I’M HAVING TROUBLE JUSTIFING THESE PRACTICES!

(FRAZER CHRONICLE)

(All the News That Nobody Else Will Print)

 

Just call me “John Q Public,” I’m a guy with an inquiring mind, I need input, and in the following two issues that I have, I need answers, and not necessarily the verbiage that I got. The service departments that I’m having trouble with today both are part of what makes the city that I live in run in a relatively smooth manner. That said I do however reserve the right to question whenever I figure that a better way of doing things would make things more efficient, or less costly.

I’m wondering why more people haven’t questioned the departments services that’s got the short hairs on the back of my neck in an attention stance…..(of course I only have short hairs at this point in my life).  I’m talking about the Green Bay Street Department and their propensity to drop plow on wet streets with no snow or ice on them. I also wonder why the driver would salt the same street…..I still can’t figure that one out, no matter what I was told.

I know all about snow ruts and frozen slushy snow, but I also know about what 35 degree temperatures always does to that slush and ice…..it melts it, right down the storm drains. I’m looking at a Snow Plowing Information sheet as I type, and I got to tell you, I’m having a big problem with one sentence, “DPW will be able to clear streets to the curb on the first pass.” The rest of the sentence goes on to tell the reader that the street will not have to return to re-plow, reducing the time it will take to finishing plowing the city.

How do you say Pet Peeve, Green Bay city plows do not plow to the curb, I’m sure that this practice is justified because of the damage done to curbs by hitting them with the blade of a plow, plus the damage to the plow.

I used to live in an area that routinely received 180 to 200 inches of snow during the winters…..and this wasn’t in Alaska or the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The streets in my former home were plowed from curb to curb, and they still are. In Green Bay, the streets go from 20’ to 18’, to 16’, the final measurement are achieved by about mid-March which signifies the outbreak of spring.

My point is simple, if you aren’t going to plow the streets curb to curb, say so, you won’t have that issue to rectify, I’ve plowed before, it’s a tough and thankless job, and can be time consuming. But I do think that the plowers of Green Bay city streets, should get closer.  

It’s appropriations time, the winters over, salt supplies are low, sand supplies (if it is even used) is low, time for next year’s supplies to be ordered. SSSOOO the plow and salt trucks hit the streets at a moment’s notice, kind of the not out of sight…..thing.

You’ll probably read this wrong, because I greatly appreciate what the street department here in Green Bay does…..but improvements can be made, maybe better judgment used. I personally could care less what a city official feels about his job, he’s on my clock, and when you’re on my clock, you’ll do the very best that you can…..cause I’ll be WATCHING!

A $500,000 TO $1,000,000 GROCERY PICK-UP TRUCK

Okay another PET PEEVE, the fire truck being used for pick-up and delivery service kind of like from the store to your door. I live a couple blocks from a major grocery store on the east side of Green Bay and I’ll see a fire truck with fire-fighters sitting in a running truck, while a couple of their team shops the aisles for their culinary delights.

This isn’t just once a week, oh no, its two and three times a week, I’ve been kind of ticked off at this practice for several years so I started to piece together some background information on this issue, and you’d be surprised at the cost, and what I was told as justifiable reasons for the practice, not only from the Green Bay FD, but from Milwaukee, New York City, Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Traverse City, Michigan.

They ALL follow the same operating procedure to feed their department force on any given 24 hour shift…..I was flabbergasted, especially in this time of austerity. It kind of reminds me of the street work crew where one guy is digging a hole and the other four guys on the crew are leaning on their shovels smoking cigarettes and carrying on a conversation.

Without exception every answer that I got to justify the act or practice was to;

1. Check the operational ability of the vehicle

2. Get fuel

3. Keep the firemen aware of the equipment that they use

4. Used in conjunction with fire safety surveys

5. Used in conjunction with fire inspections

6. Its protocol (the lamest reason of all)

Here are some sobering numbers for you all to carry away from my blog (by the way I told each person that I talked to that I was a blogger), the financial numbers, to me, were attention grabbing. These figures are based on 8 fire stations with the same grocery shopping procedures used;

1. Miles driven per week, 30 miles a week x 52 = 1,560 miles

2. Cost to taxpayers per year, 1,560 miles x .80 cent per mile, $1,248 per year.

3. Total cost x 8 fire stations, $1,248 per year x 8 = $9,984 total.

No matter the excuses, no matter the protocol, $9,984, is $9,984, is well you get my point…..do you, really? Street Departments and the Fire Departments offer tremendous services to us all, and to all of those who visit the area. And I tip my cap to them to each and every member of both departments.

However I take my responsibility as a blogger to report ALL OF THE NEWS THAT NOBODY ELSE WILL PRINT, and I do. If you want to continue paying the city’s fire-fighters to go grocery shopping, hey who am I to disagree. If you feel that it’s okay for the street department to plow asphalt and cement with neither snow or ice on them, and then to salt the same streets because it’ll be 35 degrees during the day, and then 19 degrees at night. Well la-de-da, exactly who am I.

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!