Sunday, December 18, 2011

What were they thinking?

Really I don't know and I figure they didn't either. Of whom do I speak? The parks commission of course. These unelected unofficials who have decided to ask the city council for another sack of nails to finish the coffin of economic ruin we seem to be building. Folks understand something, years of poor city planning and pure neglect are coming back to haunt us. Water lines are breaking constantly, streets are in disrepair, old water meters are costing the city thousands or more in revenue daily. Should funding for the community center project be limited? Well considering the fact that we have fireplugs that won't supply water and sewer lines and water lines leaking everywhere I say of course. The center is a great thing but let me explain something our old water lines are asbestos coated, they break and crumble and leak and push that asbestos into.........you guessed it your house. Good old asbestos on tap in thousands of homes waiting to be consumed by your precious snowflakes. That fireplug on your street or in your yard, yeah about that it may work, it may. It is time to do some serious remodeling. We are living in a house of cards that hasn't been maintained since the invention of the wheel. Did you know that when a new business builds here in town and gets ready to tie in to city services folks just kind of guess where the sewer and water lines that will support the load are? Did you know when Huddle House came here no one knew that the only sewer line that was large enough to hands them was on Hyatt street, that's right not under the highway twenty feet away but under Hyatt street two hundred yards away. Think they would have liked to know that ahead of time? There used to be people who worked at the water department that could walk into a field stand on a buried water or sewer line and tell you everything about it. You know what they call all those old timers now? DEAD. Go look at the old hand drawn service line maps if you really want a laugh. We need a real remodel folks. GPS mapping of water and sewer services. Replacement of broken safety equipment. Water meters that log usage correctly so the city can get paid. Wonder how long it would take to make what is needed to fill the gap on funding for the community center if our water meters were billing at one hundred percent instead of the current average of forty percent. Hell the company that wants to do the work said they could make us a profit immediately and are willing to pay us hundreds of thousands back if it didn't. Sounds pretty confident to me. Lets get this stuff done. it only gets more expensive the longer we wait.

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