Too Much Idling! Much Too Much!

According to an automatic email reply I received today, our Police Chief, Mishanda Franklin, is "out of the office" this entire week and Monday and Tuesday of next week.  While the city waits for the mayor to appoint a new Police Commissioner (is that even happening?), Franklin is also the Acting Police Commissioner.   This has been the case for several months.  In the 3 years that Mishanda Franklin has been our Police Chief, she has been on two maternity leaves of 4 or 5 months each.

According to SeeThroughNY, Franklin's "total pay" in 2025 was $173,966, the highest of all city employees.  The email did not specify why our Police Chief and Acting Police Commissioner is away from the office for 7 weekdays.  (Work related?  Personal time?)  While Franklin is away, her second in command, Captain David Miller (who the city code regards as third in command behind the commissioner and the chief -- in that order) is in command of HPD.  Last year (and presumably this year as well), Miller was only second behind the highest paid city employee. He had a "total pay" of just $151,736, much of it likely from overtime.  Captain Miller -- who is now wearing three hats for at least the next 8 days -- is doing his best to get our new paid parking system off the ground.  Come to think of it, maybe he's wearing four hats right now and for the next several days.  Do I hear five?

On Saturday afternoon, HPD and Columbia County police were searching for someone in the woods behind Oakdale.  With officers nowhere nearby, I saw three HPD vehicles and four County vehicles at two locations, all of them idling.  The two HPD vehicles shown in the lead picture were idling in the park's main lot for at least a half hour.  Anyone out for some fun could have gotten in one (or both) and had a joy ride. Or drive one or both into the lake dune buggy style (now that would be a gas!).  Weren't two Youth Department vans recently taken for local joy rides ("stolen") and recovered?

This country has a vehicle idling problem, and the problem seems to be acute here in Hudson.  We pay for idling in so many ways, both literally and figuratively.

Speak of idlers... Last Monday, I asked the assembled council two important questions in one breath:  "When will someone from the Code Enforcement Department be involved in the Code & Infrastructure Committee meetings, and when are we going to have a police commissioner?"  Council "president" Margaret Morris decided to answer the second question first:  "I don't have any information on when there will be a police commissioner other than the fact that our Police Chief, Mishanda Franklin, is the Acting Police Commissioner.  So, I do not have any other information."  One wonders if Morris has even inquired of the mayor to find out when he is hoping to fill the position (or if he is hoping to at all).

Morris decided to not bother answering my first question.  Nothing.  Nada.  Mum.  

Morris created the so-called Code & Infrastructure Committee, along with the 2 or 3 other committees.  Yet she won't even explain to the public or the members of her own council why her own new Code & Infrastructure Committee HAS NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH CODE ENFORCEMENT!  This unnecessary nonsense is embarrassing and insulting.  She probably didn't bother answering my simple and reasonable question because there's no way any answer would have made one bit of sense. 

All the Common Council "president" had to say was, "I'm working on it," and we all would have had a much needed guffaw.  

That's pretty much what Captain David Miller told me and the SAFETY Committee 7 weeks ago when I asked him what was going on with the white van that hasn't moved from its space in the City Hall lot for at least a year and a half.  "We're working on the van.  It's been an issue.  That has been an issue and we're working on it," were Miller's exact words in response to my question.  No one laughed (though I have many times since).  Miller then refused my request for elaboration.  

The van that Captain David Miller has apparently been "working on" since before I asked him about it nearly two months ago still hasn't moved from its space.  While the van itself has been sitting idly for nearly two years in a city parking lot (and being slept in), at least the engine hasn't been idling any of that time.  Heck, the old engine probably won't start.  And thank goodness for that!

What part of the van is Mechanic Miller "working on"?

Come to think of it, David Miller is now wearing at least five hats at HPD.  Not only is he our Captain, Chief, Commissioner and Parking Tsar, he seems to also be HPD's vehicle mechanic who "works on" unhoused people's vehicles endlessly parked on city property.  From the looks of things, he isn't a very skilled mechanic, is he?  But, boy, he sure is well paid for the "work" he does or doesn't do!