Iam extremely disappointed in how the city of Fayetteville has handled the recent inclement weather.
I have lived in Fayetteville for seven years, so I can honestly say that inclement weather is not something that occurs once every five years.
People have every right to panic and run to the grocery store and stock up here in Fayetteville. There is a good chance it will take days for Fayetteville to clear the roads and people to be able to get out of their homes. Our city completely shuts down for inclement weather. Our schools are not open, our city services close and most of our businesses have to close for the safety of employees and patrons. So, what does that mean for the city.
No tax revenue?
How do you fix the problems with the schools? Just send the kids to school longer, into June, which interferes with family vacations and summer camps.
How do you fix the problem with the trash service? We won’t charge our citizens for extra bags of trash. The problem here is the people have to find a place for that trash to go. Don’t worry citizens of Fayetteville, you will still be charged normally during the month of February for your trash service, but we won’t charge you for the extra bags of trash. What is going to happen when trash can’t run again? Then people will have trash piled up for three weeks.
A local business not being open hurts the city more than any of the above. It hurts the small business owners. They may or may not have to pay their employees for not coming in, but what about the people who would have come and shopped in their stores and provided revenue? That revenue would have been taxed, and that tax would help make our city a better place.
It all goes back to the No. 1 problem: not clearing the roads.
I lived in the Chicagoland area for a few years; the area gets snow all the time and they know how to prepare for the snow and they know what to do once the snow has come. Do you think those people work 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. clearing roads? No, they work day and night to ensure their cities stay open. It is almost unheard of for schools to close and businesses to not be opened.
City services, never.
City officials, take a few hundred dollars out of your budget and travel to northern cities and learn what they do to keep their city open.
Take notes, because we live in a great state and a great city, but the snow and ice is not going to stop.
Let’s learn from our mistakes and make things better, instead of letting the same problems occur year after year with the same results.
JENNIFER SPERRY
Fayetteville
Opinion, Pages 5 on 02/18/2011