Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Whose Responsibility?


The area received it's first measurable snowfall of the
season last night, and when my Dad went out to retrieve the
newspapers in the morning, this is what greeted him. When
the Porter County Highway Department snowplow cleared the
road at 3:00am, apparently this poor unfortunate group of
newspaper boxes jumped in the plow's way and the post gave
it's life so that future newspapers might live. And if you
believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you.
What really happened is the driver of the plow was careless
and managed to run over the paper boxes, shearing the post off
at the base. Imagine if there was a car parked there or if
it was earlier in the evening, a person walking! When my Dad
telephoned the Highway Department of course he received a
runaround. First, the amount of falling snow must have caused
the post to break. Then, the post must have been placed too
closely to the road. Lastly, it was determined that if it was
a mailbox, the department would replace the post, but since it
wasn't the newspaper companies or my parents would have to
replace it. In other words, tough luck. If only the snow
plow drivers of Porter County were as well trained as the
asphalt road pavers who seemed to have enough leftover black
top asphalt to pave the Department Supervisor's driveway recently.

So when it gets a little warmer, my father (with my help of course)
will be out there pounding a new post into the frozen ground of
Northwest Indiana in December. If only it were a mailbox...

If you feel the Porter County Highway Department is wrong
regarding this issue or if you have other issues with the
Porter County Highway Department, please contact Al Hoagland at

djames@porterco.org

I know I plan to contact him.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I shake my fist at the Porter County Highway Department. Shake my fist I say!

home improvement - pavers said...

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