Letter: Residents should be city’s top priority (May 16, 2008)
Posted by Sentry Editor at 5/16/2008 12:55 PM 
Categories: Opinion, So Po News, Letters to the editor, Transportation, Budget
Categories: Opinion, So Po News, Letters to the editor, Transportation, Budget
Editor:
Beginning each morning I drive down Anthoine Street in South Portland toward South Portland’s gateway and show piece, Broadway (Not! as it to is a disaster full of potholes and very strange paving patterns). Each day I keep thinking that the series of potholes that have morphed Anthoine Street into an unofficial Olympic obstacle course may be repaired. As of lunchtime today I sadly report the course is still set up for any drivers willing to traverse the public thruway.
I recognize we as a community and as a country find ourselves in a tough time with the rising cost of fuel, food, and countless other items and services. I can’t help wondering what the city of South Portland is doing to cut costs and still provide our community the same infrastructure and services they have in the past. Sadly I see the road conditions ignored by our city and further I see the roads as a proxy to where our services are headed.
May I suggest that the city rather our city look to itself and its costly benefit programs for their employees? How about a co-pay on city employees health insurance? What about scraping the costly, heavy, antique pension plan as so many of Americas greatest companies have done in the recent years. I can point to IBM as one example of a company shedding its pension plan for one where the employees contribute first and the company second. What about downsizing and redundancy? From where I sit… eerrr…rather drive the city machine is busy supporting and tending to itself first and its responsibilities to its citizens a distant and far second.
Where is it written that working for the city entitles a worker to a safe and secure job with free benefits and a comfortable retirement? I and most others work in a world that guarantees you nothing more than at payday you and your employer are “even” until next payday. It would be nice to see the city explore options to cut benefits and use those funds to take car of the city first and its work force second. The existing model is backwards and needs to be examined just as any American company will do in tough times in order to ensure it product stays solid and competitive.
Merrit vonSeggern
South Portland
Beginning each morning I drive down Anthoine Street in South Portland toward South Portland’s gateway and show piece, Broadway (Not! as it to is a disaster full of potholes and very strange paving patterns). Each day I keep thinking that the series of potholes that have morphed Anthoine Street into an unofficial Olympic obstacle course may be repaired. As of lunchtime today I sadly report the course is still set up for any drivers willing to traverse the public thruway.
I recognize we as a community and as a country find ourselves in a tough time with the rising cost of fuel, food, and countless other items and services. I can’t help wondering what the city of South Portland is doing to cut costs and still provide our community the same infrastructure and services they have in the past. Sadly I see the road conditions ignored by our city and further I see the roads as a proxy to where our services are headed.
May I suggest that the city rather our city look to itself and its costly benefit programs for their employees? How about a co-pay on city employees health insurance? What about scraping the costly, heavy, antique pension plan as so many of Americas greatest companies have done in the recent years. I can point to IBM as one example of a company shedding its pension plan for one where the employees contribute first and the company second. What about downsizing and redundancy? From where I sit… eerrr…rather drive the city machine is busy supporting and tending to itself first and its responsibilities to its citizens a distant and far second.
Where is it written that working for the city entitles a worker to a safe and secure job with free benefits and a comfortable retirement? I and most others work in a world that guarantees you nothing more than at payday you and your employer are “even” until next payday. It would be nice to see the city explore options to cut benefits and use those funds to take car of the city first and its work force second. The existing model is backwards and needs to be examined just as any American company will do in tough times in order to ensure it product stays solid and competitive.
Merrit vonSeggern
South Portland
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