Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Looking for a sign: neighborhood end of year report - this street seems to fail to qualify for the "street by street" program. It is now more than 2 months to fix a sign for this neighborhood that seems to lack the requisite political connections.

There is no sign of the street sign in the neighborhood. Thankfully the neighbors can rely upon WAZE to direct vehicles through their neighborhood; they have no need for actual signs (sarcasm). This is a situation created on or about October 31, 2019, when a street sign had to be removed by a work crew in order to move heavy equipment into the neighborhood to replace power poles, so this situation was not a secret to the Village. Background information can be found in a PRIOR RELATED POST of December 20, 2019, Public services for some. Perhaps there is a political order. Friends and allies first? 


Who has the missing sign?
I was provided with an end of the year update on the sign as I was curious whether this sign would be fixed before the end of the year. The situation has deteriorated. First one sign went missing, I was advised that both signs are now missing. We are not sure both were taken back (each on a separate date) to a workshop for repair (replacements parts were readily available at one time in the past) or if the (for Star Wars fans:) The JAWA came by and took the sign for scrap. Perhaps the poles where needed for a neighborhood with greater political pull. 

Here is the end of the year report from the affected neighbor: "Sign still MIA, but at least the Home Depot box was replaced with a traffic cone. Maybe we can get (REDACTED) to write the street numbers on the cone with a Sharpie"

IMPORTANT QUESTION: Does this situation reveal that public works is no longer being properly funded to allow for the same level of service (quick response) once available here in the Village of Palmetto Bay?

At the very least, this is another not-so-shining example of what happens when you remove village operations from the Manager and Staff and create a process where it becomes political. It becomes more important to make a 'bid splash' for the photo ops than making sure our 'quiet residents' are taken care of in a timely manner.

The 'Street by street' should be an end of this current Mayor and Council scapegoating the manager and staff as now the council is directing provision of services. They own it.

Non-political public services means priorities are established as to what needs done, regardless of location, regardless of political donations or other in-kind support to elected officials.

Politicizing public services means its more likely for our elected officials to see that those who will send praise out on social media get served first, even if that means the quiet residents have to wait longer.

Post update - 3:50 PM - the post is live for barely 20 minutes when I received the following photos demonstrating damage to the homeowner swales caused by traffic which the neighbor relates to the missing sign (no object present to alert or to avoid). The exact statement was: "Without a street sign, people seem to be running off the street. This is the other corner. 148st/74pl."
The red circle was added by the contributor to the photo above to mark where the Street Sign once existed.

CONCLUSION: Let’s get the sign (now plural - signs) fixed/restored. The neighborhood remains incomplete, the cost has already gone up due to either loss or damage to the sign and this neighborhood pays the same taxes (higher in 2019) as all other neighborhood, so please put politics aside and address the signage issue 2 months is months too long.

1 comment:

  1. How dollar dd his sign give towards her campaign? This is why it is at the bottom of her so called street-by street.

    ReplyDelete