Since January, the New Baltimore Highway Department has a new appointee Superintendent, a veteran of the Highway Department, who spend almost his enitre career learning the tricks — and we do mean TRICKS — of the trade from none other than former disgraced Highway Superintendent Denis Jordan. The faces may have changed but nothing else in the New Baltimore Highway Department.
Town Hall: New Baltimoron searching for a brain.
More to the left, Alan, we think you might have found it!
Last snowfall we reported on the snow plowing talents or lack thereof when the Highway Department managed to plow a narrow passage through the snow, leaving more than 45 inches of roadway unplowed on a street that, thanks to the New Baltimore Highway Department, has been narrowed more than 21″ inches to start! after “paving” was done in 2017.
We have photographs of plowing done on Tuesday, February 23, 2019, which raises some interesting questions. What do you think?
The images below show how the New Baltimore Highway Department plowed on New Street in the Hamlet. The image on the left shows a bank measuring approximately 12-20 inches in height on the one side of the street, and the image on the right shows the property directly across the street with no bank at all. It just happens that the snow bank deposited in the front of the residence shown on the left belongs to a resident who has been a vocal critic of the New Baltimore Highway Department and New Baltimore Town Hall in general. Assuming that the plow operator has control over the plow blade and can adjust it to move snow in different directions, it is interesting that so much snow is piled up in front of the one residence while almost none is piled up in front of the other residence. The one resident gets the snow while the other resident, one of your typical church-going, hate-your-neighbor New Baltimore Christian types, gets none. Could this be retaliation by the New Baltimore Highway Department and New Baltimore Town Hall?
Comparison of Vocal Resident’s Property and Silent Resident’s Property.
This seems to be a nasty game played by the New Baltimorons in the Highway Department because the following images show even worse pile-ups of snow on the vocal resident’s property, while the silent residents are spared the snow banks. Now this couldn’t be retaliation by the Highway Department under the new Superintendent Mr Alan Van Wormer, could it?
The image on the left is property owned by the resident who has criticized the New Baltimore Highway Department and the Town Supervisor and Town Board. See any difference in treatment?
Vocal Resident’s Property on Left; Silent Resident’s Property on Right.
And the view along New Street in the Town of New Baltimore showing the difference in treatment of the vocal resident on the left side of the street and the silent resident on the right side of the street.
Of course, you may not give a damn about what happens to your neighbors, or whether there are a bunch of vindictive thugs in the New Baltimore Highway Department or New Baltimore Town Hall, so we’d like to draw you attention to something that is likely to cost taxpayers in New Baltimore a bundle. Again, this situation is due to the stupidity of the New Baltimore Highway Department and their incompetence. We have notified the New Baltimore Town Supervisor Jeff Ruso and this Town Board of these problems but they are in what Town Assessor Gordon Bennett calls “lawyer mode,” and scared shitless, so like the possums they are, they play dead.
They’re not really dead, they’re just playing possum…fake dead.
Back in 2017 when the Town of New Baltimore hired Callanan to pave a number of streets in New Baltimore Hamlet, one of the streets paved was New Street. We reported that the paving actually raised the roadbed an average of about 20 inches and, for some idiotic reason, the Highway Department built up a berm along the East side of New Street, running in front of one residence and creating a dangerous hazard in front of the house, almost making it impossible to use the front and side entrances. The Highway Department and the Town Board are fully informed about this problem but have done nothing to fix it.
Well, we also reported back in 2017, shortly after the paving was completed, that then deputy Highway Superintendent Scott Van Wormer, the current Superintendent’s brother (!), actually commented that the high berm would cause problems when snow plowing!!! Well, he was right! Because of the berm, the Highway Department can’t properly plow the street. In fact, back in January the plowing was so bad that they couldn’t or were afraid to plow the whole street!
Well, here’s what’s happening now. The images below were taken on February 13, 2019, after the Town of New Baltimore Highway Department plowed New Street. The blade of the plow is obviously hitting the berm and cutting deep scoring into the blacktop, just as Scott Van Wormer had predicted. The plow blade is constructed to move snow, not to remove blacktop. The fact that the plow blade is cutting into the blacktop of the berm and leaving deep gouges in the blacktop means that the plow blade is being damaged.
You may not give a damn that the property owner can’t safely use his residence entrances because of the berm but you may be concerned that the plow blade, because of the idiotic paving done by the New Baltimore Highway Department, is being damaged and will cost New Baltimore taxpayers a bundle to either repair or to replace.
The deep scoring or gouges made in the raised blacktop berm or curb created by the New Baltimore Highway Department.
Do we have your attention now?
Maybe you’ll wake up and get some attention from the New Baltimore Highway Department and Supervisor Jeff Ruso or his Deputy Supervisor Nick Dellisanti? They visited the damanged residence on New Street whose foundation was collapsing because the New Baltimore Highway Department wasn’t maintaining the Town’s culverts and drainage. The building is collapsing. New Baltimore Sole Assessor Gordon Bennet admitted that the building was structurally unsafe but refused to reduce the assessment. The Highway Department was notified several times to avoid piling snow up against the building (there’s a deep ditch on the other side of the street into which snow can be pushed). Do they bother, do the take any steps to avoid causing more damage to the building? NO! Why is that? Don’t you wonder?
By the way, for the information of New Baltimore residents who have their thumbs up their butts, both the New Baltimore Superintendent of Highways, Alan Van Wormer, and the New Baltimore Town Supervisor, Jeff Ruso, ran unopposed this past November. They were not elected but still got into office. Do you wonder that there’s retaliation and abuse of public office in New Baltimore?
What’s even worse is that the Greene County District Attorney, Joseph Stanzione, the go-to guy whose job it is to go after crooked and incompetent public servants and elected officials also ran unopposed. Not only is he a member of the same political party as Ruso and Dellisanti, he had to recuse himself from the investigation of disgraced New Baltimore Highway Superintendent Denis Jordan because he, Stanzione, represented Jordan in a previous case. You really can’t make this stuff up!
New Baltimore’s New Slogan.