Posted on 05/10/2014 4:30:33 AM PDT by rickmichaels
A Saint John, N.B. man has reached local hero status after a blown tire led to a blowout with the city because the auto body shop owner decided to fix potholes on his street, only to be told to undo the work or face a fine.
Three weeks ago, Mike Defazio blew out a tire after hitting a foot-deep pothole on Broadway Avenue at Simpson Drive, where he owns an auto body shop. The next day, while working outside his shop, he watched a hearse try to navigate around the pothole on the way to a funeral and the 60-year-old decided to take matters into his own hands.
“Enough is enough. Between me blowing a tire and having to watch a hearse do that, I took my little Kubota tractor and took some fill from my yard and poured it in the hole,” he told the Post. “I spent all morning, about three-and-a-half hours…I filled in numerous potholes.”
And from the way Defazio describes the potholes, they weren’t just run-of-the-mill road ruiners, they were Gotham City-sized super villains.
“Some of them were 10 to 12 inches wide, a [foot] deep and two feet long,” he said. “I just drew the line and filled them in. I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong.
“But obviously, the city down here thinks I was.”
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalpost.com ...
Reminds me of my current tagline.
Typical representatives and city idiots. Un-fill the pot hole, drive through it, complain of neck injury and sue the city for millions.
Why is that remark limited to City government?
Was a local union job taken away as a result?
“The city’s deputy commissioner of transportation and environment services, Kevin Rice, told the Post that while Defazio’s heart was in the right place, he broke a city bylaw that says private citizens cannot modify city roads.”
I thought good intentions trumped law at least according to Leftists.
Ain't going to work.
/johnny
“No good deed goes unpunished.”
Roads are “right of ways,” they are not even owned by the government. Governments can assume the responsibility of maintaining them if they wish, and they always do. But if they fail to maintain them the actual owners of the land are without question allowed to do so. It’s their land! (At least in America this is the case.) Also, roads that cease to be used can be reaquired by a landowner through adverse possession. This often happens when a new road (interstate) cuts off a county road. Check your land plats! Your land is the middle of the road!
I would “Unfix” the SOB. Show up with a D8 and drop the rippers down and show them how to “unfix” a road.
Okay. Fine him $20 and leave the holes filled in.
The absurdity here is that he is being charged with modifying a city road. There have been instances when citizens have become weary of road racers and gang members cruising on a street so they put in speed bumps. In that case, a road has been modified.
In this case, a road was built to facilitate the flow of vehicular traffic. When the road deteriorated, it was no longer capable to fulfilling its original function. By filling in the hole, the citizen was not modifying the road, but was instead restoring it to serviceability. If the council wants to be correct, the ordinance should be reworded to read that private citizens may neither modify city roads nor repair them.
That was my first thought - he wasn’t UNION and nobody but UNIONS can fix streets!
Excellent point.
-PJ
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