Clowns hold carnival

The clowns at the chamber of commerce are at it again -- using a downtown parking lot for a personal fundraiser. It's okay to inconvenience a bunch of downtown residents, workers and shoppers for a whole week. Besides, it will drive carnival business to all the shops, stores and restaurants that stay open as late as the carny vendors.
Maybe not.
Maybe I shouldn't be so critical. You can't blame them for trying to help downtown. That's one of their main purposes. Isn't that why they moved the chamber offices to someplace on N. Dixie in Frenchtown where no one ever goes? Maybe they should hold the next carnival in the vacant field next to that place.

Help wanted: Future flower planters

Those who got up in arms about planting expensive flowers to spell out the Monroe name at that Kentucky memorial park on S. Monroe St. deserve some applause. No question the annual planting is attractive, but there's got to be a less expensive alternative. Like, wouldn't marigolds work?
The $5,000 being spent for the flowers is one thing. I wonder how much they spend on city labor costs planting them? When I drove by, there were no fewer than five people planting flowers and one supervisor. It took them about four hours to get it half done.
Let's ballpark it. Let say the average pay is $12 an hour. With six people, that's $72 an hour. Let's say they got it done in eight hours. That's about $600, conservatively.
I see a valuable community service that could be performed by a garden club or service organization, or both.
The objections raised on city council seem to show that the go-along, get-along idea isn't necessarily going to work anymore.
Councilman McGhee did a nice job of comparing the money spent on flowers to the money saved on eliminating a traffic signal in his area. I hope nobody gets hurt at those intersections, although I hear there already was a fairly serious accident at one.

Putting out the fires

Time to add a little warped perspective on the warped perspective people have about the Monroe firefighters and Monroe police debate.
Those who have been following it know that the city is trying to cut about a million bucks from its public safety budget. The priority of this administration seems to be on building streets and water lines.
I think I know why. The perception is that we have worse streets and water lines than we have crime or fires.
A lot of people are being critical of firefighters particularly because SOME OF THEM are sucking down big overtime bucks. It's structural overtime really and I don't blame the firefighters. Someone on one of those funny city council shows said it once: When times were fat, no one had a problem handing out fat salaries.
What I do have a problem with is this tendency by some firefighters and, to a less degree, some police to say what a big fat favor they're doing the citizens.
I would suggest that the average cop in Monroe has a tougher job than the average firefighter, but on average is paid far less. But let's face it, when is the last time a city firefighter was killed or severly injured on duty? How about a cop? It's not like it even happens once a decade.
Just because evidence of the last major fire (which totaled the building) still exists on main street doesn't mean it happened yesterday.
There usually are two kinds of people in every work place. Those who think they're underpaid, underappreciated and highly talented and tell everyone about it and those who actually do most of the work.
In other words, I can understand those who are offended by people trying to reduce their salaries and bennies, but trying to sell a bunch of self-aggrandizing BS to preserve those salaries and bennies is just god-awful stomach-turning.