Now Albany Is Our Inspiration! Are you as PROUD as Captain Miller Is?

During last night's SAFETY Committee meeting  -- where there was plenty of talk about issues having nothing to do with safety --  the head of our law enforcement department, HPD Chief Mishanda Franklin, revealed two interesting things about the remaining ten parking kiosks that still have yet to make their way onto sidewalks 16 months after they were delivered to the city in early February of last year.  Actually, she announced three things of note. 

First, after listing the planned locations of the kiosks along Warren (and one on Columbia), she admitted that there would only be one kiosk per block along Warren Street.  One per block, meaning that one side of each block will be without a kiosk.

Second, after I questioned Mishanda whether the city expected people to walk across the street to use a kiosk after parking, she said that's how Albany does it.  (Her claim is probably nonsense, but it certainly is comical.)

Third, after a question from committee chair Henry Haddad, Mishanda could not say when the ten kiosks would be installed and finally be useful to the city.  This was the second or third time over the course of the 4 (of 5) SAFETY Committee meetings she has attended that she has had no helpful information about the missing kiosks.  (It's always "their" delay, never hers.)  Mishanda mentioned something about the installation being scheduled to happen in June, but that she hadn't been able to contact the company who is supposed to be doing the installation. 

Thank goodness there's no crime in Hudson for our Police Chief to be concerned with.  Or our second highest paid city employee, Captain David Miller, the city official who gave another Parking Report during a SAFETY Committee meeting.  In fact, during Chief Franklin's 45 second so-called police report, she didn't mention anything about crime.  She never does.  Talk of crime among HPD's top brass and the SAFETY Committee members is absolutely verboten.  

These must be the good times! 

Per usual, during his Parking report on Monday to the few council members supposedly concerned with safety in the city, Parking Captain Miller did have a few nice things to say about the city's new paid parking system that he is just wild about, though I still don't know what his relation is to the Parking Bureau or the new paid parking system.  Henry Haddad even chimed in, actually!

Miller: I feel like we're running parking pretty great, actually, I'm very proud of it.    (Who is "we"?)

Haddad:  Amazingly well!

Miller: Yeah, I'm very proud. There's just so many options now for the public to use, whether its kiosks, signs, the codes.  They can even not use the parking and park in the free areas.  So, there's plenty of options for the public.  The work they did, the DPW parking, the older persons, everything is going great.  I'm really proud, actually.

Miller used the word proud three times when once would have sufficed.  He sure is one proud son of a gun!  Actually!

I think it's worth repeating that one line of his in the middle that showcases one of HPD's greatest accomplishments since the parking meters were removed.  THEY CAN EVEN NOT USE THE PARKING AND PARK IN FREE AREAS.   

Just like they do in Albany, no doubt!