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Plowing Arvada

Contributed by: Micheal Gieger on 2/2/2007

I have read many stories and heard multitudes of people complain about the side streets not being plowed in Arvada. Everyone says, "I pay my taxes and the city can't even get a plow down my street when it snows."

I've heard about people calling the city only to be put off or fed a line of you-know-what.

Let's set the facts straight as far as I see them at this point.

Although the city did keep the main arteries clean, most of the side streets have not been touched. Since the snow began falling each weekend for the last seven weeks, I have seen one plow on my street which occurred approximately six weeks ago.

How do I know this? The plow, accompanied by a front-end loader, woke me up at 3 am. The crew diligently rumbled down my street for 15 minutes, effectively clearing the street of the first blizzard. They also locked my plumbing van in a snow-cacoon I wasn't able to clear for three weeks, not to mention shoving a wonderful new snow drift in front of my driveway which I had spent hours clearing the afternoon before.

Although I was grateful for the work they did on the street, I think they caused a great deal of undue strife for the residents on our street.

Ah, let's not live in the past. Keep your mind on the here and now young Padawan.

Here we are weeks later and still no return trip from my midnight friends. My neighbors have a 4-wheel drive and they now park their truck atop a frozen 4-foot ice drift compliments of the city.

The street looks like some kind of pitted moonscape and I just can't wait to see what the asphalt is going to look like once everything is cleared (if that ever happens). Anyone who has lived here through a major storm knows what packed snow and car traffic does to asphalt. The road crumbles and massive amounts of patching or total resurfacing needs to be done.

I'm not going to venture into what this situation has done to my cars.

Let's dip into the pockets of the officials who decided the side streets didn't need to be cleared. Why not? It's exactly what they're doing to you by not having the streets cleared properly.

I know accountability is an outdated concept in the world of public service but let's wake up people.

I guess the officials in charge of clearing the streets in the town of Arvada, a.k.a. The Red Light District, are hoping that Mother Nature will do their job for them. For that, I say shame on them!

I don't want to hear excuses about a lack of manpower or equipment. People need to get to work, the store, to school and so on. They won't have the opportunity to provide excuses even though it's the city's lack of planning and execution that have put many of our residents "out in the cold."

I've been out to the airport many times over the past couple months. I know DIA received a lot of bad press but each time I was out there, I saw people working hard to make sure the airport went about business as usual. I saw city workers shoveling individual cars out by hand, ensuring people could get home to their loved ones. Pena boulevard was easily navigable each time I went there.

This is the kind of devotion I expect from the people who run my city.

Unfortunately, I'm all too acquainted with disappointment when Arvada is the subject matter.

I really don't care whether I anger any workers at the city of Arvada this time. It's time for someone in our government to accept some responsibility on behalf of all they serve.

I'm held accountable everyday I go to work, why should it be any different for our supposed city leaders?

Later

Mike





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Showing 1-2 of 2 comments
Submitted By: William Boucher
posted on 2/8/2007 @ 10:47:53 PM
Rated Story
Then they have the balls to send out letters telling taxpayers to make sure their walks are clear.
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Submitted By: Russell Weisfield
posted on 2/2/2007 @ 7:29:54 PM
Rated Story
I said this and more at city council on January 8 (and the podcast is available at http://feeds.feedburner.com/CityOfArvadaCouncilMeetingPodcasts. Needless to say they thought that they did a good job. It almost makes me want to run for the job myself.
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Showing 1-2 of 2 comments
CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Micheal Gieger

Arvada , CO

Micheal Gieger has posted 21 stories and 16 comments since joining on 10/2/2006. Micheal Gieger 's average story rating is 5.
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