Tonight, I thought I would check the City of Hudson website to see if the Zoom link for Wednesday's IDA public hearing was now available, as I was told it would be. When I clicked on cityofhudson.org, this is what I got.
You gotta wonder if this sort of thing would happen if we had a city manager.
COPYRIGHT 2025 CAROLE OSTERINK
Yeah, this is bad and warrants a WTF.
ReplyDeleteConveniently, I had just sent an email to three recipients with a cityofhudson.org email address and I reckon its delivery is now very much in jeopardy, too.
My understanding is that the city doesn't have a dedicated employee tending to its online presence. It's something that would be most welcome but it doesn't come for free.
That said, hudsonny.gov still works. May not be of help with that email I sent recently...
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't me... 😜
ReplyDeleteBut everyone who texted me to buy it... I love you too.
Whoever bought it... sell it back to the city in exchange for a lifetime supply of Blue Bags!
On a more serious note... the City websites are not accessible from abroad and you have to VPN in to get basic meeting notes and agenda.
A city manager would A) not let domains expire, B) make the site available from abroad C) run a monthly / quarterly newsletter that pushes key civic updates so that we don't have to follow half a dozen sites, including Kamal's facebook page, to get basic civic updates about parking, water mains, and legislative meetings.
Hopefully the city's outsourced IT agency grabbed it within the renewal window...
ReplyDelete🏴☠️ If this were a bad actor ... the new owner could easily intercept a lot of private or sensitive emails sent to City Hall officials, hijack password reset processes in the Treasurer's office... etc.
Kamal has ambitions for higher office (Governor, we hear, and never misses a protest about some faraway issue in EMEA or DC) but he can't keep a small city's website up, the bills paid, or post senior job openings in a fair and "equitable" way.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Have any of you 'City Managers are Magic' folks ever done a simple Google search for "City manager scandal"? I ask because many of you seem to think that every single issue can be solved--or prevented--by a manger. It's an awful lot to promise people, that switching from one sort of administrator to another will obviate any and all issues to ever occur from that point forward. And it's BS.
ReplyDeleteThis is true. A city manager doesn’t preclude the possibility of scandal and I’m sure one could find many examples throughout the country.
DeleteBut I have a hunch that if, say a year or so in the future, if someone decides to do a simple Google search for “Hudson Mayor Scandal,” the results may be quite illuminating.
It's less about scandals and more about the idea that City Managers are omnipotent, faultless civic demigods. The notion that nothing will ever go wrong and all problems will be solved by a City Manager is ridiculous. I'm not sure who the intended audience is for these assertions. Children?
Delete0 - "Studies have shown that municipalities with a council-manager form of government are 57% less likely to have corruption convictions compared to those with a mayor-council system." **
ReplyDelete1 - If a City Manager underperforms the democratically elected Council can fire him.
If a Mayor (like Kamal) is bad, you are stuck with him until the next election, and in the meantime he can cause more collateral damage. See what Kamal is doing to the City Clerk position.
2 - If Hudson Mayor = not working. It is logical to try something new. Nothing is perfect, but progress depends on trying new things and wanting to be better.
3 - A City Manager wants to be a City Manager. She studied and apprenticed to become one. Full-time career politician mayors (like Kamal) want to get into higher office... why are Hudson residents subsidizing Kamal's pipe dreams?
4 - Chris, what is your idea to make Hudson better?
Do you want to run for mayor and be the best mayor America has ever seen?
** Reference:
https://www.nationalcivicleague.org/study-shows-less-corruption-in-city-manager-systems/