In the last few months we've witnessed several serious failures of Seattle Public Utilities --
* Antiquated storm drainage system fails during winter storm, kills woman in Madison Park.
* Seattle Public Utilities admits fault in last week's water main break in South Lake Union.
* And then there's today's water main break which created a sinkhole and shut down the University Bridge.
I blame the Bush administration and corporate greed.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at May 02, 2007 05:58 PM | Email ThisMight as well preempt Facts and Dave Mathews...You heard it here first!
The Piper
Posted by: Piper Scott on May 2, 2007 06:04 PMIf you are preempting Dave Mathews on anything, remember to write in DM script by using bold font and indents on random phrases and sentences.
I guess the appropriate soundtrack for this post is Zep's "When the Levy Breaks".
Posted by: Don Ward on May 2, 2007 06:34 PMThe Piper
Posted by: Piper Scott on May 2, 2007 06:58 PMYes they would have, cause the Gov doesn't have anything to do with SEATTLE PUBLIC UTILITIES.
But the current gov cant seem to make any decisions, always taking a public non-binding vote before she makes a decision, unless of course she is supporting a union, then she knows "how" to make such decisions.
Posted by: Chris on May 2, 2007 07:36 PMIt wasn't that long ogo that I regularly did battle with the apt named donks over at HA and I vividly remember them telling the rest of the state to go suck an egg, that THEY in Seattle ran things around here... how right they were: they ran them right smack into the ground. If Seattle doesn't wise up soon, we'll have to drag those old billboards out...
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on May 2, 2007 08:49 PMAh, Nice Try!
it doesn't matter on whit who installed them... they were WORKING back then... the kumbaya crowd you run with is in charge of them NOW (and for quite a good {figuratively} while now) and they've been sitting on their collective hands diddling.
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on May 2, 2007 09:43 PMI see, it doesn't mater if good ol' Ole could have been on the take back then. Maybe the GOP should have fixed it back in '64.
Nope, all that matters is that the Liberals are in charge of fixin 85 year old rusting pipes. Gotcha, nothing is ever the GOP's fault. =)
But since the DEM's/libs have been running Seattle do you even know that their own fire dept has been under funded? Not including the police.
Cato, the dem's spend for the homeless & bumbs, damn everything else.
Posted by: Army Medic/Vet on May 2, 2007 10:37 PMThe Dem's also spend money on Cato, the dem's spend for the homeless & bums, damn everything else.
I don't see the church's stepping up to help the homeless under Bush's Faith Based Initiative program. The city has an obligation to fix roads, why does it not have an obligation to take care of it's residents regardless of economic status.
Thanks Cato. You finally proved your age to me.
If you don't know. The Church's did take care of the poor long before the government pushed them aside.
But not to worry Cato. They still do it now with much greater results, other then the gov giving bums a place to sleep and stay drunk. (yeah were talking about Seattle)
Your people took over and instead of spending/budgetting money for the replacement of old infrastructure, they took what should have been reserves and spent it on exotics.
Everyone who has done proper municipal budgetting knows you are supposed to have a reserve to repair/replace pipes, roads, bridges, etc.. Government is not supposed to be there for social services. We have fallen into a big trap and getting more and more stuck as we use government to fund social issues.
BTW, I am for limited government, but I am very compassionate for those getting these social services. I just don't think government should be the menu for the venue.
Posted by: swatter on May 3, 2007 07:07 AMYou miss the point in what you say there Cato.
It is not uncommon for the builders of something to build it, then have democrats appropriate it later and run it into the ground. (Then blame the problem on the original builder instead of on themselves because they didn't invest in necessary maintenance and upkeep.)
If they still taught history in schools, you'd recognize the pattern, but teachers unions have pretty much stamped out teaching history in favor of social engineering and fuzzy math.
Posted by: johnny on May 3, 2007 07:18 AMdont wait for reactive repairs. yes, things break, but stay on the ball & monitor things if possible to minimize disasters. applies to any party. just take care of "our" (taxpayers') stuff.
Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on May 3, 2007 10:24 AMCan't do that; they're too busy attending repetative diversity training.
Posted by: Clyde on May 3, 2007 11:12 AMIt seems to me this last water pipe break would be impossible to find by some maintenance procedure. I don't think that shutting off the water every few yaers and then draining the pipes to thousands of citizens and hundreds of businesses, for days on end, to check pipe integrity would be very popular. Letting them break and then repair is the only logical way really. Probably cheaper over the long term too.
About the only thing the city can do to be proactive is to start replacing everything from the first laid and move outward. Of course, the streets city-wide would be torn-up perpetually. Is anybody ready for that?
