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Thursday, October 14, 2010

Eff the Polices!

My landlord has a problem with the sewer pipe that runs through his back yard. It carries the water that used to flow as a stream >100 years ago but since streams are inconvenient, they channeled it into a sewer pipe.

There is a man hole in the back yard, and when there is a heavy rain the stream inside the pipe pushes up a geyser of water through the man hole cover. Here's a vid I shot of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55akxl93JxI

So after many years of my landlord talking to the town's bureaucracy, a sewer pipe inspection crew and their small, box truck showed up today to send a robotic camera into the sewer pipe. Since they usually work on the street, their cables could not reach the pipe in the backyard so I moved my car and they parked their truck in our driveway to do the work.

What does this have to do with the cops? Well, there was a cop standing at the foot of our driveway the whole time getting paid overtime to talk on his cell phone. Was he supposed to direct traffic away  the truck parked in the driveway?

My Filipina girlfriend said that in The Philippines, cops are referred to as crocodiles because they specialize in ambushing motorists and demanding money. This construction detail work is a slightly more civilized form of shakedown. The cops in MA threatened to strike when there was a law introduced to allow civilian flaggers to direct traffic at construction sites. Some cops threatened to arrest civilian flaggers in some cases.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/04/22/police_turn_up_heat_on_civilian_flaggers/

I guess it's still up to each town to decide whether they can afford to pay cops overtime for this kind of work. I can see how in a "bad area" you would want cops on site to make sure the construction workers aren't mugged but in a town like Lexington? nplz.

The police union is way too powerful in this state.

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