Here at the Advocate, we try to offer the benefit of the doubt to people who are trying to make a positive difference in our neighborhoods. After all, it’s not really fair to sit here at my word processor taking pot-shots at people who are at least trying to make a difference while I’m just sitting here running off at the mouth.
But I have to express some honest concern about City Manager John Ware’s ongoing and self-described reinvention of City government, described in this month’s cover story.
Ware’s motives appear pure, he’s obviously a smart guy, and it’s hard to argue with his intent.
But kill a bureaucracy with efficiency? That’s kind of like killing a roach, in my opinion. Kill one, and see how long it takes for another to make its presence known.
As a taxpaying “consumer” and City resident, I’ve been trying to correct what I believe is a traffic problem in front of my house since April. And as a “consumer,” I’ve talked with a lot of nice, friendly City employees.
But none of them has done anything to solve the problem yet.
I start ringing the City about April 1, when yet another car missed the corner of the busy street fronting our house and collided with a rather stout tree located next to the street.
Another rainy night, another set of matching headlights added to my growing collection.
One of these days, I figured, someone standing next to the tree will become a hood ornament. Or eventually, my tree will meet its match, and the neighbor’s tree up the street will begin taking a beating.
So I called the City’s traffic signal division, where I was transferred to what I understood was the traffic division, where a dispatcher told me to call back to the other division, where I would talk with a traffic signal coordinator.
Several days and several phone calls later, I finally spoke with a coordinator, who said I needed to speak with a traffic engineer. Before reaching the engineer, however, I was intercepted by another dispatcher, who agreed I was probably doing the right thing by looking for an engineer.
The weeks passed, and occasionally, I spoke with someone who professed an interest in my problem and actually seemed as if he or she could help.
Everyone was friendly, lots of people even seemed to know where I lived (some even claimed to have grown up nearby), but no one seemed particularly concerned about whether my problem was solved or not.
Finally, one young City employee agreed to conduct what he described as a “night study” of the traffic to see if I had a valid complaint. He promised to conduct his study sometime before Memorial Day, which by then was a week or so away.
When I called him back July 11, having misplaced his name and number for a few weeks, I was naturally concerned to hear about his recent illness (a persistent cold) and about his busy job schedule. And I was not surprised to hear that my “night study” was still pending.
Next week, he promised.
And this time, he was within a few days of being true to his word. His “night study” concluded that a little more striping and a directional sign or two would help.
I guess they would help, if they ever are installed. It’s mid-August, and I’m still waiting.
The point of this whole story isn’t that my problem is so terrible that it cries out for immediate assistance. Lots of other problems called in during this period by some of you probably deserved precedence, and I hope your problems were solved while I waited.
This is what John Ware needs to understand: Changing the system isn’t going to amount to a hill of beans if the system’s nuts and bolts (the employees) don’t really feel any sense of urgency to take action.
There’s no question that Ware is talking accountability with his plan. After all, one of his assistants provided a detailed list of names and phone numbers to call with our neighborhoods’ problems, and we’ve dutifully printed them in this month’s paper for your “clip-and-save” file.
But if we call so-and-so with a problem, so-and-so had better believe that John Ware will be breathing down his or her neck if our problem isn’t solved pretty darn quickly.
Having heard the man speak, I believe John Ware is willing to breathe down a few necks to reinvent City government. I’m just not sure that he has enough time to breathe down several thousand City employees’ necks, all at the same time.
And to me, that is the damnable part of a bureaucracy – more often than not, “consumers” become annoyances for those who are supposed to be providing the service. And the proverbial squeaky wheel virtually always seems to get the most grease.
I’ve often wondered what would have happened if Steve Bartlett or Al Lipscomb had begun calling the City on April 1 to request that a traffic signal, some new striping or a few directional signs be installed in front of their houses?
Something tells me that their stretch of street might be a little safer today, even as mine remains a topic of at least one interested party’s conversation.
Mine.
Good luck, Mr. Ware. Let me know what we can do to help.
