I'm thinking it was in October or November of last year, no more than 5 months ago, when Galvan had a contractor pour a concrete sidewalk -- where one did not previously exist -- in front of their new asphalt private parking lot at 6th & Washington for their tenants in the Depot Lofts at 7th & State. (Can you imagine moving to the "country" and wanting/needing to park your car so far from your apartment? And having to pay for it!). The enormous chunk of loose concrete from that sidewalk that you see in the pictures I took this morning at 7:00 appeared at least ten days ago, and I'm not kidding. I don't know what else other than a DPW snowplow could have obliterated that sidewalk. (Notice the lone car parked in the lot. There are a lot of dark windows facing 7th Street at night at the Depot Lofts. Lots!)
It's been at least two weeks since that damage appeared (it may have been covered in snow for a while)! Has Galvan already left town? How do the folks at the Pocketbook hotel feel about Galvan's new sidewalk that their well-heeled guests might be walking to get to and from their parking lot that is adjacent to Galvan's parking lot? Is Galvan's freshly damaged new sidewalk meant for tax paying Hudson residents as well? Doesn't our mayor live around the corner, just a concrete chunk's throw away? Isn't the Code Enforcement Office located directly across the street? How do you even repair damage to concrete as bad as this? (In Hudson, you don't bother or you use asphalt, and no at City Hall notices or minds!)
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| Notice the hydrant with no painted yellow curb! Rob Perry allowed this. The fire department is across the street! |
Rob Perry has been hiring a lot of new workers in the past few years. It seems like all of his veteran laborers (including snowplow drivers) are all gone and we have a lot of youngsters trying to keep the city tidy and safe, often behind the wheels of very heavy and fast-moving machinery. I wonder how Perry trains his plow drivers these days, or if he even bothers to. It's more than likely that one of those new plow drivers also recently wreaked the damage one block away from Washington Street by plowing too close to the sidewalk at the corner of 6th & State, something I have been regularly reminded of for the past 3 or 4 weeks at least four times a day. It's what I call ugly and concerning, and I'm probably not the only person who has been wondering when someone is going to take care of it. So, 14 days ago, I tried to get someone's attention at City Hall to deal with it. How silly of me to think anyone there would care. But my introduction to the fabulous world of Hudson Hub was worth my wasted effort.
On February 27th, via the Hudson Hub app on my phone (while holding my nose), I let City Hall know about the loose asphalt mess at the base of a street sign in my neighborhood, requesting that DPW attend to it. Less than two hours later, an automatic email reply arrived in my inbox telling me that the "Estimated Resolution" date to get my "Request" taken care of was ten days away, "by March 9th." The "status" of my request was "OPEN"; the time was noted as "3:02 pm." Exactly 40 minutes later, at "3:42 pm," on the same day I made the request and still ten days before the "Estimated Resolution" date, I got another email response from the Hub telling me that the "status" of my request was -- and I am not kidding -- "CLOSED." 7 days later, on March 6th, three days prior to their stated "Estimated Resolution" date, I got a third Hub email, this one titled "SURVEY." The picture of the asphalt mess on the sidewalk that I had originally sent "them" was included, but with no indication that anything had actually been done about the issue I brought to "their" attention one week prior (nothing had been). The so-called SURVEY was as laughable as it was insulting. (Who the hell is behind the Hudson Hub? A company in Kansas or Dubai, perhaps?) "They" wanted to know how I felt things had been handled with my obviously unresolved request. Today marks four days after there was supposed to be a "resolution" of my request (and exactly two weeks after the status of my request was CLOSED on the same day I made my request) to fix an obvious mess on the sidewalk at the base of a street sign (city property) that was likely caused by DPW, yet no one at DPW has done a fucking thing about it. (Had the pole fallen over, would DPW still have done nothing?)
Thanks for the SURVEY, Bub, go stick it up your HUB!
Whether or not you are made aware (hint: you won't be) that your Hudson Hub request has actually been resolved, finished, started, considered, sent to the proper department or even looked at, all Hudson Hub SURVEYs (arriving prior to the "Estimated Resolution" date, of course) ask requesters via a third email to rate three aspects of the "handling of this Request," from Poor to Superior. They are: "Employee Effectiveness, Time To Respond and Employee Courtesy."
What Employee? Rob Perry, Joe Ferris or Mishanda Franklin, perhaps? What Response? What Effectiveness? What Request? What Resolution? What the hell is wrong at the Mayor's Office in City Hall? Still!
I took this picture on March 6th, exactly one week ago, a few days after I first noticed the broken sign. It was still there yesterday, as broken and insulting as can be. The sloppiness and lack of attention and respect coming out of City Hall is astounding. It seems to be part of its DNA, no matter who is supposedly running things.
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| Broken City? Broken Contract? |
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