This Comment Deserves Posting All of its Own
Not about snow removal but a true story about Vancouver's Engineering Dept.
Some years ago, my (commercial) landlord had a problem, the sewer was backing up in the newly rented store the new tenant, who was a florist.
The stores were located near Richards & Hastings St's. in the downtown core.
The local 'Mr. Rooter' came and rooted and for his troubles got nothing but gravel. He told my landlord; "The sewer line is not connected to the main sewer line and that the past tenant's 'waste' just leached into the gravel under the lane way."
When my landlord phoned city hall and complained, the head of the 'sewer dept.' came out and looked over the situation. His reply was "no-way that happened and the fault was in the building."
The florist soon left has he could not practice his trade because the sewer did not work and the store remained vacant for months.
Again my landlord contacted the 'Engineering Dept.' and complained and again they said "Not their fault."
In desperation he got his lawyer to contact city hall and the City Engineer came to view the problem. "Not our fault" was all he said. Later my landlord struck a deal with the city's Engineering Dept. - they would dig up the alley to check the connection and would pay if it was the city's fault, if not, my landlord must pay th full shot.
Well two days prior to the excavation, a massive digger was dropped, two large construction huts were left. On the day of the excavation there were no less than 15 engineering types around, not including flaggers who made sure Richards St. was closed and BC Hydro types, who were hired - 'just in case.'.
Estimated cost so far - $40,000
But wait, the massive digger finally uncovered the problem - the last time the city worked on the sewer, they failed to reconnect the line to store.
Their excuse - well it wasn't supposed to be connected to that sewer line at all, even though it was before!!
No dice said my landlord and a deal is a deal. Within 60 minutes, diggers, construction huts, engineering types, Hydro linemen, flaggers all disappeared and three men and a backhoe came and fixed the problem.
What does this have to do about snow removal? Simple, the city's Engineering Dept. can't be trusted to do a simple job cheaply and will screw the taxpayer for every dime he/she has!
Can Mayor Greg change City Hall's mind-set? I doubt it.
2 comments:
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.
Quite the story - and an eye opener. Thanks.
June
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