March 27, 2018
Tuesday PM

There is nothing at all funny about your muse on local road conditions and potholes; incompetence and probably worse is not in any sense amusing, but before I delve into that subject I will briefly address your silliness about donut spare tires. The solution is very simple and is done immediately by any driver and vehicle owner who knows what they are doing. You rip that worthless piece of junk off its rim and replace it with a standard-sized tire, and you make sure you buy a vehicle that has a spare tire well large enough for a real tire to fit. I know; it’s complicated.

So far this year that is less than three months old I am aware of three instances where potholes have taken more than $2000 out of the mouths of children locally (none of the families make that much money, or they have lots of kids), so I am sure you will find considerable amusement in that, too.

Pull this kind of crap in the private sector, and you will be among the starving unemployable, because no one who has to make a living the real way can ever tolerate such lassitude and incompetence.

No, Kiffer, you are not funny, and the issue of the condition of the roads in town and on South Tongass from the Coast Guard base into Saxman is an obscenity, not an amusement.

The real issue is how many local bureaucrats have to be permanently fired in order to have enough money to buy asphalt.

And how many current local bureaucrats should be fired because they are incompetent duds.

Late last year the state on an emergency basis fixed this mess of a road from Shoup Avenue going into Saxman. So what happens six months later? There’s a damned construction crew that has already shredded this brand new piece of road, and is now crushing it with heavy equipment over a length of several hundred yards. Are you people out of your minds? Are you that stupid?

How much money is being wasted twice over just to start with? You don’t know what a flow chart is? You don’t get that you do what you are doing now first, so you don’t have to pay for it twice? And the second time around you are just going to leave us a piece of patched up crap.

Fire these people, folks. Get rid of those who think this is funny, and send their entourage out the door with them.

In downtown Amylonia Tongass Avenue is shredded from the Federal Building to Tatsudas to the inconvenience of every motorist in town. Now why is a whole road shut down over a quarter-mile in length to do the type of work they are currently doing, i.e. gouging giant holes in the pavement about eight feet deep? Looks to me like the contractor can save on his equipment rental costs, etc. somewhat, thereby pocketing that much more of the bid, but for these folks to make a few extra bucks the rest of the community gets to pay in spades, i.e. a hundred-fold the loss in revenues and opportunity, as the inside crowd plays around with your money and otherwise screws you.

This job could be done in smaller sections with much less inconvenience to the community.

But why is this the first job being done anyway? Next, I hear, come expanded sidewalks for the tourists. Where is there any provision to fix the damned potholes, and to re-surface the street, which is what really needs to be done?

Then there is Scott Gray and Scott Gray’s Way. This is the guy who took over maintaining the highways outside of town after the recent retirement of Mr. Starr. He’s doing a wonderful job, don’t you think? But I am concerned that the heating bill must be going up in his office. Scott Gray apparently does not believe in filling potholes. I think he is conducting an experiment trying to determine when exactly the road will just disappear.

Might be better if he just disappeared. His absence would not even be noticed.

If it takes reducing the number of local government employees making well over $100,000 (and then some in too many instances), from the current 30 to 35 down to five to eight, get to it. Our current borough manager is hiding his entire operation behind locked doors anyway. Not much of real value or consequence in that which is hidden from view. That’s $2 to $3 million a year immediately available for asphalt.

Do not tell me you cannot keep the roads fixed. That’s a choice, and a dishonest one.

So if perchance, Mr. Kiffer, your intent was an attempt at satire rather than humor, I’d recommend you stick to a simpler prosaic form.

This is a subject not merely tinged with corruption.

David G Hanger
Ketchikan, Alaska

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Received March 25, 2018 - Published March 27, 2018

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