Water problems in Girard

Water problems in Girard

EDITOR:

1) I support obtaining new remote water meters.

2) The Girard Water Department is a shambles, to the point that city council had to pass an ordinance “ordering” the service director to start collecting the delinquent bills. It should not obligate the water customers with additional cost until it can demonstrate tat it is back on a sound footing.

3) The city took out a 15-year loan for $687,500 to replace the money that it took illegally” from the water department and is making the water department pay the installments. It’s kind of like, “you get robbed, they catch the thief, and you’re ordered to pay restitution.”

4) I don’t support charging the water customers extra for meters because I believe the water department, if run correctly, could afford the project.

5) The mayor says the new meters will aid the city in collecting the $650, 000 worth of delinquent bills. The statement is misleading because you don’t need any meters to collect money that you already know is owed.

6) The proposed surcharge discriminates against our low income and low use water customers.

7) Though required by law to read the city’s water meters every three months, the city hasn’t had a meter reading program in six years.

8) The mayor says it’s not possible to read the meters, but many cities that don’t have remote meters are able to read theirs.

DAN MOADUS

Girard

Plowing without a plan

EDITOR:

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to determine what streets should be plowed and when in a snow storm. So why does Youngstown have the lead year after year in Mahoning County for having the worst and fewest roads cleaned?

The main roads are cleared but still not that well. Side streets like mine and most of Youngstown’s are completely ignored. Yet hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent in overtime by the street department. The snow removal cost of that must total $1,000 a year as the clean-up is slim and none.

I’ve lived in Youngstown on the West Side for over 40 years, and it never changes. It’s the same on every side of town, even though our population is half of what it was 40 years ago.

What’s the problem? Does anybody in City Hall have a map or chart or even a little notebook to figure where to go and when and what streets have been cleaned and which have not? Some streets, because of a school, are plowed and you can see the street. Yet, a few other rare roads are plowed, with no schools.

Is there any kind of system in place? The trucks drive around like the Keystone Cops, with no rhyme or reason or plan or sense. Why is it such a mess every single year? Where does the buck stop?

We don’t have enough of a bad reputation. Now we can go in the Guinness Book of Records for world’s worst cleaned roads in a snow storm. Actually, we’re only 2nd, Russia is No. 1.

Guess the city will have to try harder and do worse next year so we can be No. 1 in something.

TERRY GALLAGHER

Youngstown