We Don't Need No Stinking Work Orders!

This Guest Editorial by 'Fool on the Hill' was first posted on the BisbeeForum on 4/30/06:

Title: Bisbee Public Works - We Don't Need No Stinking Work Orders!

So the latest story, according to the Observer, is that Public Works has undifferentiated HURF dollars that they spend of paving projects. No mention of plans, priorities, or any kind of council oversight or direction - might that be because there isn't any???

Hey, just take a ride around and see if you can divine exactly what motivates the recent paving projects you find. A filled pothole? How in hell does anyone pick which ones to tackle from our collection (Bisbee = biggest and baddest potholes West of Albert Hall)? According to past press releases, citizens merely need to pick up the phone and call in their favorite pothole to Public Works. Really - is it first squawked, first served?

Here in Warren, alleys get paved while downright hazardous streets like the hill on Minder going up over the ridge from Black Knob to Yuma Trail gets ignored. That's what Peter [von Gundlach]'s squawking about, and good on him for hanging in there! If there is a PW plan for what gets paved and when, it's been cleverly concealed. Why Council can't set goals and policy directives for the use of HURF money is the question at hand, followed closely by the question of what responsibility Russ McConnell has for the mess on Minder Street?

And let's not ignore the poor quality of paving done by City crews on these paving jobs. Most of what I've seen looks like a waste of perfectly good asphalt - NO proper removal of damaged pavement, NO adequate base repair or preparation, NO proper grading or compaction of the new asphalt. Hell, grass is already growing through much of the asphalt laid in Warren over the past 6 months! Might it not be more efficient to just simply burn our HURF dollars and spare the City the wasted labor expense of pretending to patch or repave streets?

Peter is working up a petition asking the City to comply with the Charter and fill the mandated position of City Engineer with a qualified and currently licensed civil engineer. If we had one, it's hard to imagine he or she would tolerate the extremely poor quality of current PW paving work. You say we can't afford one? I say we can't afford NOT to have one. If you think the City has no plan for or little expertise in street paving, just think how we are not dealing with the problem of failing terraces. Talk about a shoe waiting to drop! One of these days the rains will return to fall on Bisbee, and when they do expect more terrace walls to fall with them.

Russ McConnell can summon all sorts of arguments and reasons why private property owners need to act and why the City has/is/will do everything they can, but can't fix everything that's wrong. Setting aside the basic fact that Russ can't tell you about any terrace condition monitoring and repair master plan BECAUSE THERE ISN'T ANY, the City is has a growing liability for predictable (and in some cases, imminent) catastrophic terrace failures. When the crumbling terrace supporting the water tank above High Road goes, someone's going to get hurt or quite possibly killed, and the AZ League of City and Towns will toss Bisbee out of the insurance pool for being so obstinate and stupid as to ignore imminent peril and sink the pool with hideous and completely avoidable claims. And when Bisbee has to pay premium rates for marginal liability coverage because of our rotten and incredibly stupid claim history, a City Engineer will seem cheap!

The thing that gets me riled is that no one on Council or in the city administration shows any leadership at all on these larger infrastructure issues, let alone the Minder Ave attempted boondoggle (which sorry, does indeed look like a hand-in-the-cookie-jar moment). And apparently, Russ must be bulletproof, as he is obviously stonewalling Pauken's inquiry and getting away with it. 

Big Brother sets back the clock to 1984
Zoning code revisions only a gated community could love.