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.)

Not only have no additional NO RIGHT ON RED signs been installed in the ensuing four months, but Henry Haddad hasn't even bothered requesting any more of them.  One and done, as they say!

The DO NOT ENTER signs Henry requested were all meant for the eyes of wrong way drivers at 3 intersections:  4th & Columbia, 6th & Columbia, and 7th & State.  The latter (which I lobbied for) was arguably the most important of the three because State Street traffic at 7th Street, unlike Columbia Street traffic at every intersection, never has to stop.  The results of a collision between a wrong way vehicle on 7th entering the intersection at State and a 30-mph vehicle (or a bicyclist or two) headed east or west on State through the intersection is not a pretty image.  It could very easily happen (I'm surprised it hasn't), and it could be devastating.  Alas, not only has that important sign not been installed over 4 months after Henry requested it on June 1st, but he also hasn't asked Mishanda Franklin, David Miller, or Rob Perry where the hell it is and what's holding things up.  Rather, Henry seems to have changed his mind and no longer feels a DO NOT ENTER sign is necessary at 7th & State.  In a strange twist of WTF, the other two DO NOT ENTER signs were both installed within a week of Henry's request.  He didn't mind those signs being installed!  Our SAFETY guru is batting .750 four months into the season.  Not bad at all!

Who convinced Henry that it was a stupid idea of his to think a DO NOT ENTER sign was needed at 7th & State in the first place?  Was it our Safety mayor Ferris, the guy who recently got Rob Perry to install four crosswalks at that intersection to maybe make it safer for pedestrians and slow traffic down?  Ferris isn't part of Henry Haddad's so-called SAFETY Committee, is he? 

If there is one thing that is as clear as day regarding Hudson City Hall, it's that it is an organizational train wreck.  Or a car wreck, perhaps with body parts littering an intersection and a mayor asking himself how he might prevent another one at the same location.

Here are a few things that Rob Perry had to say about the no right on red issue during his DPW report at the May meeting of the Code & Infrastructure Committee, the final meeting that Nick Fox at Code Enforcement participated in as he was soon transferred to the so-called SAFETY Committee by Henry Haddad, who serves on both committees.  Five months later, the committee name of Margaret Morris's creation still includes the word CODE.  

This was the first meeting that acknowledgment was made that a blanket no turn on red rule was not possible in Hudson.

This was Rob's introduction:  "Because I know you guys have a no right on red story, DPW has zero opinion on this matter.  I'm just stating this for the record."

"You guys"? "A story"? "Zero opinion?"  What "record"?

In regard to a city-wide blanket/default no right on red rule, our $125,000 DPW Superintendent said, "I've spoken to law enforcement and they said that right on red is the default permitted in the State of New York if you're a municipality of less than a million or more, which is basically Yonkers and New York City."

Which is it Rob, less than or more than a million?

Perry also claimed that installing NO TURN ON RED signs where they are missing would require 43 signs and lots of hardware at a cost of anywhere from "$13,000 to $15,000."  He included a map with hand-written numbers of signs at each intersection that lacked them, an effort that must have taken him at least an hour to complete (not to mention loading his map up to his computer for his report).  He then offered, "There's no money in any account for all this hardware." 

Then why the hell have we been talking about this for months if there's no money to get it done in the first place?

Rob's final comments on the issue proved, once again, that he is a true team player ready to help move Hudson in the right direction:  "You guys are going to do your due diligence to find out if it's even necessary.  Right?  And while you're at it, you might want to see if it's going to be important."

Committee chair Jason Foster then offered a page of his own helpful homework on the sign issue that he had created without Rob's or his co-chair Henry Haddad's assistance.  (They're all team players!)  It was a list of about 12 intersections (with commentary following each one) that Jason thought could use NO RIGHT ON RED signs.  The words COULD, SHOULD and MAYBE were all over it, clear signs of a professional's work, which must have taken him hours to complete.  Jason spoke about his list for a minute or so, then concluded, "If anyone wants to opine on this list and prioritize them, I sent it to the mayor to do that.  I'm just passing it on to make it public." 

You "sent it to the mayor"?  Why?  So he could throw it away?

The date was May 11th, 2026, about 150 days ago.  Inside Hudson City Hall.  It's frightening how much time and talk these people waste to get nowhere at all.

Last month, Jason Foster was not able to hold his monthly Code & Infrastructure meeting (typically held on the second Monday of the month) because the astute scheduler of meetings had rescheduled the SAFETY meeting (typically held on the first Monday of the month) for the second Monday due to Labor Day falling on the first Monday.  The two meetings were scheduled to begin at the same exact time on September 14th!  So, when the scheduling conflict was finally realized, someone decided (possibly Jason, and possibly after drawing straws with Henry Haddad) that Henry's SAFETY meeting would take place on its rescheduled Monday while Jason's Code & Infrastructure meeting would be pushed off of its scheduled Monday to wait for another 4 weeks and 3 days, on this coming Thursday.  Here is a screenshot of the meeting schedule for the day last month that two committee meeting were scheduled to be held in the City Hall chambers at the exact same time.  You can still find this on the city's website.  You can't make this shit up.  This image doesn't just say a lot, does it?  No, it doesn't! It says everything you need to know about rampant normalized dysfunction and incompetence at City Hall, with no shortage of help from Margaret Morris's committee structure she forced on the council.