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Ankle Deep Snow Leaves Many Oregonians Flat Footed
While State and Local Officials Just Procrastinate

Meanwhile Oregon's Well-Paid Public Employees Enjoy the Weekend Off

By Scott Rohter, December 2013


"The job of local government is to provide the important public services
that we all need and depend on everyday like safe roads"

Less than a foot of snow has crippled the local transportation infrastructure in the Willamette Valley which includes Eugene and Springfield, and most of the surrounding communities.
A little snowstorm that occurred on Friday has left most of the area's roads unplowed and most of the area residents totally flat-footed and shaking their heads in disbelief, while our State and local officials don’t seem to know exactly what they are supposed to be doing. Let me tell them...
YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO KEEP THE ROADS PLOWED AND SANDED, NOT JUST SIT ON YOUR HANDS AND KNEES AND PROCRASTINATE.

I grew up in Chicago so I know what a real snow storm actually looks like, and this little bit of weather we just had in Oregon was really no big deal. Meanwhile Oregon’s well paid public employees must be taking the weekend off as all of the packed snow continues to accumulate on the roads, and most of the area's snow plows and sand trucks are no where to be seen.

A combination of freezing cold temperatures, a little precipitation, and lukewarm government ineptitude provides the perfect illustration for why government can almost never do anything right. Most Oregonians have been confined to their homes for the past three days while our overpaid public employees continue to collect their big fat P.E.R.S. (that stands for Public Employees Retirement System) checks and benefits and do little or nothing to prove that they actually deserve them. Our County Commissioners and City Councilors are just sitting on their hands too as well as public officials in the State Capitol, or maybe they are all twiddling their thumbs back and forth like Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb.

Nine inches of snow and sub-freezing temperatures should not disable an entire County and a City with over 100,000 people. It is no reason not to plow the State’s roadways just because it is cold. In fact it is the main reason that we have the snow plows and sand trucks and several Public Works Departments… to keep the roads open and safe for the public to drive… so people can go to the store if they need to buy groceries, or to the doctor or hospital in case of an emergency.

The only road that I have seen properly maintained in the last three days is Interstate 5. That is the main north and south artery between Mexico and Canada. That highway is at least drivable. Maybe the need to get illegal aliens back and forth between Oaxaca and British Columbia is more important to our elected public officials than the need for legal Oregonians to get their groceries back home, or to get to the hospital if the need should arise.

The temperature in Eugene on Saturday was -7degrees. That’s what the pot smoking liberals in charge of this City which is home to the University of Oregon Ducks call global warming. Perhaps flat footed was a good term to use for these web-footed public officials. In Portland it was a chilly -4 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday. That is undoubtedly proof to the progressives on the Portland City Council that we all need to further reduce our carbon footprint. If you ask me they should start by closing all of their marijuana dispensaries and declining to smoke anymore dope. That would greatly reduce their own carbon footprint and it would make me breathe a lot easier too.

Every stretch of roadway has a designated government agency that is responsible for maintaining it. Some roads are maintained by the City of Eugene or by the City of Springfield. Some roads are maintained by Lane County, and some roads are maintained by the Oregon Department of Transportation (O.D.O.T.) I am not sure who is responsible for Interstate 5. I assume that it is the Federal Government. When I complained to my Lane County Commissioner who is a Republican by the way, that I have never seen an occasion in the past twenty years when more than six inches of snow on the ground hasn’t brought out the County’s snow plows and road maintenance crews to my neighborhood, he remarked that maybe it was too cold to plow the roads. That’s nonsense I said. At least they could spread sand on the surface of the roads. But he did not respond to that message except to tell me that if I didn't stop typing to him in all capital letters that he wouldn’t read any more of my messages. Its nice to know what's important to our County Commissioners and how well they have their priorities straight.

At the beginning of this story I said that the snow plows were nowhere to be seen, but to be totally honest I actually did see three trucks with snow plows on the road. One actually passed by my house, but they weren’t actually plowing any snow. Nope. Watch this YouTube Video They all had their snow plows up in the air just like their noses, and they all acted like they were on some kind of government surveillance mission just looking over the frozen landscape and performing routine reconnaissance. "Hey dummies, I thought to my self. "Put the blade on the ground. That's where the snow is."
But maybe they were all smoking dope too. How the heck would I know, but something just doesn't seem right about all of this. It is the first year this has ever happened. It feels like a new regime is being imposed on the taxpayers.

Alas we are all being held hostage and confined to our homes for the entire weekend by our politicians. Perhaps we have been bad little taxpayers by not passing their latest tax increases that they put on the ballot. Could this be a deliberate attempt by our esteemed public officials to send the voters a powerful message? "Hey, if you guys want public services than pass the tax measures we put on the ballot,, otherwise you may not be able to get out of your homes in the next snowstorm," or are they just using this as an opportunity to keep us out of our cars in order to facilitate their man-made global warming agenda? Maybe they were just trying to conserve precious money and local resources because the snow storm occurred over a weekend. What do you think?

"The truth, the political truth, and nothing but the political truth. A journalist has no better friend than the truth." - Scott Rohter
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