Is EVERYTHING Broken?

Given the city's troubling financial outlook, I wasn't at all surprised to see that yesterday's scheduled monthly meeting of the FINANCE Committee was cancelled.  Not rescheduled (it's too late in the month for that, I guess) but cancelled.  That committee is made up of Margaret Morris, Rich Volo, and two others who we should not be relying on for anything -- Mohammed Rony and Lola Roberts.  At least Greenport resident Dewan The Fraud Sarowar isn't offering any financial wisdom to the committee.  Thank goodness for miracles!

Here we are at the end of the tenth month of the year of our discontent, and the FINANCE Committee has met just 6 times.  No meetings were held in January, February, May, or October.  Mohammed Rony was absent from two of those six meetings. 

Because yesterday's Finance Committee meeting was cancelled, Treasurer Heather Campbell did not have an opportunity to offer her grim assessment of the city's finances in what is known as her Treasurer's report. Granted, Heather, Margaret, and others have been quite busy the past few weeks dealing with next year's budget, and let me tell you, things are not looking good at all in that department.

The public trash can seen in the pictures above is the can closest to City Hall.  Notice in the lead picture that it is locked.  There is no way that in the past two or three months at least two DPW workers have not been well aware of the lid's damaged and unsecured hinge.  The damage and ugliness goes ignored -- also known as neglect -- and Rob Perry even admits as much.  Of course, I have to pry it out of him!

During this month's meeting of the so-called Code & Infrastructure Committee (which Code abandoned 5 months ago), I finally had a chance to ask our $125,000 DPW Superintendent how he feels about all cracked concrete on the Ferry Street bridge, a $2.5 million project (maybe more) done by Colarusso that allowed the bridge to reopen last spring.  (Since Jason Foster and Henry Haddad didn't see any need to ask Rob about the cracks that I made all three of them fully aware of months ago, I thought I should do the asking.)  Perry actually told me and others paying attention that he was not expecting the cracks on the bridge's concrete surface (found on the sidewalks, traffic lanes, and island) but that he was not at all concerned about them, even if they worsen.  Henry Haddad, our self-appointed Safety Guru, agreed with Rob's assessment of the cracked concrete surfaces of the 18-month-old Ferry Street bridge that began cracking within one month of Colarusso mixing and pouring their concrete in the dead of winter.  (If you don't believe what I'm claiming that Rob and Henry said, go to the 44th minute of the meeting that is on YouTube.)

The brokenness seems to have become the status quo; it is part of the city's fabric.  We are going in the wrong direction, just like the rest of the country and, it seems, the entire world. 

I took a picture yesterday of a father pushing his infant child in a stroller in the shoulder between the lakes.  They were at about the point where, last December, a driver headed down the hill lost control of their car and left the traffic lane (likely due to speed and snow), crossed the shoulder, climbed up and over the sloped end of the guardrail, and slammed into a utility pole behind the upright portion of the guardrail, nearly breaking it in two.  (The pole that replaced the broken one is out of view in the picture below.)

About twenty seconds before taking the picture, the father was forced to avoid a sunken storm drain and chunks of asphalt surrounding it, as seen below. That ignored mess -- in an exposed shoulder/walkway where vehicles zip by a few feet away at 20 to 40 mph -- has been annoying bicyclists and pedestrians for years. Of course, it doesn't bother Rob Perry or his family members. Nor mayor Joe Ferris, who lives less than two blocks away.  There is rampant disregard in Hudson for the safety of pedestrians, on and off sidewalks.

With almost all of the asphalt debris to the left of the sunken drain, the father had no choice but to briefly veer into the traffic lane to the right of the mess.  Then he (and baby) veered left back into the shoulder to continue walking home.  

In early March, nearly 8 months ago, Jason Foster of the Infrastructure Committee requested that Rob take a look at the dangerous mess that the walking area between the lakes had become.  There was no talk of one side of the street or the other. About two months ago, the Oakdale side of the street was patched by DPW, while the side that everyone walks on (even with babies and children in tow) was ignored.  I asked Rob about this at last month's meeting (because Jason had apparently forgotten his request to Rob in March), and all he could say was that he was told to repair just one side of the street, which was done, and that the other side would have to wait.  And Jason Foster didn't have a thing to say about the bullshit coming out of Rob Perry's mouth.  Even the bullshit is normalized.

I predict that if someone - pedestrian(s), bicyclist(s), infant(s), child(ren), or a combination thereof -- is to be killed by a vehicle in Hudson, it will take place on North 6th/Glenwood Boulevard between the lakes, possibly at the entrance to Oakdale, where there is nothing warning drivers headed down the hill from Washington what lies ahead.  No speed limit sign nor SLOW THE HELL DOWN, THERE IS PARK ENTRANCE AND EXIT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HILL sign.  A preventable tragedy is bound to happen on the busy and speedy straightaway between those two hills and the lakes.

Here's another preventable tragedy that's been waiting to happen for the past 9 months or more on North 2nd Street.  Think Rob Perry gives a hoot if a child gets electrocuted and the city gets sued for stupidity and negligence?  Would it even cost Rob The Slob his job?