Missing in Action

In the October Edition of the Town Newsletter the Mayor gave Kudos to the Public Works crew who responded to a water main break and road collapse in the Anasazi Plateau. The water main break shut off the water on the plateau for about 24 hours and the collapsed road stranded half or more of the residents on the plateau. People were stuck in their houses with no water to drink, clean with or operate their bathrooms.

The Public works crew responded in a way that should make us all proud. They worked for about 20 hours straight. However, what was glaringly missing was an equal and appropriate response from the town leadership.

It was likely (predictable?) that the leak was going to get worse and the initial assessment on Saturday of waiting approximately 60 hours before repairs began was clear to those on-site to be a risky decision. The town leadership never came on site. The Mayor, the councilman, Randy Aton, responsible for public works and the Town Manager, Rick Wixom never showed up to see the main failure, how the residents were fairing or how the repair was progressing. If they had inspected the site on Saturday there may have been a quicker call for repairs which would have avoided the collapse of the road and stranding of the residents and additional expenses for the repairs to the road.

Pat Campbell, who lives on the plateau, found the break on Saturday morning and reported it to the town. He then contacted the APHOA Board and made us aware of the situation. Three of the Board Members, Jeremy Chancey, Erik Ryberg and Jerry Healy immediately started communicating with the residents, one of which is the Mayor who lives in the neighborhood.

On Sunday morning Pat Campbell was out walking and found the road collapsing. He then escalated the concern with the town and the Public Works crew jumped into action. Pat and the Anasazi HOA Board members helped to organize a response and check on all of the residents. Pat bought the work crews lunch and Hank Moore, who was one of the stranded residents, arranged to have dinner brought up for the crew from Oscar’s. Pat and Jeremy stayed involved in the repair all the way through the next week as we had to limit truck traffic until the road could be rebuilt.

While all of us are thankful for the response by Public Works: Rob, Joe, Bronson, Greyson and Christian, I think we should expect more out of our other elected officials and leaders.