Taking Responsibility

To the Editor:

The Highway Department has a dirty little secret. Its equipment operators carelessly cause damage to private property that the department often tries to avoid fixing. If it does, the repairs cost the taxpayers thousands of dollars, probably a lot more.

Consider these examples, all within sight of my house.

Last winter the town piled excess snow on a seasonal driveway at the end of Edgelake Drive. The equipment operator pushed the snow some 15 feet past the end of the paved town road, through a bright orange chain suspended between two metal posts and onto an obviously private gravel driveway. It took two pieces of heavy equipment, shop time, the cost of gravel and a new post, and many man hours to make the repairs. The odd thing is that it was all so avoidable. The Highway Department could have piled the snow 25 feet away on property the town owns.

A few years ago a snow plow driver damaged a neighbor's six-foot-tall wood tie retaining wall.

A year later a speeding snow plow operator tore up the apron and curb to my driveway when he moved right to avoid a parked car without raising his plow or slowing down.

And just recently a town employee was operating a backhoe on the edge of Brookbridge Drive when he pulled out the survey pin at the corner of my property. The pin is painted florescent orange and wrapped with an orange flag. Only after I called about the damage did the town offer to pay a surveyor to reset the pin, at a cost to the town of at least several hundred dollars.

If these obstacles were so obvious why weren't the equipment operators able to avoid them? I believe the answer is because there are no consequences when they don't. They don't pay for the repairs, or even report the damage to their supervisor. Consequently, the town does not take responsibility for the damage, does not contact the property owner, or arrange to make repairs. It is up to the property owner to discover the damage and notify the town. But when the property owner does report the damage, the Highway Department will often not make the repairs, that is until threats are made or the first selectman is called. It took two years to get the Highway Department to repair my driveway, that after two broken promises and then only after I took it up with the first selectman. My neighbor, too, had to call the first selectmen to get her retaining wall repaired. The policy of the Highway Department is, in effect, not to make repairs unless forced to.

If you believe your property was damaged by careless town equipment operator, don't call the Department of Public Works. Call the first selectman's office instead. Ask that repairs be made, and ask how much the town spends each year to repair damage that could have been avoided. The telephone number is 203-270-4201.

Glen Swanson

9 Maplewood Trail, Sandy Hook                          November 10, 2011