Has City Hall Officially Ditched The Title of Friendly City For JUNK CITY?

 

A few weeks ago, I notified the Code Enforcement Department of the several mattresses on the ground behind 720 Columbia Street.  The part-time officer I spoke with (only the head officer is full-time) indicated that they were already aware of the situation.  Ugly and most certainly a fire hazard for the building and the nearby gasoline station.  Nothing has been done about them since. 

The plastic JUNK sign pictured below -- at least the second one in the city from this outfit, this one facing the police station -- appeared very recently. A pair of screws and washers did the trick, as they do all over Columbia County for the people behind this particular sign. The pole, which is owned by National Grid, probably should have been replaced ten years ago!  Neglect is rampant.

And your point?  Are you going to 
ENFORCE THE LAW or ignore it?

About a week ago, DPW replaced the STOP sign at the Warren Street end of Park Place that had been knocked over about one month prior, presumably by a vehicle that hopped the curb. A temporary STOP sign had been in its place.  The temporary NO PARKING sign nearby was not replaced with a permanent one while DPW was there installing the permanent STOP sign in the concrete sidewalk.  The temporary paper, wood and metal NO PARKING sign (along with the sandbag to help keep it upright) has been there for at least four months.  On Friday, it was flat on the ground.

The full and uncovered trash can in the picture above is alongside Rope Alley at Short Street.  Though I just noticed it last week, the can has probably been there filling up with all sorts of things (including rainwater, snowmelt and plenty of little bags full of dog poo) for several months if not more than one year.  Though it's difficult, if not impossible, to gauge the weight of something you can't pick up (I tried), I'm thinking this trash can (plastic, of course!) full of random garbage, dog shit and liquid weighs in excess of 400 pounds (and I'm not kidding).  And it gets a little heavier after each rain drop and additional shit baggie is added to it. Tipping it over would have been difficult or impossible for me to do, but eventually someone will do just that.  

Once something like that is in the alley, both DPW and private trash haulers ignore it because, well, it's no one's responsibility to deal with it.  And Rob Perry doesn't give a hoot how long it remains, how much trash is in it, what kind of health hazard it might be, how many vermin it attracts or if someone tips it over and DPW has to clean up the mess.  Or if two of his sanitation workers try to pick the can up to empty it into the DPW trash truck and both of them strain their backs and miss work for a few months or never come back to work for DPW.  The DPW sanitation drives past it every day.  Only Code Enforcement issues code violation notices.

When this type of quality-of-life issue/problem is acceptable, ignored and normalized, it spreads like a cancer.  Pretty soon ignored garbage is everywhere (including mattresses that remain for several months).  Then, when the complaints start rolling in, or people don't want to live in Hudson anymore, what you will hear from City Hall is something like this: "We're trying our best," when in fact there is no effort made at all.  Or this: "There's nothing we can do about it." And it probably is too late.  The cancer has metastasized and it is no longer treatable.  Our alleys are no longer friendly, attractive or welcoming.  Permanently.  Of course, it never helps to have a DPW Superintendent who proves over and over to be a slob himself.

Here is a 2019 Google Maps screenshot from showing that same portion of the 400 block of Rope Alley.  Do you see one trash can or anything ugly?

I think that nothing has contributed more to making Hudson's alleys unwelcoming and unpleasant than the private hauler's plastic garbage wheelie bins. They are a scourge; the main contributor to the cancer.  The toxic ingredient, if you will.  Toxic plastic ugly nuisances spreading like tumors.  Garbage tumors that the city can't control and has never tried to. The cans normalize ugliness and coopt our alleys as the place for garbage of all kinds, contained and not. The city, in its neglect, just encourages the cancer to spread.  There are also too many of the wheelie bins (and smaller recycling bins) that remain empty and full on and alongside our sidewalks.  Can you imagine the founders of Hudson tolerating any of this?

This wheelie bin in Long Alley at 6th Street has been on its side for at least the past month.  It showed up sometime last year and has spent more time on its side than upright.  Think Rob Perry or the mayor care?

Good luck finding an alley as clean and attractive as this anymore!

You could write an entire dissertation on the wheelie bins' negative effects on a city.  Here's mine.  As more residents forgo the city's blue trash bags in favor of having a private hauler remove their trash, the less revenue the city takes in and the uglier our alleys and sidewalks become with the ubiquitous plastic bins that help to spawn so much other trash.  Win-win!

It seems like every time I pass by this County Waste wheelie bin in the 300 block of Long Alley it is full or overflowing.  At least one 4th ward council member lives a few houses away.  Apparently, he has no problem with seeing this regularly or knowing that his neighbor's trash is attracting and feeding vermin.  It is as if he isn't even paying attention.  With garbage everywhere in our alleys all the time, can you blame him?  It's what our alleys have become known for, even to our council members:  the place for GABRAGE AND VERMIN!  Get used to it.

What garbage problem in our alleys?

Two months ago, HPD Captain David Miller announced, "we're working on the van. It's been an issue."  Two fucking months ago!

Have you noticed what a mess the parking lot behind City Hall is all the time?  That's the city's largest lot, the one the mayor parks his car in during the week.  The shit van fits right in with the neglected lot; it's all part of the same equation.

When did this all become acceptable, particularly to Rob Perry?

The issue of the JUNKING of Hudson -- which is so obvious to me -- is never raised by council members at meetings.   Not even by Jason Foster, the chair of the so-called Code and Infrastructure Committee, whose meetings don't involve anything related to code enforcement.  Rob Perry's never going to make an effort to talk about the issue unless he's forced to.  What does he care if there's 400 pounds of garbage and liquid in a trash can in a city alley that the DPW sanitation crew drives by every day for months and months or years?  He's got a garbage bag vending machine out front of City Hall to keep filled.

All dumpsters should be required by the city to be locked and inaccessible at all times unless being filled by the property owner or tenants.  Trash haulers will have the same key and have to unlock all of their dumpsters before emptying them and lock them afterwards.  No overflowing dumpsters allowed.  Of course, enforcement of the law would be necessary, which is precisely why a law like this would never exist in Hudson. That, and it also makes too much sense.