That hole cannot be repaired until the ground water goes down. The city has thrown gravel into it several times but it just keeps mashing down into the mud underneath. It may be a few weeks (or maybe just a week) until it dries up enough to be able to fill it and have it take hold.
As for warnings, I agree there should be a sign before you enter the underpass. I believe there was a sign at one time, but I can't be sure. I have sent a note to the streets department to be sure there is proper warning.
The streets and parks departments are still trying to get caught up with all of the damage done by the rains. From grass that is growing faster than it can be cut to potholes everywhere. It will be the end of summer before things are caught back up for those departments. I would like to say that for the amount of damage done each department has done a tremendous job and making it seem like an annoyance instead of the disaster it really was.
I'll update as soon as I can get more information...
I contacted Gary Baugher at the Public Services department and got the following information.
There was a warning sign up but it may have disappeared. It was going to be checked by the morning of August 3rd and replaced if necessary.
Repairs have been attempted but because of the ground water won't hold.
There is nothing more that can be done as far as repairing the problem until the ground dries up in the hole. It is not a difficult repair and won't take long, but conditions have to be right. The length of time for the water level to go down will depend mostly on the weather but can be affected by other things.
Thanks for noting that there was no sign. If anyone else should see that a warning is needed, please contact the Public Services department right away so they can take care of it. Various personnel including drivers of garbage trucks, streets and parks trucks, and other city personnel report problems as they are found, but ultimately there are a lot more citizens than there are city employees that can notice problems.
Sorry for the delay. I meant to update earlier and got distracted.
Immediately after reading the post and answering to the best of my ability I emailed Gary Baugher in the public works department. His response came back that same night (his department has been working long hours trying to get caught up).
There was a sign, if it was missing he promised to have it replaced first thing the following morning. It is unknown at this time how long it will take the ground water to go down to be able to repair that hole. It is checked routinely and will be repaired as soon as possible.
If anyone needs any further information, feel free to contact me or the street department.
Perhaps if we had city employees who did thier job instead of babysitting inmates who are not required to perform the same demanding scale of labor the city employes do we would again have a decent street and parks crew, i know you get baffled and bewildered by the dollar numbers your department head shows you, but your not getting anything accomplished. End this DOC dream, it creates many problems for the city that effect the productivity of the valued employees you now have. the jobs that you could be giveing to our youth to build character and work ethic are squandered on a program designed from its originality to fool you into bugetary oversight. you are gaining absolutely nothing from the DOC program except showing our children that if they want a summer job they need to be a product of criminal activity. Do you really want to make a change for the better??? this is the question you must ask yourself
I see one man wearing a silk shirt ,dress shoes, and watching six men do the work of one and he is probably makeing over 40k a year doing diddly. I see parks guys watching inmates do work that they could do them selves more efficently. I do not even see the street department watching thier men, i see the inmates left alone, and driveing heavy equipment, large mowers, trucks and so on, Patrick go to the street department any day unanounced and walk back in the back of the shop and look for yourself,,
This city needs serious Micromanagement from the bottom up to get rid of the dead weight, i think you guys are on the right track but you need to dig to the bottom of the barrel and get rid of the bad apples that spoil all the good ones your tring to put on top. Do not be afraid to look at what departments are spending money on, like the wasted money the Police division squirts out the door on High tech crap that has no value in a city our size, why do we need a swat team? Do you really want to make a change??you need to start from the very bottom and work your way up not missing a link in the chain
And by the way, to repair the underpass, you will need to jack hammer the top layer off on the east side of the east bound lane and replace it with 4 slump 8 sack or 6000lb concreat, this will set up under water or displace it in a period of four hours and be able to drive on it, total job time with three men is three hours. Total cost to you useing your staff and equipment is under $1,800 you may be being bamboozeled by the same technique used to make you belive DOC is a asset to the community
After a little thought, I believe that the city could put a sheet of 1/2" metal plate over the hole to keep us from ruining tires and rims on this pot hole. I would think that if you could put this sheet over the hole like they do when the tear up the street for utility work this would keep us from ruining tires and suspension. I would also add a sign for liability sake, to warn drivers of the situation. It would be cheaper to do this than to suffer a law suit for damage to vehicles. If this were done it wouldn't matter if the water table was up. The hole would be covered and it can be taken out when they can get to it within reason.
Perhaps if we had city employees who did thier job instead of babysitting inmates who are not required to perform the same demanding scale of labor the city employes do we would again have a decent street and parks crew, i know you get baffled and bewildered by the dollar numbers your department head shows you, but your not getting anything accomplished. End this DOC dream, it creates many problems for the city that effect the productivity of the valued employees you now have. the jobs that you could be giveing to our youth to build character and work ethic are squandered on a program designed from its originality to fool you into bugetary oversight. you are gaining absolutely nothing from the DOC program except showing our children that if they want a summer job they need to be a product of criminal activity. Do you really want to make a change for the better??? this is the question you must ask yourself
I'm sorry, I'm a bit confused. The equipment need to fix a hole like the one under the tracks can't be run by someone without experience. The DOC people could throw gravel in, but not put any kind of patch on.
I see one man wearing a silk shirt ,dress shoes, and watching six men do the work of one and he is probably makeing over 40k a year doing diddly.
All city employees wear uniforms (except administration). Anyone you see dressed in those clothes must work for someone else.
I see parks guys watching inmates do work that they could do them selves more efficently. I do not even see the street department watching thier men, i see the inmates left alone, and driveing heavy equipment, large mowers, trucks and so on, Patrick go to the street department any day unanounced and walk back in the back of the shop and look for yourself,,
I do visit the streets department fairly often and always unannounced. As far as I know I am the only commissioner to do so. If you have any doubts, call them and ask.
This city needs serious Micromanagement from the bottom up to get rid of the dead weight, i think you guys are on the right track but you need to dig to the bottom of the barrel and get rid of the bad apples that spoil all the good ones your tring to put on top. Do not be afraid to look at what departments are spending money on, like the wasted money the Police division squirts out the door on High tech crap that has no value in a city our size, why do we need a swat team?
No one has ever suggested we need a swat team. The region is putting together some training for the possiblity of a regional special group. Each city and county in the area can put a couple of people through the training. There has been no definite commitment from anyone as to actually creating this group.
Do you really want to make a change??you need to start from the very bottom and work your way up not missing a link in the chain
And by the way, to repair the underpass, you will need to jack hammer the top layer off on the east side of the east bound lane and replace it with 4 slump 8 sack or 6000lb concreat, this will set up under water
I appreciate your expertise on this, but there may be variables you are not aware of. The groundwater at this point is more like a natural spring. Water is flowing and may be causing other damage. Gravel that has been poured into the hole has sunk in. Until we know more about what kind of damage might be underneath, or how much flow there is, we should hold off and make sure we make good repairs.
or displace it in a period of four hours and be able to drive on it, total job time with three men is three hours. Total cost to you useing your staff and equipment is under $1,800 you may be being bamboozeled by the same technique used to make you belive DOC is a asset to the community
Knowing exactly how many employees there are to do this work, I can't see how we could get nearly as much done without the DOC workers. I agree we could get by without the DOC but there would be a significant reduction in the number of projects we could do.
There was a sign. I could not say what happened to it, or if it was still there and just not noticed.
As for the metal plate, I will suggest it to streets department. It may or may not work in this situation for reasong I could not even guess one way or the other.
This is a great place to share opinions, but if you have a suggestion like the metal plate it could save days to call the department directly. It is quite possible this obvious solution was overlooked, or for some reason found that it won't work in this particular application. Either way, it never hurts to suggest.
Mr Mc wrote:This is a great place to share opinions, but if you have a suggestion like the metal plate it could save days to call the department directly.
Please tell me that a female that knows nothing about street,paving and parking lots, is really going to call the city street and works department and suggest that they fix this problem per my specifations? Why is it that when public utilities can do work on the city streets they can use this plate to solve traffic problems like someone did on east Kansas by the middle school. But they can't think of this on their own on chestnut. Please tell me that you don't want a a citizen to call your professional street people and give them suggestions on how to keep the streets safe for the public to travel? This is what they do for heavens sake. If they can't seem to think of these things on their own then maybe you need to look at some other people to run the department. This is NOT meant as a negative statement but I would like to think that when you found out about the other suggestion that was made, that you would have mentioned this plate suggestion as well. I suppose if I am going to have to go around and make a notebook of suggestions on how the city should handle these things I might as well draw a paycheck from the city.There is a limit to how many times a citizen is going to call and tell a department how to do thier job. And if that is going on, you have a serious problem. Tell me that with all the guys that work for the street department that one of them didn't think of how to make the chestnut underpass safer for the citizens to drive. Ok, this is not a suggestion, this is an opinion, we need to find someone that can fix (if not temporaily) the hole on chestnut. If that means having someone from out of town do it because we can't think of something, then so be it.
redd rover you nailed it right 0n the head, i tried to tell point out in a nice way by explaining the current management needs to be looked at all the way down the tree, as they have no clue what there job is, and the street department is going to do nothing as far as manual labor gos untill we get rid of the DOC Employes who manage DOC are not going to lift a finger beyond watching a Criminal, and like i stated earlier DOC are not required to perform labor challenging task, therefore you have no accomplishment. you may have a gardener but you do not have a worker, who is concerned about being a public servant and loves his community
Patrik i would like you to tell me why these parks jobs and mowing jobs are not offered to our youth during the summer, what is the community giveing back?
Maybe we just thought we were going to get a change with our new city commission, as far as i can tell the only thing you have done so far is argued about who is gonna water the flowers
Mr Mc wrote:This is a great place to share opinions, but if you have a suggestion like the metal plate it could save days to call the department directly.
Please tell me that a female that knows nothing about street,paving and parking lots, is really going to call the city street and works department and suggest that they fix this problem per my specifations? Why is it that when public utilities can do work on the city streets they can use this plate to solve traffic problems like someone did on east Kansas by the middle school. But they can't think of this on their own on chestnut. Please tell me that you don't want a a citizen to call your professional street people and give them suggestions on how to keep the streets safe for the public to travel? This is what they do for heavens sake. If they can't seem to think of these things on their own then maybe you need to look at some other people to run the department. This is NOT meant as a negative statement but I would like to think that when you found out about the other suggestion that was made, that you would have mentioned this plate suggestion as well. I suppose if I am going to have to go around and make a notebook of suggestions on how the city should handle these things I might as well draw a paycheck from the city.There is a limit to how many times a citizen is going to call and tell a department how to do thier job. And if that is going on, you have a serious problem. Tell me that with all the guys that work for the street department that one of them didn't think of how to make the chestnut underpass safer for the citizens to drive. Ok, this is not a suggestion, this is an opinion, we need to find someone that can fix (if not temporaily) the hole on chestnut. If that means having someone from out of town do it because we can't think of something, then so be it.
I'm sorry for the confusion. I'm really not much of a speaker or writer. I definitely pass along information as quickly as I can. I just meant that if someone has a suggestion it should be put to that specific department. It might be 2 or 3 days before I see it posted here and can pass it along. Some things could be taken care of quickly.
I don't see you being negative at all. As for noticing other problems, all city employees (garbage collectors, water, sewer, parks, etc...) call in as much as they see as far as potholes, signs down, and other street problems. Even with all these people out there every day, there are problems on our 114 miles of streets (unbelievable isn't it!) that don't get reported for one reason or another. If anyone sees a problem it should be reported. That goes for problems in any other department too. Damaged playground equipment, water leaks, damaged or missing signs and other problems should be reported right away.
I try to answer to the best of my ability. On the plate I have no idea. There could be any number of reasons that it might not work. I don't know that it hadn't come up before I relayed your suggestion. I don't want it to sound like I'm making excuses for myself, but there is no way I can answer specific questions for each department as well as the departments can themselves. Whenever possible I try to get people to contact the departments directly so the department can collect all of the information they need on complaints and to have the specific answers to questions.
I did make sure the city manager was on top of this problem, and also contacted the newpaper to warn people of the situation until repairs can be done. I will make sure more information comes out as soon as it is available.
Mr Mc Wrote: I did make sure the city manager was on top of this problem, and also contacted the newpaper to warn people of the situation until repairs can be done. I will make sure more information comes out as soon as it is available.
Thank you! Lets hope your departments preform for you.
Hey Redd Rover, Why don't you and I get together, go fix the hole with your metal plate idea, and then send the (inflated) bill to the City, even though they didn't ask for, or want, our help. Should go over well. They might even give us a medal, or better yet, the key to the city.
Sound ridiculous huh?! Well that's exactly what the city does to private property owners if they see something they don't like. Vehicles in the yard, tall grass, whatever.
Turnabout is fair play I always say. Think about that.
redd rover you nailed it right 0n the head, i tried to tell point out in a nice way by explaining the current management needs to be looked at all the way down the tree, as they have no clue what there job is, and the street department is going to do nothing as far as manual labor gos untill we get rid of the DOC Employes who manage DOC are not going to lift a finger beyond watching a Criminal, and like i stated earlier DOC are not required to perform labor challenging task, therefore you have no accomplishment. you may have a gardener but you do not have a worker, who is concerned about being a public servant and loves his community
Yes saveacity, it has long been a pet peeve of mine to offer jobs to the DOC that our citizens could be doing. I know it has to be cheap labor but at least they would be giving jobs to the youth. They have to pay for college somehow.
Patrik i would like you to tell me why these parks jobs and mowing jobs are not offered to our youth during the summer, what is the community giveing back?
Maybe we just thought we were going to get a change with our new city commission, as far as i can tell the only thing you have done so far is argued about who is gonna water the flowers
Well now, we are watering the flowers and they are looking very good now, on a positive note. It is too bad that we had to discuss this issue like we did in the past..... but water under the bridge right? (no pun intended) And as far as the new commission goes, we need to give them some time to enact some of the changes they envisioned before elections. It might be a tad too early to judge them. If they do listen to the community, and take our suggestions and work with us, we maybe, could get some of this negative cloud to go away. As far as having no negativity, that will probably not happen completley, but if the issues are brought to the attention of the commission and the city manager and they show a true attempt to fix some of the things that have tainted many of the citizens ideas about the city in general, then we have made some progress however small. Right? Lets give them some time. The clock is ticking.
Hey Redd Rover, Why don't you and I get together, go fix the hole with your metal plate idea, and then send the (inflated) bill to the City, even though they didn't ask for, or want, our help. Should go over well. They might even give us a medal, or better yet, the key to the city.
There are many contractors that do exactly that. Many of the road repairs, especially brick, are performed by contractors. Unfortunately none have come forward to offer to take this project that I am aware of. I can't imagine them not asking for the job without good reason. I am sure the professionals understand this problem much better than I. I am also sure they have very good reasons for waiting or not being able to do anything temporary.
Sound ridiculous huh?! Well that's exactly what the city does to private property owners if they see something they don't like. Vehicles in the yard, tall grass, whatever.
If you think making property owners responsible for the upkeep on their property is detrimental to the city please say so. If a large number of people agree that these things do not affect our community and should be changed then I think changes would be made. But when you try to sell your home and the neighbors high weeds and junk cars bring your value down, or if you try to get a second mortgage and the neighbor's yard brings your value down, and other reasons along the same lines, you might see some value in these ordinances.
Turnabout is fair play I always say. Think about that.
Mr Mc Wrote: I did make sure the city manager was on top of this problem, and also contacted the newpaper to warn people of the situation until repairs can be done. I will make sure more information comes out as soon as it is available.
Thank you! Lets hope your departments preform for you.
Thanks, but these departments do not work for me, they work for you. Things cannot always happen when and the way people want them to happen. At this point the experienced people expect the problem to be solved by the end of this week. There are no guarantees as the weather could change, or damage underneath could be more than expected, but that shouldn't delay things more than a few more days.
It's a shame it takes so long for these posts to appear as the city manager and newspaper were notified last week. Hopefully people are aware and more careful until proper repairs can be completed.
I'm not going to get into finger pointing or name calling but when the street is finally fixed would it be possible to put a crown on the road so that any water getting on the street, be it ground water, rain water or where ever it comes from, would flow to the side of the road & drain out? Perhaps a french drain under the road leading to the pump station would fix the problem for good?
What happened here? There is a hole about a foot deep and at least five feet across on the East side of the Underpass. Since the hole is full of water it doesn't look that bad till one's front passenger side tire suddenly drops down in. Sure would be nice to have had a warning sign. Will this be repaired soon?
MR MC wrote:Thanks, but these departments do not work for me, they work for you. No Mr MC they don't work for me, or there would have been a steel plate over the hole a long time ago. And a warning sign out far enough away from the hole that people could have gotten slowed down before they hit he hole.
Things cannot always happen when and the way people want them to happen. At this point the experienced people expect the problem to be solved by the end of this week. There are no guarantees as the weather could change, or damage underneath could be more than expected, but that shouldn't delay things more than a few more days.
I do appreciate you getting on this. But this is like the pots, it is a shame we had to have this long debate about what to do with it.
It's a shame it takes so long for these posts to appear as the city manager and newspaper were notified last week. Hopefully people are aware and more careful until proper repairs can be completed
Some times the post take a long time to appear and sometimes they don't. However, a flashing warning sign is something that can be immediate. But most will do like I do, and just avoid the area. Again thanks.
