office" all this week.