Striping work on island roads was coordinated | LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Published 7:47 am Monday, September 14, 2015

To the editor:

One reader’s Aug. 28 letter to the editor, “Left hand, meet right hand,” took aim at what he believed to be a worthy target of inefficiency and government waste, accusing the city of Bainbridge Island’s Public Works Department of chip-sealing over freshly painted traffic marking lines. I’m afraid, though, that in invoking “Ready, fire, aim,” he might have been a bit trigger happy himself.

Since I had just the opposite impression of the letter writer’s — I noticed that Lovgreen Road had bright new double yellow lines while North Madison did not receive new striping before chip-sealing began — I took five minutes to confirm with the city department that their effort was indeed as coordinated as it appeared to me.

While there are many sections of chip-sealing that are adjacent to road portions where painting occurred, the Public Works representative I spoke with assured me that no painting should have occurred where chip-sealing was scheduled. The city employee did (magnanimously, I thought) offer that perhaps the letter writer observed an isolated section where painting accidentally extended into a stretch slated for chip-sealing.

Sometimes it’s good to be a bit reflective before painting our city workers as incompetent. Otherwise, an individual with a chip on his shoulder runs the risk of sealing a false belief in the public’s collective consciousness.

SARAH MORGANS

Bainbridge Island