Caught At His Own Game On His Own Street While The Common Council Twiddles Its Thumbs!

Anyone who contends with overnight on-street parking (and plenty who don't) knows that you risk a $15 WRONG SIDE parking ticket from HPD if you fail to adhere to whatever overnight parking rule exists on your street (odd/even is not the only rule), regardless of signage or no signage.  Additionally, just about everyone on the planet knows that the reason for the overnight parking rules is twofold: to allow the Hudson DPW street sweeper to do its thing outside of winter, and for DPW to be able to plow streets of snow to the curbs within two nights.  That's it; it's not complicated: Stay out of the way of the sweeper and the plows or you will be ticketed.   All streets need to be swept; all streets have an overnight parking rule of one sort or another.

Oh, if it were only true!  Some streets and some city officials have exceptions to the rules, of course.  There is always room for exceptions!  And there's always room bullshit nonsense talk!

During public comment time at the most recent Infrastructure (minus CODE) Committee meeting, I was able to ask DPW Superintendent Rob Perry a question I had been wanting to ask him for years.  "Can you tell us why the portion of Prospect Avenue from Rossman to Hudson (I meant to say Warren) doesn't have an overnight parking rule?"  

"Yes," was Mr. Perry's reply, though I wasn't quite finished with my questioning.

"Don't you want to sweep there regularly?  Don't you want to get snow off both sides of the street regularly?"

"We do," was our $125,000 DPW Superintendent's answer.

CONCLUSION:  NO OVERNIGHT PARKING RULE? NO PROBLEM FOR ROB PERRY!  CARS PARKED OVERNIGHT ON BOTH SIDES OF THE STREET 365 NIGHTS OF THE YEAR IN THE WAY OF THE DPW STREET SWEEPER AND PLOWS? NO PROBLEM FOR ROB PERRY!  NO NEED FOR HPD TO TICKET, EITHER! 

After I pressed him further, Perry reiterated his bullshit that there was no need for an overnight parking rule on the portion of Prospect Avenue where he lives, saying, " they do sweep and they do plow snow on Prospect."  Yes, he actually said this.

I continued.  "I have to move my car every night over here on State Street but you and other people on Prospect don't have to?  Because why?" 

Here are a few things Rob replied with to that question and to others of mine.

"First of all, I park in a driveway, so I don't know what you're worried about me for."   (Can you imagine!)

"HPD can't ticket [on Prospect] because there's odd and even on the same side of the street."   (This is a red herring.  Parking rules can be put on any street, regardless of address numbers.  The odd/even rule is not the only option, and Perry knows this all too well.)

A LAUGHING MATTER!

"My neighbors aren't parked there [on Prospect].  Its Farrell's garage that parks all their cars there."  (Don't you love the deflection?  Like a seven-year-old!)  By this point, our $125,000 DPW Superintendent was smiling, then LAUGHING, along with his responses.  (I was not in the room, so I could not tell if anyone else was smiling or laughing.)   Perry continued, still smiling:  "My neighbors don't come around.  [Pardon me, but what the fuck does that even mean?]  Hospital employees leave by 11:00 anyway.  Everyone else parks in the garage or in the parking area."  (More deflection and obfuscation!) 

By then, Jason Foster had heard enough and my time was up.  Neither he nor Henry Haddad had anything to ask Mr. Perry about the issue.  They couldn't have cared less. (I'm pretty sure neither of them contend with overnight on-street parking.  I know Foster has a driveway to park his car in.)

For those who are confused, I will sum things up.  

A) According to our DPW Superintendent, Prospect Avenue, the street he has lived on for decades, does not need any type of overnight parking rule because sweeping and plowing there has always worked out just fine without an overnight parking rule of any kind.  

B)  There needn't be any overnight ticketing of cars parked on Prospect Avenue.

C) These exceptions, however, do not apply to all city streets.  

D) These exceptions are in the city's best interest. 

E) These exceptions are not codified.

F) The Common Council finds all of this perfectly acceptable.

Unfortunately, I was not able to ask Mr. Perry the questions his responses had begged (questions that Henry or Jason could have and should have asked, of course):  If Prospect Avenue doesn't need an overnight parking rule to allow DPW to properly and regularly sweep and plow the street, why would any street in the city need an overnight parking rule?  If you don't have any problem with HPD not ever ticketing overnight on Prospect Avenue, why is HPD issuing overnight parking tickets on State Street or, for that matter, on any city street?

Anyone still confused about Mr. Perry's statements is forgiven if only because when trying to make sense of his bullshit it's really difficult to know which way is up and which way is down. This is often the case when dealing with pathological liars.  Believe me, I feel your pain.  You think it's easy for me to understand what he has to say?

(Notice all the gravel and grit at the bottom of Prospect in the picture.  It's a regular presence.  Not that it bothers our $125,000 DPW Superintendent who owns a house about 200 feet away!  What the hell does he care if all that grit winds up in his sewer system via the storm drain a few feet away outside the picture?  But you needn't worry yourself one bit.  If the grit does any damage, our $125,000 Superintendent with no engineering degree will most certainly find the money to fix the damage.  He always does.  Tax revenue dollars will do just fine, as they always have.)

During the February meeting of the so-called SAFETY Committee, I asked HPD Captain David Miller what the purpose was of HPD issuing overnight WRONG SIDE parking tickets.  He said the ticketing had nothing to do with DPW but everything to do with "safety," adding other nonsense that I won't go into.   Presumably, then, there are no parked vehicle safety issues for HPD to contend with on Prospect Avenue, are there?  Sure, that fits the bill! 

The bullshit never ends over there at City Hall.

At a recent meeting of the so-called SAFETY Committee, in response to a complaint he had received from a city resident about overnight street sweeping, Rob Perry explained that sweeping of streets had to happen regularly because "the EPA and the State DEC require DPW to remove as much grit as possible from our streets."  He actually said this, though it's probably not true.  Even if it is true, his rationale certainly doesn't apply to the street he lives on, does it?  No, it does not.  

Pathological liars cannot help themselves.  They lie even when they don't need to.  Lying is an addiction, a pathology, akin to a disease.  Our current US President has it, that's for sure, and he probably always has.  And it's quite possible that arguably the most powerful and influential city official in Hudson, NY, has it as well.  Maybe he's always had it, too.

By the way, the upper portion of the 400 block of Columbia recently suffered yet another water main break. There is no overnight parking rule there along the truck route, nor is there any rule upstream in the 500 and 600 blocks.  Sweeping happens maybe once a year along the north side of those blocks when DPW decides it's necessary.  ONCE A YEAR!  Coincidence?

Once the gazillion dollars are spent next year to replace all the water and sewer pipes below Columbia Street (and the street itself, of course), will DPW continue with their policy of not sweeping along certain blocks?  What about the sweeping requirements that the EPA and DEC reminded our $125,000 DPW Superintendent of?   What about the parked car "safety" issues Captain Miller is so concerned about but can't solve without ticketing every night?  What about all those trucks destroying our streets, including shaking the pipes below to death?  "What about it?" asks Rob Perry!