As reported in the Fort Scott Tribune, which I consider an attempt to discredit my reputation as a commissioner, Commissioner Van Hoecke was obviously referring to me.
I quite frequently, as the original author of the Special Street Maintenance Plan, and final co-author with Commissioner Matthew Wells, was asked by the city manager to inspect the work and to mark the areas needing repaired per the Plan. This only made sense, as I have had 35 years’ experience using the same process and materials and city staff having little or none. Matthew and I quite frequently, “visited the work sites”, all with the permission of the city manager and all within the limits of the “code of ethics” as quoted by Mr. Van Hoecke.
I also bought spray paint for marking purposes at the hardware store and charged it to the City. I initiated the training session with our pothole patcher manufacturer, and we visited a site during our initial work on Broadway Street to get his approval on our procedure. I also initiated the purchase of our emulsion storage tank and brought out the crack filling machine that had not been used for many years.
I did an inventory of our streets and with staff, rated every street in town. and put together a 2-year plan for our street maintenance plan.
I dusted off the “Storm Sewer Master Plan” and proposed the storm sewer project on 17th and Eddy Street, which included the work at 15th and National.
I motioned that we hire Earls Engineering as our City Engineer and worked with KDOT and Earls to secure a grant for the rebuild of Wall Street, and probably the most important task of my tenure on the commission, I said “NO” to charter ordinance 31, and with the help of Michael Hoyt, spearheaded the petition to overturn the transferring of funds from the utility accounts to the general fund.
To sum it up: permission was granted by city manager for my involvement, and no orders or discussions were made to staff. Only recommendations were made to city manager. Several times visits to sites were made with Commissioner Wells and City Manager Matkins for comments, with no workers on site.
Pete Allen
1/7/2024
Isn’t it the commissioner’s job to make sure the tax money is being spent in a way that benefits the citizens? The only reasons I can think of for not wanting commissioners to see what is happening at a job site are reasons that do NOT align with what is best for the tax payers.
That is correct Bob. Fort Scott has historically done projects on the “that’s the way we have always done it” basis. In 2018, just 5 years ago, our utilities director and public works director, must have realized that basis was not working, and they had professional engineers draft new “policies and procedures” for city work. These policies were adopted by the city commission in 2018 and become law. This changed the “old way”. The problem was that the directors did not enforce the new policies as mostly, they did not have necessary training to understand the engineering terms and technology, so we had a policy without enforcement. Throw in the fact we had no permanent city engineer with non-qualified directors and so a battle ensued. It has always been my goal to provide quality projects, at the lowest cost, and quality means conforming to industry standards (such as state highway specifications). We still have not crossed that bridge and I don’t know if we ever will in Fort Scott. For 5 years I have been pushing for excellence to little avail.