Newton Make Work - Road Work

[JoeP]

Been awhile Sal.  Today I saw our Newton tax dollars at work.  Big machine with bucket shovel and dump truck on Beaver Pond scraping the top of the ditch off on parts of the NW side of the road.  I called the township, they said they were redoing the drainage ditches.  Two guys, two big vehicles and frankly, when they were done, it looked the same as before – a shallow drainage ditch except no grass now (all the residents keep it rimmed).  In fact there was less of a drainage ditch than before.  So I don’t know what was accomplished.  Plus the driveways that reach the road have no culvert under them, so what good is the ditch because as soon as the water hits a drive way it spills out into the road.

This looks like “make work” and not spending our tax dollars wisely.  The guy in the dump truck had it best.  All he had to do was sit in the truck all day and back it up every few minutes.  Wonder what he was paid.

Another “make work” project is when the township sends the cutting machine down the road (don’t know what it is called).  It has the big cutting arm on it that extends 4 or 5 foot out to cut the brush from the side of the road.  Now I ask, what brush?  I would only think you need to do this where high brush and weeds are encroaching on the road.  But is most places they are not so why are we paying someone to ride around with the slicer all day wasting taxpayer’s dollars?

I’m not an engineer or a “road master” but I am a taxpayer.  It would seem our tax dollars could be better used for other things.  Who approves these projects?