Snow Job January 2005 Style:

Editors Note: Mayor Brush's self serving bragging about the Public Works Department is more than a little premature: The snow complaints were very much the same this time, except there was a lot less snow because a lot less snow fell on Saturday, January 21st than in the world class Presidents Day storm in 2003.

Much of the snow was plowed by outside vendors; they did their job as they were being paid very well to do; but the road department, once again, didn't do their job nearly as well as they should have.

Dozens, if not hundreds of intersections of main roads and secondary roads were covered once again with a thick sheet of ice which survived for several days because the Public Works department never went back after the initial plowing, to put down the needed sand and salt.

Failure of Public Works management to perform represented hundreds of potential traffic accidents just waiting to happen as cars left clear main roads to run into side roads covered with two inches of slick ice.

All of these intersections remained deadly until the ice melted all by itself. The public works department is still a political nightmare, now run by two political fixtures, one a political hack appointed last year by Boss Clement and the Republican Council and Mayor Brush; the other a former candidate on Brush's "independent" council ticket appointed a couple of months ago by Mayor Brush with the approval of Boss Clement and the Republican Council.

Except for their political connections, neither has any professional qualifications for running a public works department. The Dover Township public works department had one of the biggest cost increases in this year's budget, without a dime's worth of increased efficiency. Except for the fact they are now answering the phone, basic problems with the public works department remain unresolved.

Following is a reprint of the article we published after the 2003 storm:

Snow Job Part One: Dover Township Public Works Department Is Now A Bureaucratic Performance Nightmare: Big Snow Storm Shows Tip Of Good-Old-Boys Iceberg

Botched Snow Cleanup Reflects Year Round Problems At Public “Works” Agency That Succeeds Only In Doing Less With More: Huge Waste Of Taxpayers Money

Five Days After The Snow Stopped, Dozens Of Intersections Still Treacherous And Deadly Because Nobody Followed Up With Cleanup And Sand

Wasted Funds Accelerated With Creation Of Superfluous Executive Job For Former “Mayor” Paul Wnek

Deterioration Of Employee Morale Worsened Again When Boss R. C. Clement Forced Appointment Of His Cousin As New Public Works Director

Dover Township - The public works department in Dover Township is a bureaucratic nightmare where morale and work ethic problems at the bottom are exacerbated by politically appointed Good-Old-Boy paper shufflers at the top who shouldn’t be there in the first place.

The recent snow storm disaster is only the visible tip of the iceberg.

The Whole Thing Was - In A Word - “Botched”

They didn’t get started on a timely basis. Some of the equipment has not been maintained properly so they went in to the big storm with fewer snow plows. The vendors that handle the balance of the job were not properly qualified regarding number and equipment, etc., etc. So the whole thing was - in a word - botched.

The work ethic of the department is made worse by the political payoffs that creep into the labor contracts that are designed more like hush money than legitimate compensation to keep the troops quiet about archaic and counter productive management practices that simply don’t work.

Snow Storm Disaster Symptomatic Of Year Round Problem

Five days after the snow stopped falling, dozens of intersections on the beach and mainland, even after two days of 45 degree temperatures, remained dangerous and deadly because nobody came back to clean out the residual ice and snow and put down sand and salt to offset freezing temperatures that reappear with the setting of the sun.

The “do as little as possible” attitude of the department, visible now because of the presence of the snow storm, is costing taxpayers big time all year round.

Former “Mayors” Mutter, Wittmann, Aldrich, Fox Created Superfluous “Coordinator” Job For Former “Mayor” Wnek

Deterioration of department status as a taxpayer-friendly agency began to accelerate in 1996 when former “mayors” Mark Mutter, George Wittmann, Clarence Aldrich and Ray Fox created a superfluous but expensive executive job for former “mayor” Paul Wnek.

They appointed Wnek Public Works “Coordinator” even though they all knew the last thing the Public Works department needed was another worthless “executive”.

Boss R. C. Clement’s Cousin Appointed As Public Works Director

Then, when former Pubic Works Director Jack Dietzel retired a couple of years ago, far more qualified employees were rejected in favor of a demand by Republican Boss R. C. Clement that the same committee members appoint his cousin, Fredd Clayton, as the new Director, even though Clayton was on disability leave for the better part of a year from his job as a general foreman for the department. Clayton was appointed director by Mutter, Fox, Wittmann and Aldrich.

The public should not be surprised that there are visible flaws in the snow removal process. (for 2/21/03)

Parts 2 and 3 on the public works saga in Dover Township coming soon on OceanCountyPolitics•Com

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