Hardworking Maintenance

Hardworking Maintenance Folks?

In response to the letter from T.S. who mentioned how great the main road clearing has been and that the drivers are hard working. Well that may be so in some parts of Kelowna but what about the rest of us?

Westsiders complaining about the main roadway are within their right, after all, the HIGHWAY....which runs it course through Kelowna is the same 'HIGHWAY' that runs it's course through to Westbank and beyond. I don't know if there is a Regional issue here at all.

I could hardly drive from one side of the highway to the other in Westbank because of the snow covered roads. It was deep, it was slippery and there is no excuse.

Now as for the "hard working" maintenance folks you speak of.....what is so hard about sitting in a warm truck cab and driving around getting extra hours and I might add.....extra overtime pay. Of course if someone is working overtime they should be entitled......but what exactly are they working overtime at? Oh, one more thing on the issue of 'hard working' maintenance folks. How about you hire me at the regular pay instead of keeping your guys on for extra hours at double the pay. Makes sense to me when it comes to our tax payer dollars.

By the way.....I'm talking about Sunday afternoon....January 9th......many many hours after the major snowfall.

Somebody needs to keep from side stepping the issue of poor road maintenance and admit that profit 'IS' a major key in this situation. I saw the CHBC news last night and the representative speaking on behalf of the snow removal issue, assured us money is 'not' the issue.....that the issue is cleared streets no matter what it costs......even if that means more money being spent to do so.

As reported in the same news by a reporter, '1/4 of the 2005 snow removal budget has already been spent'. Well I'm not a psychic and can forecast the rest of our winter....but I have lived in the Okanagan here for over 20 years and chances are the rest of the winter won't be near what we just had for snow. I'm sure there will be plenty of budget left for the year and it 'WON'T' have to come out of the tax payer pockets.

The public driving on our roads and speaking out should be listened to once in a while. I'm sure a good portion of the driving public have been around longer and been through more winters than some of the maintenance drivers and probably know a well cleared road when they drive one.

p.s. One more thing....there is talk of a wild driver in Lake Country that has damaged vehicles and almost hit people with his plowing tactics. Well I wonder if the same driver also works out on the Westside. A few nights ago I was driving towards Westbank from Kelowna, on the HIGHWAY I might add, when one of the plow trucks pulled out from a side road onto the highway right in front of a stream of traffic that could barely break because of the icy road. Never mind the roads being dangerous because of the snow and not being tended to properly, but we now have to worry about aggressive road maintenance drivers. If an accident did happen, it certainly could not be blamed on road conditions but on reckless driving.

I wonder were that driver was going? It was in the direction of Westbank. Hmmmmm, but Westbank didn't get plowed. Well maybe he was on his way to a coffee break. I hear the Westbank Tim Hortons is one of the hot spots for coffee and it sits only a few feet off the 'HIGHWAY'.

R.L.S.