City Hall has issued the following advisory:
For the safety of bikers participating in the Bike Rodeo tomorrow [Thursday, July 9], Glenwood Blvd will be closed between Parkwood Blvd and the entrance to Oakdale between 4:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. Please plan accordingly. Please spread the word and if you're free tomorrow evening, stop over!
During the rather heated debate in anticipation of the School Budget vote our new kid on the block (Common Sense) talked about the "political capture" of public agencies by (however well-meaning) private organizations. It might be useful to discuss this conceprt further when it's a simple bike event. Who is actually creating this event? Who owns it? Who's paying the insurance? Etc. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteBike Caravans, Bike Rodeos, love to see it. Let's make the City more pedestrian and bike friendly.
DeleteThe FOHY Bike program, where a kid rebuilds a donated bike and keeps it, is a genuinely good idea, and there is a good project leader at work there.
A real thank you to the HPD bike squad, we see you, for keeping at risk stragglers safe from the truck traffic a few weeks ago, of which Hudson is about to have much more:
- the state truck route
- the waterfront haul
- and potentially years of Bliss 2.0 demolition and construction.
But the core issue is unchanged.
HCSD spends $42,000 a kid, among the most expensive in New York, and every month more families do the tax-to-value math and pack a U-Haul for another county, or pay double and send their kids to Redhook or Hawthorne Valley.
Mostly empty yellow buses up Harry Howard by morning, moving vans / uhauls over the Rip Van Winkle by month's end.
Still waiting on the "Parents for Grade-Level Reading and Math" group.
Would the HCSD Lobby / Labor Union allow it?
I guess you missed my point -- or the opportunity to make a point. Of course, bikes are wonderful, but there are 5 "brought to you by" sponsors (or are they owners or agencies or charlatans?) for this bike rodeo, which sounds as wonderful as a "school." I was hoping you would apply the same analysis to the Bike Rodeo as you do to HCSD to show us how we know if this Bike Rodeo is a waste of taxpayer money or not.....
ReplyDeleteNo, Peter, we got it.
DeleteFuller treatment coming in a piece soon.
One caveat worth repeating: captured systems, HCSD included, still has some/many good people and still throw off some good outcomes.
Capture isn't the same as worthless and good effort should be acknowledged.
But since you asked us, and it is Friday...
it tells you something that the marquee photo out of this bike event that circulated online had
1. more adults than kids (2 to 1 ratio)
2. more uniformed sheriff's officers than the district has had National Merit scholars, in a decade
3. more politicians than teachers.
I think Peter is asking the right questions here and, for once, HCS is muddying the waters a little bit.
DeleteI had heard about that event from a friend who sent me a link to it on FB suggesting I might be interested in it predicated entirely on the fact that I own a bike.
I was not interested and the photos of the event that appeared later on social media confirmed the correctness of my judgement: bunch of pre-teen children, possibly some parents, and maybe a couple of actual bike people.
Either way, it was niche and I'd be quite disappointed if any public funds were used for this in any capacity. I am not saying it was useless. But such an event should not come with any costs to residents, and that includes street closures.
That said, I did not perceive it to be an event particularly associated with nor promoted by the HCSD either which is what the Hudson Common Sense narrative seemed to be implying.