Yesterday, on my way to a meeting at the Innovation Center, I turned from Congress onto State Street and discovered flaggers just above Athens Middle School. One lane was closed. When it was my turn to drive through, I got past ArtsWest and started down the hill … only to find more flaggers.
I’m still digging myself out of the email that accumulated over two weeks while I was on vacation and at a conference. Maybe I missed the memo?
Nope. Nothing in the email. Nothing on the city’s website or its Facebook page.
When I stopped in Miller’s Chicken for a can of pop (and scored a BOGO on cold chicken!), I asked the cashier about the work. She said she’d looked for information about it too, also to no avail.
This is the second time in a month that I’ve gone looking for information about a city matter only to come up empty. The only thing I’ve lost is some time and the opportunity to watch a parade. My business isn’t at stake, like it is for folks on West Union Street.
WOUB Public Media’s Haley Swaino recently reported that Athens city officials could not identify the contractually required liaison between the public and the contractor for the work on West Union. (Worse, the liaison turned out to be the project supervisor — a direct violation of the city’s contract with Shelly & Sands.)
City Service Safety Director Andy Stone said it wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t tell business owners whom to call.
“It is a two-way communication requirement,” he told WOUB Public Media. “I mean you have to make some effort to go and find the information.”
OK, but that implies that there is information to be found somewhere. That’s how communication works: One party transmits a message to a second party. No transmission, no communication.
Oh well. At least there’s a two-way street somewhere on Athens’ west side … even if it’s only in Andy Stone’s mind.
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