Dormand Long is a neighborhood resident who likes to light up the email accounts of our council rep, our city manager, other city bureaucrats, various media types in town and anyone else he believes needs to hear about deficiencies in our neighborhood. Long copies me on some emails he writes, and he directs others to me. Sometimes we can address his concerns, sometimes we can’t.
Anyway, over the weekend on Saturday, Long copied me on an email he sent to city manager Mary Suhm and councilman Jerry Allen, complaining about the driver of a black Lexus repeatedly tearing down Windham Drive at 50/60 mph and endangering small children who live in the neighborhood. Long pointed out to Suhm and Allen that he had seen the same car/driver in September 2010 doing exactly the same thing, and now the guy was back. He wanted Suhm to get right on it, track down the driver with the license plate number he provided (he had a couple of options) and do something about it. On a Saturday.
Suhm quickly responded to Long (she didn’t copy me on her email, but Long subsequently did), telling him she would assign an officer to check out the problem. On Sunday afternoon, Long was happy to report in an email sent to me and a host of others that an officer found the car and driver near the neighborhood and reportedly dressed down the 20-year-old driver in hopes the guy will use his head before speeding through the neighborhood next time.
Suhm went above and beyond in doing her job and addressing a resident’s issue immediately and on the weekend, and she did it without alerting the media to what she was doing. Granted, this issue isn’t exactly earth-shaking in the scheme of the city’s big-time problems, but that makes Suhm’s attention (along with Allen’s) to this problem all the more impressive.
When I told Long I wanted to write a brief story about the incident, here’s what he had to say:
Chalk one up for the city bureaucracy and for an involved citizen.
