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ADOT Pain and Pleasure Commentary

The following e-mail was sent to Greg Gentch, the ADOT Highway Engineer and Highway Maintenance Supervisor for the Prescott area and others on Saturday, March 5, 2011.

Dear Mr. Gentch,

Thanks to you and your Prescott ADOT team for your support and openness to our efforts to restore the beauty to America the Beautiful and Arizona. You, Mike Gutzwiller, the Highway Maintenance Supervisor for the Flagstaff area and Rod Wigman (PIO) have been great PARTNERS in our efforts to energize the broken Arizona Adopt-A-Highway Program and addressing our litter recovery efforts. 

I’m disappointed that can’t say that about all of the folks in the Prescott Office. There are those who appear to be poisoning the well regarding our “Road Warrior” efforts. There are two people who need to be reminded from where their pay check originates. Without our tax dollars they don’t work. Partnering is a concept I like and as I understand from talking to ADOT managers, ADOT promotes partnering with the public. Could it be that this message didn’t get to a few of the folks in the Prescott office?

Hopefully this editorial will find its way to our Arizona media and will create an attitude adjustment for those few who continually make the task of those trying to partner and make progress regarding highway litter issues more difficult. I am more than willing to publish e-mails from the renegade ADOT employee’s who for the past two years have made our Road Warrior effort difficult and possibly have disgraced/embarrassed those ADOT workers doing their job. These anti-partnering renegades are poor examples of how the “team work” concept works and how it benefits all of us. I hope to hear from the powers-to-be regarding this issue.

It’s strange or curious that I’m currently working with the state Adopt-A-Highway (AAH) Coordinators in three other states and we’re all sharing cost savings ideas. Our own Arizona Adopt-A-Highway Coordinator isn’t one of these people. For several months, Arizona’s ADOT Adopt-A-Highway Coordinator has gone tone deaf to our request to meet and help breathe some life into Arizona’s broken AAH Program which appears to be on life support. Based on our “Boots on the ground” efforts and visual observations the AAH Program is broken. Could it be time to pull the plug on the current program and harvest the non-cancerous organs and reinvent the program?

 As we all drive our highways and take note of what we see (seeing is believing), is there any indication of a highly functioning Adopt-A-Highway Program that shouts “Don’t Trash Arizona”, claims they educate the public through their efforts and appears to not have control of the Permittee’s (those whose names are on the highway signs) to honor their commitment to cleaning their highway sections 3 times per year or more for Scenic Highways? The three to four times per year frequency is defined on the AAH web page and a brochure in my possession

I would say the Arizona Adopt-A-Highway Program Coordinator’s evaluation of the AAH Program is based on another “low-bar” standard of acceptance, what do you think as you travel our highways? Yes, the people who volunteer their time to clean our highways are volunteers but they signed a agreement to participate in the AAH Program that costs “We the taxpayers” for their signs, sign management and the bureaucratic RED TAPE and the state employee management of a program that isn’t user-friendly.

 

If the public would like to voice their opinion about the tax payer funded, Arizona Adopt-A-Highway Program please contact Stephanie Brown, Arizona Adopt-A-Highway Cordinator (602) 712-7114 and let her know how you feel about your tax dollars being spent on a low-bar standard program or do you believe everything is hunky-dory.

The Verde Valley should all be very proud of our ADOT Adopt-A-Highway Permittee’s who clean Scenic Highway 89A between Cottonwood and Sedona plus our Highway 260 Permittee’s who are in their second year of greater participation.

As of the beginning of 2011, 14 of the 15 groups (93.3%) on Scenic Highway 89A between Cottonwood and Sedona have committed to cleaning their sections of highway at least 3 times per year or more. Last year it was 35% and in 2009 it was 25%. As of February 19, 2011, 95 bags of someone else’s trash have been recovered from this 15 mile section of 89A. Please consider that every piece of trash that blows onto this section of highway or any highway, adds up. Since February 25, 2009, 1125 bags of Trash have been collected between Cottonwood and Sedona at a huge cost to the tax payers and the community. Is this how we want to spend our tax dollars and time?

Would you want to bring your family or business into this environment or area with this knowledge? Strength in numbers, united we stand and divided we fail or fall. Let’s be partners in our effort to restore the beauty to America the Beautiful and honor our military, veterans and communities.

Stephanie Brown, will you work with us?

Gary Chamberlain

Point-man “Road Warriors”

Cornville, AZ

FolksvilleUSA@gmail.com

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