In Grand Rapids last week, two citizens waded out into the Grand River with buckets. They bailed out a very large trash dumpster that had floated down the Grand into downtown GR from a park upstream during our spring flood. The dumpster weighed about 15,000 lbs with all the water in it. The city commission and mayor had been debating and wringing their hands about the dumpster cluttering the river for weeks. The could not come to any conclusion about how to get it out of the river. Oh..the calamity. But I digress.
The two citizens bailed out the dumpster by hand with buckets and then it began to float. They guided it toward shore by hand and the dumpster company that owned it, dragged it up on shore with their cable truck and loaded it up and took it away.
Once again, government proves its ineptitude with the simplest of chores. Some of the citizens who are laughing at the mayor and the rest of the simpletons on the city commission are saying that if the city had done something it probably would have cost multiple thousands of dollars for police, fire, non uniform union employees and God knows how many trucks, boats, managers etc to do what the two guys did...with buckets. The humorous estimate was probably about $100,000.00 dollars. Oh don't forget the DNR/DEQ and the various federalale guardians of the ecology...so add in another couple hundred thousand dollars VS two guys, two buckets and the dumpster pick up guys. Bwaaaaaahahahahahahahahahaaaa.