Need employees to fill $100,000 dollar jobs

[shadows]

There is no comparison in averages when the city pays employees $100,000 and the working poor in private industry receives $24,000 and we define the average pay as $ 64,000 dollars.  Still this working poor are suppose to be elated with the regressive tax system where the total contribution to the system falls on their shoulders.

There was a time when the working poor could go to city hall and look  at the waste of manpower but I understand that has been closed off as the taxpayers got in the way of the city employees wandering around in the halls socializing.

There is no crisis on money shortage as it was caused by the uncontrolled mismanagement of the tax dollar.  The city managers even pay for invoices on work that is not done.  The departments meeting should be televised as they put together the need to operate a city for the benefits of the taxpayers.  Put in your search engine HJR1003 and read why the governor veto it.

In WWll all resources were diverted to the war effort and there was a shortage of field managers.  Civilians had to have a permit to buy a pair of shoes.   

[RecycleMichael]

Really shadows...you need to release this bitterness toward city workers. You have railed against anyone employed by the city for years now on this forum. You never change your tune, instead just claim that they are all overpaid and somehow taking all the life from you.

I realize that you felt screwed by the city over three decades ago when they created stormwater management and didn't buy your house. Get over it. That was a long time ago and I am sure it wasn't personal.

You also don't speak for "the working poor". You have mentioned on this forum that you own rental houses. I don't consider slumlords poor.

Get over it. You are bitter and confused and nobody buys your act.

[shadows]

RM:

That is a typical response from an city employee who depend on the working poor that are growing less in numbers each day while the ever increasing numbers of city employees grow.  I would believe that another desk would appear in city hall to create a department to measure the snow depths throughout the city when blizzards conditions exist in 25 year cycles or is there possible one in existence already.

I did not have any houses in the flood plain but when the pork chop retention pond was excavated and the dirt was placed in the down stream flood plain I did start looking at it.  Look at any map of the Mingo flood plan and you will see that all flood controls cease to exist down stream from the tracks North of Pine as the creek meanders around until it empties into in Bird Creek.

Since the founding fathers hired a lamp lighter and street sweeper it now includes the old cliché that it takes five employees to change a light bulb. "one to hold the bulb and four employees to turn the ladder to screw it in".

Let it go when the coffee is burning and the people are starting to wake up. 

[RecycleMichael]

You are still confused. First, I am not a city employee.

Secondly, The city does not have more employees. Budget cuts have reduced city manpower each year for a while.

You are correct that Mingo Creek is channelized past Pine to the railroad tracks. The creek continues for the next three plus miles through airport land with no residential and commercial structures.

Do you think it would be wise to spend millions of more dollars to straighten a creek through land that will never be built on?

Tulsa was able to get hundreds of millions of federal dollars to protect citizens and property and now we rarely have any problems and also have the lowest flood insurance rates in the country. Why are you upset about this?

[Hoss]

RM:

That is a typical response from an city employee who depend on the working poor that are growing less in numbers each day while the ever increasing numbers of city employees grow.  I would believe that another desk would appear in city hall to create a department to measure the snow depths throughout the city when blizzards conditions exist in 25 year cycles or is there possible one in existence already.

I did not have any houses in the flood plain but when the pork chop retention pond was excavated and the dirt was placed in the down stream flood plain I did start looking at it.  Look at any map of the Mingo flood plan and you will see that all flood controls cease to exist down stream from the tracks North of Pine as the creek meanders around until it empties into in Bird Creek.

Since the founding fathers hired a lamp lighter and street sweeper it now includes the old cliché that it takes five employees to change a light bulb. "one to hold the bulb and four employees to turn the ladder to screw it in".

Let it go when the coffee is burning and the people are starting to wake up. 

I happen to live in that old flood plain (around the Traffic Circle) in the same house I grew up in from the age of 6 (1973) until I moved out (1986).  Moved back in 2005 to help care for my mother.

I lived through the nightmare that was Memorial Day 1984.  My father's maroon 1966 3/4 ton Chevy pickup truck remained on Channel 2 News ads for years (you remember this one right?  The truck with a hard-hat floating inside of it?  My dad worked at Sun Refinery until he retired).

The city's flood management plan is considered one of the very best in the country.

http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=8679

So much so that, as the above newsrelease from 2003 stated, we were the first Class 3 rated floodplain by the insurance underwriters in the nation which is why we have the lowest flood insurance rates in the nation.  So much so now that when the house I'm living in had a mortgage, they dropped the requirement of flood insurance.  Cities came to us asking questions about how they should structure their floodplain management.

I remember what Mingo Creek used to look like in my elementery and Jr High years.  I lived it.  It was narrow and every time we had a hard rain, Dad and I drove to the bridges on both Admiral and 11th Street to see how high the creek was.  The '84 flood was a nightmare that I'll never forget.

The city got it right with floodplain management.  'Plain' and simple.

[USRufnex]

I also remember a former Mayor LaFortune calling for a moratorium on building in certain areas of the city back in the 70s...... I remember certain Tulsans looking down their noses at anyone who lived anywhere near Mingo or Joe Creek..... eventually, karma kicked these people in the butt (1984).

After having a number of "500-year floods," the city finally did something.... that's right, THE GOVERNMENT, not private enterprise, fixed the problem.

And a couple of years ago, we had about the worst year I've ever seen in constant rainfall; while the picnic tables were underwater all summer long at Keystone, the city of Tulsa did NOT flood.  

Pretty remarkable.

[Conan71]

I also remember a former Mayor LaFortune calling for a moratorium on building in certain areas of the city back in the 70s...... I remember certain Tulsans looking down their noses at anyone who lived anywhere near Mingo or Joe Creek..... eventually, karma kicked these people in the butt (1984).

After having a number of "500-year floods," the city finally did something.... that's right, THE GOVERNMENT, not private enterprise, fixed the problem.

And a couple of years ago, we had about the worst year I've ever seen in constant rainfall; while the picnic tables were underwater all summer long at Keystone, the city of Tulsa did NOT flood. 

Pretty remarkable.

I'm confused by your statement.  Who got their butts kicked by karma in the '84 flood those who were flooded out or those who supposedly looked down their noses at people living in the Joe and Mingo Creek flood plains?

I agree, this is a good government success story and is illustrative of an appropriate role of government in our lives.  I guess I've taken it for granted and never thought of it as "remarkable" until now, but I can't argue with that adjective. I just hope you aren't implying a success story like this means government can manage all other things well in our lives.

[Hoss]

I'm confused by your statement.  Who got their butts kicked by karma in the '84 flood those who were flooded out or those who supposedly looked down their noses at people living in the Joe and Mingo Creek flood plains?

I agree, this is a good government success story and is illustrative of an appropriate role of government in our lives.  I guess I've taken it for granted and never thought of it as "remarkable" until now, but I can't argue with that adjective. I just hope you aren't implying a success story like this means government can manage all other things well in our lives.

I never took it foregranted, but I was also directly affected by its success.  I was always a little surprised that my parents bought a house in a flood plain like this, but they survived it, and the house actually appreciated in value once the flood mitigation was completed.

How much they bought the house for?  It sickens me now.  In 1973 they purchased it for $14,500.  We were lower to mid-middle income class if that.  I can remember dad complaining about having to pay $120 a month for the mortgage payment.  That's some people's I-Phone payment now.   

[rwarn17588]

I just hope you aren't implying a success story like this means government can manage all other things well in our lives.

But I think the point has been made: that the reverse stance of "anything the government is involved with is bad" is every bit as silly as saying that government is the answer to everything.

Rufnex's excellent point -- that the government steps in when a problem is too big for the private sector -- has been proven time and time again. While watching the PBS miniseries "The West," it was the government that bankrolled the transcontinental railroad nearly 150 years ago. That one railroad line opened the West to a huge amount of development, and its effects are still being felt to this day.

And I see that shadows is complaining about stormwater fees again -- right when the system is showing its usefulness by draining away the melting snow.   

That dude's got the worst timing in the world. I bet he bought stock right before the big crash in 1929. Or kept putting money down that the Cubs would win the World Series.

[Conan71]

But I think the point has been made: that the reverse stance of "anything the government is involved with is bad" is every bit as silly as saying that government is the answer to everything.

Rufnex's excellent point -- that the government steps in when a problem is too big for the private sector -- has been proven time and time again. While watching the PBS miniseries "The West," it was the government that bankrolled the transcontinental railroad nearly 150 years ago. That one railroad line opened the West to a huge amount of development, and its effects are still being felt to this day.

And I see that shadows is complaining about stormwater fees again -- right when the system is showing its usefulness by draining away the melting snow.   

That dude's got the worst timing in the world. I bet he bought stock right before the big crash in 1929. Or kept putting money down that the Cubs would win the World Series.

Again, you point to another appropriate use of government- transportation infrastructure.

[shadows]

Yes seems the railroads were built by the English pound, with Chinese labor and awarded by our government by being given miles on land on both side of the road that did not even belong to them.  It did open up the west because the natives did not divide the land into little plots but considered they were a part of nature.

In my childhood I was taken to overnight fishing trips where Mingo creek was filled to build the lumber yard on 21st street.

The designed of the flood control on the Mingo was not followed as designed and published in "Mingo creek, Tulsa, Oklahoma interim on the Verdigris river basin, Kansas and Oklahoma" by the assistant secretary of the army.  The flood plain north of the RR belonging to the Airport Authority is in the planning stage at present to be fill increasing the flood potential within the city.   

The US weather department does not record any rainstorm equal to the 24 hour rain storm in the 1984.  I don't believe that it has even recorded any storm with half the rainfall since.  We have had minor rainstorms where flooding have blocked streets and underpasses and low spots.

RM; sorry but I was under the impression you were associated with one of the little spin-off departments of the city.

I am not anti-government but for government that people can afford.  There was a time when you had a pot-hole on your street you could call the Street Commissioner and get it fixed.  Now you have councilors who are without authority, that cannot even suggest repairing it but will refer one to another department to be referred to another department, etc.     

[Red Arrow]

The US weather department does not record any rainstorm equal to the 24 hour rain storm in the 1984.  I don't believe that it has even recorded any storm with half the rainfall since.  We have had minor rainstorms where flooding have blocked streets and underpasses and low spots.

The  rain wasn't in Tulsa City limits but the rain in NE Oklahoma and Arkansas River watershed in the fall of 1986 made quite a mess of many things in the Tulsa/Jenks/Bixby/and down river areas.  I remember Jenks being evacuated as I had some stuff at the Richard Lloyd Jones Jr / Riverside Airport then, and still do.  The river was getting close to going over the top of the levy around Jenks.

[Conan71]

The  rain wasn't in Tulsa City limits but the rain in NE Oklahoma and Arkansas River watershed in the fall of 1986 made quite a mess of many things in the Tulsa/Jenks/Bixby/and down river areas.  I remember Jenks being evacuated as I had some stuff at the Richard Lloyd Jones Jr / Riverside Airport then, and still do.  The river was getting close to going over the top of the levy around Jenks.

We went canoeing on a sod farm down in Bixby during the aftermath of the '86, quite memorable to say the least.

[Red Arrow]

We went canoeing on a sod farm down in Bixby during the aftermath of the '86, quite memorable to say the least.

I almost forgot, we had some stuff in a mini-storage along Memorial south of 151st that stayed dry by inches.

[rhymnrzn]

It took a world war to bring us out of the last depression.  Can we avoid another world war as the electronic revolution is displacing the work force, creating another depression?  We lash with furry the horses of the four horsemen in an effort to overrun the world.  Come see!

As long as the incessant, seven out of seven years capitalists (through the jubilee and beyond, for many already) ignore this factor, and continue to use their feigned speeches to hold fast the poor and unemployed under their tedious and unreasonable expectations, then they make themselves outcasts to the grace of God.  The tokens they receive by making merchandise out of men's lives will turn into tokens of perdition. 

While the people are working, eating, and sleeping, and are forgotten out of mind as dead, the time and place for those things passes after so long a time, and the necessary and good things become jeopardized: for our lives are not contained in those things alone.  Proof of this tends to show itself suddenly like a thief in the night.

2 Peter 2:3
"And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. "