At Least It's Still Green! Oh, If City Hall Were So Fortunate!

Do you remember a time not too long ago when someone had the great idea to transform the former church at 241 Columbia into a museum for Hudson's glorious religious past?  It seems to me the idea must have been in the news and on everyone's mind around 2020, which is the year on the still very readable and secure Code Enforcement Building Permit taped to the basement door.  The project likely died about 5 years ago, the same year the permit expired.  Oh, well!  But what next?  Is Code Enforcement making any attempts to get the owner of 241 Columbia to get their renovation project finished so that something might be done with the building other than it continuing to rot, perhaps -- and don't think I'm crazy here, please -- allowing it to be inhabited by human beings who can call Hudson home and maybe keep the sidewalk in walkable condition so that no one gets hurt or killed and sues the city for stupidity, disrespect, an inability to pay attention, laziness, dysfunction, and negligence?  Am I missing something that "sidewalk" represents?  (2nd ward council member Mohammed Rony apparently lives directly across the street.  His partner in crime, Dewan The Fraud Sarowar, lives in Greenport on Green Acres Road.  It's the place to be, they say.) 

One Week Later...

 

... and still no sign of mayor Ferris' "permanent" stop sign number 3!  Welcome to Hudson, we're a work in constant progress.  Get used to it!

YOU MUST OBEY! YOU MUST CARRY A WORKING CELL PHONE AT ALL TIMES! YOU MUST OBEY! (Hello, George Orwell and the Nerd Reich!)

It only took about 4 months, but the tag team duo at HPD (not the Parking Bureau, mind you!) of Police Clerk Doreen Danforth and Parking Captain (PC) David Miller finally found the time, will, motivation, money, paper, ink, tape, plastic laminate, gasoline, and decency to adhere an OUT OF SERVICE sign to the $10,000 parking kiosk for the 700 block of Warren that was one of 16 purchased by the city in late 2024, delivered to the DPW garage on Dock Street 21 months ago in early February of 2025, installed about 7 months ago, and became useless within three months due to an inoperable (and apparently unfixable) solar panel on its top.  None of the kiosks are warrantied, and PC Miller has never mentioned anything about this out of service kiosk during any of his recent monthly so-called parking reports to the so-called SAFETY Committee.   What else are he and his boss "forgetting" to tell the public and the council about that they should be revealing? 

Now that the OUT OF SERVICE sign is on the DEAD kiosk, let's see how long it takes for it to fall off, be removed by a passerby, or be removed by PC Miller when, if ever, the kiosk is working again after city taxpayer funds cover the cost to have a technician from Connecticut install a new solar panel.  6 months for the latter, anyone?  Do I hear 12 months?  Do I hear $2,000?  $3,000?  More?

Welcome To Hudson. Don't Even Think Of Parking Here.

 

What, if anything, do you suppose a police officer or parking enforcer is expected to do when they come across a situation such as above? (Picture taken yesterday afternoon.)  How about nothing, if only because there is no code violation to be had?  How many parking enforcers passed by the cans, do you suppose?  Did they see or ticket any cars parked in the space alongside the trash cans and pole on the ground? Was it all that shit at the curb on Monday as well?  (The 9-foot metal pole was heavy!)

Did The Owner of 458 Union Request A New Taxpayer-Funded Sidewalk AND DRIVEWAY? Or Did She Demand Them Both?

It was suspicious enough that the Public Works Board determined months ago that the relatively decent, not-at-all dangerous 120 feet of sidewalk along the South 5th side of 458 Union was in need of replacement as part of the taxpayer-funded Sidewalk Improvement District project (which began in earnest last week).  Add to that the fact that, according to public records, our Common Council "president," Margaret Morris, owns 458 Union Street.  And now that Morris's lengthy sidewalk has been replaced with taxpayer funds, not solely her own, we can plant another red flag into what only points to an elected city official who continues to confound with her bizarre behavior, bad optics, and questionable motives.  It never seems to end with her.

Rejoice, For Our Prodigal Son Hath Returned. Again! And Just In Time For Helloween!

Do Our New Sidewalks Come With A Warranty? Does The Public Works Board Know What It Is Doing?

In case you haven't noticed it over the past few days, the first of the Public Works Board's six sidewalks of varying lengths "slated for replacement" was completed this past week.  Hoorah! The SID project is off and running!  South 5th from Warren to Union got new concrete on Wednesday and was reopened on Friday thanks to the low bidder for this year's portion of the slow-going, taxpayer funded Sidewalk Improvement District (SID) project, Frank Vosburgh & Sons, Inc., an excavating contractor based in Rhinebeck.  Vosburgh outbid 4 other contractors vying for the project, and by quite a bit.  Their bid of $349,000 was $207,000 lower than the next highest bidder, Luizzi (!!!!) and $500,000 (half a mil!) lower than the highest bidder, a contractor by the name of RAJ Contractors that appears to be based a few miles away in the New York City borough of Brooklyn.  As HUDseen pointed out last summer when Vosburgh was hired to replace several corner curb ramps as part of the ADA-compliance settlement agreement brought to us several years ago by the Federal Department of Justice, nowhere on Vosburgh's website or on the sides of their trucks does it mention anything about concrete work or sidewalks.  First and foremost, they are an excavation company.  RAJ's website claims that one of the several services they provide is concrete work.

Is It Possible We Are Governed By Nincompoops Who Don't Know How To Manage Much Of Anything, Including Money? It Sure Looks That Way!

For the past 24 hours I had been planning on using the picture above for an article simply titled, STOP SIGN NUMBER TWO.  That's the new stop sign and pole at Warren & Park that DPW installed (once again 8 feet from the curb) on Wednesday to replace the sign and pole that were knocked over on Tuesday after surviving two months of thousands of close calls from trucks, tractor trailers, bad drivers, and drivers confused about the new, safer intersection. Notice the vertical reflective red strip on the pole; it was not included in the first stop sign effort!

Then, this morning, I came across this:

Thank Goodness The City Got Rid Of Those Old Parking Meters So That Parking Revenue Could Flood The City!

The $10,000 (plus $100-plus per month "connectivity fee") parking kiosk for the 700 block of Warren (just beyond the grey car in the background) is meant to be used by people parking their cars in the unmarked parking spaces seen above.  That so-called kiosk has been OUT OF SERVICE and DEAD for at least 13 f'ng weeks, and Parking Captain David Miller continues to see no reason to attach an OUT OF SERVICE sign to it or bother explaining to the public and the so-called SAFETY Committee for months what is going on with it.  (The kiosk's solar panel has been kaput for months, failing us no more than three months after it was installed, a fact I learned on the sidewalk from a city employee.) And why should we expect PC Miller to do such things that are far beyond his paygrade, not in his job description, and possibly beyond his mental acuity?  Why should we expect anyone at Hudson City Hall or at HPD to do such basic, decent things that come naturally to any self-respecting city hall in America that is occupied by adults?

Raise Those Parking Ticket Fees Right Away, Our Mayor Needs Another Stop Sign And Pole!!

It was August 25th when I first wrote about mayor Ferris' new stop sign at Warren & Park, one week after it had been installed 8 feet from the curb.  At the time, I gave it two weeks to be demolished.  In a rare case, I was proven wrong.  I should have chosen TWO MONTHS instead!

Earlier tonight, about 55 days after Joe Ferris' new stop sign atop a new sign pole was installed by DPW, I noticed it was no longer there.  In its place, in the street 8 feet from the curb, was a much shorter temporary stop sign.  Anyone with a pair of eyes and half a brain could have seen this coming.  I did.  What am I, a genius?

Why Did Officer Eric Dunham Depart HPD After Just Three Years? We May Never Know. Shouldn't We Know?

 

As regular HUDseen readers may know, during the HPD report at last month's meeting of the so-called SAFETY Committee, Chief Mishanda Franklin mentioned that a police officer had recently resigned.  "We are down an officer.  Under unfortunate circumstance we had an officer resign last week.  So, we will be our doing our best to fill that position prior to year end."  Head Code Enforcement Officer Nick Fox, sitting next to Franklin and always on top of safety issues, then asked a critical question that was begging to be asked:  "Do you guys hire part-time or is it only full-time?"  (I'm not kidding!)  Is Nick looking for another job?  A new job?

Blog vs Rob: Who Wins? Hudson Does! Sanity Does!

This past Wednesday at 1:45 in the afternoon, just 48 hours after last Monday's HUDseen article showing the Fire Department's and DPW's absurd, obscene, and hypocritical approach to out of service fire hydrants, I came across a DPW Water Department crew of three repairing a long out of service hydrant on the sidewalk adjacent to the south side of Bliss Towers and across Columbia Street from another very large apartment building.  Can you imagine?  

This Is Not A Story About Traffic Signs. It Is An Examination of Normalized Dysfunction, Incompetence, and Wasting of Time & Money At Hudson City Hall.

If memory serves me, I believe it took two months, possibly three, for the Common Council (or was it just the so-called SAFETY Committee?) to come to the conclusion that it would not be possible for the city to be like Manhattan where the NO RIGHT TURN ON RED rule exists at every signalized intersection without the use of signs.  A blanket or default rule, if you will.  But that was the hope -- to make it illegal in Hudson to turn right on red at every intersection with a traffic light, likely with the only signs indicating the rule at every city entrance.  It sure would have saved on the cost of installing dozens of NO TURN ON RED signs all over town, a project that Rob Perry claimed would cost about $300 per installed sign, including hardware.  Then, in early June at a SAFETY Committee meeting, with the grand right on red blanket rule idea officially nixed at the previous month's meeting of the Code & Infrastructure Committee, chair Henry Haddad made his first ever sign request of HPD to hand off to DPW:  three DO NOT ENTER signs and one NO TURN ON RED sign.  That ONE sign was meant for North 6th Street traffic approaching Columbia, and it was installed within a few weeks. (See above.)

Is Our Mayor Sleeping On The Second Floor Of City Hall At Night Too? Including On Holiday Weekends?

 

It's not unusual to see our mayor's personal car parked in one of his two designated parking spaces directly behind City Hall late at night on just about any day of the week. Or on a Saturday or Sunday morning, exactly as I noticed his car parked this morning.  (There's also a space for the mayor in the parking lot.)  In other words, our new mayor, who lives in a house he owns just a 5-minute walk from his place of employment, has decided that the two parking spaces behind City Hall reserved for his one car are his 24/7 personal parking spaces, whether or not he is working on making Hudson a better place to live and do business in, and even if he is out wining and dining in town or sleeping in his bed three blocks away.  He has decided that leaving his car parked behind City Hall while he sleeps at home is perfectly acceptable, implying that every employee working at City Hall ought to take advantage of the situation.  

They're On Different Planets. Perhaps In Separate Galaxies! It's The Hudson, NY, Common Council!

Early this week, I saw another youngster on an electrified two-wheeled vehicle blow through one of the four stop signs at 6th & State with no apparent fear of being killed or getting caught by the police.  No helmet, dressed in black, on a hybrid type scooter with seat.  Then he zipped past two DO NOT ENTER signs on his way to Columbia, Warren, or Union.  I'm almost certain I've seen this person do the same thing on at least two other occasions recently. And what would or should a Hudson cop in a multi-ton vehicle do if they see such a clear traffic violation?  Chase the violator down a one-way street headed the wrong direction to somehow stop him and have a talk with him, perhaps issue a ticket of some sort? 

CLOSED AGAIN! SURPRISED? GET USED TO IT!

I'm not sure how long the Huddson Parking Bureau has been closed to the public this week, but it is closed today and, according to an automated email response I received from the bureau, it will reopen Tuesday (Monday is a holiday).  Word on the sidewalk is that the Parking Bureau Clerk, Emily, is pregnant. It will be interesting to see who, if anyone, fills in for her when she goes on maternity leave, which could last as long as 6 months.  Right now, there is no one to take her place behind the window when she is gone for whatever reason.  The public relies on that bureau and that office being open at all times when it is supposed to be.  No one should be driving over there to find out no one is available to help.  Allowing the office to be closed is rude, disrespectful and disgraceful.  It's no surprise that HPD Captain David Miller is involved with the Parking Bureau (though he does not work for the bureau). 

How Dangerous, Narrow, and Speedy Is Green Street? Ask Jason Foster, Not Rob Perry!

A few months ago, during a Legal Committee meeting, 3rd ward council member (and Green Street resident) Jason Foster did his best to convince Margaret Morris that a yellow median line and shoulder lines were needed on Green Street to prevent crashes and slow down traffic. (There are zero marking on Green.  It's insane that there isn't a yellow median line, particularly for the bend.)  To prove his point, Jason provided two pictures of vehicle crashes on Green Street, each involving a parked car that was rammed into that he opined might have been prevented with pavement markings.  Jason also said that he was provided the pictures by the Hudson Police Department as a result of a Freedom of Information Law request he had made for them.  I don't recall where things were left after Jason's presentation, but I do know that this issue has not come up again at a Legal Committee meeting.  And for good reason.

The Absolute Insanity of Our Truck Route. Not To Worry, Though -- Margaret Morris Mentioned Something About It A few Months Ago!

Minutes after I left Stewart's this morning, where 7 or 8 Hudson cops were having their annual 2-hour meet-and-greet ("Coffee With A Cop"!) and 4 police vehicles were parked in the always busy and often full parking lot, I came across a tractor trailer pulling a U-turn around the triangle at the bottom of Columbia.  This was a first for me, though I'm sure it's happened many times. Come to think of it, that might be the only place in town that a big rig driver can make a (illegal) U-turn... or even consider attempting it.

Dear Common Council "President" Margaret Morris!

I'm sorry to bother you, Margaret, but I have just a few important questions that I feel require answers from you, an elected city official who owns a Hudson property that abuts two sidewalks.  The issues I bring your way, as I can only assume you will agree, are central to Hudson's public infrastructure, well-being (fiscal and otherwise), and future prosperity and success.  For reasons that I cannot understand, you appear to be ignoring these critical issues.  Thus, the questions for you.

For how many more months will the wooden pallet be leaning against your fence for all the world to walk past and see?  Would you be okay if every property owner in town were so sloppy and inconsiderate?  Isn't the message you're sending out to the world that you don't care what Hudson looks like or how messy it is?  Who are you hoping removes that pallet from your property, Margaret?  Or do you not care if it ever gets removed from public view?  What is the pallet there for?  Who is it there for?  The eyes of passers-by, to enhance the beauty of downtown Hudson?

(I took the picture of your pallet on September 14th, at least 2 weeks after I first noticed it in the same spot.)

ALSO

Who Invited Tesla To Offer Free (Supervised) Rides In Their Driverless Car, The Latest Oktoberfest Tradition?

Were you among the brave and fortunate few to take a ride in a "supervised" driverless Tesla during the Upper Depot Brewery's Oktoberfest celebration on Saturday? No, me neither!

WORKING SMOKE ALARMS SAVE LIVES, You Say? What About WORKING FIRE HYDRANTS? Do They SAVE LIVES Too?

It seems to me that in the most practical of terms there's no difference between the purpose of a smoke alarm and a fire hydrant: they're both intended to prevent fires and save lives and structures when a fire does occur.  They go about their jobs differently, but they both have the same goal in mind; they are both part of the arsenal of fire safety, along with fire extinguishers.  The only difference is that one is inside a structure while the other is outside.  And any sensible person or fireman can agree that both alarms and hydrants need to be WORKING in order to prevent fires and save lives and structures.  Furthermore, when they are found to be not working, alarms, extinguishers, and hydrants should be fixed as quickly as possible, like without hesitation.  And if they can't be fixed, they should be replaced with working ones right away!  You never say, as Rob Perry and any number of Hudson Fire Department officials have said at public meetings justifying the existence of out of service hydrants, "There are others should we need them."  This is an idiotic approach to fire and death prevention.  If that thinking applies to fire hydrants, it should apply to smoke alarms, shouldn't it?

Who Paid For Nick Fox's "BUILDING DEPARTMENT" Business Cards and How Much Did They Cost?

Last I checked, there is no such thing as a BUILDING DEPARTMENT associated with Hudson City Hall, not inside 520 Warren nor at any other location, including on 7th Street.  The only departments located at 77 North 7th Street are the Hudson Fire Department and the Hudson Code Enforcement Department.  (The business card is taped to the door leading to the Code office.)

It's Only The 4th or 5th Time In 8 Months. What's The Big Deal?

This morning, for the 4th or 5th time this year, I noticed that the back-to-back plastic scannable parking signs atop the meter pole on the odd side of the 700 block of Columbia just beyond Park Place were no longer where they had been for about the past 25 days.  HUDseen last noticed the signs missing from that pole on September 5th (they were on the ground).   Two more appeared within a day or three. Today's missing signs were not missing yesterday when I walked past them, so someone likely took a disliking to them last night.  There is a saloon a few feet away.  I don't care for that drinking hole, though a while back I heard that mayor Ferris was a regular.  Maybe he still is.

Is This What's Known As Curb Appeal? Or Clutter? Or Just More Expensive Crap We Never Needed In the First Place?

Imagine seeing this every day and night outside your front door more often than you'd prefer.   Who wouldn't want to kick it and spit on it (or pee on it -- hell, dogs can!) at least once every day?  And that lovely white spray-painted circle!  Was that really necessary, and for how many years will it remain beautifying the neighborhood?