Another example of well-functioning goverment

Often when spring comes, many of the pipes on sidewalks for water-shut-off start rising up, providing an annoyance to runners and walkers.

At 8:49 this morning I sent the following message through the Duluth water and gas service website.

Spring has sprung, the ground heaves, and the water-turn-off pipes rise to trip the unwary walker.
Please add my address to your long list of tasks.

At 14:20 I sent the following message.

Thanks for the fast service on tamping down the water-shut-off pipe.  Another fine example of good government service.

If we really stop to think about it, there is a long list of government services at all levels that are provided efficiently and courtesy: Post Office, fire departments, Social Security, snowplowing, parks, and on and on.

I think the government bashing is mostly from those who don't want to pay taxes for any of the many services they receive.  They would rather provide these services themselves and make a profit from them.  How well, does the private sector perform?  Just consider all the problems you have with the device that you are using to read this.  How many help desks have provided prompt and correct answers?  Yes, you can find many corporations that provide quality products and services, but it often depends on management.  Good management is found in the public and private sectors.  Bad management is found in the public and private sectors.

City to be run like a business

Bowing to critics who say that government should be run like a business, Mayor Les S. Moore has announced several initiatives to follow certain business practices.

Following the lead of orange juice companies who reduced the size of their cartons from 64 ounces to 59 ounces, he has ordered all snow plow drivers to clear only 59/64th the width of city streets.

Noticing that facial tissue now comes in 132-count boxes instead of 200-count boxes, he has ordered the police department reduce its staff from 200 sworn officers to 132.

When Mayor Moore goes grocery shopping, he'll be looking for more examples to apply to city government.

When the city produced its new quarterly to keep citizens informed of the activities of the city government, he followed the lead of the newspapers and had no one proofread the articles.  He was embarrassed to see that a library manager wrote that the library had materials for geneology.

To centralize citizen/customer communication with the city, he has ordered that the phone numbers and email addresses of department heads no longer be published.  Instead, a single 800 number and a single email address, customersupport@city.gov, will be provided.  These both will be handled by a limited staff in India.

Taking a cue from the telecommunications industry, he will offer more and more services electronically with greater and greater speeds.  Each increase will be advertised as with no new taxes in the first six months.

He did balk at following one business example as he thought it would reduce his chances of re-election.  He didn't think he would be very popular if he increased his salary as he cut the number of employees.

Privileged pricing gets more public service?

One of the hot ideas for reducing congestion is to have congestion pricing for special lanes of highways. If you are willing to pay you can have access to supposedly less congested lanes. In other words, better public service is available to those willing to pay for it.

What's next? Those who are willing to pay get faster police and fire response. Your garage fire gets better response than someone's house fire? Your breakin while you were on vacation gets better response than someone being threatened by an intruder?