| Re: Bike snowplow guy threatened by park district.
Dennis P. Harris wrote:
> a couple of springs ago, when we couldn't get our local DOT crew
> to get the winter's grit out of the bike lane on a heavily cycled
> highway, a few club members got together a saturday morning work
> party and started with a truck, push brooms, & shovels at the
> edge of town. after about 2 miles & 2 hours, an irate DOT
> foreman showed up and threatened to have us arrested if we kept
> sweeping. said it was a "liability problem" although we all had
> on safety vests and it was a nice sunny day.
I'd tell him to go to hell, and if it's an actual crime he could get the police
to arrest you. Or he could send a crew to do the job they're supposed to, so
the people wouldn't have to do it themselves.
> one of the guys took pix and i sent a short note to the
> governor's office (our previous governor was quite athletic and
> did cycle occasionally) along with the pix, to the staffer
> responsible for DOT liason. 2 days later they sent out the
> sweeper; the lanes were clean for the rest of the summer.
> i think the liablity issue is just a control issue for some anal
> bureaucrat.
Bureaucrats with control issues? Do ya think?
If you do their work for them, they can't get money appropriated for their
departments to do it, and hire people that said bureaucrats would be boss of.
So you're cutting off their careers at the knees, taking a slice out of their
piece of the pie. This is why many volunteer efforts are met with hostility.
Matt O.
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