Where there is no vision.
At a recent town board meeting it was interesting to note that the town’s economic developer seemed to firmly believe that the capacity of the wastewater treatment facility is sufficient. There seems to be a lot of opposition regarding the accuracy of the presentation at the 2010 meetings that where held in the past. This information was presented by the state’s Department of Commerce. The slide show clearly proclaims that the wastewater treatment facility is at full capacity. There must therefore be in existence some evidence to the contrary of that presentation. Evidence that would dispute the situation that exists right now will not continue to exist. As previously pointed out by the article “Anyway you look at it” from the Inside Buffalo website, there are indications that the facility needs to be upgraded to handle its inflow.
Where there is no vision.
One would think that the economic developer of the Town of Buffalo would be the champion crusader for growth of the community. The desirable goals of the economy for the town would be progress. With progress, there would be developmental growth of the town, new houses, new businesses, and more residents. That will put more strain on the sewage system. However, the sensitivity with the associated costs of the expansion of the system is clouding the ability to come to terms with the situation. The capacity issue is not sensitive in itself. The town is reaching the limit of, and may have already outgrown its ability to handle, what is going to the plant. Being unprepared is what has created the inability to stop hiding from the truth.
The people perish.
If you have a system that is maxed out it will not allow for any growth to it. If there is no desire to expand the system then the alternatives would be to reduce the load to it. In order to reduce the load to this treatment plant the number of residents using it would need to go down. Also the number of business would need to be reduced to lower the strain on the wastewater treatment plant. The number of visitors and shoppers will need to be reduced or maybe they will be asked to “go” somewhere else besides Buffalo. Evidently, the evidence the economic developer is relying upon, is for people to move from Buffalo, businesses to close down in Buffalo, and visitors to go somewhere else besides Buffalo.
The people perish.
Is the economic developer’s plan for Buffalo to tell a potential business or developer to come back in about 10 years? By then we hope to have lost enough people that we will be able to handle the strain that you are going to put on our system. But if you come today we will be forced to bite the bullet and upgrade our wastewater treatment facility.
Where there is no vision the people perish.
Upgrades could be expensive and the town may have to borrow money to do them. It has never borrowed money for a big infrastructure project. And that is what has created the dire situations that exist with all of the infrastructures of Buffalo. The stronghold that has existed for years inside City Hall can be blamed for the shortsightedness of its operations. The only way they know how to invest in this community is through a certificate of deposit of its extra money into a bank. City Hall’s inability or flat out refusal to admit that there is a problem will do nothing but lengthen the time it takes to deal with them. Maybe they hope to divert the issues long enough that they won’t have to spend time and effort working on them during their tenure.
Fortunately, the town board does have the ability to change the direction of the town’s policy, or lack there of. But do they have the vision to temporarily cast their friendships aside to do what is best for the betterment of the community? Only time will tell.
Linda,Leah,James and Joe.....What is your vision?
Buss,Brown,Bishop, and Harper it's your legacy.....Will the people perish?
Sunday, December 21, 2008
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Just a question, was there any type of training and/or education for the town manager and maintenance people (past and present) to recognize these problems and have the knowledge to repair said problems? Remember, these same people also tend to the drinking water system. I would think there would have to be degrees or on going training to attempt this type of work.
ReplyDeleteSome of you may find it interesting that the husband of the city treasurer, after the meeting had adjourned, had to be restrained from making physical lunges directed at someone else that had been in attendance of the meeting. The person restraining the husband of the city treasure was none-the-less than, the City Mayor. She escorted her father-in-law out of the building and across the street to his vehicle.
ReplyDeleteBased on speculation from the city manager and possibly other City Hall members, almost half of the water delivered through the taps of Buffalo is apparently being consumed by cattle. The cattle are drinking the water and the numbers used for calculations are therefore wrong because of this. The cows drink the water and there really isn’t as much as you think going to the lagoons.
Even though the Mayor is in charge of presiding over the meeting, Trustee Brown made it a point to chastise some of the citizens in attendance and demand that they speak only to the board. Sometimes that is difficult to do when the board is sitting in a circle. It is hard to be recognized when some of the board members are not directly facing the audience. Set the board table up so that all of its members are facing toward, and can be seen by, the public. Concerned citizens could then stand up and then be recognized by the proper presiding official. That would solve those situations.
And finally one audience member believes that the Town Board has some powers over the press. After being recognized by the board, during the appearances from the audience portion of the meeting, choose to make a personal statement about what should or maybe shouldn’t be appearing on pages such as this. Can’t figure out how our board will ever be able to circumvent the Constitution of the United States of America.
Just a question,
ReplyDeleteThere is training that is required, and has been taken. High turnover in recent years has caused the loss of trained personell. Administration of the training is obviously policed by themselves, the occupants of City Hall. The education needed to recognize problems would naturally fall under a category called common sense.
APATHY
ReplyDeleteNo one ever shows up at the town board meetings except maybe Inside Buffalo or Onside Buffalo people and we get all the facts from you so why do we need to go to the town board meetings?
APATHY
1 : lack of feeling or emotion : impassiveness
2 : lack of interest or concern : indifference
Who cares if our sewers don't work? We'll just trot over to the town managers house and $*@! in his house!
Then we'll go to the mayors house and shower and do our dirty laundy there.
not only apathetic - PATHETIC!
Hey what's up with the trash collection? Truck break down? Driver on strike? My trash along with several others on the east side of town have not had our trash picked up for 2 weeks now. I have heard a rumour that if you have so much trash that the lid won't close he won't pick it up. DUH, if you don't pick trash up for 2 weeks people's trash bins are going to be overflowing & the lids won't shut. I'm thinking that I pay $15 for a month of trash collection, if they only pick it up twice a month, maybe $7.50 should be all I pay.
ReplyDeleteFolks, this town is in trouble, serious trouble. I read in our local newspaper a few weeks ago in the pastor's message that we live in a town divided. That we do. We have those who are running the town & those who back them and then we have the other side, those who are trying to find out just what is going on here. It has even gotten to the point that it is almost physical, see one of the posts above. My question would be, who is the city treasurer? Him or his wife?
I think we are just starting to see the beginning of the downfall of Buffalo.
Here's another biscuit to chew on. The American Legion donated their building to the town of Buffalo for the purpose of bringing Duckwalls in. The city refurbished the building, brought in Duckwalls, which has been great for the town. Now comes the dollar store. Whose behind this? Is this another City doings? Can Buffalo really support 2 stores like this? If I was a bettin man I'd say one stores life is slowly going to come to an end.
Now they are going to raise our water and sewer rates, that would be fine and good if we had decent water to drink, and a working waste treatment facility. I just read this week's paper, and in the town board meeting minutes there was a vote and approval for a $2600 radar gun. Folks that's going to be a lot of tickets. Didn't the old police dept have radars? What happened to all the equipment the old dept. had?
Saw another spot in one of our streets where there had been another water leak. They keep going and the whole water line infrastructure will be clamps.
Tommy posted here a while back about solutions, he's right, we need to find solutions and accountibility. The current & past city management has done a really p**s poor job. That's my opinion. We have serious water problems, we have serious waste water problems, we serious street problems, just to name a few. Most town board meetings don't last but maybe a couple of hours. You can't get much solved or solutions figured out in just a couple hours. Their solution=raise the cost of the services provided by the town. Raise the water rates but don't make the water drinkable, raise the sewer rates but don't buy a new pump to replace one that broke down 5 years ago,
I could go on but most times it's like talking to a wall.
A town divided...I'd have to say that is exactly what we are!! We have those who voice the problems and are willing to work toward a solution, those who don't know and/or don't want to know what the problems (after all, we don't like change), those who just put a temporary patch on problems (for as long as can be remembered), etc,etc,etc. and as I have said before PROCRASTINATION is our biggest problem. Always the 'reason' for putting repairs off is that we don't have the money right now. So far, in these types of instances, I haven't noticed things getting cheaper the longer you wait. The problems we are now facing in huge numbers are a result of not only the current town management, but the past town management. And, it's only my opinion, when one doesn't know how to go about actually fixing the problem, instead of exerting oneself and doing some calling around for info or doing some research, we just put a bandaid on it. We all know a bandaid hides the problem from view for a short while, then if not properly taken care of, infection sets in. This town is 'infected' with these long worn 'bandaids'. I know the current administration inherited a lot of these things. As with anything that you keep putting off for this reason or that, eventually all of these things go bust at the same time. Instead of spending money all along to maintain things, we wait until everything breaks and go into a panic to try to come up with the funds. I've heard people squawking about the raised water and sewer amounts, but folks, we have to fix the problems somehow and there are only so many grants and monies available to begin fixing the problems. Unfortunately, nothing is free. And if we put it to a vote of the people, many would vote NO because of the extra cost. And those who don't want to pay for the repairs are generally the ones who complain the loudest about the problems. ALL of the citizens need to work together no matter if you like this person or that person!! For pete's sake, let's work for the common good of our town or we won't have a town to work for!! I would encourage all of you citizens to attend the town board meetings if you want to know what's going on and to voice your opinions. After all, the Trustees are SUPPOSED to be representatives of the citizens, not just a handful who's opinions are the only important ones. Who knows some of the 'common' folk might actually have a great idea or knowledge to make an informed decision.
ReplyDelete