Leonidas
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
One of my biggest frustrations when w*rking was trying to meet unrealistic demands made by politicians when I did not have the resources adequate to the demands. The one answer you could never give them was "I can't do that with my current personnel allocation". What they wanted to hear was "I made your constituent happy and he won't be calling again - about this problem". We wasted a lot of time and effort doing temporary fixes to major long-term problems, or fixing piddly things and letting the big problems go untreated.
We could have fixed many of those problems with our existing resources, but we would have needed some breathing room to put long term strategies in place and make them work. In other words, we needed the politicians to stop expecting all of their issues to get top priority and be realistic about what we could do and in what order of prioritization. Well, that or give us more money. But nobody wanted to tell a constituent that their problem, no matter how small, wasn't getting anything but the immediate and urgent attention they wanted.
Interesting article here about Michigan cutting back on road repair costs by converting some paved roads back to gravel surfaces.
Given the current state of the economy, and some of the things going on in taxation, I think that a lot of local and state governments are going to be faced with choices between cutting services or raising taxes. There has to be a limit to how much they can raise taxes (I hope there is a limit) so ultimately some politicians are going to have to make cuts.
I'm curious what are your priorities for services supplied by local government (police, fire, ambulance, water, streets, etc.). Are their things that you can live without? Can you accept gravel roads, more potholes, less frequent trash pick up, changes in priorities in how the police respond to problems (not emergencies)?
We could have fixed many of those problems with our existing resources, but we would have needed some breathing room to put long term strategies in place and make them work. In other words, we needed the politicians to stop expecting all of their issues to get top priority and be realistic about what we could do and in what order of prioritization. Well, that or give us more money. But nobody wanted to tell a constituent that their problem, no matter how small, wasn't getting anything but the immediate and urgent attention they wanted.
Interesting article here about Michigan cutting back on road repair costs by converting some paved roads back to gravel surfaces.
http://www.wwmt.com/articles/roads-1363526-mich-counties.htmlMore than 20 of the state's 83 counties have reverted deteriorating paved roads to gravel in the last few years, according to the County Road Association of Michigan. The counties are struggling with their budgets because tax revenues have declined in the lingering recession.
the county estimates it takes about $10,000 to grind up a mile of pavement and put down gravel. It takes more than $100,000 to repave a mile of road.
Given the current state of the economy, and some of the things going on in taxation, I think that a lot of local and state governments are going to be faced with choices between cutting services or raising taxes. There has to be a limit to how much they can raise taxes (I hope there is a limit) so ultimately some politicians are going to have to make cuts.
I'm curious what are your priorities for services supplied by local government (police, fire, ambulance, water, streets, etc.). Are their things that you can live without? Can you accept gravel roads, more potholes, less frequent trash pick up, changes in priorities in how the police respond to problems (not emergencies)?