I have to respond to some things that Ester has written in her blog. I could call it trash but leave it to Ester to downgrade our Reporter by calling it a rag. She says the roads started to fall apart right away. The paving company had an open meeting here before the delegates voted to go cheap. He said if they did not go down to bedrock wherever there were old cracks they would come through. He was right. The delegates voted for the cheaper road cost and we got what we paid for.
As for the Reporter, we have a very informative newspaper in the village run by very hard working VOLUNTEERS. The people put their hearts into the paper and I think they are doing a very good job. There is nothing in the village that Ester likes since she lost an election a few years ago. If I felt the way she does I would find another place to live where I enjoyed what the place had to offer. She is just one negative personality.
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You've made this point before about the roads, Grace. It's a good one and you're right. We were TOLD at the outset that to redo the whole Village, for the few million we could afford, it could only be a surface repair job. We did manage to get a number of the worst drains cleaned out first and some swales fixed, but as you rightly remind us, this was NEVER INTENDED TO BE COMPLETE REMOVAL OF OLD PAVEMENT, OR REPLACING THE BASE AGGREGRATE (small stones, etc. that form a sound foundation for the tarred-macadam pavement).
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing unusual in doing a surface job. It is done all the time by towns and cities. Eventually, of course, they must go down to the base structure, but to do this every time the surface needed repairs would be insane costwise. The malcontents either know this or they are pretty dumb. It's a hobbyhorse with them to attack Dave. And to bring it up now—eight years after the roads job was done—is ludicrous and shows a certain amount of desperation.
And what added to our difficulties was what Ed Grossman did—and bragged about—by calling County Code Enforcement, or somewhere like that, seizing on the issue of there not being the right distance between all the repainted parking space lines. The better way for this to have been handled would have been for Mr. Grossman to have brought this matter up with the appropriate UCO personnel, so it could be DISCUSSED and determined whether it should be brought up with the contractor after the fact, and if so, just how. I don't know if Mr. Grossman tried this approach, but to just INSERT ONESELF as an outsider into sensitive negotiations concerning millions of dollars can be very detrimental to the party (the Village) one is ostensibly trying to HELP! If we and the contractor had overlooked this minute point of the law, wise heads might have said, "Leave it alone at this late date. The contractor has done a terrific job for us at rock-bottom rates. Besides, he has agreed to do X and Y and Z for us at no charge. Let's not jeopardize his good will concerning those items." That's what often happens in real life. What Mr. Grossman did sounds like meddling and glory-seeking to a lot of people.
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