Everywhere You Look

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "What's The Fuss ?":

10:15 AM

I thought that I was the morning snark..... must be more than 1 that disagrees with the claptrap here.
*****
Claptrap here
Claptrap there
Here a clap 
There a clap
Everywhere a claptrap

Y'all recall the software program the town purchased for keeping track of infrastructure and assets.
It was late in the year. Just before the books closed .
It was included in  actual spending for 2011.
It cost $440,000.
I argued and voted against it for several stated reasons. 
A few weeks later, we had to approve an additional  $38,000 for the hand held equipment necessary for workers in the field to relay information to  the software at the town hall.
Staff  explained  the additional equipment needed for the system to function was overlooked at the time of the original purchase recommendation.Which itself was recommended to staff by a consultant.
This week, I  discovered  a way the equipment can be used to better inform council.
I spend much of my time at the computer. When my eyes need a rest I look up into my maple tree .
In the summer, if I'm not at the computer, I sit on my back deck 
watching my garden grow.
Sometimes I sit and think and sometimes I just sit.
While I'm at it, I'm not paying a lot of attention to what is going down on in my street.
Seems a week or so ago my neighbor directly across the street had a  water supply problem. The town was  called. Problem was solved.
Another person on the street who pays a lot of  attention to neighborhood affairs  observed the situation.
To the untrained eye, it appeared there was an element of excess of manpower, vehicles and equipment utilized in the process ,one way or  another. 
I could offer no satisfactory explanation. I didn't even know it was happening. 
As I listened however,I thought of the $440,000 software program
and its function.
Ordinarily, pre-software,  a day at the works or parks department starts of with work orders for jobs to be done. They are assigned and crews dispatched to complete work and report back for new orders. 
Now, with the hand held equipment and software program at the town hall, .work and parks crews are required to file details of their undertaking for the purpose of amassing records.
Simple work orders have gone the way of the dodo bird. 
Amassing  seems to be the operative word. 
All  information, is  collected  in the software program. For the purpose of keeping tabs on conditions of   town infrastructure wherever it may be and whatever incident may impact upon it. 
As I listened to my observant neighbor recount the account of the happening on this particular section of water ware infrastructure, it occurred to me, with the town's new software program, it should be a simple matter to determine all  facts and  figures and provide a satisfactory explanation to my tax conscious neighbor.
So last night, under the  new business section of the Council agenda, I sought advice from the Mayor. 
"Certainly" he responded. "Just provide the Director  with the address ,I am sure he will provide the information"
 I am about to do that now.