Snow job

This weekend’s mini-blizzard dumped 8-10 inches of frozen water particles on Hudson. It was a lot, but hardly unprecedented. For example, the City got more than that in early February of this year.

But this time around, residents and business owners in Hudson sound ready to march on City Hall with torches and snow shovels. Complaints are rife that the City waited too long to begin the removal process, issued confusing parking rules, neglected to post signage, and avidly ticketed holiday shoppers on Warren Street at $35 a pop.

Mayor Bill Hallenbeck and Council President Don Moore countered that they had been generous in not towing cars, as they could have. They also deflected blame onto arcane City regulations which supposedly tied their hands. (Someone—presumably City Attorney Cheryl Roberts—fed Snow Miser Hallenbeck the flimsy excuse that liability somehow prevented the City from posting helpful signage in advance of the actual removal. As if anyone would sue the City for communicating.) Evidently it came as a surprise that Winter might follow Fall, and that snow could drop in December.

Meanwhile, recently-defeated Mayoral candidate Victor Mendolia left off licking his electoral wounds to join the chorus of criticism, following the lead of Council members John Friedman and David Marston, who reported fielding 10 zillion complaints from constituents. Looking at the Hudson Community Board on Facebook, that probably wasn’t an exaggeration.

The problem for politicos on both sides is that the laws and procedures in question have been on the books for ages. Both apologists like Moore and critics like Mendolia were in positions of power over multiple winters and storms; this is not Hudson’s first Winter rodeo. Yet neither side took any action in prior years to address any legislative SNAFUs. Still, everyone is now all over it like white on ice.