When water/sewer problems are being dealt with by the infrastructure of the Town of Greater Napanee, or its sub-contractors, you can expect:
1) no notification as to when the repair will occur, even though the situation has been known about by the main contractor, i.e. the Town, for weeks, even months
2) your driveway to be blocked by simply-parked vehicles of the workers involved, be they Town or subcontractor, even though the repairs in question do not directly involved your property. (The blocking, far from ‘temporary’ as specified in the appropriate By-Law, in my case involving 80 per cent of the working hours of a 2.5 day repair job – said driveway being two properties away from the job site in question. Many, many spots are available along the stretch of the roadway involved where there are no driveways, the shoulders are wide for parking, and there are no ‘No Parking’ signs (which of course the Town can ignore, anyway).
3) no attempt be made to immediately notify, in person, all surrounding residents affected, when the need for sudden cutting of off of water (perhaps also hydro, telephone and or cable, thankfully not in this case) during repair work happens – even though five able bodied workers stand around looking at the site of the disruption.
What is obviously needed here, and not just because of this individual situation, is seminars, very likely quite a few of them, requiring mandatory attendance at by all employed at the many levels of bureaucracy of our Town infrastructure. Seminars in Basic 101 Sensitivity Training in Common Sense Public Relations. Followed by the workers at all levels, including subcontractors, practicing principles of common decency and respect when involved with their job sites.
F Goring-Koch,
Napanee