Friday, December 26, 2008

Why Is This Man Talking?

Alderman Bob Donovan must not have gotten what he wanted for Christmas this year. That would be one possible explanation, besides the fact that he is always hankering for some publicity, for him shooting his mouth off yet again.

This time, he is complaining that the PDW isn't moving fast enough for him. Never mind that we have already had the second or third snowiest December on record. Never mind that parking restrictions were lifted for Christmas.

But instead of being quiet, and letting people simply think he is a goofball, he has to go on and prove it:

"Many of our side streets are simply impassable for emergency vehicles," Donovan told reporters. "These streets need to be cleared out."

However, Donovan said he was not aware of any case where a firetruck, ambulance or squad car had been unable to get through.

So he is complaining about a problem that doesn't exist. Nothing new there. But it only gets better:

Patrick Curley, Mayor Tom Barrett's chief of staff, and Mike Engelbart, a public works official, said ticketing resumed today as planned, and towing was set to start about 3:30 p.m., with plows in place to clear snow after cars are towed. City crews have been working their way through each neighborhood and just reached Donovan's district today, they said.

Curley said Donovan was briefed about the situation at 11 a.m., or 2 1/2 hours before his 1:30 p.m. news conference. Donovan said he didn't get any information until 1:05 p.m., after he had made repeated phone calls to the Department of Public Works and had sent out an announcement of his news conference.

Even if one gives Donovan the benefit of the doubt, and presumes he is being accurate that he didn't know until a half hour before the news conference, that would have still given him plenty of time to either cancel the event, or at least change what he was going to say.

But it is like Patrick Curley says:

"Bob thinks he's the smartest guy in the room, and that's only true if he's the only guy in the room."
Personally, I think he may be giving Donovan too much credit.

5 comments:

  1. So he is complaining about a problem that doesn't exist.

    You're right...better to wait until after that ambulance, police car or fire truck can't get through before doing something about it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The snow plow operators work tremendously long hours under the worst conditions. Unless Donovan can show evidence that the plow operators are slacking off, then he should shut up.
    Aren't the plow operators of the garbage trucks also the drivers that pick up the garbage, or did that change?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Donovan is a grandstander of the first water.

    Like it or not, DPW's people cannot work 30 hours/day. One might argue that DPW's systems are inefficient, but Donovan doesn't make that case. He argues that the labor-input is not sufficient, instead.

    Mr. Donovan should study the history of the winter of '47/'48. He will discover that the CITIZENS shoveled the streets, voluntarily, because DPW was overwhelmed.

    Maybe Donovan should buy a snow-shovel (instead of the BS shovel he uses so much) and provide an example of citizenship.

    Unless he wants DPW personnel to be pushing 10-ton hunks of iron down a street with no sleep in 30 hours...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dan,

    Yes, they still do double duty with the trucks.

    Roland,

    Donovan knew that they were working on it 2 1/2 hours before he shot his fool mouth off. No emergency vehicles got stuck or were going to get stuck. It was just Donovan being the publicity whore he always has been.

    ReplyDelete
  5. OMG, for the first time, and quite probably the last time in my life, I agree with dad29.

    If a Milwaukee alderman has a press conference, there's better than a 9:10 chance it's Bob Donovan going on about something and tooting his own horn. We really need a good candidate or two to run against him.

    ReplyDelete