Forestry division workers were cutting down trees today on St. Clair street, then replacing them with new trees. I thought it sounded a little stupid that we would be doing that with a $27 million deficit so I called Denny Garvin the Commissioner for the division.
What's interesting is that Garvin had spoken to Nick from the WSPD newsroom just moments before calling me and had told Nick he "knew nothing about it"," not his crew", "didn't have anybody scheduled for that work" etc. etc. When I spoke to him literally within 6 minutes he knew what type of tree they were, why they were being taken, down etc. etc.
According to Garvin- it's only 7 trees, they were damaged during the renovations, they aren't very big, we're all working to keep the downtown beautiful.
Okay- the number of trees isn't important , it's the cost of destroying live trees and planting new ones. What renovations is he referring to? The trees I saw being destroyed were in front of Frickers which has been there for years, and in front of the empty first floors on either side of Frickers. Then Garvin mentioned just day to day traffic having an effect on the trees. He couldn't keep his story straight. When I asked if we could afford to do this with a $27 million deficit he said "it's tax money" and explained once again how important it was to keep the downtown looking beautiful.
WTF!? NEW TREES FOR OLD
By fred - Posted on April 1st, 2009
Tagged:
Well, what did you expect him to say, Fred? That he was just obeying orders to either:
1. Use up money to keep on budget; or
2. Respond to some politician's farcical whim.
A friend of mine has told me that a pay cut is coming down the pipe for city workers. However, due to the details of how her department is funded, her boss will make her work overtime to compensate -- to continue filling the budget with labor charges in order to avoid coming in under-budget (which would have to be given back to the state, which NOBODY wants, not even the state). This "use it or lose it" mentality is an obscenity, and creates operational farces like this.
Fred,
Your news team missed the larger tree felling, the one going in the northwest city limits, where Corporal Denny's crews are clearing space for cannon, mounted musketeers and foot soldiers for a military invasion of -- we all knew it would come to this point -- the city of Sylvania. Hey, if we've got to fill a deficit, let's go where the money is. To arms! To arms! It's time for Toledo to annex Sylvania, by lethal force if necessary.
NormCash1
Worked briefly a few years ago in same department as Garvin at the time Carty's brother-in-law was in charge of city pools and was caught stealing chlorine by the barrel. The same morning the news hit of the arrest, Garvin and his underlings left work and went home to clean out their garages - fearful that the investigation would spread to all city employees. His reward for such faithful service since has been promotions and what they would laugh about as, "job security." Which was their little euphemism for stretching out a job or task as long as possible in order seem productive.
I have no doubt what you're saying is true - my father worked for the state of ohio and also told about such waste.
The company I work for just had a corporate wide 10% reduction in staff due to the economy. I think the city needs to do the same, and anyone who makes practice of "job security" by dicking off like you're referring to above should be top on the chopping block.
COPS are necessary. FIREMEN are necessary.
Forestry service people who stretch out jobs for as long as possible to seem productive? Not so much.