The Fulton Road Bridge meeting, 09/29/2006

Gloria Ferris, whom I know quite well, alerted me today to a quickie meeting about the Fulton Road Bridge project. In calling the numbers Gloria left for me to use, I found that the Cleveland Mayor's Action Line responded by carrying my request forward to the mayor, and the Cuyahoga County Engineer's office tried to get me to do the heavy lifting myself by calling ODOT, on whom they placed full responsibility, taking none for the Engineer. I did request that the County Engineer be my advocate in the matter and get ODOT to reschedule this important meeting with sufficient public notice and at a time when most of the public could attend.

We need to remind our public employees that they are paid to handle these situations, and we aren't, and that it further costs us when we must take time out of our productive work time to deal with matters that ought to be running smoothly, according to the public process. I sincerely wish I could leave the future in the hands of our government employees, but their actions in the matter of the Fulton Road Bridge show me that they do not hold the public interests foremost, and so I must speak out, at meetings scheduled more considerately of the normal business day and planned with more advance notice, and widespread publicity.