Party Blogs - Roads Scholar

GOP Cafe

Candidates & Elected Officials

Search Blogs



KeywordsPhrase

Blog Archive

Archive

September 2010

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Monthly

Edit Blogs

You must be logged in and have permission to create or edit a blog.

Blog_List

	View All Recent Entries
	Chaiman's Chatter
	Chairman's Thoughts
	Linda's corner

Roads Scholar

Location: Blogs Chairman's Thoughts
Posted by: colweaver	3/9/2010 3:30 PM
Every year Purdue University and the Indiana Department of Transportation sponsor something called the “road school.” The purpose is to bring county officials up to date on the latest science and technology of roads and bridges. Most of the attendees aren’t technical people. On the contrary, they are county commissioners, county road supervisors, county surveyors, and other officials whose duties require a basic understanding of highways. Additionally, the school also affords professional county engineers a better understanding of how INDOT works in relation to the cities, towns, and counties. Road School is an excellent primer for newly elected officials who’ve never been involved with transportation related issues. It’s a chance to visit myriad vendors to find help in solving puzzling infrastructure problems. All too often, new commissioners are surprised to find out that they need to know so much about paving, rights of way, and something called GIS. I’m not sure what the acronym GIS stands for, but you can use it yourself on the Morgan County Government website to get lots of interesting and useful information. It’s a service taxpayers paid for and can use. This is my second year as a “roads scholar.” It is always fun to be back on a major college campus and discover how little has changed. I didn’t graduate from either I.U. or Purdue Universities. However, I am no fan of the former because of tendentious liberalism pervading every aspect of that campus. Purdue is much more to my liking, because its graduates usually perform some important purpose like building things, producing food, or landing on the Moon. Purdue students always impress me with their bright good manners and courtesy. This is a stand-out feature that I never fail to notice when I visit West Lafayette. Of course, I don’t know their politics, but conservatism is usually the philosophy of practical people. Purdue students always make me feel better about the future of the Republic, and I always leave looking forward to the next road school. Taxpayers should be equally encouraged by the dedicated service rendered by nearly all of our county officials. It’s always easy and convenient to demonize government employees, but I’ve found that nearly all of them are people like us. They’ve chosen public service over likely more remunerative positions in the private world for their own reasons, but not because government service is easy—it’s not. Morgan and Hendricks Counties are microcosms of what is going on in the rest of Indiana. Without doubt, there are disgruntled employees in every business. All of us are subject to the occasional bad day, and government doesn’t always make us happy any more than every one of my landings was good. However, I’ve found that most of the time government employees cheerfully assist us in finding solutions to our government experience. Naysayers may call me naive and Pollyannaish, but people usually reflect your own expectations. Expect to be unhappy and you are seldom disappointed. However, I’ve never been treated rudely in Paris or New York City, but then, I never bought in to the myths that Parisians and New Yorkers were rude; I expected they would return a smile regardless of language. Look for kindness and courtesy and be surprised by how often it’s gone previously unnoticed. Take a minute and compliment that clerk, nurse, teacher, or commissioner on their dedication to public service. Go Boilermakers.
Copyright ©2010 Martin Weaver
Permalink \| Trackback

Comments (1)

Re: Roads Scholar

By Danny Stewart on 3/11/2010 5:57 AM

Do they teach about the different grades of paving? Do they teach about the many layers of a road, such as the compacted sand layer, the multiple stone and gravel layers, the different layers of asphalt such as the base layers and the surface layers? Do they teach about the different temperature settings for the furnace when mixing the ingredients to make the asphalt?

As for the right of ways, seems like they would know which roads fall under the county, city or state when the go into office.

As for the service. I give the workers, especially the county highway department workers and A plus for their dedication over thhis past winter. they did an outstanding job. As for the elected officials, well, lets just say I find it fascinating that they would repave the roads in front of their and friends homes when they didn't need to be when there were many others around the county that really did need work to them. Guess we can't call that self serving can we?

As for the people of New York, you'd be hard pressed to find a nicer group of people. They were very polite every time I went there.

Auto Industry Bailout

	View All Recent Entries
	Chaiman's Chatter
	Chairman's Thoughts
	Linda's corner

Auto Industry Bailout

You must be logged in and have permission to create or edit a blog.

Auto Industry Bailout



KeywordsPhrase

Auto Industry Bailout