Last night’s council meeting was a non event; as expected it worked flawlessly just as it did in rehearsals.
The street painting issue was brought forth and they trotted out Bill Stangler to reaffirm all of Trout’s claims, which were we are not capable of applying paint onto the pavement; apparently this is some sort of special skill endeavor. Everybody played their part well, Lee scratched his head, stumbled with a few words that approached the apologetic stage then quickly moved on. This is a case of’ “what you see is what you are going to get.” That said, understand this: We operate a real city here with a budget that hovers around the $50,000,000.00 mark. Within that infrastructure we have a bevy of workers who’s job it is to preform a wide variety of tasks… but not spraying paint onto pavement. That we cannot do… we can do a lot but just not that. Yeah sure.
There will be no surprises coming from that table. Not now, not ever. The best you can hope for is that the damage will be miniumn. The only roadblock I see to this council is the law of the land. You stood witness to Tom Meyer’s exit from this City Hall…which I feel was a wise move to hang on to his law license. Had he stayed and kept “handcrafting” legal opinions for Bookmeyer that could result in loss of his license…he made the right choice. Law licenses are not cheap. He was never replaced.
Moving on… in his “State of the Union” address, Bookmeyer promised more industry and jobs to go with it. Is that close by? Are there any factories currently touring our city? This town has turned into a real life comic strip. If you don’t believe me just watch a few more council meetings…
Peter Children
Hey, Here’s and Idea and yes Hickey you can steal it from me and Alex you can do the same and make it your idea!!!!! Lets say we buy the best equipment to paint with and Here goes, invite Clear Lake and the other small towns in Cerro Gordo to join in and share the cost or lease or share one or two employees to run the stuff. And we all know its only a three or four month thing so then them folks can go back to plowing or what ever.. What ya think MATT?
One of the things they would have to do is; create a “28-E” agreement. There are several cities and counties that share equipment, so this isn’t something new.
Now I heard it all, taking shots at Bill Stangler, Are you guys crazy?? I have know Bill for over 40 years, and been close friends with him the same. There is no better worker, boss, and knowledeble person on the City Staff. He is no puppet to anyone, He does his job, which is a large one. So don’t bitch and moan at him, the roads are cleaned all winter, the parks look great, in fact, all the staff within the city does great work and should be thanked instead of being ragged on. We have one of the best sewage plants in iowa, thanks to Bill and his staff maintaining it, the water dept is rated high, thanks to the staff, so quit bitching all the time, and be thankful we have quality people running our streets, sewer, water, police, fire depts.
Michael Servantez
Although I really am not acquainted with Bill Stangler, and I feel he is very compentent at his duties, I none the less feel they took advantage of him when they paraded him out to make their point. I am equally sure his men could do this job if he told them to
Guys, you won.They are talking about looking at doing some of the painting in house next year. Did you really think they were going to throw out the competitive bids this year?Can the city guys paint , of course.Can they paint as cheaply as private companies,lets look at it.Again you won.This is what NIT should be doing. Offering alternatives to the way things are being done NOT just bitching.
We must all be wrong because the beermeyer gazette said we do not have a white wash council. Hope I don’t go to hell for another glass half full comment. Well I’ll just take faith in the fact my glass is not half full of bs.
I am REALLY happy to see someone got the BEER slur out of the way early.
Yes that was sarcasm!!!!!
So what is the reason the city gives for contracting out painting the pavement?
Because they can
The reason they give is the City doesn’t have the equipment.At the council meeting Trout said the truck mounted sprayer would cost around $40,000. Stangler said to use a walk behind would be impractical because the workers would be refilling the paint all the time.
they only got to be on the coucil by votes from people like us…so quit bitching, and vote next time
BOBBLEHEADS!!!!!!!!!!!
I can see where this is going. Now your going to try and discredit Bill Stangler who is probably one of the most respected and knowledgible employees the city has.
Yep, you got it, that’s how they roll here! Patiently awaits….
There will be no “discredit” of Mr. Stangler from myself. I have met Mr. Stangler, and know him to be of high character. I have asked around, and have received only the highest of marks on how he does his job.
That being said, Mr. Stangler told the council, Trout and Bookmeyer exactly what thy wanted to hear. They carefully worded their questions, and Mr. Stangler is too smart to go against his bosses publicly. Doing so could mean his job; (ask Pam Myhre.) I will expound on this carefully contrived puppet show these actors put on Tuesday night once I get caught up on my work here.
… another dribble. No recommended solutions, only blah blah blah, GET OFF MY LAWN comments.
Bill Stanglers one and only goal is to do the least amount of work possible for the money he makes. He is nothing but a puppet for his bosses. As a non-union manager his survival depends on ageeing with them. What a shame. I will be very interested to see what they come up with as justification next year. You must always remember they can manipulate the numbers most any way they want,. Look at what Obama does with them.
Larry, I agree with your statements except the first two lines. I do not think Mr. Stangler is lazy. However, I doubt very much he wants this work (pavement painting) added to his plate; he would be in charge of supervising it. No one likes new job responsibilities… and it wuld be a chore. No one ever said maintaining a city is easy; these are blue collar jobs and people have to get their hands dirty. That’s not always convenient or fun.
As far as being a puppet of Bookmeyer… everyone at City Hall is under his spell. You really have to hand it to this guy. The council, City Administrator, all of them quake in their boots when this guy is around. Many of them are so scared for their jobs that they keep notebook journals of everything he says to them, neatly dated. This is the new “culture” at City Hall he ushered in.