HUDseen: Lock 'Em Up For At Least 15 Days! And Fine 'Em, Too!

At least 5 years ago (and maybe a whole lot longer), the 4-sided street clock at the southeast corner of the 7th Street Park stopped working. Since then, three of the clocks have been stuck at 9:08 and one at 11:10 (or thereabouts). Two or three years ago, DPW Superman Rob Perry told the council that the clock had been a gift long ago to the city from a local social organizational but that it was now too expensive to repair. And there it still stands. Doing nothing. Mostly ignored; in the way; a perfect symbol of how Hudson seems to always be stuck in some sort of limbo, never making any progress. Broken. Stuck. I'm waiting for a new council member to ask Rob what the deal is with the street clock so that he can repeat what he told a previous council.

It turns out that the street clock has been a code violation all these years that its hands haven't been moving.

Chapter 244 of our city code -- adopted in 1973 -- is simply titled Signs. Section 244-39 is titled Street Clocks. Subsection H reads thus: Shall keep accurate time. Such clock shall keep accurate time; and if this condition is not complied with, the clock shall be promptly removed.

(They're serious about this accuracy thing, aren't they? Who are or were "they," anyway?)

Perhaps when charter change finally happens, Rob Perry can be sure to rid the City Code of Chapter 244 to prevent any legal trouble with Nick Fox at Code Enforcement regarding his clock, like getting it PROMPTLY REMOVED or face jail time.

Over by the Hudson Fire Department Firestation -- in the neighborhood that is getting so much attention these days -- there is another code violation brought to us by the city, though this one has only been around for months, not years. The south-facing side of HFD's lovely double-sided, multi-color, always-changing digital sign at the corner of 6th & Washington has a problem that doesn't allow most of the text in the middle of the sign to illuminate properly. In other words, the sign is essentially unreadable. It is broken. It might as well be covered in graffiti. Or just falling apart.

After all these months, it's difficult to believe that our fire chief (or Nick Pierro) isn't aware that his department's sign on 6th Street is broken. One wonders if the sign isn't being fixed because the department spent all their budgeted sign funds on the $21,000 double sided, multi-colored sign on the opposite side of the Firestation that showed up last year, the one at the end of 7th Street that no one pays any attention to and has no place in a residential area (it sits across the street from a few houses).

Section 11 of Chapter 244 of the City Code, titled Maintenance Standards, reads thus (in edited form): All signs... shall be kept in good repair.

The final section of chapter 244, titled Penalties For Offenses -- the one involving active Code Enforcement! -- reads thus: Any person committing an offense against any provision of this chapter shall be guilty of a violation punishable as follows: by a fine not exceeding $250 or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding 15 days, or both by such fine and imprisonment. The continuation of an offense against the provisions of this chapter shall constitute, for each day the offense is continued, a separate and distinct offense hereunder.

It's difficult to think that CEO Nick Fox isn't aware of the fire department's broken sign that sits at the corner of the parking lot in front of the Code Enforcement Department whose office is located in a building that also houses the Fire Department. Maybe if the sign were to fall over someone might take some action.

Last year, just feet from HFD's broken digital sign, National Grid somehow destroyed a portion of the concrete sidewalk. It was bad last year, and it has only gotten worse. That dangerous and insulting section of sidewalk is adjacent to CITY PROPERTY, 75 feet from the front door of the Code Enforcement Department's offices. And no one at City Hall cares! Who would Code Enforcement tell to fix that sidewalk if they were made aware of it and how would they get the message across about the violation? Knock on the front door of the mayor's house down the street?

How can we expect our city to look decent, be safe and be respectable if our own so-called leaders aren't interested in paying attention to the City Code? Hudson City Hall is the city's chief code violator! They lead by example! Code violations are to be ignored, first and foremost those found on city property. Charter change, you say? What good will that do if it continues to be ignored?

Yesterday, in the 500 block of Warren, I came across a loose piece of old, rusty and jagged iron hanging over the curb near a sidewalk tree. It had been a corner of a what remained of the very old tree grate that once protected the tree. Until, that is, the corner piece recently removed itself from the rest of the perimeter of the missing tree grate and decided to make its way to the street to destroy a car tire or two. That piece of iron was probably at least 75 years old, and it weighed at least 3 pounds.