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.

Meanwhile, directly across the street, Parking Captain David Miller hasn't bothered to replace the missing pair of signs in front of 720 Columbia that went missing about two months ago.  And the missing signs once on the pole closest to 8th & Columbia still have not been replaced since they dropped to the ground on September 6th.  Why were any of those signs ever installed if Miller is now going to stop replacing them?  Because they were unnecessary to begin with?  Because he's finally run out of patience, energy, and/or taxpayer money budgeted for parking sign replacement?   Or is putting criminals behind bars getting in the way of his attention to parking matters, including replacing solar panels on kiosks?

According to an inside source, as of last summer when, in David Miller's own words, "HPD took over parking," both Captain David Miller and Police Clerk Doreen Danforth (who have both always been full-time HPD employees) "share duties" to oversee the new paid parking system.  The duties were added to their job responsibilities and their pay was increased, but neither of them work for the Parking Bureau.  Exactly how their "sharing" agreement works I do not know, though it's possibly some sort of tag team effort.  Are they both responsible for the signs and the kiosks when they need attention?  Or is no one responsible for them?  It's really, really difficult to know what the heck is going on over there at 701 Union Street, isn't it?  One thing is for certain, though:  chair of the so-called SAFETY Committee, Henry Haddad, doesn't give a hoot about any of this.  And why would we expect him to?  Parking signs don't have anything to do with safety, do they?  And neither does parking revenue, does it?

Signs still missing for nearly 30 days.
 WHATEVER! (8th & Columbia)