[Vision2020] Ode to the City of Moscow Public works Department

[Art Deco]

Good points!

While we are talking about insurance, why doesn't the city require performance bonds on all public and development projects instead of allowing the favored not to do so?  For example, how much will the Michael Hoffman mess on Mountain View cost the city?

W.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Wayne Price 
  To: Art Deco 
  Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2009 11:11 AM
  Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Ode to the City of Moscow Public works Department


  Wayne,


  While we're on this particular topic, what ever happened to "Quality Control"  or contract oversight on city projects?  Easy examples are located all over the city in plain sight, let alone the ones below ground that we'll never see until 
  the City Council sticks its collective hand into the tax payers pockets!  Next time you're downtown, take a look at the recently paved alley way between the buildings located on the west side of Main Street and the parking lot.  I don't know a lot about engineering road ways, but I can tell you this much, water runs down hill and the drains to the storm water sewer is UPHILL the way it has been paved!  Water lays on the roadway, and during freeze-thaw cycles will eventually tear up the roadway and require repaving.  IF only that would have been checked BEFORE the final check went to the contractors who paved it!  And if you take a look at the storm drain in front of Buccer's on Main Street, and the storm drain in front of Sisters on the northeastern side of Main, the lips of the drain are well above the street level!  No matter how much Public Works would like for it to happen, water does not run UP HILL! Granted, the city didn't pave the streets like that, but where was the oversight of the contractors that did?  What happened to contract compliance? OR wasn't it in the various paving contracts that the streets be paved so that the water runs down hill to the drains? Doesn't the city require insurance be provided by the contractors on their work?  Has anything been initiated so that the contractors  so that IF THEY WON'T their shoddy work, they never get awarded a paving contract again paid for by the taxpayers? No, the current sitting council is more concerned about smokers being 20 feet from an entrance door  or God forbid we have too many chickens being raised in the city!  Our esteemed city attorney can study and write legislation for chickens but can't go after sub standard performing contractors that fleece the city!




  WMP






















  On Dec 9, 2009, at 10:24 AM, Art Deco wrote:


    Chuck,

    You might compare the pace of work of the city public works employees with that, say, of those employees at Les Schwab, who understand the importance of working at a reasonable pace to satisfy their employers and to satisfy their employer's customers (who ultimately pay the employees' wages, like the taxpayers who pay the wages of the public works employees).

    For example, several of us watched the city doing work on Jefferson between 3rd and 6th this summer.  What a joke.  Generally, not only was the one person actually doing the work moving slow, but there were some public works workers just standing around or sitting under a tree.  Those of us who come to the post office daily observed this on several occasions and remarked upon it.

    Then there are the street markings workers.  How slow can you move without being confused with snails or statues? 

    Why does it take three people to trim low hanging branches from a tree?

    My comments are not about how well the work gets done (although in the case first cited above among others, there are were some serious questions*), but how slow the workers are.  During my summer travels, I can assure you that in some cities and other places, I see city/county/state workers actually work at a reasonably good pace and without an overabundance of standees.  Can you imagine this:  In one city it took one employee just five minutes to replace a street sign!  Good luck in seeing this in Moscow.

    Slow workers or standing around workers mean higher taxes for residents, or in the alternative, less money to spend on other items.  One would hope that in these recessionary times workers and their supervisors would show enough concern and sensitivity to public perception/pain to perform at a reasonable pace.  I view this as a supervisory/management problem, and one of long standing.  It is also one of certain other city officials being in denial about the problem.

    If the public works department head or the underlying supervisors do not promote/insist upon a reasonable work pace, it is unlikely that the actual workers will voluntarily adopt such.  I cannot say from personal experience in the city of Moscow (but only by anecdotal evidence), but it is possible that certain city public works workers who want to work faster or smarter are sometimes discouraged from doing so by their peers who have been employed longer by the city.

    Wayne A. Fox
    1009 Karen Lane
    PO Box 9421
    Moscow, ID  83843

    waf at moscow.com
    208 882-7975


    *Why was the excuse of not knowing about the lack of suitable Jefferson substrata used to explain the delay in resurfacing Jefferson when the city had dug (and redug) several very deep holes in Jefferson when working on the water mains several weeks (months?) earlier?  The long delay in paving/reopening Jefferson not only was inconvenient for those using the federal building, including the post office, but most likely impacted the businesses at 3rd and Jefferson where the ingress/egress from the parking lot was a hassle.



    ----- Original Message -----
      From: Chuck Kovis
      To: Art Deco ; Vision 2020
      Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2009 9:07 AM
      Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Ode to the City of Moscow Public works Department


      What a cheap shot.  This city is as well run as any I have ever seen.  Chuck Kovis
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