Tuesday, January 29, 2013

More About Vacant Houses

There were two Common Council committee meetings last night--Police and Fire--and at both meetings the topic of vacant houses came up--in different contexts.

At the Police Committee meeting, Alderman Nick Haddad (First Ward), committee chair, gratefully acknowledged a service the Hudson Police Department provides to residents. He explained that people can notify the HPD when they are going to be away, and the police will make "special loops" to check on their houses. Haddad made a point of mentioning this in the aftermath of several house burglaries in the First Ward which occurred over the holidays when people were away from home. He noted that the people whose homes had been burglarized had not notified the police of their plans to be absent. 

At the Fire Committee meeting, Fire Chief Craig Haigh also talked about vacant buildings. He urged owners of second homes in Hudson and other buildings that are not occupied on a regular basis to be certain that the interior temperature is kept at a level that prevents pipes from freezing and bursting in extremely cold weather. He noted that so far this year the Fire Department has responded to fifteen calls to deal with burst pipes.

10 comments:

  1. Is this service the Hudson Police Department provides to residents,"that people can notify the HPD when they are going to be away, and the police will make "special loops" to check on their houses",apply to all residents of the City of Hudson?

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    1. I have no reason to believe that it doesn't.

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    2. I've never heard of a police department in the land that doesn't offer such a service upon request, except perhaps in cities.

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    3. Technically Hudson is a city, but for every other purpose the similarity ends there.

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  2. Since I never heard ,HPD has this service,and need to be away many times,this is why I asked.I phoned HPD and they told me that I need to go to HPD and fill out a request form.
    This is very helpful information .Thank-you.

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    1. I'm sorry, Prison Alley, that I omitted the part about going to the police station and filling out a request form. This was not mentioned at the meeting, but it makes sense..

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  3. There's nothing wrong with giving the coppers a thanks and a pat on the back. It encourages community.

    To that end I prefer to emphasize the relative smallness of the place. To exaggerate Hudson's size leads to excuse-making on everyone's part, including residents.

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  4. I just love to read all the comments relative to Gossips' articles. Especially the ones that ALWAYS find something to complain about.
    Really, "unheimlich" are you that negative about everything?

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  5. I've heard Hudson described as "a city" and also as "basically a town" by the same individuals or officials who benefited from either characterization, depending on context.

    I choose to comment on the phenomenon. You're as free not to read it as you are to try to suppress it.

    And is remembering to thank the HPD so negative? (Perhaps you thought I was being ironic, in which case I was not.)

    Instead of carping against carping, why not lend a hand defending what's left of the waterfront? If you'll allow for one more negative observation - and I assure you that it is the source of all the others - people in Hudson only pretend to be interested in things like the South Bay, ecology and waterfront history. We make it so easy for the politicians to see that nobody will actually chip in and do the work of defending these things.

    If there's anyone who can help do some research at the state library in Albany, we need to gather up all documents relating to the history of Standard Oil in the South Bay, and there are apparently enough of them.

    (This research was already accomplished by a predecessor, who has since left Hudson. Unfortunately the research was left behind in the wrong hands, and has since been lost.)

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