Another Heart Warming City Works Story - Thanks, Gavin

Many years ago there was a garage at 4th and Blenheim....Blenheim Motors. They also had gas pumps which augmented their business. The service station was run by two very honest guys and I had my VW serviced there for a few years. One day I was there and the access to the pumps was blocked by City road crews...I asked Andy(one of the co-owners) what was happening. "They are re-paving and improving the access. We can deal with the revenue loss, it'll take about four days for them to finish." All was done and it looked great until a week after it was repaved and 'finished' the access was torn up by City water works. Andy was miffed when he was told that it would take about two weeks to finish. He called City Hall to complain and asked for a reduction of his business license fee and was shunted around so many different 'crats at City Hall that he gave up and bit the bullet. Now it was beginning to cost the garage money. Finally the city's job was done, and the street re-paved and all was normal for about a week and a half. OK.......no! A new crew arrived and began to tear up the access again. Andy blew his stack and asked, "what the hell is going on now?" The answer was City Electrical ops. Andy was on the phone to City Hall to tell them that he was not going to pay his business license fee due to significant loss of revenue from his pumps. When he finally reached the city mandarin, Andy was told in no uncertain terms that if he refused to pay, the City would shut him down.
All of this could have been avoided and everything could have been accomplished in three days had there been some co-ordination by the city works and Andy would have been a happy camper. This was the 70's.....have things changed that much at City Hall? I doubt it very much.