Finally! Beer, Wine and Booze Delivered To Washington Street! NOW WHAT DO WE DO? Form A Committee, Of Course!

Where there had been just one until recently, there are now two of the small professionally printed RESIDENT PARKING ONLY signs along the curb on Washington Street across from the Pocketbook business complex.  Who cares that the signs are meaningless?  Residents feel they have no choice.  City Hall is no f'n help.

How bad is the parking situation surrounding the Pocketbook?  The most recent of the two small signs to appear on Washington is in front of a property that includes a parking area that looks like it could fit two cars!

Since the Pocketbook has provided no actual truck delivery area for its suppliers, why not deliver booze from Washington Street while parked in front of a house on a narrow one-way residential street? City Hall don't care, and the mayor lives right around the corner! Bring on the 18-wheelers from Columbia Street!

While I did not attend the mayor's so-called town hall for the fourth ward at the Hudson Area Library that was held about two months ago, an attendee recently told me that three residents complained to the mayor about the unwelcome parking situation surrounding the Pocketbook business complex.  Mayor Ferris apparently assured the three that things would get better once the hotel created their parking lot on Washington Street, the one that still has yet to be built on the leased vacant city lot across from the Firestation.  $30,000 a month since January and they haven't even broken ground yet.  Can you imagine?

What's interesting and infuriating to observe at City Hall is how the city, if they bother to, mostly reacts rather than acts to prevent quality-of-life issues that they should and could have seen coming.  Take, for example, the new Pocketbook parking mess and the city's new paid parking system that has grown to include all of Warren Street, covering blocks that are less commercial than primarily residential in nature.  Both of these developments should never have been allowed to move forward without first addressing and preventing the effects they would have on residents' lives, almost exclusively having to do with parking.  Instead, the hard work of prevention was ignored.  But the work to undo the issues that have arisen is a much more difficult task.

4 years ago (or so), the Hudson Planning Board accepted the Pocketbook Hotel's parking study that said there would be no adverse effects on residential parking surrounding the business complex.  Like Galvan's so-called parking study for their huge development nearby on 7th Street, the study was full of false data and nonsense.  Both of them should have been thrown in the trash.  But the Planning Board was satisfied.  Everything was going to be fine; parking for residents wouldn't be a problem.  Well, now Margaret Morris's so-called SAFETY Committee (THE F'N SAFETY COMMITTEE !!!!) has been forced to take up the issue of the parking problem surrounding the Pocketbook because a petition signed by nearly 40 concerned and pissed off residents surrounding the business complex that relies heavily on vehicles was recently submitted to the committee.   Who the hell didn't see this coming?!  Let's see: how about Kamal Johnson, the Planning Board, 3rd, 4th and 5th ward council members (Rich Volo and Dominic Merante being constants), the Parking Bureau, Captain David Miller (who now claims to be in charge of parking) and others.  

It's a FIRE HYDRANT ZONE and the Pocketbook's
"delivery area."  And delivery drivers can park in 
whichever direction is easiest for them.

So now we have a committee of four council members purportedly focusing on safety issues -- two from the 2nd ward, one from the 1st ward, one from the 5th ward, none from the 4th ward where the Pocketbook is located and none from the 3rd ward that is also feeling the effects of the Pocketbook parking problem -- that is going to look into the parking problems that have recently appeared on Washington, Prospect, 6th and elsewhere as a result of a huge business complex that opened in a residential area.  And guess what SAFETY Committee chair Henry Haddad recently mentioned would be considered to solve the residential parking problem that one Washington Street resident and his petition have brought to the committee's attention?  How about RESIDENTIAL PARKING PERMITS!  What a novel idea!

Of course, a residential parking permit system should have been implemented BEFORE THE POCKETBOOK BUSINESS COMPLEX OPENED ITS DOORS! But since it wasn't, and since the city didn't foresee the parking issues that were to come that local residents did foresee, now we/they are trying to play catch up. REACTING, or at least trying to react (and do a good job of it). A so-called SAFETY COMMITTEE playing catch up and reacting to serious "unforeseen" parking issues all over town that have nothing to do with safety!  The whole system is designed for failure!

And what about the city's grand new paid parking system that is -- SURPRISE SURPRISE - angering and inconveniencing some Warren Street residents who felt they had been ignored and who never had to pay to park on Warren until this year, including first ward council member Gary Purnhagen? (When will that petition arrive to the SAFETY Committee?)  Why, of course, it's RESIDENTIAL PARKING PERMITS that will solve the problem and keep taxpaying residents happy and satisfied with their local government!  And guess who isn't a member of the SAFETY COMMITTEE that's recently taken up two major parking headache issues -- one on Warren -- that will not be an easy solve?  Why, of course, it's first ward council member and lower Warren Street resident Gary Purnhagen.

During Monday's informal council meeting, SAFETY Committee chair Haddad gave the council an update on the committee's most recent meeting.  He mentioned, among other topics, issues related to "traffic signs" and the "Pocketbook parking that has impacted residents' quality of life."  The words "talked," "talked about," and "discussed" were uttered at least 8 times by Haddad and others who chimed in on what the committee had been up to of late. (Sitting next to Haddad and with nothing to add to the discussion was Gary Purnhagen.) 

In other words, the members of the SAFETY Committee, with their plates full already, are doing a hell of a lot of talking but not actually accomplishing anything.  Not acting but reacting, thanks to forces outside of their control (like the Planning Board, the former mayor and his council president, and the Parking Study Committee that didn't study much but sure did a lot of talking... and buying too many parking kiosks.)  You gotta wonder if there is anyone who is actually qualified or interested to get any of these mounting quality-of-life issues solved... the ones that could and should have been prevented in the first place.  Meeting once a month to chit chat about them just isn't going to get anything accomplished, especially if Dewan Sarowar is involved!

I haven't heard any council members make any
mention of the signs on Washington Street.  This 
includes fourth warders Rich Volo and Jen Belton.

If Robert's Rules of Order permits committee titles to be in the form of a question or questions, Margaret Morris should create a new committee, its title being, "Now What Do We Do With This Issue and Who Is Going To Get It Done?  Can We Talk About It Ad Nauseum Every Month For One Hour For At Least The Next Two Years?"   Every single new issue that comes the council's way will first be addressed by this committee, which, of course, should be chaired by 2nd ward member -- and likely resident of Greenport where he owns a house that his wife and child(ren) live in -- Dewan Sarowar!

(That's pronounced S-A-R-O-W-A-R, Henry!)