SIDE STREETS: How many city workers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
We’ve all heard the sarcastic question: How many city employees does it take to fill a pothole? The cynical response usually includes six guys leaning on shovels while one guy works.
Rockrimmon resident Frank Rakoczy asked after seeing a crew working on his street recently.
He even sent photos (I’ve posted them on my blog) of seven Colorado Springs employees lined up behind a truck as it repaired cracks in the asphalt.
“Three workers are filling the cracks and the other four are for what?” Rakoczy said in an e-mail. “I appreciate the work done to repair our streets, but are seven workers necessary in this time of city government deficits?”
Neighbor Frank Rodeffer also saw the crew.
“I was wondering the same thing,” Rodeffer said. “But I’m not mad. I’m willing to give the city the benefit of the doubt. I’m sure there’s a good reason.”
Actually, there is a good reason, said Ken Winckler, operations manager for the city street division.
“That was a crack-sealing crew,” Winckler said.
The photos show a city truck pulling a trailer. Seven men in bright florescent green safety vests stand behind the trailer.
One is holding a large wand to pump hot liquid tar into cracked asphalt.
Three are holding large squeegees to smooth the tar and push it into the cracks.
Two people are looking on. One is there for traffic control and safety, the other is a supervisor.
Winckler said the photos don’t show a nearby two-person crew of an air compressor truck that drove up Bear Cloud Drive blowing dirt out of the cracks prior to sealing.
“It looks like only two people are working,” Winckler said. “But that’s not the case. Crack seal requires a six-person crew. Everyone doesn’t work at the same time. It’s sequential work.”
Winckler cringes at complaints about six guys watching one guy work.
“It’s not true, but it’s the perception,” he said. “We monitor these things. We discuss it with our crews. We want people working fast and efficiently. We stress it.”
And he wants taxpayers to know: no one is loafing. He can’t afford dead weight when resources are so thin: to maintain 7,000 lane miles, he has 20 percent fewer people and his budget of $8.2 million has dropped nearly $10 million.
Year-round, Winckler has two crews filling potholes. But it becomes a huge priority each spring, and nearly all of his 109 street division employees get involved.
The past four weeks, nine crews have been filling potholes and sealing cracks. They repaired more than 4,000 in March, bringing the total for 2010 to about 7,400, said Chris Howard, a street division supervisor.
Winckler said his crews are about halfway done. Less, if we get more freeze-thaw cycles this spring.
Residents can report potholes by calling the city hotline at 385-6808.
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