Thursday, March 05, 2009

Back to Politics — BRPoCG - 3

How we got here? How we’re organized?

More views of the on-going Blue Ribbon Panel on City Government (BRPoCG).

The week before meeting focused on a presentation of how the Pueblo city government got to be the way it is configured today.

In my professional opinion, something about being a retired Army officer with some experience in giving information briefings, it could have been done better. There were no visual materials other than a copy of the City Charter for reference. The presenter had his copy marked with post-it notes to help him quickly flip to a particular page.

Furthermore, there was no organizational charting to show the different forms that the city government took, let alone the various departments therein and who they reported to. This, I think, is an important aspect of understanding what the city organization looks like. Not everyone is as ‘textually’ oriented as the presenter apparently was. Some people are more ‘visually’ oriented, i.e., they understand a complex topic better with diagrams and pictures.

One example would be the Board of Water Works. When and why did this utility get separated from the city? Another example is the electricity utility. Colorado Springs has that utility inside its government. Additionally, consider Englewood. They have a ‘concrete’ utility that deals with the development and maintenance of sidewalks, curbs and gutters.

These are ALL aspects of the city government that should be looked into. If not having to do with a mayoral form of government, certainly have a significant impact on how the government functions, mayor or no.

It is my considered opinion that the panel was poorly served by this presentation. And, for their sake, I hope they get better information on how we got to this current organization, as it will likely impact on where we go with the question at hand.

The more I look at this. The more I believe that a City Charter Convention is going to be required to address the form of city government Pueblo adopts and other important aspects of how the government functions.

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Caveat Emptor — Cooper Wiring Devices

Is THIS ‘stupid’ or what?

So one of the pull-chain ceiling lighting fixtures in the basement went ‘south’ on us. You pull the chain and the light doesn’t turn on-or-off. It seems to be stuck in the ‘on’ position. So the only way to turn it off is to unscrew it slightly.

In the first place, the old porcelain fixture will not readily admit to replacement of the faulty switch assembly. We obviously need to do a LOT of work with a soldering iron or get a new assembly.

Going to Lowe’s to get a replacement assembly we have two offerings. One plastic and the other porcelain. The porcelain opinion is clever in design, allowing for replacement of faulty switch elements. It’s only $1 more than the plastic option. So I get it.

Doing all the work to put it into place, I get to the final installation step…..screwing the new porcelain assembly onto the metal housing that holds it to the ceiling.

Guess what….

....the holes in the porcelain assembly do not match up with the screws in the metal box.

OH! There are a couple of plugs in the assembly that, if you remove them properly, you CAN affix it to the narrower metal box.

Wait a moment! In my dealings with ceramics, I’m somewhat familiar with dealing with porcelain. It’s not particularly keen on punching, hitting, or even drilling it. Better be careful…..

So, I just got off the phone with ‘Tim’ at Tech Support for Cooper Wiring Devices. In the discussion, it comes out that the probability of success in ‘drilling’ or ‘punching’ out the plugs in their porcelain assembly is rather ‘low’. He suggests I return the product and find something more amiable to the metal housing. Something with holes designed to go with the screws thereon.

My first question is if the idiot engineer at Cooper Wiring Devices KNEW there were two different standards for screwing their product onto the metal housing, why didn’t they leave BOTH pairs of holes open?

The second question is why haven’t they fired this dweeb?

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