Archive for December 13, 2008
Lights Out … Quite Often
by Chuck Ring (GadAbout-BlogAlot ©2008)Â
Quote Freely From the Article — Leave The Pseudonym Alone
Green light, yellow light, red light, green light. That’s usually the way a traffic control signal cycles through to allow for the efficient flow of vehicles through high volume intersections. Why then does Edgewood have two signalized intersections that often blink red for days at a time?
The intersection at State Road 333 (Old 66) and State Road 344 and the intersection of State Road 344 and Interstate 40 have been “out of order” more than any signalized intersection I have ever seen … and I have seen many of them.
I recall that the Edgewood Town Council voted not to contract to maintain the lights, yet for some reason (I don’t recall a second vote) the town has contracted with someone who is supposed to maintain and repair the traffic signals when they become inoperable. I and others would like to know why a chronic problem exists with the intersections mentioned above and why the contractor takes an inordinate amount of time to respond to the problems and often takes days to rectify the problem.
Saturday Evening — Mourning For Section 16
by Chuck Ring (GadAbout-BlogAlot ©2008)Â
Quote Freely From the Article — Leave The Pseudonym Alone
Since shortly after Edgewood was incorporated in 1999, it has been the town’s policy to move forward to develop a center for town facilities on Section 16. It has been the policy, but nothing has been done toward that end. One of the facilities to be constructed on Section 16 was a library, either as a library alone or as some sort of combination facility. The governing body recently voted to move the library from its location off of Old 66 to a building adjacent to State Road 344 rather than to apply available funds to a new library on Section 16. The budgeted cost for this move, which included monthly lease payments and monies for remodeling amount to at least $70,000 for the first year, if there is not a cost overrun for the modifications. Of course, monies for the lease, maintenance and utilities will continue as operation of the library goes forward. Additionally, money for a full time librarian salary and benefits, along with a library assistant’s salary and benefits has been budgeted.
While I and others support the idea of a town library, we did not support the move mentioned above as we believed that it made economic sense to build a completely new library and money spent on the move and other elements of the library at its new location amount to throwing money away that could have been more sensibly spent toward a new library on Section 16. It should be said that the mayor and other volunteers involved in preparing the new location and moving the books to the new location deserve our thanks and appreciation and this new location for the library will be fine for a while, but the governing body needs to start now to plan a new library for Section 16, preferably so that it is ready within a three year period.