There's more than one way...

[Forsoothe!]

Ya know how the trees & brush along side the highways grow out into the right-of-way and the county road commission trims them? They have new machinery now that attaches to a vehicle and the guy just drives slowly at the edge of the road and has a mechanical arm that reaches out and grabs a limb or a bunch of limbs and breaks them off. I watched him yesterday on North River Rd. This, is what the aftermath of such devices leaves..
And on a single trunk...

Your tax dollars at work, so to speak. These are the people that want to set standards for us citizens.

 

[Agriff]

I mean, they probably do it that way because it's cheaper than the alternative, so with tax dollars you literally get what you pay for. I'm sure some politician could run on a platform of raising taxes to make roadsides look prettier, but that probably wouldn't be too popular.

I agree it's pretty grotesque though. I for one would be willing to suffer a tax hike to do away with shit like this.

 

[Forsoothe!]

I mean, they probably do it that way because it's cheaper than the alternative, so with tax dollars you literally get what you pay for. I'm sure some politician could run on a platform of raising taxes to make roadsides look prettier, but that probably wouldn't be too popular.

I agree it's pretty grotesque though. I for one would be willing to suffer a tax hike to do away with shit like this.

We mean your taxes are too low? Minneapolis cut $8,000,000 from the police budget. Did your taxes go down?

 

[Agriff]

We mean your taxes are too low? Minneapolis cut $8,000,000 from the police budget. Did your taxes go down?

I believe that money got shuffled into other areas of the budget, but I haven't looked too closely so don't quote me on that. I wouldn't be surprised though: $8 million goes pretty fast when you're budgeting for a city of 3 million.

 

[AZbonsai]

We mean your taxes are too low? Minneapolis cut $8,000,000 from the police budget. Did your taxes go down?

You need to put a warning on posts like this I almost choked on my pop tart.

 

[Potawatomi13]

We mean your taxes are too low? Minneapolis cut $8,000,000 from the police budget. Did your taxes go down?

Whatever Einstein did that needs to swing from a rope. Actions have consequences!

 

[Wulfskaar]

Man. Looks like they are leaving a wall of spears along the road. Yikes!

 

[leatherback]

new

This is new? This is the standard here for at least a decade.

If they do this regularly (Every 2, 3 years) the damage will be less extreme as it is only smallish branches that get pruned.

 

[sorce]

They donated that 8mil to a terrorist organization!

Sorce

 

[QuantumSparky]

They donated that 8mil to a terrorist organization!

Sorce

Which organization?

8 million is nothing to cities, I'm sure it just got put towards better things.

I hate to see trees cut up like that but tbh it's better than having a road shut down so that workers can take longer to do a more expensive job on a spot that people will see for maybe 2 seconds while they fly by in their cars.

 

[Forsoothe!]

Which organization?

8 million is nothing to cities, I'm sure it just got put towards better things.

I hate to see trees cut up like that but tbh it's better than having a road shut down so that workers can take longer to do a more expensive job on a spot that people will see for maybe 2 seconds while they fly by in their cars.

Actually, they had the usual set of vehicles that slowed traffic. They didn't do anything that an ordinary run-of-the-mill commercial landscaping crew couldn't do better walking through with a chain saw followed by chipper/shredder and a Brush Hog in half the time and at a lower hourly rate. There isn't a place in the US where a commercial outfit would be allowed to leave the scene looking like this and get paid and not removed from the approved source list. Argue with that. Contractors can be fired for doing a poor job and yet some people don't object when a civil servant (an oxymoron) does it for higher costs. We are doomed.

 

[Mike Corazzi]

They need to fund and establish a Department of Cutpaste.

 

[Adair M]

Actually, they had the usual set of vehicles that slowed traffic. They didn't do anything that an ordinary run-of-the-mill commercial landscaping crew couldn't do better walking through with a chain saw followed by chipper/shredder and a Brush Hog in half the time and at a lower hourly rate. There isn't a place in the US where a commercial outfit would be allowed to leave the scene looking like this and get paid and not removed from the approved source list. Argue with that. Contractors can be fired for doing a poor job and yet some people don't object when a civil servant (an oxymoron) does it for higher costs. We are doomed.

Higher costs? You think a crew doing this by hand with chain saws, chippers and shredders would cost less than this machine? Maybe if the crew was prison labor…

I don’t think it’s very attractive. The trees do grow back, and you dont really notice it in a couple of months. It’s the price we pay to have safe roads.

 

[Agriff]

They were doing this work by hand with chain saws, chippers and shredders before this machine came along. Your theory is that they switched to the machine because it was either a) easier for the workers, b) allowed the state to pay their workers more, or c) both?

The government is not some type of fraternity that takes care of its own. The people in charge of budgetary decisions don't give a shit about how easy it is for the people doing the work, and they certainly wouldn't waste budget money for the sake of padding a few people's salaries. They only care about the bottom line. The reason this looks crappy is because it's the cheapest option. I work in govt and a lot of my coworkers are hard ass republicans who got into the work expressly to prevent wasteful spending.

 

[Forsoothe!]

They were doing this work by hand with chain saws, chippers and shredders before this machine came along. Your theory is that they switched to the machine because it was either a) easier for the workers, b) allowed the state to pay their workers more, or c) both?

The government is not some type of fraternity that takes care of its own. The people in charge of budgetary decisions don't give a shit about how easy it is for the people doing the work, and they certainly wouldn't waste budget money for the sake of padding a few people's salaries. They only care about the bottom line. The reason this looks crappy is because it's the cheapest option. I work in govt and a lot of my coworkers are hard ass republicans who got into the work expressly to prevent wasteful spending.

I suspected that you were one of them. I won't bother with arguing with you. Only a government worker thinks the government is worth a shit.

 

[hinmo24t]

We mean your taxes are too low? Minneapolis cut $8,000,000 from the police budget. Did your taxes go down?

taxes go down? never heard of it

 

[just.wing.it]

The government is not some type of fraternity that takes care of its own.

Bwahahahahahahaaaaa!

 

[just.wing.it]

I'm sure it just got put towards better things.

Right....
Like clean needle/pipe programs, pop tents for the vagrants, pay raises for teacher's unions after sitting at home for a year, building low income housing projects in decent neighborhoods.....ya know.....the better things.
Who needs cops anyway?

 

[QuantumSparky]

Right....
Like clean needle/pipe programs, pop tents for the vagrants, pay raises for teacher's unions after sitting at home for a year, building low income housing projects in decent neighborhoods.....ya know.....the better things.
Who needs cops anyway?

Literally all of those things are better than overfunding the police force haha. Nobody is saying we don't need cops, we just don't need a militarized police force. Like cops shouldn't even be doing traffic stops, that should be a completely different department. Cops are for when someone is in danger, not for holding homeless people at gunpoint because they tried to sleep on a bench, or launching tear gas into peaceful protestors. Luckily the bootlickers are outnumbered in this country and the well-educated are starting to fix the US and eradicate the racism and bigotry. Sucks for the narrow-minded individuals on the blatantly wrong side of history

 

[just.wing.it]

Literally all of those things are better than overfunding the police force haha. Nobody is saying we don't need cops, we just don't need a militarized police force. Like cops shouldn't even be doing traffic stops, that should be a completely different department. Cops are for when someone is in danger, not for holding homeless people at gunpoint because they tried to sleep on a bench, or launching tear gas into peaceful protestors. Luckily the bootlickers are outnumbered in this country and the well-educated are starting to fix the US and eradicate the racism and bigotry. Sucks for the narrow-minded individuals on the blatantly wrong side of history

Actually vagrancy is a crime. We used to have standards in this country. But if it wasn't for double standards left wing idiots would have no standards at all.