[RP TownTalk] addendum

[Nancy Augustine]

I cheerfully accept Roland's addendum to my addendum.  I was blissfully
ignorant of disarray in preceding years, and I'm quite satisfied with the
level of service being provided now. I could not name names, and I'm glad
that Roland did.  Kudos - and thanks - to all.

Nancy

-----Original Message-----
From: roland.walker at gmail.com [mailto:roland.walker at gmail.com] On Behalf Of
Roland Walker
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2008 2:33 PM
To: Nancy Augustine
Cc: TownTalk
Subject: Re: [RP TownTalk] addendum

To be completely honest, taking years to remove dead trees has been the
state of affairs for at least four years (since I first became involved in
town politics).  Maybe David Michaeloff will tell us how long his dead tree
was up.

I'm glad that you mention Alice, as she has been proactive on tree issues,
but it is David Lingua (Ward 3) who has been doing an incredible job of
council oversight as the chair of the Public Works Committee.  He probably
won't like that I am calling him out for praise, but I do think that many
people don't realize just how hard he works at this aspect of the job.

And I sincerely hope that we are locking in lasting change now that we
finally have a Director of Public Works who is here to stay.  It has
actually been *years* since we had a public works director of any lasting
tenure.  In retrospect, it seems hasty to have fired Jim Houser, inasmuch as
the town government had no particular idea about how to line up a good
replacement.

Anyway, Leonard Addison should be credited on storm response -- he seems
fantastic -- and the public works employees, who work quite hard in these
emergency response situations.  But I think CM Lingua should be recognized
in Mr Addison's hiring; his efforts insured that our candidate search was
much broader and that the review of candidates was much more thoughtful and
intensive.

Combined with the hiring of a great new Police Chief and the placement of
Code Enforcement under her leadership, I'm very excited about our future
prospects.

R

PS It took me a minute to understand "MoCo envy" because I thought of
Molybdenum Cofactor (http://www.chem.qmul.ac.uk/iupac/bioinorg/MO.html#20).
But maybe that's just me.

On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 10:51 AM, Nancy Augustine <nya_md at verizon.net>
wrote:
> And for those of you with MoCo envy -
>
> Earlier this week, a co-worker of mine who lives in Bethesda was 
> telling me that it takes a minimum of 9 months (this is according to 
> county staff) to get a dead tree removed from a public street. He had 
> to wait 2 years for them to get around to a dead tree in front of his 
> house. When he called to check on the status, some months into the 
> waiting period, county staff told him not to worry about it. Because 
> he had reported it, the county would pay for any damages caused if the 
> tree came down in whole or in part.  He did not find that very reassuring.
>
> Nancy
> ________________________________
> From: towntalk-bounces at riverdale-park.org
> [mailto:towntalk-bounces at riverdale-park.org] On Behalf Of Nancy 
> Augustine
> Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2008 10:39 AM
> To: 'TownTalk'
> Subject: [RP TownTalk] I love my town
>
> Last week, half a tree came down on the street in front of my house. I 
> emailed Alice about the bradford pear trees on the block that have 
> gotten very top-heavy and potentially hazardous. She, in turn, 
> forwarded it to public works. This morning, they're out there trimming 
> the trees!  Thank you!
>
> Nancy, Riverdale Road
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