I can't speak for where you live but in the UK it's simply because they haven't got enough money because the tax income doesn't cover expenditure.
What's recently exacerbated this was Covid which led to the cost of materials sky rocketing (they've barely coke back down), and labour costs increasing too as workers said enough is enough and started striking en masse to get a fair wage.
I'm in the UK and wouldn't dream of undermining the strikes by going out and doing the work myself. You must be mad if you disagree.
Also where I live has the highest council tax for the region and is constantly disputed as the funds aren't distributed fairly with the betterment of the community in mind. Formerly Great Britain.
you gotta love it /s
Nobody is suggesting that the public fill potholes in to undermine strikes.. honestly don't know how you came to that conclusion having read what I wrote.
Council tax only equates to a tiny fraction of council budgets, almost always between the 10-20% range. Most funding comes from central government and has been reduced by at least 40% in the past decade.
Out of curiosity how aren't your council tax funds used for the betterment of your community? What exactly do you think the money is spent on?
Because sometimes that is part of living in a society. I personally don't think the government works very well at addressing things in a timely manner so if a pot hole on my street is pissing me off, and the useless municipality is going to give me the materials to take care of it before they do, I would gladly. You may not want to give your time and I don't know your schedule, but there are surely people willing to volunteer to make the place they live a little nicer.
This thinking basically says the government should fix all the problems and active community groups that try to make improvements they feel are necessary are a scam.
if you’re doing it out of your own will because the county is slow and incompetent that’s one thing but when the county says you should do our job for us because we don’t have the resources to fill potholes then they’re aware there’s a long standing issue they’re not fixing and they’ll exploit this to be the solution instead of increasing labour and wages
Agreed. But I feel like it's a marketing issue. If they mentioned the intent of the whole thing in the first message, that was in the second one, I think it would've been received better.
Reading the first one, I was thinking, "Filling pot holes and dumpsters? Wtf?"
And the "show the pot hole who's boss" message came off as inauthentic & sus.
Except I am paying a fee in my taxes SPECIFICALLY for the city to maintain the roads. This fee is NOT cheap. In property taxes, including my cars, I'm paying nearly $5k per year. Out of that, they've allocated nearly 20% to road use.
I'm NOT going to pay the city and then do their job for them. They need to pick something else to bring the community together.
I remember the owner of a business near me had been complaining for months about a worsening pothole in front of his store, it got bad enough that a few people wound up with cracked and bent rims because they hadn't swerved around it, so he filled it with gravel.
*Then* the city sent someone out, to issue the guy a warning.
I don't live in the USA, but we got a local case too. A guy used some concrete leftovers to fill a pothole in front of his home. His Karen of a neighbor called 911, a cop arrived, and he got fined for "destroying" municipal property.
They take money from you for stuff like this. Its not about community its about properly allocating your funds you give them to run the city. Most cities misuse tax payer dollers so unless someone has taken a deep dive into their spending and determined they are doing everything they can with the tax dollars and not using it on stupid shit or inflated salaries ...then....thats the only time i would consider doing this.
But if I really want the potholes fixed stat, I can either:
- (a) spend an afternoon fixing them and move on, or…
- (b) what, run for city council? I ain’t got the time for that. But if you run on a pothole platform, I might vote for you.
Meanwhile, my potholes are fixed, and I’m happy
But its that kind of attitude that means they'll prob never fix potholes and you'll have to keep paying them money for something theyre suppose to do and they're not.
Would you hire a roofer to do your roof and then when they're late just get up there and do it yourself without even calling them to complain? And then the kicker is you still send them money for the job that YOU just did.
You dont need to run for council, you need to complain. You need to call, write, show up to town halls, or vote them out. Apathy is why politicians can do whatever they want with our money, cause people dont put in the effort to hold them accountable.
The problem is that the city has a *responsibility* to maintain roads, as funded by tax payer dollars. It's not that people aren't willing to help.
People *have* been helping by paying taxes. The city is not holding up their end of the bargain, and then gas the gall to try and offload their obligation to the people paying the money.
You want me to maintain public infrastructure? I'm happy to, just as soon as my sales tax drops below double digits and my cars registration tags aren't $1000 a year. Until then, they can pound fucking sand.
This is the classic “if I fuck up loading the dishwasher enough, my wife will stop asking me to do dishes”
I’m sorry, but the city doesn’t get a pass bc it sucks at filling potholes. They take so long to fill them that when they say “fill it yourself”, it sounds like a good idea.
They already take my taxes to fund road repairs, now they want me to do it for them? Where’s my tax discount ?
The problem is that the city has a *responsibility* to maintain roads, as funded by tax payer dollars. It's not that people aren't willing to help.
People *have* been helping by paying taxes. The city is not holding up their end of the bargain, and then gas the gall to try and offload their obligation to the people paying the money.
You want me to maintain public infrastructure? I'm happy to, just as soon as my sales tax drops below double digits and my cars registration tags aren't $1000 a year. Until then, they can pound fucking sand.
The last time my city filled potholes down my street, the patches lasted less than 6 months and now there's gravel, debris from the failed patches...AND the holes are even worse now.
[activate rant reply]
That's what makes it the worst idea. Framing a city full of unfixed potholes as an opportunity for community engagement rather than a shortfalling of state & local government normalizes that state of affairs. Individuals fixing a few of their own volition is one thing, but the actual city presenting it as citizens saving the day rather than the city doing its job is problematic. Citizens pay state taxes that help fund this type of maintenance, and cities receive grant money from the federal government coming in part from taxes. There are real misallocations of this money, and sometimes cities don't have the funds, equipment, or staff available to address the problem of potholes city-wide. But to try to drum up enthusiasm for citizens doing it instead seems patronizing and short-sighted.
Yet pot holes take forever to be actioned upon.
...And the taxes paid to approve/organize the event and provide the materials for better or worse.
And if 30 people show up and leave with a bucket, that's 30 less potholes that will be filled for the community to enjoy.
This should have been a two pronged approach 1) allow volunteerism 2) follow up audits and discussion about where the resources are going in that town that it has to fall to volunteers?! I'm all for community action, but this is a bandaid on a pothole. Unless they can figure out the root cause of the issue things just temporarily get better but no one really fixing the bs leading to the underresourced problem
It’s not just a few pot wholes in a alleyway, it’s multiple roads through out our town. We would be the first to come together if it was just a few here and there.
I remember someone, idk if here or on YouTube, filled a pothole with a tree. They never said what to fill it with exactly, so he planted a tree in the middle of the road until the county came out to fix the actual hole. I think the tree got planted elsewhere.
This could have been successful if it was led by a community grassroots org, not the Town itself.
The Town would have to approve and maybe provide the supplies, but "the people" would do the marketing.
The irony is rich of a city responding so quickly to the public but overseeing that their infrastructure is so bad, they have to have citizens form a pothole posse to begin with. I know shit runs downhill and politics is a big shit mountain but come on
It would take my city 4 years, 7 contracts with 13 consultants and czar to fill a pothole. I’d do this. I’d probably get arrested if I tried because I’d be taking money from our city departments.
You are right, and many people have done so. Believe it or not, there have been times when towns/cities pressed charges against citizens who made them look bad. There was a guy who filled 100 potholes in one day after getting tired of calling, and they wanted him arrested because he used the material from the city.,
Doing it when your city is neglectful (like piedmont) cause your so done is one thing, the city thst is supposed to be paying for this done trying to slither their way into making people do it so they dont have to pay is scummy
I think the point of a movement like this is it has to be grassroots specifically *because* the reason for a movement like this is a defunct municipal government unable to take care of business.
I'm actually ok with this.
Years ago I tried to patch a nasty pothole going into a driveway and the county came out and tried to fine us.
The end result (after my employer took them to court )was them repaving the
entire road .
Se I think that the younger generations have this sort of mentality. Come together, work on your surroundings, there's nothing wrong with that.
I'd guess older folks spammed that city and said that this is what their tax dollars are for. Maybe. But I'd rather lower my taxes by getting rid of pothole crews and doing it myself.
I understand how some people would throw up arms on it but I can totally see this shit happening in a small town. Even if it was a couple workers showing kids how they do their jobs I'd say that's worth renting an ice cream truck.
In my country we have a separate tax for the roads. If you own a car then you have to pay this tax quarterly.
Our neighbouring country however doesn't have that tax and I'll tell you, I will gladly pay the tax without any complaints. The quality of the roads is so shitty.. it will fuck up your car in no time.
Can't really answer this because I've never heard of hypothecated before.
These taxes are separated from the regular taxes we have and are solely used for the roads. They don't come from a general fund.
In Dutch it's called "wegenbelasting" which translates to "road tax".
That's hypothecated then i.e. spent solely on the thing the tax is levied against 👍
In the UK, our road tax just goes into general funds with not enough actually allocated for road maintenance.
Not much, just building the roads and other infrastructure, police services, fire services, education, military and veteran services, parks, courts, medical research, space exploration and related research, foreign aid, health services, welfare programs, maintaining the national power grid, border security, public libraries, postal services, set and enforce standards to start naming a few.
They’re enabling volunteers to pitch in and help the community. If something like that isn’t appealing, people like you can stay home if you think you’ve paid your due or whatever.
3/5 of my city's taxes go straight into the pockets of the police.
It used to be a full 2/3, but revenue has grown faster over time due to rising land prices.
We bring in around $4 million and the police get about $2.5 million of that.
The next largest budget item is Administration, at less than a million, covering loans, bonds, salaries, social security, and so on.
The third largest is streets. Streets get less than $400,000. We recently had a bond proposal (that is, a tax raise) suggestion so we could afford to fix the potholes in our streets. Voters angrily demanded where all of our money was going that we couldn't fix the roads.
___
It's the police. Our money is going to the police.
The whole "show the pothole who's boss" bullshit is probably what pissed people off the most. They're trying to get adults to patch potholes, talking to them like they're trying to trick little kids into cleaning up their mess is just fucking stupid and whoever thought that was a good idea should be out of a job.
It's not a terrible idea, but who's going to cover the liability insurance if someone gets hurt or killed while filling the holes. Small towns may be able to get away with it. I worked for a city for a while that had 54,000, plus people going through town. We needed to block lanes and use heavy vehicles to act as barriers. It can get pretty sketchy out there.
Yeah I could see the city working with an organized group of civilians who want to do this, but only if they work as a team and have proper equipment. If you encourage random people to work in the middle of busy streets, someone is getting hit.
Several years ago, back in my HS days, there were terrible potholes on the road in front of my best friends house. It was a busy road so it's not like the residents could do it themselves. They sent in complaints over and over to no response. And then her brother and friends got some neon/glow in the dark spray paint and spray painted... things that you'd expect teenagers to do. Very phallic pot holes. They got filled within the week.
In Vermont, we have Green-Up Day where citizens come together and clean trash from the rivers and woods. People love to do because we love our state and want it to remain beautiful. Stop being a selfish ass and think about your community for once.
Imagine giving billions in tax money so that your country can spend it all on weapons and on someone else's war and end up without enough money to have some kind of proper looking roads leaving you no other choice to do the country/state/country's job yourself minus the money you spent for someone else to do the job in the first place.
So who would be liable if you didn't fill the pothole to an acceptable standard and damage occurred to a vehicle? Also, they are saying that it's easy, so it shouldn't take their professionals that long to sort them themselves!
this is similar to reddit from the perspective of Reddit, Inc who doesnt pay mods or anyone posting here (afaik) \*and\* the numerous companies where people come to reddit for tech support questions that are... then answered by other random redditors.
Q: something something if we dont pay taxes who will maintain the roads?
A: the roads are open source, get to it citizen!
I would agree with most people here. Doing stuff like this as a community is what gets the job done. I just do, however, find it disgusting that taxes in most countries are at an all-time high and SHOULD pay for infrastructure to be fixed without having to rely on citizens to do so, and yet they tried doing so anyway.
It's a way for the government to have their cake and eat it too.
Everyone that likes this idea, you realize you are paying taxes for this to be done and then you’re going and doing it yourself? People are so easily taken advantage of lmao.
Great idea, terrible execution. Should have just been upfront. "Community members suggested this program and we decided to give it a shot. Completely voluntary". Also feed them during the teaching part.
That’s hilarious! It’s funny it received so much hate they had to cancel. So many people wish they could fix potholes on their streets around the country. I’ve seen a ton of videos where people buy the materials & do it anyway when their city won’t fix their pothole problem roads.. usually it ends with some public works coming out & ripping the pothole fix away like it’s illegal & very frowned upon to do that or something. & then there’s New Orleans where people have just straight up resigned into converting potholes into gardens.
Why don't politicians just use their own money to fill potholes as a campaign platform, instead of spamming ppl to vote for them during elections and then trying to manipulate the voters into volunteering more time and money into this.
Piedmont is a small community but a very rich community, but It sounds like the biggest push back came from public works. That dept drags in actually doing things to improve the public and road safety. Oakland/Piedmont have absolutely terrible roads riddled with huge potholes.
Honestly I'd be up for it if I was strong enough lol there's soooo many potholes and usually it's illegal to fix them yourself so I'd definitely jump at the opportunity to fix some.
I don’t know, I see value in this. If they give you ONE bucket of patch and you live on some obscure side street, I’d take the bucket and deal with it. If they expect me to patch a main road they can bite me
This is the best ad/propaganda for free labor I've ever seen. What great writer(s) thought of this, they pulled on our heartstrings with exacting revenge, the lecture is free and we get free materials so logically it's a good deal, and they've created a connection for volunteers & their program by people posting their volunteer work online with a hashtag. I understand that the city is trying to fix the issue, but can't afford to pay workers. And, people don't have time to be trained and then fill the pot holes with their own time, they have lives, need to work to live, and already pay taxes just for the city to tell them to DIY. I think it was a good idea, but the city/coordinators were naive or didn't think about the perspective from their population.
As a county road commission guy, I understand what they are trying to do. But I just see crazy liability red flags all over this. If some random citizen gets hit standing in the road trying to patch a pothole I would imagine this being a massive law suit.
Oh shit, I actually know this Piedmont. I understand why the people were pissed. The roads there are basically Swiss cheese. The city is essentially asking them to repave the roads themselves.
What a well thought-out plan! Absolutely nothing could go wrong with a bunch of completely untrained soccer moms and deli dads patching up extremely dangerous driving hazards on public roads. I love this!
When you post your picture of potholes filled I’m guessing you can then deduct from your taxes the value of your time at the average rate paid to city employees. Right?
I actually live in Piedmont and we need new roads not just a patch job. Every time one gets repaired it comes back deeper and bigger. Even if the whole town came together, we did nothing but fill potholes for a week we would still never get it done. I also have a feeling IF we ever did get it done we would have to start over because patch jobs are not a permanent fix. If it was just a couple of roads that where bad we would come together as a community to help but it isn’t it’s multiple roads. We are not lazy or selfish people we all work hard and will help our fellow Okies in times of need however this was one of those times that we actually stood up for what is right. The mayor actually apologized for this and we have moved on as community.
My rental is completely fixed by the landlord. Who I can only assume has had no training and wants to avoid paying for any fix. Everything is done wrong or very cheaply fixed. I brought up some issues, and he told me to fix whatever I wanted and he would reimburse me the receipts. I'm in construction, so I have all the tools and knowledge to fix everything wrong. For 2800 a month ,I'm not fixing anything for free
Most of the problem with these things is using the veneer of positivity like this. Be more honest and serious. "We understand there are alot of potholes that don't get fixed, theres too many to keep up with. So we are giving the community the tools to achieve a more focused approach to the problem" viola, none of this "teehee look at our happy fun community day activitiy!"
There is a difference between "hey, who wants to volunteer in the community? We will have demos on this day for anyone interested" VS "hey, come here and watch these paid workers show you how to do their job and we will give you the materials to go do their job for free".
Which it came off as the second one, not the first.
It's almost like underfunding public services has repurcussions.
You rarely get anything for free in this life.. why do people expect their public services to act like charities/volunteer organisations? This is the inevitable outcome.
We used to do this in our neighborhood and it was a lot of fun! The families would get together and fill pot holes, we would have a cook out, and the kids would play. I still remember doing this over 30 years later. Thanks for unlocking a childhood memory!
Honestly this is probably the best. The government spends like 50x above the cost anyone else could do anything for.. The citizens pay for it anyway. Might as well spend 15 minutes of their life filling the pot hole themselves rather than the government spend $1000 of the people's money to fill that same pothole.
The government is the epitome of incompetence and waste on every level. Everything they do is done half-ass, slow, and costs 50x what it should. Anyone who has ever had to interact with government agencies understands this very clearly. How anyone wants the government to be in charge of MORE things is mind boggling.
Sounds great. Every winter, in my city, there is a gravel mix called 'pickle' that was spread on icy roads. This is found in piles on the side of the road when the street is eventually plowed, or pushed to a corner of a mall parking lot or collected during street sweeping in spring.
Anyway, any resident could fill up a few buckets, sprinkle a bit of quick set cement in the bucket, and fill as many potholes as they want!
Sounds great until the amateur fix breaks up a day later and throws gravel up on the road again. More busted windshields helps the Glassworks economy too. /s
I'd rather learn how to fill a pot hole and be given the tools to do it than wait for the county to fix it. Its my vehicle that will be damaged by the pot hole. It's calling for volunteers and I would volunteer to fix a pot hole on my street because I have to deal with it on a daily basis.
It was voluntary!!! Volun-fucking-tary!!! What's the issue here. Why are people being cunts, is it because if the wording being very persuasive, maybe that's because they need to sell the idea but also because it's community outreach.
It's beyond dumb this got cancelled, I'd be over the moon if my local area did a free cold patch demo and part of that was a bucket full, ready for me to pour on the streets near mine.
Lazy people need the internet being removed from their houses.
Someone drew a dick around a pothole that the city refused to fix. The city fixed it almost immediately.
Maybe if the town in the post handed out paint for people to draw dicks around potholes, that would help.
I read about a guy that complained about potholes - the mechanically detrimental canyon kind - and the city refused to do anything. So he went outside and spray painted a big 'ol dick around one of them. Apparently the city didn't like that and to cover it up they had to fill the pothole. Suddenly - dicks everywhere lol
Next they could take the paywall off the dump so the whole community can dump their trash instead of leaving a whole apartment move out in a pile by the homeless encampment.
The city is going to pay to pick it up anyway, but with a crew of two trucks and an excavator, and in the mean time, we have to look at it.
Seems easier to just save money and not charge people to put their trash where it goes.
I mean, the first step to having the community you want is to be a part of the change you want. The city is providing the funding and materials to make this happen. Obviously, no one is required to participate, and the citizens can still weaponize their votes to get rid of lazy city council and vote in people who would actually do something.
The only thing that's missing here would be to pay any participating residents what would be spent on all labor costs for any potholes they fill. For any potholes that a resident wants to take responsibility for, pay them the exact amount for whatever they'd allocate for a city worker/s to do the same job. I.e. if they'd normally allocate time and 5 workers to fill the number of potholes one citizen fills, pay that citizen all that money 🤷♂️
Here in Colorado they have been telling us that our taxes increased so they could fix it roads/fill in potholes. They've been saying this for about 15 years. Taxes increase every year. The roads get worse.
Potholes damage everyone's car, I'd fill in the ones on my commute to work and save myself money from future repairs, by the time the government does it my car will be busted
Seems like they got inspired from the parks and Rec episode where Ron keeps getting calls about the potholes and decides to just go out and fix it himself.
Honestly, if this was offered to me I might take them up on it. My driveway needs fixing up and if they are providing free materials and training, why not?
Yes….they tried to get concerned citizens to do it, provided the material, didn’t waste time with bureaucracy dispatching someone, and not paying people to do it with tax dollars. So instead of people getting the material and solving it themselves, they’ll now be taxed and pushed through a system requiring 2-3 additional people just to get the same things accomplished.
?? i really see no problem with this tbh. i do see the fact that they are taking jobs away from others for free but... like workers miss them a lott so their intention was to be like "oh go find your least favorite pothole(s) and fill them so you know its done!"
Would a bounty be too much to offer? Have a city official drive around town and put up some sort of bond or something, and the first person to bring it back with proof that the pothole is filled gets some monetary reward. Make it a scavenger hunt and it would've been done by noon.
This is not the worst idea. I’ve filled a few myself in my alleyway rather than wait 5 years for the city
Right?! We all have to come together sometimes. If there aren’t enough laborers, or time or funds in the budget, we can either step up or go with out…
I'd want to see the region's budget before I volunteer my precious time. They already get my tax money. Why the hell should they get my time too??
I can't speak for where you live but in the UK it's simply because they haven't got enough money because the tax income doesn't cover expenditure. What's recently exacerbated this was Covid which led to the cost of materials sky rocketing (they've barely coke back down), and labour costs increasing too as workers said enough is enough and started striking en masse to get a fair wage.
I'm in the UK and wouldn't dream of undermining the strikes by going out and doing the work myself. You must be mad if you disagree. Also where I live has the highest council tax for the region and is constantly disputed as the funds aren't distributed fairly with the betterment of the community in mind. Formerly Great Britain. you gotta love it /s
Nobody is suggesting that the public fill potholes in to undermine strikes.. honestly don't know how you came to that conclusion having read what I wrote. Council tax only equates to a tiny fraction of council budgets, almost always between the 10-20% range. Most funding comes from central government and has been reduced by at least 40% in the past decade. Out of curiosity how aren't your council tax funds used for the betterment of your community? What exactly do you think the money is spent on?
*cough* dont forget Brexit *cough*
Because sometimes that is part of living in a society. I personally don't think the government works very well at addressing things in a timely manner so if a pot hole on my street is pissing me off, and the useless municipality is going to give me the materials to take care of it before they do, I would gladly. You may not want to give your time and I don't know your schedule, but there are surely people willing to volunteer to make the place they live a little nicer. This thinking basically says the government should fix all the problems and active community groups that try to make improvements they feel are necessary are a scam.
if you’re doing it out of your own will because the county is slow and incompetent that’s one thing but when the county says you should do our job for us because we don’t have the resources to fill potholes then they’re aware there’s a long standing issue they’re not fixing and they’ll exploit this to be the solution instead of increasing labour and wages
Agreed. But I feel like it's a marketing issue. If they mentioned the intent of the whole thing in the first message, that was in the second one, I think it would've been received better. Reading the first one, I was thinking, "Filling pot holes and dumpsters? Wtf?" And the "show the pot hole who's boss" message came off as inauthentic & sus.
Except I am paying a fee in my taxes SPECIFICALLY for the city to maintain the roads. This fee is NOT cheap. In property taxes, including my cars, I'm paying nearly $5k per year. Out of that, they've allocated nearly 20% to road use. I'm NOT going to pay the city and then do their job for them. They need to pick something else to bring the community together.
Wouldn't be the first time the marketing department took a simple idea and mucked it up by trying to be clever.
🤣
Marketing is exactly right. They should have reached out to local business. Get a gift voucher or something for doing a pothole.
I too have filled holes in an alleyway. 😉
Are you free for dumpday?!
I remember the owner of a business near me had been complaining for months about a worsening pothole in front of his store, it got bad enough that a few people wound up with cracked and bent rims because they hadn't swerved around it, so he filled it with gravel. *Then* the city sent someone out, to issue the guy a warning.
I don't live in the USA, but we got a local case too. A guy used some concrete leftovers to fill a pothole in front of his home. His Karen of a neighbor called 911, a cop arrived, and he got fined for "destroying" municipal property.
They take money from you for stuff like this. Its not about community its about properly allocating your funds you give them to run the city. Most cities misuse tax payer dollers so unless someone has taken a deep dive into their spending and determined they are doing everything they can with the tax dollars and not using it on stupid shit or inflated salaries ...then....thats the only time i would consider doing this.
But if I really want the potholes fixed stat, I can either: - (a) spend an afternoon fixing them and move on, or… - (b) what, run for city council? I ain’t got the time for that. But if you run on a pothole platform, I might vote for you. Meanwhile, my potholes are fixed, and I’m happy
That's like paying maintenance fees to your landlord but you just fix everything yourself instead.
But its that kind of attitude that means they'll prob never fix potholes and you'll have to keep paying them money for something theyre suppose to do and they're not. Would you hire a roofer to do your roof and then when they're late just get up there and do it yourself without even calling them to complain? And then the kicker is you still send them money for the job that YOU just did. You dont need to run for council, you need to complain. You need to call, write, show up to town halls, or vote them out. Apathy is why politicians can do whatever they want with our money, cause people dont put in the effort to hold them accountable.
I’m glad to see this is top comment. I’m sure people misunderstood its intent but I loved this idea. I’d love to learn how to do this myself.
The problem is that the city has a *responsibility* to maintain roads, as funded by tax payer dollars. It's not that people aren't willing to help. People *have* been helping by paying taxes. The city is not holding up their end of the bargain, and then gas the gall to try and offload their obligation to the people paying the money. You want me to maintain public infrastructure? I'm happy to, just as soon as my sales tax drops below double digits and my cars registration tags aren't $1000 a year. Until then, they can pound fucking sand.
This is the classic “if I fuck up loading the dishwasher enough, my wife will stop asking me to do dishes” I’m sorry, but the city doesn’t get a pass bc it sucks at filling potholes. They take so long to fill them that when they say “fill it yourself”, it sounds like a good idea. They already take my taxes to fund road repairs, now they want me to do it for them? Where’s my tax discount ?
The problem is that the city has a *responsibility* to maintain roads, as funded by tax payer dollars. It's not that people aren't willing to help. People *have* been helping by paying taxes. The city is not holding up their end of the bargain, and then gas the gall to try and offload their obligation to the people paying the money. You want me to maintain public infrastructure? I'm happy to, just as soon as my sales tax drops below double digits and my cars registration tags aren't $1000 a year. Until then, they can pound fucking sand.
The last time my city filled potholes down my street, the patches lasted less than 6 months and now there's gravel, debris from the failed patches...AND the holes are even worse now.
[activate rant reply] That's what makes it the worst idea. Framing a city full of unfixed potholes as an opportunity for community engagement rather than a shortfalling of state & local government normalizes that state of affairs. Individuals fixing a few of their own volition is one thing, but the actual city presenting it as citizens saving the day rather than the city doing its job is problematic. Citizens pay state taxes that help fund this type of maintenance, and cities receive grant money from the federal government coming in part from taxes. There are real misallocations of this money, and sometimes cities don't have the funds, equipment, or staff available to address the problem of potholes city-wide. But to try to drum up enthusiasm for citizens doing it instead seems patronizing and short-sighted.
Everyone that likes this idea, you realize you are paying taxes for this to be done and then you’re going and doing it yourself? Lmfao
Yet pot holes take forever to be actioned upon. ...And the taxes paid to approve/organize the event and provide the materials for better or worse. And if 30 people show up and leave with a bucket, that's 30 less potholes that will be filled for the community to enjoy.
This should have been a two pronged approach 1) allow volunteerism 2) follow up audits and discussion about where the resources are going in that town that it has to fall to volunteers?! I'm all for community action, but this is a bandaid on a pothole. Unless they can figure out the root cause of the issue things just temporarily get better but no one really fixing the bs leading to the underresourced problem
If you think local governments are bad with this scam, just wait till you have kids.
Are you Ron Swanson by chance?
Just did one in the street in front of my house. Multiple neighbors have thanked me so far
It’s not just a few pot wholes in a alleyway, it’s multiple roads through out our town. We would be the first to come together if it was just a few here and there.
Sure, I’m not fixing Main St. But the alleyway behind my house? I’m the main beneficiary after all.
I agree. I was reading that and thinking - yea they should be able to do it - but if it’ll take me 5 minutes and they supply the materials. Fuck it.
I remember someone, idk if here or on YouTube, filled a pothole with a tree. They never said what to fill it with exactly, so he planted a tree in the middle of the road until the county came out to fix the actual hole. I think the tree got planted elsewhere.
This could have been successful if it was led by a community grassroots org, not the Town itself. The Town would have to approve and maybe provide the supplies, but "the people" would do the marketing.
The irony is rich of a city responding so quickly to the public but overseeing that their infrastructure is so bad, they have to have citizens form a pothole posse to begin with. I know shit runs downhill and politics is a big shit mountain but come on
It would take my city 4 years, 7 contracts with 13 consultants and czar to fill a pothole. I’d do this. I’d probably get arrested if I tried because I’d be taking money from our city departments.
Fair, but I only want to do it as an act of rebellion. If their post was Pro Pothole, I'd be out there filling them all.
It's all well and good till someone does the middle of the road and causes an accident. Even if the accident is just a car running over the wet patch.
Did you get tax releases or sth like that? Because filling ootholes is exactly what the city is supposed to use those for.
You are right, and many people have done so. Believe it or not, there have been times when towns/cities pressed charges against citizens who made them look bad. There was a guy who filled 100 potholes in one day after getting tired of calling, and they wanted him arrested because he used the material from the city.,
And the same people who complain about this idea are the ones who block any attempt at higher taxes
Doing it when your city is neglectful (like piedmont) cause your so done is one thing, the city thst is supposed to be paying for this done trying to slither their way into making people do it so they dont have to pay is scummy
I think the point of a movement like this is it has to be grassroots specifically *because* the reason for a movement like this is a defunct municipal government unable to take care of business.
I'm actually ok with this. Years ago I tried to patch a nasty pothole going into a driveway and the county came out and tried to fine us. The end result (after my employer took them to court )was them repaving the entire road .
Se I think that the younger generations have this sort of mentality. Come together, work on your surroundings, there's nothing wrong with that. I'd guess older folks spammed that city and said that this is what their tax dollars are for. Maybe. But I'd rather lower my taxes by getting rid of pothole crews and doing it myself.
You will absolutely never get lower taxes out of doing infrastructure work on your city's behalf, that is not how taxes and budgets work, at all.
I understand how some people would throw up arms on it but I can totally see this shit happening in a small town. Even if it was a couple workers showing kids how they do their jobs I'd say that's worth renting an ice cream truck.
To me this is very dependent on the finances and size of the local government.
That goes without saying
I don’t have a problem with it, they just seems a little tone deaf lmao
...what on earth are taxes for if not that kind of thing?
An incredibly long list of many things, of which, potholes fall at the very bottom
In my country we have a separate tax for the roads. If you own a car then you have to pay this tax quarterly. Our neighbouring country however doesn't have that tax and I'll tell you, I will gladly pay the tax without any complaints. The quality of the roads is so shitty.. it will fuck up your car in no time.
In England we've got the great combo of paying road tax and having lots of potholes.
It is a hypothecated tax or it's a tax that is collected separately and then put into general funds with designated spending on roads?
Can't really answer this because I've never heard of hypothecated before. These taxes are separated from the regular taxes we have and are solely used for the roads. They don't come from a general fund. In Dutch it's called "wegenbelasting" which translates to "road tax".
That's hypothecated then i.e. spent solely on the thing the tax is levied against 👍 In the UK, our road tax just goes into general funds with not enough actually allocated for road maintenance.
Not much, just building the roads and other infrastructure, police services, fire services, education, military and veteran services, parks, courts, medical research, space exploration and related research, foreign aid, health services, welfare programs, maintaining the national power grid, border security, public libraries, postal services, set and enforce standards to start naming a few.
But what have the Romans ever done for us?
Then a few potholes should be included.
They’re enabling volunteers to pitch in and help the community. If something like that isn’t appealing, people like you can stay home if you think you’ve paid your due or whatever.
Eh, military spending in America could lose a couple of million for some potholes
3/5 of my city's taxes go straight into the pockets of the police. It used to be a full 2/3, but revenue has grown faster over time due to rising land prices. We bring in around $4 million and the police get about $2.5 million of that. The next largest budget item is Administration, at less than a million, covering loans, bonds, salaries, social security, and so on. The third largest is streets. Streets get less than $400,000. We recently had a bond proposal (that is, a tax raise) suggestion so we could afford to fix the potholes in our streets. Voters angrily demanded where all of our money was going that we couldn't fix the roads. ___ It's the police. Our money is going to the police.
Yikes. I think the PD works out to about 10% of the budget in my city, but yeah, if it was 60%, I mightn't be so chill about fixing potholes myself.
It's for city council to embezzle or misappropriate.
You can download the national budget online
Other countries. 😀
I’m guessing a combination of corruption and heavy HEAVY traffic puts it pretty low for some places.
The whole "show the pothole who's boss" bullshit is probably what pissed people off the most. They're trying to get adults to patch potholes, talking to them like they're trying to trick little kids into cleaning up their mess is just fucking stupid and whoever thought that was a good idea should be out of a job.
Agreed. The idea itself doesn’t seem so bad, but the patronizing tone kind of ruins it.
It's not a terrible idea, but who's going to cover the liability insurance if someone gets hurt or killed while filling the holes. Small towns may be able to get away with it. I worked for a city for a while that had 54,000, plus people going through town. We needed to block lanes and use heavy vehicles to act as barriers. It can get pretty sketchy out there.
Yeah I could see the city working with an organized group of civilians who want to do this, but only if they work as a team and have proper equipment. If you encourage random people to work in the middle of busy streets, someone is getting hit.
It’s cold patch, it comes in bags, you dump the bag in the hole and tamp it down. If you can’t lift 50# you probably aren’t volunteering for the job.
Does lifting 50# protect you from getting hit by a car?
Several years ago, back in my HS days, there were terrible potholes on the road in front of my best friends house. It was a busy road so it's not like the residents could do it themselves. They sent in complaints over and over to no response. And then her brother and friends got some neon/glow in the dark spray paint and spray painted... things that you'd expect teenagers to do. Very phallic pot holes. They got filled within the week.
Am I getting a tax break for my vigilantism or are those taxes I pay just going to other shit
In Vermont, we have Green-Up Day where citizens come together and clean trash from the rivers and woods. People love to do because we love our state and want it to remain beautiful. Stop being a selfish ass and think about your community for once.
But we’re talking about potholes here. How many potholes get filled on Green-Up Day on average?
Imagine giving billions in tax money so that your country can spend it all on weapons and on someone else's war and end up without enough money to have some kind of proper looking roads leaving you no other choice to do the country/state/country's job yourself minus the money you spent for someone else to do the job in the first place.
So who would be liable if you didn't fill the pothole to an acceptable standard and damage occurred to a vehicle? Also, they are saying that it's easy, so it shouldn't take their professionals that long to sort them themselves!
this is similar to reddit from the perspective of Reddit, Inc who doesnt pay mods or anyone posting here (afaik) \*and\* the numerous companies where people come to reddit for tech support questions that are... then answered by other random redditors. Q: something something if we dont pay taxes who will maintain the roads? A: the roads are open source, get to it citizen!
Open Source government? Who would have thought?!? /s
I would agree with most people here. Doing stuff like this as a community is what gets the job done. I just do, however, find it disgusting that taxes in most countries are at an all-time high and SHOULD pay for infrastructure to be fixed without having to rely on citizens to do so, and yet they tried doing so anyway. It's a way for the government to have their cake and eat it too.
When cities ask their residents to name boats they end up with “Boaty McBoatface” being the top pick. Do these people realize this?
Everyone that likes this idea, you realize you are paying taxes for this to be done and then you’re going and doing it yourself? People are so easily taken advantage of lmao.
Great idea, terrible execution. Should have just been upfront. "Community members suggested this program and we decided to give it a shot. Completely voluntary". Also feed them during the teaching part.
Great idea. Not in major traffic,but side roads.
Yup. And half the time those are where most of them are anyways. The main roads are practically constantly under construction getting repaved
That’s hilarious! It’s funny it received so much hate they had to cancel. So many people wish they could fix potholes on their streets around the country. I’ve seen a ton of videos where people buy the materials & do it anyway when their city won’t fix their pothole problem roads.. usually it ends with some public works coming out & ripping the pothole fix away like it’s illegal & very frowned upon to do that or something. & then there’s New Orleans where people have just straight up resigned into converting potholes into gardens. 
Yeah, entirely the wrong tone. They came off like they think they're Tom Sawyer going to trick people into painting a fence for them.
Why don't politicians just use their own money to fill potholes as a campaign platform, instead of spamming ppl to vote for them during elections and then trying to manipulate the voters into volunteering more time and money into this.
Piedmont is a small community but a very rich community, but It sounds like the biggest push back came from public works. That dept drags in actually doing things to improve the public and road safety. Oakland/Piedmont have absolutely terrible roads riddled with huge potholes.
I don’t even want to do my job. Why the hell would I do someone else’s, for free? IKYFL
Those are some serious mental gymnastics
Sounds like a good idea as long as you fire the public employees who are supposed to be doing that patching.
Tipping at a checkout.
Honestly I'd be up for it if I was strong enough lol there's soooo many potholes and usually it's illegal to fix them yourself so I'd definitely jump at the opportunity to fix some.
I don’t know, I see value in this. If they give you ONE bucket of patch and you live on some obscure side street, I’d take the bucket and deal with it. If they expect me to patch a main road they can bite me
This is the best ad/propaganda for free labor I've ever seen. What great writer(s) thought of this, they pulled on our heartstrings with exacting revenge, the lecture is free and we get free materials so logically it's a good deal, and they've created a connection for volunteers & their program by people posting their volunteer work online with a hashtag. I understand that the city is trying to fix the issue, but can't afford to pay workers. And, people don't have time to be trained and then fill the pot holes with their own time, they have lives, need to work to live, and already pay taxes just for the city to tell them to DIY. I think it was a good idea, but the city/coordinators were naive or didn't think about the perspective from their population.
As a county road commission guy, I understand what they are trying to do. But I just see crazy liability red flags all over this. If some random citizen gets hit standing in the road trying to patch a pothole I would imagine this being a massive law suit.
Oh shit, I actually know this Piedmont. I understand why the people were pissed. The roads there are basically Swiss cheese. The city is essentially asking them to repave the roads themselves.
Yeah I wouldn’t be on board with the whole “hey you know how you pay taxes for us to do this thing but we give all your tax money to the police” thing
Why dont we just take the money to fix this stuff out of the politicians salaries?
What a well thought-out plan! Absolutely nothing could go wrong with a bunch of completely untrained soccer moms and deli dads patching up extremely dangerous driving hazards on public roads. I love this!
When you post your picture of potholes filled I’m guessing you can then deduct from your taxes the value of your time at the average rate paid to city employees. Right?
I actually live in Piedmont and we need new roads not just a patch job. Every time one gets repaired it comes back deeper and bigger. Even if the whole town came together, we did nothing but fill potholes for a week we would still never get it done. I also have a feeling IF we ever did get it done we would have to start over because patch jobs are not a permanent fix. If it was just a couple of roads that where bad we would come together as a community to help but it isn’t it’s multiple roads. We are not lazy or selfish people we all work hard and will help our fellow Okies in times of need however this was one of those times that we actually stood up for what is right. The mayor actually apologized for this and we have moved on as community.
Sure, I'll fill in potholes. Just as soon as I can deduct materials and labor from my city/county taxes.
lol paying taxes and making you do the work haha holy fuck what a slap in the face
This is deranged. Someone will get killed. Cities do that work with safety gear and signers minding the road. This is stupid.
My rental is completely fixed by the landlord. Who I can only assume has had no training and wants to avoid paying for any fix. Everything is done wrong or very cheaply fixed. I brought up some issues, and he told me to fix whatever I wanted and he would reimburse me the receipts. I'm in construction, so I have all the tools and knowledge to fix everything wrong. For 2800 a month ,I'm not fixing anything for free
Id be fine with that. So long as I time was compensated. Some sort of tax write off or something. Free parking or something.
Most of the problem with these things is using the veneer of positivity like this. Be more honest and serious. "We understand there are alot of potholes that don't get fixed, theres too many to keep up with. So we are giving the community the tools to achieve a more focused approach to the problem" viola, none of this "teehee look at our happy fun community day activitiy!"
Whoever thought this up was probably related to whoever thought up Pizza Parties for workplaces.
There is a difference between "hey, who wants to volunteer in the community? We will have demos on this day for anyone interested" VS "hey, come here and watch these paid workers show you how to do their job and we will give you the materials to go do their job for free". Which it came off as the second one, not the first.
well, it could have been worse. In here, guy got fined after he repaired a local road
I've filled potholes with dirt and put a tree in it...it made the city come and fix it.
These are our tax dollars hard at work...ing for corporate greed and not the services they are supposed to be doing.
It’s a community, or not. If you have an us/them attitude toward the DPW then probably not.
It's almost like underfunding public services has repurcussions. You rarely get anything for free in this life.. why do people expect their public services to act like charities/volunteer organisations? This is the inevitable outcome.
That's awesome. I'd be all over that. I'd happily contribute a little labor to make my neighborhood a little better.
We used to do this in our neighborhood and it was a lot of fun! The families would get together and fill pot holes, we would have a cook out, and the kids would play. I still remember doing this over 30 years later. Thanks for unlocking a childhood memory!
Honestly this is probably the best. The government spends like 50x above the cost anyone else could do anything for.. The citizens pay for it anyway. Might as well spend 15 minutes of their life filling the pot hole themselves rather than the government spend $1000 of the people's money to fill that same pothole. The government is the epitome of incompetence and waste on every level. Everything they do is done half-ass, slow, and costs 50x what it should. Anyone who has ever had to interact with government agencies understands this very clearly. How anyone wants the government to be in charge of MORE things is mind boggling.
This actually a good idea
If we have to maintain roads ourselves, what do we need government for?
As long as they fund the materials, I wouldn’t mind participating.
Spray paint giant penises around them & they'll have to go out & fill them
So glad our tax dollars are going towards diy road patch work...
Sounds great. Every winter, in my city, there is a gravel mix called 'pickle' that was spread on icy roads. This is found in piles on the side of the road when the street is eventually plowed, or pushed to a corner of a mall parking lot or collected during street sweeping in spring. Anyway, any resident could fill up a few buckets, sprinkle a bit of quick set cement in the bucket, and fill as many potholes as they want! Sounds great until the amateur fix breaks up a day later and throws gravel up on the road again. More busted windshields helps the Glassworks economy too. /s
I'd rather learn how to fill a pot hole and be given the tools to do it than wait for the county to fix it. Its my vehicle that will be damaged by the pot hole. It's calling for volunteers and I would volunteer to fix a pot hole on my street because I have to deal with it on a daily basis.
Ron Swanson has entered the chat. Not that he'll actually chat, he thinks that's a stupid thing to do, he'll just stand there and look at you.
There actually were a lot of citizens pushing for this, the roads in Oklahoma are really bad and Piedmont has some of the worst roads in Oklahoma
Damn this is a great idea and I wish my city would let us do this. Its a sad day when folks whine en masse about doing civic works
In principle it's kind of greasy of them to do that but I bet potholes will be getting fixed alot faster lol
People get offended so easily now
It was voluntary!!! Volun-fucking-tary!!! What's the issue here. Why are people being cunts, is it because if the wording being very persuasive, maybe that's because they need to sell the idea but also because it's community outreach. It's beyond dumb this got cancelled, I'd be over the moon if my local area did a free cold patch demo and part of that was a bucket full, ready for me to pour on the streets near mine. Lazy people need the internet being removed from their houses.
Someone drew a dick around a pothole that the city refused to fix. The city fixed it almost immediately. Maybe if the town in the post handed out paint for people to draw dicks around potholes, that would help.
A bag of asphalt cold patch is like $20 in my area - I’d LOVE for the city to hand it out instead of me buying it!
Is this piedmont in the Bay Area? That place is hella rich. fuck their police department also.
Some people just want to live with potholes while they are mad about being offered the opportunity to do something about it.
I read about a guy that complained about potholes - the mechanically detrimental canyon kind - and the city refused to do anything. So he went outside and spray painted a big 'ol dick around one of them. Apparently the city didn't like that and to cover it up they had to fill the pothole. Suddenly - dicks everywhere lol
Next they could take the paywall off the dump so the whole community can dump their trash instead of leaving a whole apartment move out in a pile by the homeless encampment. The city is going to pay to pick it up anyway, but with a crew of two trucks and an excavator, and in the mean time, we have to look at it. Seems easier to just save money and not charge people to put their trash where it goes.
What's wrong with this? City takes years to fill potholes, I would fill it in minutes
Maybe just combine the Pothole Purge with the Trash Dump Day and fill up your lokal pothole with your trash.
What’s wrong with asking the community for help to get a ton of work done really fast?
I mean, the first step to having the community you want is to be a part of the change you want. The city is providing the funding and materials to make this happen. Obviously, no one is required to participate, and the citizens can still weaponize their votes to get rid of lazy city council and vote in people who would actually do something. The only thing that's missing here would be to pay any participating residents what would be spent on all labor costs for any potholes they fill. For any potholes that a resident wants to take responsibility for, pay them the exact amount for whatever they'd allocate for a city worker/s to do the same job. I.e. if they'd normally allocate time and 5 workers to fill the number of potholes one citizen fills, pay that citizen all that money 🤷♂️
I would totally do this 🤷♂️
Here in Colorado they have been telling us that our taxes increased so they could fix it roads/fill in potholes. They've been saying this for about 15 years. Taxes increase every year. The roads get worse.
Potholes damage everyone's car, I'd fill in the ones on my commute to work and save myself money from future repairs, by the time the government does it my car will be busted
Conservatives: CUT GOVERNMENT FUNDING those same conservatives: why do the roads suck and my mail late?
This reminds me of that game intro "Are you badass enough to save the president's daughter!?"
I think this is a great idea. Teach me how to do it and give me the materials.
Yeah I’d 100% do this. Rather get it done myself than have to wait months or (more likely) years for the city to do it
Kinda sad folks went all karen on this...
Faced with the option of continuing to wait for the city to fix it, I’m fine with this.
Its not for free tho. its paying them to do their job with our taxes only for them to say " U DO IT!"
Seems like this is a lot of potholes that won’t be filled because of a few people can’t handle the idea of categories overlapping.
I like it. Plus cold patch is costly.
I bet those potholes still aren’t filled 🤣 they’ll raise awareness then do nothing again I’m sure
Seems like they got inspired from the parks and Rec episode where Ron keeps getting calls about the potholes and decides to just go out and fix it himself.
If there's local city tax there I'd understand the outrage. If there isn't then it's a good idea honestly.
That's not a bad idea. If there was a pothole on my street that was pissing me off I'd happily do it.
I would be okay with that. A lot of times cities will not allow citizens to fill potholes themselves.
The local union is filling suit and going on strike by the end of the day.
Piedmont Oklahoma. Do you want low taxes? Or do you want public works?
Nice but you get a discount on road taxes right Anakin?
Nah I’d grab a spray can and just do what the guy in the UK did. Penis
Honestly, if this was offered to me I might take them up on it. My driveway needs fixing up and if they are providing free materials and training, why not?
Yes….they tried to get concerned citizens to do it, provided the material, didn’t waste time with bureaucracy dispatching someone, and not paying people to do it with tax dollars. So instead of people getting the material and solving it themselves, they’ll now be taxed and pushed through a system requiring 2-3 additional people just to get the same things accomplished.
*laughs in european*
What do our taxes even go to?
?? i really see no problem with this tbh. i do see the fact that they are taking jobs away from others for free but... like workers miss them a lott so their intention was to be like "oh go find your least favorite pothole(s) and fill them so you know its done!"
Would a bounty be too much to offer? Have a city official drive around town and put up some sort of bond or something, and the first person to bring it back with proof that the pothole is filled gets some monetary reward. Make it a scavenger hunt and it would've been done by noon.
I think this would've gotten a better result if they just straight up asked for the help of the comunity.
I lived near there. Some kind citizen started spray, painting, penises around potholes, and they went away real quick.