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Show wc NUTSHELL DY JIM STILLS weren't even notified. Hours passed before the owners figured out why their business had suddenly plummeted. Recently a citizen’s suggestion that the city do its closures after business hours fell on disinterested and even hostile ears of the city employee in charge. When the citizen took his complaint to the Mayor, she cut him off before he even had a chance to state his case. He considered going to the city administrator and gave up. It just wasn’t worth the battle. And it’s that same wall of bureaucratic resistance that explains why most citizens throw up their hands before they ever take the time to complain. Why even bother? most of us ask. What good will it do? Not all my complaints have to do with street repairs. How about just good manners? For example... often pay my city water bill a hundred bucks at a time. When my credit runs out, I send Head in the Sand? Bunker Mentality? City Hall has it I have lived here for twenty years now. I own a home considering my track record with former city officials, unresponsive and disrespectful of its citizens. I just don’t to be orchestrated malevolence as much as an oblivious common sense. Let me provide some examples. all... and pay my taxes and incredibly, 1 have never seen City Hall so get it. It doesn’t really seem to me disregard for good manners and them another C note. Because I misread my statement, I mistakenly thought I had a credit when I really owed $19. Five days after the due date...FIVE DAYS...I got this in the mail: DISCONNECT NOTICE FINAL NOTICE CITY OF MOAB 115 WEST 200 SOUTH - MOAB, UTAH 84532-2534 (435) 259-5123 Moab’s downtown streets have, for months now, been ina state of constant construction and repair. I have no idea what the purpose of the construction is. This publication has been around for a decade and I have yet to receive a press release from Moab City about any of its activities. But all around Moab, it’s impossible to avoid this construction. Surely the repairs must be needed...I don’t question that (well..not much.). But it’s the way the work is being managed that concerns me. Gaping uncovered five foot deep holes in the pavement are sometimes designated by a single orange cone. An entire lane of traffic on 400 East was closed recently, just a few blocks from the high school, without a flag person to direct or control the traffic flow. Nothing. It was like that - for days. One day I encountered the entrance to 100 South blocked by a backhoe, but there was a small one-lane opening on the far side of the street. I took it and nobody said a word. But shouldn’t there have been some control there? A sign? Anything? Over a month ago, the city tore up a section of pavement at the corner of 400 East and Locust Ln. They still haven’t resurfaced it and a layer of gravel spread across the rest of the pavement has been there just as long. That gravel is like hitting ball bearings when someone tries to turn onto Locust. I waited a month for the city to sweep it, finally gave up, borrowed a push broom, and swept it myself. I sent the city another $100 and a little note. "Since my ‘Final Disconnect Notice’ was sent just five days after the due date, when did you send the FIRST disconnect notice?" Someone from the City actually called and left a message: "If you like, we won't send you any more ‘Final Disconnect Notices," the message said, "But if we do that, you won’t know when you're about to have your water disconnected." It was enough to make me want to pull my hair out. When it comes company doesn’t company. Nor the Moab City. It doesn’t have to delinquent bills, no other utility is that aggressive or hostile. The gas threaten a shutoff on a bill that’s five days late. Nor does the electric phone company. Nor the mortgage company. Nobody does. Nobody but to be like that. You can be a kinder and gentler city government. There are ways to accomplish the same goals and enforce the same rules without insults and hard feelings. The City can give businesses fair warning about road closures and can try to work with the downtown merchants instead of ignoring their existence. The City can acknowledge that events like Rod Benders is an economic boost to Moab and that potholed streets are not going to enhance the image of the town. Form letters from the city about junk or weed violations don’t have to sound as if they were composed by high ranking members of the Third Reich. And those letters don’t have to be delivered to the alleged violators by someone who acts like a member of the Third Reich. I mean...it’s just weeds. It’s not the end of the world. If the weeds are still six feet high after the third letter, then get nasty. It even makes sense from a tactical standpoint. But in all cases, the punishment should fit the crime. Why should a struggling downtown business have to spend an iota of time worrying about threatening letters from the city because her sign is three square feet larger than the ordinance allows? Finally...why...WHY does the city clean its streets in the middle of the day when the curbs are clogged with parked cars? How dopey can you get? And did I forget something? No. I just don’t know what else to say about the cops. Still waiting to hear from City Hall on that one too. (The Death of John Dinsmore is now a permanent feature on the Zephyr web site.) In Utah, put a bullseye on the olympic mascots. The Salt Lake Olympic Committee just released cute little cartoon renderings of the three chosen olympic mascots for the Utah Games. We have chosen to honor the bear, the If you want the job done right... We're supposed to be a tourist town and one of the big events in the Spring is the Rod Bender show. Even I like the Rod Benders. They come to Moab and cruise around in great looking antique cars and don’t tear up the backcountry and spend a lot of money. So how do we greet them? With streets so badly rutted and potholed, ifI owned a $50,000 antique car, I’d think twice about coming back here. A lot of those pits and ruts could have been fixed in an afternoon and the city didn’t think it was important enough to fool with. Nor does the city seem to have a problem shutting down businesses or making access to them nearly impossible during these construction periods. One day last summer an entire block of Center St. west of Main was closed by the city. The merchants on that block 2 RIVERSIDE in about as much esteem as prairie dogs. Re-do the cartoons and put a big bullseye on the "custom and culture" of the rural west who we are. Greetings to the Vaughans.. This issue marks the beginning of a series of sporadic essays by one or more of the Vaughan Brothers. Welcome. Great Plumbers in History... 259-8324 Fred Wilson installed the first bathtub in the White House during the Presidency of William Howard Taft. Tragically the 350 pound Chief Executive climbed into the tub before Fred had finished Residential - Commercial - Sales instal ee - DrainCleaning COMPLETE of the tree. As for rabbits...well..they’re held So here’s the SLOC’s chance to be honest. those little critters’ chests. Let’s not abandon now...not when we can tell the whole world 366.N. 500 PLUMBING =. moas- & HEATING coyote and the snowshow hare as symbols of the wild and glorious west. The animals look so happy and alive. So free! But here in the Great State of Utah, we mostly kill these animals. Coyotes are still considered varmints by a majority of rural Utahans and are more likely to end up ina steel jaw trap than as a lovable and honored mascot. Once ensnared, the coyotes may spend days in the trap, waiting for the trapper to return and finish the job. Bears fare even worse. "Sportsmen" love to use dogs to tree the bear. Then it’s a simple matter of blasting him out LINE OF PLUMBING FIXTL JRES the job. forqeat We'll never ever Frad Wiileon |