I'm usually somewhat amused when I see the accolades for retiring city personnel. As a landlord, activist and blogger, I've seen many inequalities over the decades. I've seen property owners abused for both revenge and amusement. Pawlowski used code enforcement as a weapon, and his goons are still mostly there in that department. What brings on this rant was the brine applied to the city streets early Wednesday morning. With predicted temperatures above freezing, was the application just an overtime fest for city workers and a brineing of the taxpayers, or erring on the side of caution?
When new Mayor Tuerk announced that he was keeping all department heads* in place, my eyebrows raised. If he had said that he was replacing all department heads, my eyebrows would have raised just the same. An observer wouldn't be able to distinguish between my expressions, nor I between my reactions.
* There is at least one department head that I would retain, but mentioning him/her disrupts the poetry.**
** brineing spelled with e, another literary license
I guess we'll find out on Saturday if the taxpayers are the ones getting brined.
ReplyDeleteThe forecast is calling for an extended period of rain (6+ hours starting around 5 am Saturday morning and sometimes heavy) then followed by snow.
The rain would wash away any brine put down beforehand, so we should have the answer based on what city employees are doing on Friday.
Even then, city taxpayers could still get PLOWed or aSALTed with weekend overtime. So I guess we'll have to see if the response matches what we get.
Anon@7:35, black ice warnings this morning may have made that portion of my post unwarranted. I hope the day comes when my criticism of code dept. abuse is also unwarranted.
ReplyDeleteFriday morning, and I can report that the city has indeed begun "brineing" the roadways.
ReplyDeleteWith the forecast for an extended period of sometimes heavy rain before the conversion to snow, I have to question whether this strategy will have any effect on the roads tomorrow.
Either way, best to rush out to get your milk and bread today :)