Because the local governments are a racket. Lifetime employment. Sweet pensions, extremely generous healthcare benefits, matching 401k and deferred compensation, and you don’t really have to do anything. And that’s just the honest ones.
Never one to support just about anything government does, allow me to provide a slightly nuanced perspective.
Snow removal is a bitch.
My son owns a snow removal business in the northern MI snow belt. 39 commercial accounts. 50-60 residential. This year there have been multiple occasions where he and his crews have worked 36 hours straight. And with so much snow, eventually there is no place to put it. And that means renting a big dump truck and spending hours with a front end loader filling the dump truck with snow and taking it away, dumping it in the woods, and then doing it again. At one location it took them 18 hours to remove enough snow so they could plow and have enough room to put the newly plowed snow. They might have to do it again.
And equipment breaks down constantly which takes crews and plows out of service.
His stories about this year are legendary.
Oh. And there is zero salt. With two mild winters in a row, suppliers cut back on their salt order. He started the year with 200 tons. It was gone by mid January and there is no more to be had within 300 miles. What little remained at suppliers in late December was bought (at premium pricing) by the state.
None of this excuses a city or county with lots of workers and equipment and a budget for OT pay from getting it done. But it takes planning, reliable workers, good equipment. Government is not the best at any of those thing.
And some luck, a lot of salt, and a January thaw always helps. Those have also been in short supply in snow country.
Great article summarizing the incompetence and frustrations of the past two weeks.
$22 BILLION in the city budget, and the city could not manage to open DC public schools on a normal schedule for 8 SCHOOL DAYS (3 snow days and 4 two-hour delays). That in itself should be a scandal.
Governments have one core function, and it's to deliver basic public services to citizens. DC government utterly failed on that, and likely will face no repercussions.
You’re preaching to the choir. I live in a NW DC townhouse on a smallish street. They plowed 13th Street and created a wall of frozen snow blocking off our street. We have not had trash pick up in two weeks. Mind you, the snow basically fell in a 24 hour window, what, ten days ago. It’s the weather staying below zero for a record period that has made it so bad. Clearly, officials counted on the sun for snow removal.
I think maybe DC just isn't very used to getting much snow.
Here a typical winter sees a couple storms of a foot or so and maybe one of 18" or more, a few of 6". People get used to shoveling. The trick is to get out while it's still coming down and absolutely when it's coming to a stop, you don't want anything to freeze up on you. Another thing is to have what's called a square point shovel but most of us just call it a flat shovel. It's small and good for scraping, and less tiresome if you are shoveling for hours.
The Gadsden Flag flying guy across the street has a ride on mower with a plow and also a snow blower with chains on the tires for when it gets deep. He plows both sides of the street, one side up on the next street where his uncle lives, and one side of the side street where a retired school teacher lives. The flag guy used to be a volunteer fireman so he's big on helping neighbors.
We usually shove before he even comes so those people headed down for coffee walk on a clean walk. Others don't shovel at all, and that's ok. No one really minds if you choose not to shovel, this is the west, we like to live and let live.
Brilliant breakdown of how jurisdictional fragmentation undermines basic public services. The 'closing the seams' framework really gets at something deeper: most city failures aren't about resource scarcity but about poorly-defined accountability. Saw this firsthand when a metro station near me stayed iced over for days bc transit authority and city kept passing the buck. When everyone's sorta responsible, nobody actually is.
All true, but let's not over-glamorize individual efforts. There were plenty of homes and businesses that had not opened passable lanes on the sidewalks adjacent to their property.
The best single suggestion is public notice of who is resposible for clearing public spaces, including sidewalks at intersections.
The fact that private owners could rudimentarily clear their sidewalks within 24 hours and make them wholly walkable within 48, while the city simply piled snow along curbs, making crossing at intersections mountain climbing exercises, is further indicative of the unaccountability of DC "snow removal." And today - 9 days after the storm - G St NW between 19th and 20th has effectively only one to one-and-a-half lanes that are truly passable for cars because half the street has been consumed by insane "bicyclist" dedicated spaces -- which have NOT been plowed.
Because the local governments are a racket. Lifetime employment. Sweet pensions, extremely generous healthcare benefits, matching 401k and deferred compensation, and you don’t really have to do anything. And that’s just the honest ones.
Never one to support just about anything government does, allow me to provide a slightly nuanced perspective.
Snow removal is a bitch.
My son owns a snow removal business in the northern MI snow belt. 39 commercial accounts. 50-60 residential. This year there have been multiple occasions where he and his crews have worked 36 hours straight. And with so much snow, eventually there is no place to put it. And that means renting a big dump truck and spending hours with a front end loader filling the dump truck with snow and taking it away, dumping it in the woods, and then doing it again. At one location it took them 18 hours to remove enough snow so they could plow and have enough room to put the newly plowed snow. They might have to do it again.
And equipment breaks down constantly which takes crews and plows out of service.
His stories about this year are legendary.
Oh. And there is zero salt. With two mild winters in a row, suppliers cut back on their salt order. He started the year with 200 tons. It was gone by mid January and there is no more to be had within 300 miles. What little remained at suppliers in late December was bought (at premium pricing) by the state.
None of this excuses a city or county with lots of workers and equipment and a budget for OT pay from getting it done. But it takes planning, reliable workers, good equipment. Government is not the best at any of those thing.
And some luck, a lot of salt, and a January thaw always helps. Those have also been in short supply in snow country.
Great article summarizing the incompetence and frustrations of the past two weeks.
$22 BILLION in the city budget, and the city could not manage to open DC public schools on a normal schedule for 8 SCHOOL DAYS (3 snow days and 4 two-hour delays). That in itself should be a scandal.
Governments have one core function, and it's to deliver basic public services to citizens. DC government utterly failed on that, and likely will face no repercussions.
You’re preaching to the choir. I live in a NW DC townhouse on a smallish street. They plowed 13th Street and created a wall of frozen snow blocking off our street. We have not had trash pick up in two weeks. Mind you, the snow basically fell in a 24 hour window, what, ten days ago. It’s the weather staying below zero for a record period that has made it so bad. Clearly, officials counted on the sun for snow removal.
I think maybe DC just isn't very used to getting much snow.
Here a typical winter sees a couple storms of a foot or so and maybe one of 18" or more, a few of 6". People get used to shoveling. The trick is to get out while it's still coming down and absolutely when it's coming to a stop, you don't want anything to freeze up on you. Another thing is to have what's called a square point shovel but most of us just call it a flat shovel. It's small and good for scraping, and less tiresome if you are shoveling for hours.
The Gadsden Flag flying guy across the street has a ride on mower with a plow and also a snow blower with chains on the tires for when it gets deep. He plows both sides of the street, one side up on the next street where his uncle lives, and one side of the side street where a retired school teacher lives. The flag guy used to be a volunteer fireman so he's big on helping neighbors.
We usually shove before he even comes so those people headed down for coffee walk on a clean walk. Others don't shovel at all, and that's ok. No one really minds if you choose not to shovel, this is the west, we like to live and let live.
Brilliant breakdown of how jurisdictional fragmentation undermines basic public services. The 'closing the seams' framework really gets at something deeper: most city failures aren't about resource scarcity but about poorly-defined accountability. Saw this firsthand when a metro station near me stayed iced over for days bc transit authority and city kept passing the buck. When everyone's sorta responsible, nobody actually is.
All true, but let's not over-glamorize individual efforts. There were plenty of homes and businesses that had not opened passable lanes on the sidewalks adjacent to their property.
The best single suggestion is public notice of who is resposible for clearing public spaces, including sidewalks at intersections.
Misspelling of the word "capitol" undercuts public confidence in this newsletter...
Cities are dysfunctional in a thousand ways. This is only one.
Because voters vote for feelz rather than use of their tax dollars.
The fact that private owners could rudimentarily clear their sidewalks within 24 hours and make them wholly walkable within 48, while the city simply piled snow along curbs, making crossing at intersections mountain climbing exercises, is further indicative of the unaccountability of DC "snow removal." And today - 9 days after the storm - G St NW between 19th and 20th has effectively only one to one-and-a-half lanes that are truly passable for cars because half the street has been consumed by insane "bicyclist" dedicated spaces -- which have NOT been plowed.
On our NW DC street, people who dig out their cars are putting chairs in the spot to save it. God help anyone who takes it.