Monday, August 28, 2006

A little rant...

Politicians have no common sense. I'm sure of it, now.

We live in a little town. I mean little. Less than 1,000 people. Everyone knows the local politicians so well, they can probably tell you what they have for breakfast and what time they walk their dogs.

Anyway, since I've lived here, the county, in its infinite wisdom, decided to keep the budget down by grading the local dirt roads with flint rock. FYI, flint rock has sharp edges and ruins tires, in addition to NOT being easily absorbed into the subsoil. In rural places put down enough layers of rocks and eventually the road absorbs enough in the subsoil to seem almost paved. Not the case here. It also makes the roads slick and dangerous when wet. You have to drive less than 5 mph if you don't want to skid and slip all over on rainy days. We've had people skid and end up in ditches.

Many people have complained to the local ciy government.

The city decided the have a meeting for the locals about it. Now, on any day of the week the city government offices do not open until 8 am at the earliest. Regular 8-5ers, our government. Every time I've gone in there, and I've gone plenty of times the last few months with the construction issues...I've been the only customer. They all have jobs, but lets just say the routine isn't strenuous.

But they don't want to hear about the roads. So they simply decided to call a emergency meeting at 7 AM in the morning on a day that rain was predicted...on the courthouse lawn. Not inside, mind you. On the lawn. At 7 am. Earlier than they even get to work.

They're in for a shock. Our neighbor went up and down our road and got promises from all the other neighbors to attend if possible. On our road of some 12 families - at least 8 representatives will be there.

Silly politicians. Like setting up a meeting at an inconvenient time and place would stop a bunch of mostly retired citizens into not going. Heck, they live for this kind of stuff! LOL

We shall see what, if anything, transpires. Doubt they'll do much to improve conditions. The budget for this year is probably already tentatively set. But maybe, just maybe, for our little 1 mile stretch of road they'll hire the county grader NEXT DOOR to simply finish grading our road. See, our road dovetails into the next county. Only one mile of it is in our county. The rest is in the other county. The other county grades and rocks their section of the road so well you feel like you're on pavement. To all of us it makes sense to pay the other county to simply finish the job.

But politicians, they don't see it that way. They get mighty territorial even about doing their own bad jobs...unless they need to lay blame, of course. Then its always someone else's fault.

I expect Mom and Pa to come home with either no resolution or a half-assed one. Seems the way of it these days.