Your letters for Sept. 17, 2020

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City workers standing by, not standing around

I’ve often wondered about  negative comments I hear people making about our city crews standing around not doing anything while one of them may be working. These comments are undeserved.

Recently, while watching a water main repair on my street, I saw a beautifully choreographed repair done in approximately two-and-a-half hours. We were notified that the water would be turned off in 30 minutes while the crew and equipment needed for the repair were assembled. Once assembled, the repair proceeded; removing pavement, digging out the underlying dirt exposing the damaged pipe and placed in dump trucks, placing the “box” preventing cave ins, repairing the water main and residential service line and putting it all back together and filling the hole.

The number of specific jobs to be done: backhoe operator, truck drivers, pipe fitter and front end loader operator to name a few, were all available to do their jobs when needed. Since not all of this could be done at once, some may have appeared to be “standing around”, where in fact they were “standing by” ready to work. Had they not been, our water supply would have been off considerably longer!