Yesterday, my wife and I spent an enjoyable but tough afternoon clearing our road of overhanging trees and bushes. It was made even harder by huge water-filled potholes all along our street.
We live on Timberlane Place, and the whole road is an embarrassment to the Town of Loxahatchee Groves. We pay the same taxes as folk living on C Road, who seem to get it done for them. A good amount of those taxes go to the totally non-productive Loxahatchee Groves Water Control District. [LGWCD Supervisor] Frank Schiola says, “They only move water around and grade the roads.” I’ll go further: They do both poorly.
The canals are a filthy, rubbish-strewn disgrace and the OGEMing is reminiscent of cheap road work in Central America. (I used to live there, so don’t argue.) It happens there because highly paid local government officials are overpaid and corrupt, handing out contracts to shoddy contractors who give them a backhander and then use low-quality materials and labor. Of course, that couldn’t happen here in the U.S. Loxahatchee Groves pays a top engineer (why do we need an engineer to move water and throw cheap tarmac onto dust anyway; I could organize that in my spare time?) over $3,000 a week to make it right. Yep, that’s your money and mine these monkeys are wasting.
Given that top guy in charge, I just can’t work out how OGEMed C Road is collapsing into the canal, the speed bumps are sinking into the road, the signs are falling down, the canals are a health hazard, and no one at the town can be bothered to take care of my road! All that expensive machinery sits in those sheds on D Road on weekends, while the roads are washboards. If the wheels ain’t turnin’ they ain’t earnin.’ Maybe we should only pay taxes for five days a week’s road grading?
Perhaps I’ll find some time to think about it all while I’m waiting for the town to come and take away the piles of dead branches along both sides of our road. Something about not having a contract finalized… OMG — is there any wonder the town is crumbling, and the country is on its knees with jokers like this in charge? Or is it just me?
Tim Hart-Woods
Loxahatchee Groves
