6 Comments so far

marnie on March 16, 2007 8:19 am

1. Good pic of division street.

walker ranger on March 16, 2007 8:24 am

2. I had to use this moniker because sometimes when I write my own name I get frightened. I read your Chuxperience and although am flattered I must correct you on one thing. My manhood isn’t as big as one might think. Several years ago though Larry Eustacy recruited it to play basketball at ISU, but Bruce Vandevelde didn’t want a bigger dick up there than he was.

sam on March 16, 2007 10:36 am

3. Hey Nate,
   Have you been to Stuart lately? This picture could bea picture of N Division St. There has been so much semi truck traffic from the more than 200 trucks each day going back and forth from the new ethanol plant located by Menlo to a rock quarry near Panora. This street is asphault with curb and gutter.Which was never meant for use where so many heavy trucks are driving. Now, there is a group of people that want to use the road use tax for the first phase of constructing a walk/bike trail that will when it is done be around 7 miles long. For the next phases they will apply for grant money. I’m all for this except for where they plan to get the money for the first phase. Appearantly, there aren’t enough funds in this account. At least this is the conclusion that I had come to. There’s only 2 employees on the “Street Dept”
   There are equipment failures. These employees have so much comp time that there could take a month off from work and never use a day of vacation. They are not only responsble for the streets, but also the sewer lines and the sewer plant. they mow all summer long, remove snow, fill pot holes, dig graves, paint poles, benches, lines on the street and city property. They trim trees and clear brush. They are required to do many things that either they shouldn’t be required to do, or they should have a couple more employees on the dept. As Dick Cook was always compairing our town to ones that are close to the same size as ours(ie; Greenfield), well he forgot one thing, Greenfield has 5 street dept employees not 2. It’s no wonder Jim & Bob have a hard time getting done with everything. Have you ever seen Jim work? He does the work of 2 men. I’m just saying that this group of citizens need to find smoewhere else to get the 1st phase funding. It’s probably a good idea to build the path. They could probably have gotten $ from the parks and rec if when Marnie was on the council, they had used the money in that fund to fix the pool and the restrooms in the park. When the then council neglected to use the money for what it was intended, the left over money was put in the general fund. Then it was used to hire an additional law enforcement officer. That way Carol could just sit in the office working(surfing the net)8-4, M-F. And the thing that really burns me is that the pool house is falling apart and now we have to donate to fix the things that our tax money should have already fixed. Just like the school boards, the city council has not maintained their (ie;school & city) properties.

Nate on March 16, 2007 11:16 am

4. Sam, one thing I’ve figured out is there is never enough money to go around. Sometimes you pay for a bath house, sometimes you pay for a walking trail. Sometimes you pay your Visa, sometimes you pay your Mastercard.

   Wouldn’t it be great if Stuart had the budget for 5 street guys and 6 cops and a full-time fire and rescue crew and anything else you could think of? The problem is we don’t so we prioritize accordingly (or maybe not accordingly, depending on who you ask). Sometimes you have to pull from one project to get another one going.

Anonymous on March 16, 2007 12:24 pm

5. 6 cops? are you high?! don’t give people ideas nate!

sam on March 16, 2007 5:31 pm

6. Nate we don’t need 5 street guys, but an additional person or 2 is needed. We don’t need 6 cops, especially now that Carol is gone. Our new police chief works all the time. Weekends and nights too.I don’t know the man,but I do have a scanner. He’s always working. I see him driving around very often too. He seems to be just what this town needed. Back to our streets, they are in very poor condition. Some of the reasons for that are; not enough $ to maintain the streets and the equipment, not enough employees, too much truck traffic, winter, and the fact that the council has lost track of the street improvement/paving phases that were priorities of previous city councils(10 years ago was the last time that any Major street paving project happened) As I recall the property owners paid nearly half of the cost for the 10 block project and at the same time the sewer lines and I think storm sewers were upgraded too. Where is Jeff Marks? He was the one with the street paving vision. It cost the property owners and the city quite a bit of $, but since they used cement those streets are still in very good condition. They said that they were going to continue paving w/ cement 10 blocks every other year. Yea they did some asphault paving at no cost to the property owners, but the streets that they paved w/ asphault are crumbling. what a waste that was. I do claim to have all of the solutions, but I do have some good ideas.