Port Orchard makes quick work of weedy guard rail

The in basket: Nancy Fuller-Hall wrote, “I moved to 282 Farragut Avenue  in February. Who is responsible for the Farragut road?  As you can see the area where we live is a mess but just up the street the                                        guard rail and street is nice and neat.

The out basket: That Farragut, as opposed to the one in Bremerton, is in Port Orchard. Public Works Director Mark Dorsey of that city replied, “The City does maintain the vegetation along these guardrails.  BUT…….please understand that we (Public Works) only have 12 employees to operate/maintain/repair (2) public water systems, the sanitary sewer system, the storm drainage system, the road system and our city parks and facilities, for a population that has doubled in the last eight years.  We do this two ways:

1) identified and scheduled routine maintenance

2) response to citizen complaints.

“For the prior, roadside vegetation control with our roadside vegetation mower is a constant from early Spring to Fall ….but guardrails require hand labor (weed-eater) and we keep up on those as best as we can.

“For the latter, we maintain a Complaint Log whereby we receive a citizen complaint, determine who is responsible (often times, it’s the adjacent property owner’s responsibility, i.e., sidewalks, trees, etc.), schedule the work if it’s our responsibility and follow up with the complainant.  We rely on the community to help us keep on top of things that we just don’t see in our day to day.”

He asked one employee to add the Farragut complaint to the Complaint Log and another to schedule the work.

Just two days later, Nancy wrote again to say, “Just wanted you to know that the Department of Public Works cleaned up the street yesterday. Thank you so much for your referral and quick action.  Not only does it look great but I can now pull out of our driveway and see the oncoming traffic.”