Is It Possible That Hudson Has Always Been "Managed" By Uncaring Slobs??? Or Is This A Recent Phenomenon (and On and On and On)?

 

If you think this city of ours is in good hands, you are horribly mistaken and you are clearly not getting out of the house enough to pay attention to the awful direction the city is headed.  I am referring specifically to our new and old infrastructure we all rely on and pay for as well as the people supposedly managing the city whose paychecks we all contribute to, including the two very handsomely compensated city officials vying for the top of the list of slobs, Parking Captain David C. Miller, Jr. at HPD and the only guy in charge of everything at DPW, Robert W. Perry, Jr.  (I knew they had something in common!)

On Tuesday in the early afternoon, I noticed that the back-to-back plastic scannable parking signs in front of 720 Columbia Street had once again been destroyed (this, I believe, was the third instance since the new parking signs arrived early this year!).  One of the signs was on the ground, the other barely holding on to the erstwhile ancient parking meter pole turned into -- with great aplomb -- modern parking system sign pole, offering drunks, children, and vandals the opportunity to have some fun at the city's expen$e.  For those who noticed, and as HUDseen readers may recall, the tops of those signs had been held together by a pair of BINDER CLIPS since late April after the previous pair of signs were damaged or destroyed.   Woe is us; the BINDER CLIPS did not do their jobs!  So sad!  Get Parking Captain Miller to return those clips to the manufacturer and demand a full refund right now!  Throw the remaining boxed clips in the trash! (Were the binder clips David Miller's idea???  Or Rob Perry's, perhaps?)

At about 5 pm on Friday, the two vandalized signs (or possibly blown over in the wind, as has been the case with many) were in the same exact place as I had found them three and a half days earlier!  Untouched!  No one had bothered to do anything about the signs, including Parking Captain David Miller and all four of his parking enforcers who had to have walked past 720 Columbia several times during the week.  And I don't blame the enforcers for trying their best to ignore more of the stupidity, ugliness and waste they have been encountering too much of this year, because, let's face it, it's not our parking enforcers job to clean up after any slobs, whether it's litter bug visitors or city officials.  David Miller's four part-time parking enforcers are not paid, and were not hired, to clean up after him or even after Rob Perry!  They aren't OUTDOOR JANITORS or MAINTENANCE LABORERS meant to keep Hudson looking as pretty as it can be!  That's up to Rob Perry, his foreman, and the DPW maintenance crew. If Parking Captain Miller is so disrespectful, negligent, uncaring, and sloppy when it comes to his new ambitious paid parking system, how do you suppose he treats his part-time enforcers?  Does he treat them respectfully or like garbage?   Is it even respectful to hire a parking enforcer and never allow them to become a full-time employee? (HPD only hires enforcers on a part-time basis, if only because the city won't have to offer them any benefits.  It's a great way to attract the best of the best out there.  (A year or two ago, I asked Chief Franklin why HPD only allows parking enforcer to work part-time hours.  I remember her response well if only because it made all the sense in the world. She responded with another one of her evasive non-answers, saying, "That's not up to me.")

On Wednesday or Thursday, in the blaring sun, stifling heat and humidity, I saw two parking enforcers on Warren Street (boy, I wish I had seen one of them near 720 Columbia walking past the signs!).  What color do you suppose their uniforms were?  Anything approaching white so that the cloth can reflect the sunlight and not absorb too much of it?  No, sorry, try again.  How about as black as an eight ball?  Yes, you are correct; their uniforms -- shorts and a polo shirt -- were ALL BLACK!  (One of the enforcers even had black sneakers and black socks to match!  And the other told me that the uniforms they are issued are made of polyester!)  That sounds respectful (and safe) enough, doesn't it?  Has Parking Captain Miller been out walking up and down Warren Street all day recently covered in black polyester, holding a 2 or 3-pound ticket machine, and loving every second of it?  From the friendly confines of well air-conditioned (often too well air conditioned, in my opinion) 720 Union Street or his black city-issued police vehicle, does Parking Captain David Miller have any idea what his enforcers deal with all day during one of the bloody hottest and most humid summers ever?  More importantly, does he care?  "Here's your all-black uniform. Does it fit?  Does it feel nice on your skin, like you never want to take it off?  Take care of it and don't sweat too much in it.  We need you out there every day so I can tell the SAFETY Committee that paid parking is GOING GREAT!  Now get out there, scan every license plate that isn't moving with your two-pound ticket machine, issue as many tickets as quickly as you possibly can, and, most importantly, if you have any complaints, take them to the mayor.  Oh, and if you see any parking signs on or off parking meter poles, just walk right past them.  And I don't want to hear about any damaged or missing signs, either.  Capiche?  I just gotta say, buddy, you are looking mighty handsome in all black.  I think black polyester suits you to a T!  Now get out there and show the world what you can do, and make me proud of you!"

On Saturday morning, about 16 hours after I noticed the signs still in their full-on mode of WE AT HPD DON'T CARE HOW UGLY OR UNSAFE OUR CITY IS OR HOW DIFFICULT IT IS FOR YOU TO PAY FOR PARKING, I took the picture below.  What was left on top of the pole was the sticky label that had covered the outer surface of one of the two signs. This was still the case this morning.  Last I checked -- several months ago -- each one-sided sign costs us $19.  The two-sided signs cost us $29.

Yesterday morning, I took the following picture as another busy weekend day was gearing up downtown and visitors would soon be searching for parking spaces to park in, though not to pay for. Heck, the important information is still right there for everyone to see and read!  Thank goodness for miracles!

Here is a picture of that same parking meter pole that I took in late April, days prior to the BINDER CLIP era.  Can you imagine the negligence, waste, and incompetence?  It's gotten to stratospheric levels, hasn't it?

Here are a few more stories and recent pictures to demonstrate the waste, nonsense and disgrace that City Hall and HPD have become and are perfectly comfortable spreading around the city.

At the most recent informal council meeting, first ward council member and chair of the so-called SAFETY Committee, Henry Haddad, gave the council his monthly committee update.  He started by telling everyone that the most recent meeting was, "REALLY FUN." (No one asked him what the hell he meant by FUN or if he was having FUN at the present meeting, too!)  Henry had more to add, thankfully, but it still appears that committee has accomplished nothing at all after 7 meetings of nonstop yakety yak.  In fact, one of the four sign requests Henry made to HPD on June 1st is still waiting to be taken care of by DPW (while Henry says nothing).  And, no more than two months ago, Henry told me in person that I was mistaken that the upright city-owned streetlight arm (with expensive light) on the sidewalk secured to a new National Grid utility pole in the middle of the 100 block of Union Street (across the street from a house he is renovating) appeared last fall, as I told him it had.  He assured me that he had watched National Grid workers place that streetlight arm on the sidewalk "in March" of this year.  And yet, he keeps his inside information out of the two committees he is a part of.  There hasn't been one f'ng peep from him while that section of narrow Union Street in his own ward is as dark as can be at night for 5 months (if he is telling the truth). Henry is also on the Code & Infrastructure Committee, which involves the Code Enforcement Department in name only.   Neither Henry nor Infrastructure Committee chair Jason Foster have asked Rob Perry once about that streetlight arm that Henry supposedly saw being secured upright to the base of a utility pole 5 friggin' months ago.  They are both about as helpful and on top of things as Parking Captain David Miller is.

The following picture, taken a few days ago at the bottom of the hill at the Warren Street end of Prospect Avenue, shows a mess of debris that the DPW street sweeper can't do anything about because Rob Perry feels the street he lives on "is being swept" just fine by DPW without the aid of an annoying overnight parking rule that -- according to his own mouth at least twice every year -- is designed to keep parked cars out of the way of his street sweeper and snowplows so city streets can be properly maintained and, perhaps most importantly, "grit" is kept out of our sewer system.  But, in a world that increasingly makes little sense and is full of too much bullshit that is not called out, in response to a question of mine at a recent Infrastructure Committee meeting (his answer is in quotes above), Perry implied that Prospect Avenue is fine without an overnight parking rule and that parked cars are never in the way of his streetsweeper no matter what side of the street they park on overnight or for how long they remain unmoved and unticketed, even for days, weeks or months.  He even threw the car repair business at the end of the street he lives on under the bus, so to speak.  "It's Todd Farrell that parks his cars on the street."  This actually came out of the mouth of our $125,000 DPW Superintendent!  Robert W. Perry, Jr. put the blame for a problem that doesn't exist -- at least in his mind -- on his business-owner neighbor, Todd Farrell, someone he may have grown up with here in Hudson.  Presumably, our dear superintendent was telling the truth, as he always is.  The car in the picture can remain where it is for as long as the owner or Todd Farrrell wants to leave it there, all the time 24/7 without fear of being ticketed or fear of the ire of Prospect Avenue resident Robert W. Perry, Jr. (who, by the way, has off-street parking for two cars on his or his next-door neighbor's property). Vehicles parked on either side of Prospect Avenue (at least between Rossman and Warren) can remain parked for days, weeks, months, or years and never be ticketed or towed! Whatever!  Who the hell cares?  Certainly not the city's highest paid non-HPD employee, Robert W. Perry, Jr.

Why would this street ever need an overnight 
parking rule or for HPD to ticket cars parked
on the wrong side of the street?

4th street on Tuesday.  The sign was 
eventually placed back on top of the pole, 
100 percent unsecured and ready to fall off in
the wind or at the touch of a finger.

Rob Perry is perfectly fine with all sorts of shit 
getting into our sewer system.  Just like any slob would 
treat an ancient, gazillion-dollar sewer system.

Does anything say WE DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOU more than this sight, directly in front of a longtime successful retail business off of Warren Street?  The disrespect coming from Parking Captain David Miller is obscene.  This sign/these signs (is it one or is it two?) have been replaced at least once already this year.

How about over in the 700 block of Union Street where deadly sidewalk tripping hazards surround the entrance to the city-owned (and DPW-"maintained") public parking lot (and $10,000 parking kiosk) go ignored for years and years and possibly decades?  The lovely longtime hazard directly in the middle of the picture, where the curb stone is two to three inches higher than the walking surface, is perhaps the worst, most obscene tripping hazard in the entire city -- just as the city prefers things to be.  You know, to lead by example and be the paragon of safety and respectability for future generations of city residents and City Hall officials.  ALL HAIL THE SLOBS, INCLUDING OUR MAYOR WHO PUBLICLY CLAIMS TO BE DEVOTED TO PEDESTRIAN SAFETY!  

And, to add insult to potential injury or death, the Public Works Board kept this hazard minefield area of sidewalk off their list of the city's worst sidewalks that need immediate replacing (well, maybe starting next year or 2028, if we're fortunate).  Go f'ng figure!  One wonders if the city's own Public Works Board even considered including a sidewalk that Rob Perry is responsible for on their SIDEWALK TO DO list.  Now that would be f'ng hilarious if they did!  ("We should but we can't!")  If you want to hear a hilarious take on the issue, just get Rob Perry, our ADA champion (and nearly completely blind) Dominic Merante, Parking Captain David Miller, PWB chair Gary Purnhagen, safety mayor Ferris, and his aide and ADA Coordinator Tiffany Martin in a room together and ask each of them to answer one simple two-part question:  HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN AWARE OF THE SEVERAL SIDEWALK TRIPPING HAZARDS SURROUNDING THE ENTRANCE TO THE UNION STREET PARKING LOT, AND IN WHAT DECADE DO YOU HOPE TO GET ALL OF THEM REMOVED SO THAT THE SIDEWALK AND ENTRANCE ARE SAFE, RESPECTABLE, IN FULL COMPLIANCE WITH ADA RULES, AND THE CITY NO LONGER HAS ANY LEGAL LIABILTIES IN THE FORM OF TRIPPING HAZARDS THERE?  HOW ABOUT YOU GO FIRST, TIFFANY.  YOU'RE THE CITY'S ADA COORDINATOR, YOU ARE A MEMBER OF THE PUBLIC WORKS BOARD, AND YOU'VE BEEN AROUND CITY HALL FOR A FEW YEARS, HAVEN'T YOU?  THEN WE'D LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU, ROB, SO PLEASE HAVE A SEAT AND DON'T LEAVE THE ROOM JUST YET.