More Tax Dollars at Work...

Steve@Advance · Oct 16, 2016

Last week I went to a city park to have my lunch.

There was a maintenance crew there, probably about 10 men total, 3 dump trucks with brush grapples, 2 pickups, supervisors I assume, and a Gradall boom type excavator.

Their mission was to take down a fairly large pecan tree that had split, was mostly dead but still alive enough to support mistletoe.

Seems they had everything they needed... Except a chain saw!

They proceeded to try to push the tree down with the excavator! Had the bucket extended about half way up the tree, tried pushing, ramming, backing up, getting a run at it... This went on for 45 minutes of horrible equipment abuse!

Finally ended up basically using the bucket as an axe, hacking away at the upper limbs until they were thin enough to break them off. They finally got most of it pushed down, don't know what they did next, everything was too long to put in the trucks. About 15 feet of the trunk was still standing.

I had to leave, but I'll bet the mess is still laying there this week! Guess they can't trust the crew with a chain saw!

JMOR · Oct 16, 2016

(quoted from post at 22:49:03 10/16/16) Last week I went to a city park to have my lunch.

There was a maintenance crew there, probably about 10 men total, 3 dump trucks with brush grapples, 2 pickups, supervisors I assume, and a Gradall boom type excavator.

Their mission was to take down a fairly large pecan tree that had split, was mostly dead but still alive enough to support mistletoe.

Seems they had everything they needed... Except a chain saw!

They proceeded to try to push the tree down with the excavator! Had the bucket extended about half way up the tree, tried pushing, ramming, backing up, getting a run at it... This went on for 45 minutes of horrible equipment abuse!

Finally ended up basically using the bucket as an axe, hacking away at the upper limbs until they were thin enough to break them off. They finally got most of it pushed down, don't know what they did next, everything was too long to put in the trucks. About 15 feet of the trunk was still standing.

I had to leave, but I'll bet the mess is still laying there this week! Guess they can't trust the crew with a chain saw!

ah, just government at work wasting your and my tax dollars! They should farm those jobs out to private enterprise where profit as a motive promotes economy!

Ivan in Mich · Oct 16, 2016

I am not so sure about a private company getting it done faster. Here in town there is 18/2
mile section of road that was started in April and they only have it half done now. You o thru
there and they have a backhoe digging a hole and 10 people standing watching plus a half dozen
state inspectors standing watching each with their own clip boards

sms · Oct 17, 2016

Around here lately when a tree falls into/on the the shoulder of the road they send a Gradall and dump truck. Would take 5 minutes with a chainsaw and drag the brush into the woods.

Stephen Newell · Oct 17, 2016

I keep saying idiot is the new national past time. Probably when they googled how to take a tree down on their smart phones chain saw wasn't there.

gtractorfan · Oct 17, 2016

Not uncommon around here to see a city crew using a tractor loader to load small piles of brush onto a dump truck that would be just as easy tossing on by hand.

Hay hay hay · Oct 17, 2016

I keep hearing that local government is more efficient than the national government, and if we did everything locally, it would be done better and cheaper. Your story seems to suggest that all government is inefficient.

Did you, as a tax paying citizen, call the mayor to complain?

If we do not hold our government servants accountable, we can't complain.

RandyB(MI) · Oct 17, 2016

Any business/company/organization where an employee/supervisor can't be fired without an act of congress will be run this way. If you can't cull out the "idiots" soon they will ALL be idiots !

Steamboat · Oct 17, 2016

When I last worked for US Army Corps of Engineers (2011) they had turned all maintenance work over to private contractors. I was supervising the improvement of a 2 mile dirt road, involving placement of 10 road pipes, pulling ditches, grading of roadway and adding gravel. The contractor had a worker that had previously worked for the Corps who was an excellent heavy equipment operator. However they would not allow him on any equipment larger than a shovel. Well to my horror, their so-called operator made his final pass with the grader pushing the spoil back into the ditches he had just pulled. I made objections to the supervisor, the quality control inspector, the job foreman, my supervisor and the natural resource manager. Bottom line was that dirt remained in ditch, culverts plugged up on first rain, and road gutted out worse than before. I threw up my hands and took my 36 year retirement. YA CAN'T FIX STUPID!

Hay hay hay · Oct 17, 2016

So a private contractor was not the solution to every problem?

More Tax Dollars at Work...

Steve@Advance

Well-known Member

JMOR

Well-known Member

Ivan in Mich

Member

sms

Well-known Member

Stephen Newell

Well-known Member

gtractorfan

Well-known Member

Hay hay hay

Well-known Member

RandyB(MI)

Well-known Member

Steamboat

Member

Hay hay hay

Well-known Member

Similar threads