Next it will be a Chinese takeout meal to help a library (show red Chinese flag to increase fear slightly), then the cost of a new refrigerator to pay teachers more (stock footage of a liberal looking nerdy professor), when will it end?
The tax and spend Democrats have an agenda and all they are looking for is an opening. (stock footage of snake slithering into nursery during the night)
We have to be vigilant to protect our families future (stock footage of 60-70 year old man, slightly overweight, wearing a red plaid shirt, jeans, and standing in front of an American flag) vote no on proposition 205 and say no to big government
(paid for by the committee of republicans and their rich supporters who need to convince poor people to vote for them)
I also checked a few random streets in the town and pavement is actually pretty good with few if any potholes. Random street as a point [2]
[1] https://www.google.com/maps/@40.9371624,-90.3942909,3a,75y,2...
[2] https://www.google.com/maps/@40.93875,-90.3599034,3a,75y,346...
Separately, but related, I have always found it interesting that no one tries to calculate the wear on vehicles for things like bad roads, salt use, etc. Bending a wheel, accelerating suspension breakdown, and other issues from bad roads could easily outweigh some arguable savings of waiting longer. I'd rather push for adding less roads, allowing some paved roads to become dirt roads where low traffic weights & #s exist, and better maintenance of the remaining ones.
There is another quality that is missed out in these discussions too - which is the quality of life improvement. If you’ve ever driven on a nice road - you know it and you feel it. It’s pure bliss compared to most of the roads out there. Your car might go from feeling cheap and unbearable to luxurious - and if you have a nice car already then it feels sublime.
That aspect is one part where I’d gladly pay more for roads. The other aspect is prevention. I see very little emphasis put on the prevention of deterioration of roads. I think road quality could be improved if there were crews working all the time to keep the roads in shape and if people felt like their city would listen when they issue a complaint about the road. I figure this might save money and improve QOL over the long run.
> "hey, this is going directly into fixing the roads, and your property tax will only go up $8 per month to afford it, otherwise your roads will stay shitty", I think most people could be convinced to go along with it.
At a minimum, you could create a system that takes the budget and shows a percent breakdown of where your money goes. If you packaged it nicely so that you could understand it at a glance it would go a long way towards what the comment I was responding to was talking about. After looking at my city's budget, I think there is still a lot of room for improvement. For my municipality at least, it seems to be a mix of specific and extremely nebulous items. I can see that the fire department purchased several new vehicles and even the type of vehicle but the road works department just lists additions to their "fleet" and the sanitation department just lists "new vehicles". I see items for sidewalk and street repairs along with the name of the street but no indication of how much pavement was repaired or what the breakdown of labor vs materials was. I think knowing all of the details would help the public assist their representatives to correct overages and would be a bulwark against corruption. e.g. If I run a business that sells fasteners and I see that the city government is overpaying by 30% for the bolts they use to put up new street signs I could bid on the contract next time around or maybe tip off the newspaper if it's more like 200% over retail.
It's similar to the way you see amounts that went to taxes, insurance, etc on your payroll.