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

[Art Deco]

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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