In essence, the story quotes some engineer as saying the that to avoid flooding, stay out of the flood zones. Whoa, call the neighbors, wake the kids, how much did the City pay to learn this Earth-shattering fact? You know they did......
The Maven is amazed that this story even found it's way into print. It's like saying "to prevent electrocution, don't run across a golf course waving a 9 iron over your head during a thunderstorm."
There is a news story here, but Bob Caylor and his friends and the News Sentinel won't dare pursue it, out of fear the City will cut off journalistic access to the paper's reporters and the publisher and editors won't get those coveted holiday party invitations they've become so used to over the years.
A real reporter might want to see if Christopher B. Burke Engineering, who employs this "flooding genius" was one of the contributors to the mayor's last election campaign. It's an easily-searched public record. Someone might also be enterprising enough to see if the same firm holds any city contracts for things like sewer work? that, too, is easy to find out. But, alas, in this day and age of lazy media, that might take some real work.
Instead, readers are treated to a bullshit story that draws a conclusion that any 6th grader could figure out.....want to stay dry, stay away from where it floods. The Maven isn't sure why this story exists, except to, perhaps, stroke the ego of a campaign contributor by manufacturing a news story to make the contributor appear to be a genius. Looks like the afternoon paper is doing a favor for the City, but has failed miserably.
This should answer, once and for all, the question the Maven hears so often. "Why do we hire out of town consultants all the time when we have qualified people in town to do the work"? The short answer is that the locals won't pay the bribe, er, fee, er, won't cough up the $1,000, $2,000 or $5,000 campaign contribution to the sitting office holders in the City's pay for play scheme. This is nothing new, it's been a part of politics here and everywhere for a hundred years.
And remember kids, if you want to avoid flooding, stay away from the flood.
FWMM:
ReplyDeleteROFL...this headline is indeed a waste and definitely worthy of a "WTF???" moment.
We get the J-G, so I missed this one.
Amazing what passes for journalism these days.
A guess the REAL waste was all the money soaked into whatever college FOR that degree, hmm?
Good post.
Stay safe.
Maven, totally agree, a prime example of why we are wasting precious tax dollars hiring consultants to tell us the blatantly obvious. Had not read the article after you drew attention to it, and had seen only the headline, I would have thought the NS was quote Bob Kennedy. Just Saying.
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