Who Is The Slob At DPW? (Part Five)

Just over two months ago, much to Captain David Miller's delight, DPW did its best to rid the City Hall parking lot of any evidence that it once served its customers with good ol' fashioned parking meters (along with a big helping of what Tom Depietro twice announced as the city's primary malady: "The Tyranny of the Quarter").  I happened to be passing through the lot on a not-so-cold day in March when I came across a DPW crew of 4 or 5 guys filling the several holes (30, I believe) where the meter poles once stood on the black asphalt island in the middle of the lot.  They were using a grey product, likely a quick concrete mix of some sort.  I could see that the mix was too wet, and I knew that what was spilling beyond the holes would not be removed by rain or snow anytime soon.  They didn't seem to care they were making a mess, and since neither Rob Perry nor his foreman, Frank Rogers, were around to keep the results from looking too messy, I guess it didn't matter to anyone at DPW what the island in the city's largest and busiest downtown parking lot looks like.

That also happens to be the city-owned parking lot (downtown's LARGEST!) with one parking kiosk that is located on the sidewalk along the Columbia Street side of the lot, not on the island in the middle of the lot or near the lot's exit on the alley side where you typically see people walking who have just parked in the lot or are returning to their parked cars in the lot.  You know, the people visiting the city who park in the lot and walk to Warren Street to spend their money.  There aren't any coffee or antique shops on Columbia Street, are there?  No, but there sure are a lot of really loud and large trucks!

I digress!

During this month's Infrastructure & Code meeting, I asked Rob Perry if he was aware of the badly cracked sidewalks on both sides of the new Ferry Street bridge, telling him that I had first noticed the cracks about a year ago (this was even before the bridge had officially reopened).  He said, simply, "No," though he was probably too embarrassed to tell the truth.  I asked him if he had ever inspected the bridge, to which he responded, "Engineers did the inspections."  Apparently, it is common practice for Rob Perry to not inspect finished infrastructure such as sidewalks and streets that we pay contractors to create for us.   And you wonder why the city seems to be crumbling apart. 

Just the beginning!

The bridge's cracked sidewalks put Rob Perry in a very difficult situation, primarily because it was our friends at Colarusso who built the bridge.  It's just easier for Rob to ignore the situation and hope no one on the common council holds him accountable for the problem that will not be an easy fix.  The only fix, really, is for the city to force Colarusso to come back and redo the bridge's damaged sidewalks.  Pull all your failed concrete out and try again.  Can you imagine that ever happening?  Can you imagine anyone on the council (or a mayor) with enough cohones to hold Rob Perry's feet to the fire to fix a problem he is ignoring that will most certainly cost us money down the road, if not very soon, a problem that in any self-respecting and properly managed large or small municipality in the country would not have tolerated for one second?

Ready for its fourth patch in two years.
The problem is two feet below at the failed
subbase that was paved over in 2017.  Patches are 
nothing more than bandages over a broken bone.

For those of you who drive a car or ride a bike, have you seen, felt, driven over or tried your best to avoid the awful section of the northbound lane of south 3rd Street just north of Cherry Alley (alongside Steiner's parking lot)?  You can thank Rob Perry for not only ignoring that mess, but also for allowing it to surface years ago. (HUDseen has written extensively on that issue.)  It's yet another expensive problem we don't need, one of at least three soon-to-be expensive rough patches on South 3rd (and the hill beyond Allen Street on the way in and out of town is awful, particularly for us cyclists) courtesy of our DPW Superintendent who, without any effort or shame, continues to prove over and over that he is a slob of the highest order.

Then there's the window to the garbage bag vending machine out front of City Hall.  The "mildly-aged" window, as the mayor so beautifully characterized it.

City Hall continues to fail us, regardless of who is in the mayor's office, it seems.  Maybe there's something evil in the water or air inside 520 Warren.  But how could that be possible if the ladies at the clerk's office are so wonderful all the time?  Maybe the bad water or air is only found on the second floor!

A City Hall in obvious fail mode!