Tag Archives: city of Ames

With the City of Ames, failure is not just an option, its the routine

Leave a reply

The City of Ames will not release their work plans as to approximate dates for return of electrical power. They guard these knowledge as if they were the invasion plans for Normandy. They could tell us, but then they’d have to kill us. Their stupidity knows no bounds. People can’t plan without this knowledge. They might take a trip if they are on the ‘still a week away list’. They might buy a generator if it was looking like 5 more days. Any number of things. But if your power is coming on tonight, you’d wait it out. You wouldn’t drop $3K.

“This area 1-2 days. That area 4-6. That area over there7 or 8.” But they always act with this bureaucratic nonsense like they are going to get sued if they tell someone maybe Thursday and its not till Friday. There’s not a court in the world that would hold them to that. But it would let people have some idea, so they could make some kind plans. If all you’re looking at is 24 hours you can ride that out. Just asinine.

The lack of information manifested itself in another way. Anyone who has listened to radio knows that annoying, “Beep! Beep! Beep! This is an alert from the Emergency Broadcast System!” They completely missed it on warning us for this storm. That’s one issue. But the other more obvious failure was the lack of follow-up. Its not just “the event”, the tornado, the flood, the ice storm, the blizzard, there’s the aftermath. People need to know: does the next town over have ice? Power? Water? What about Des Moines? Were they brought to there knees? Is there a charity somewhere handing out items? Where to you signup to be put on the cue for volunteer help with the cleanup? There’s a ton of questions people need answers to when they don’t have TV or internet, and no gawd damn AM radio station on the air!

What the sam hell is the point of having an Emergency Broadcast System is it breaks during the emergency? And they don’t have anything so basic as a generator?? Or a makeshift emergency tower to transmit with? What are we, Mexico? My gawd. I know we’re talking City workers here. You accept they’re going to be lazy, stupid, slow and  incompetent, we get that, but there has to be minimum standards. There has to be some threshold where they walk and chew gum at the same time. The City Administrator makes like have a million a year, and this is their response to an emergency?? 

Doesn’t the County have some responsibility? The State? My gawd, from top to bottom its incompetence. They didn’t even coordinate with the college radio station to be its communication point for people needing information. Those guys would have loved to have a responsibility. Or do what rest areas in Nebraska and Colorado do, “For more information tune to 1250 am on your radio”. They don’t even try to be useful. Part of the problem is the local paper does not hold their feet to the fire. I don’t know if its cronyism or stupidity. The only time bureaucrats respond is when they are called out in public.

The City of Ames isn’t serious about disaster preparedness

Leave a reply

This city seemed to be lacking a bit in disaster preparedness when the recent Derecho blew through town. Its not like they are lacking in tax revenue, the citizens of Ames are most certainly in the upper percentile of taxation when compared to all of Iowa. The windstorm that came through 11 am Monday morning exposed all the weaknesses of their nonexistent plan. This is child’s play!

You coordinate essential services beforehand with:

  • a grocery store
  • a home improvement store
  • a retail / grocery store
  • a gas station
  • a radio station

If other outlets want to get in on the action, that’s great, but you make damn sure 1 of each of these essential services is. After an emergency with extended no power, people need: gasoline, food, toiletries, information. The shit barely hit the fan (let alone a full blown SHTF) and Ames is crippled. No one has a damn generator for their store! How new homes and businesses can be built without generator capability built in is beyond me. Ames I’m sure has a disaster coordinator, so who did he coordinate with? Nothing was open for 24 hours! That guy needs to be the first one fired. You contract with someone (how much could it cost? They’ll be the only game in town in the immediate aftermath) to damn well be open.

One of the most obvious to go with food, gas, water, was information. TV is obviously not the medium with no electricity. Your webpage is not the answer with no internet/cable. The newspaper is too limited in scope. What does that leave? The damn radio you morons! The local radio station KASI does not have a backup emergency transmitter tower or generator. They didn’t step up to the plate, they didn’t know where the damn plate was! It was like 4 days before they were back on the air. Its not much of an Emergency Broadcast System, if it collapses at the first sign of an emergency.

Don’t let them give you any damn shit about the cost of a transmitter and generator, a small emergency tower that can cover a 5 mile radius can be stored till needed and erected anywhere. Were not talking 50,000 watts here, 100 (to cover the entire city of Ames only requires a 5 mile radius). In order to get a damn license every few years they are supposed to demonstrate their community service. Like all government agencies, the actions of the FCC are dictated by cronyism. Servicing the monopolies, keeping out the competition.

Disaster hits and the city is out to lunch, as are government licensed entities not fulfilling their license requirements.

A Webster City radio station was the one giving out emergency information! Webster City! Information is critical in a disaster. With no power people are up a creek. But not with a battery operated or car radio! “This is the Emergency Broadcast System!” Except when it ain’t because we give licenses out to morons! Except when there’s an actual emergency. Then they’re no where to be found. “A storm might take out the tower?” Shazzam! “We might be with out power?” Shazzam! There was no EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM.

People didn’t know who was open, where they could get gas, food and water. We pay so many billions of dollars for FEMA, and Homeland Security and this agency and that agency, and when push comes to shove: nothing. WHO in Des Moines? Useless! They were running Sean Hannity! They’ll take Rush off for a cloud in the sky, but when people really need information after a disaster? Nothing.

Bait & switch: It was a road – now its a bike path!

Leave a reply

When a community takes their share of the gas tax, and the vehicle registration tax, and the general highway fund, its with the implied/legally stated purpose of road use for cars and trucks. People pay this tax as a tradeoff of having nice roads for their cars and trucks. When the City of Ames converts roads to bike paths, they are stealing the tax dollars paid for the use of motorized vehicles. They said they were going to use the money for roads, not bike paths. They are taking 50% (4 lanes down to two) of the tax money and then using it for bike lanes on the roads. The bicycle users didn’t pay for those roads. They are being gifted these lanes by the automobile drivers. The City of Ames took their share of road use tax intended for cars, and broke the agreement and used it for bikes.

This idiocy for the most part goes on in college towns. The governing bodies of those towns are wired into what was “Agenda 21”, and is now Agenda 2030. Towns just down the road like Boone, aren’t so stupid, they’re not a college town. These town councils like Ames feel they have The Vision of the Anointed. Its “the green agenda”. “Alternative forms of transportation”. Its to “mitigate climate change”. They actually believe this crap. They took this money under the pretense of taxing the drivers of cars and trucks to build roads for their use. Hence, the “road use tax”. Instead they are converting lanes of travel meant for cars and trucks, for the exclusive use of bikes. They are stealing that money.

If they want to make bike paths out of the roads, well, there’s no legal way to do that.

All this idiocy is driven by the “green agenda”. Take roundabouts. I haven’t read it, but I know its about keeping cars moving so they don’t idle at stop signs. Having cops not patrol is about saving gas. They totally ignore the reasons cops patrolled in the first place, making a visible presence and knowing who’s who in a neighborhood. One of the funniest “energy savers” in Ames is the Cadillac bus system we have here. While it is heavily used in and around the university during the school year, the rest of the town has these very fuel efficient “green diesel” behemoths driving around empty.

Town councils like Ames have forgotten what their mission is, its not to save the world from climate change, its to provide a clean, safe town that people want to live in for the taxpayers. Its not a toy where they get to exercise all their fantasies for creating a liberal utopia. Their nonsense wastes money and causes headaches for the people. What’s horribly ironic about it is their stupidity actually wastes more energy. At the busy intersection (30th/Duff and Grand) where they took 4 lanes down to 2, there was a traffic tie up yesterday (and that was on a sparse Saturday, imagine what its going to like at rush hour on a weekday?). The left turners were blocking the people who would have normally just went straight in the right lane! But because there is only 1 lane, they missed the light and had to idle through another cycle!

It all reminds me of probably the biggest municipal boondoggle of all time: B.A.R.T. This was the Bay Area Rapid Transit. Looking it up, I see that greenies had envisioned it in 1946! Construction actually began in the 60s. My sister had visited it in the 70s and thought it was the coolest thing ever invented. I suppose considering the money and energy spent making it, it was. They said at one time it would have to run until something like the year 2340, to have saved the amount of energy they spent making it! Like all liberal utopias, San Francisco is now an unlivable hellhole where the homeless shit on the sidewalk and litter the park with heroin needles. But they do have a very fancy green train system.

Their nonsense doesn’t make sense in another way to. At this particular intersection where they snarled traffic to put in bike lanes, the Duff side is gotten there byway of a hill. As a biker I can tell you bikers avoid hills! We wouldn’t come that way anyway! And as stated earlier, it doesn’t make sense that bikers moving at 9 mph would want to ride inches from 3,000 pound vehicles moving at 25/35/45 mph. And the other thing whether its Ames or Des Moines, why do city leaders always choose the working class and poorer neighborhoods for their nonsense? Why never the rich areas like Jordan Creek? If this bullshit is such a great idea, why don’t you take EP True Parkway down to 2 lanes? Because its stupid and rich people hire lawyers.

Why don’t you take the Interstate down to 1 lane and put in a bike lane?

Bike lanes to nowhere (Or: “How to choke off traffic without really trying”)

Leave a reply


[What I didn’t think of till later was that with the bus stop right there, when it parks to pick up people, all west bound traffic stops, including the traffic trying to come off of Grand Avenue.]

It is absolutely terrifying when you come to the realization you are ruled by idiots. The City of Ames has taken one of the busiest traffic choke points in Ames (the mall and Walmart), and taken it down to 2 lanes just so they could be stylish and put in bike lanes. Like bikers would choose to be inches away from speeding cars that are not looking out for them. The Captain of this municipal Titanic (Schainker) seems determined to hit every iceberg along the way. First Mate John Haila just says full speed ahead! They did the same thing for a 2 block long “bike lane to nowhere” on Clark (picture below). It doesn’t go anywhere, they just created a choke point, and a green bike lane to be stylish. Turning South Duff into a parking lot wasn’t enough.

When I first heard of their plan to take US Hwy 30 (Lincoln Way) down to 2 lanes (the major east/west thorough fare in Ames) I knew they were dumb enough to do it. They go to school to get that stupid, that does not come naturally. You have to work at it. Just look around you sometime when you’re driving. Bikers (I am one) don’t ride on busy streets! We choose nice, safe residential areas. Not these busy areas they choke off, further aggravating drivers. Its just mind numbing. The mall and Walmart, and you choose to choke off traffic?? It just blows the mind. Its not even some grand green scheme to interconnect the town, these bike lanes go nowhere!

[Seriously, to get that stupid, it can’t be a 4 year degree, that has to be graduate level stupid. No way could you complete your unlearning in only 4 years. They must use steroids to get that stupid. The Ames Tribune isn’t going to criticize them. That “Moron in the Morning” Mel Crippen isn’t going to challenge them, he goes along with every stupid harebrained idea they have! We are on our own.]

People pay taxes on the basis of the money being used for roads for their cars. When they get gas they’re paying another tax, a road use tax. When they pay their cars registration that’s another tax. It comes with the tradeoff of your tax money in exchange for the use of the roads. Bicycles don’t pay tax. Every time you take out an entire lane of traffic that a car can no longer use, you just stole half their tax money.

Let’s run the numbers

Leave a reply

IMG_0341
[This is the pedestrian gate on the east side of Meeker with 20 feet of half foot deep snow left by the crew clearing snow. You can’t drive a truck through a pedestrian gate, and you wouldn’t want them to have to get out of their truck and use a shovel would you? I’ll clear it in the morning before the kids come.]

The city of Ames has the worst snow removal in Iowa. Okay that’s my opinion. What we should have are the facts to compare to similar sized cities, instead of just my opinion. This is Friday January 17, 2020. The local meteorologists have been prepping us for a week that ‘Snow-mageddon’ was upon us. So of course we cancelled schools (which is an automatic on a Friday) and clogged the grocery stores buying storm groceries! The city had snow removal for a couple of hours in the afternoon, then headed for the barn about 4:15 pm, I assume to get off at 5. That’s great, but half the city is unplowed (the snow also stopped about that time).

If we get any more snow tonight, those streets are going to be impassible for a passenger car, should an emergency happen where they need to go to the hospital or the like. They will be SOL (shit out of luck). Not to mention the rise in vehicle accidents due to uncleared streets. Life and limb, property, associated costs, its not just about being inconvenienced. Funny how in this day and age of computers, crunching the numbers is quite difficult. Its almost like the city governments don’t want you to know how they’re doing. How they compare. Its almost like they don’t want to be held accountable. A Performance Audit. That’s how citizens need to be evaluating city services every 3 – 5 years. How is our money being spent? What’s the ROI? (return on investment)

There’s a few key questions that an intrepid reporter at the Ames Tribune could use to see where Ames stands, and at the same time provide a public service through improved services rendered. How many miles of streets are in Ames? How many city plows does Ames have? How many miles does Ames contract out? How many personnel does Ames have on a shift? What is their yearly snow removal budget? In Des Moines I’ve gotten the impression over the years that they are running their plows close to 24 hours a day. When one shift gets out of the plow, another takes over. Ames plows sit. See how this works? You measure the amount of time, money and resources Ames commits to snow removal and compare that to similar cities. Its not rocket science.

Where are the real life results of Iowa’s open records law? 

I was a professional driver in Ames for 31 years. I have a very keen idea of the cities capabilities or the lack thereof. I got stuck. I hit things. I had close calls for 31 winters. I’ve seen the injuries, the property damage, the lost time, the aggravation of uncleared streets. Those 5 questions in the previous paragraph would answer a lot. You could chart that and compare. You could find out exactly whether I’m full of it or not. You could find out real quick whether Ames taxpayers are being well served or not. You could find out real quick if heads need to roll. In fact I’m not aware of an annual survey the city sends out garnering how the customer rates their services. They should have numbers going back to 1970, they could see the trend lines. Are they going up? Or down? How can you know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’re at?

You can tell where the ‘fat’ is in a city budget. One of the most laughable is Parks & Recs. In the winter probably 70% of their responsibility isn’t used. The soccer fields, the softball diamonds, the water park and portions of parks and bike trails. A lot of area. Before the city streets are cleared the parking lots of those unused soccer and softball fields will be cleared. They won’t even be used for another 3 months. But there is so much fat in their budget, such an expenditure of tax dollars, their parking lots will be cleared before the city streets. The City of Ames is fat and needs to go on a diet. I’m tired of paying them to gorge on tax dollars.

  1.  How many miles of streets in Ames?
  2.  How many plows?
  3.  How many operators?
  4.  How many contract miles?
  5.  What is the plow utilization rate per day?
  6.  What is the cost per mile?
  7.  What is the time per mile?
  8.  What is the contractor rate per mile?
  9.  Why isn’t  there an annual city services survey?
  10.  Why isn’t there a citizen audit of City services every 3 years?

IMG_0336

The baseball diamond at the west end of Brookside Park. No game was scheduled today (or for 3 months), but they had the parking lot cleared before all the streets were. And no, its a single-use facility, so it didn’t need to be cleared for something else.

IMG_0338

This is coming down the hill on 6th Street coming towards Brookside Park. This city street wasn’t cleared as well as the parking lots for the softball & soccer fields that won’t be used for 3 months.

IMG_0339

This is the parking lot for the athletic fields on E 13th Street. They also are single-use, and also were cleared before all the city streets were, and also won’t be used till spring.