Village of Poynette Administrator Calls for 'Culture Change'

Not the message that some folks want to hear nowadays, but Daniel Guild describes the consequences of not listening.

LINK

Link to October 12 Poynette Press article, "Infrastructure is a top priority. Administrator says cheap fixes need to be addressed".

Excerpt: Maintenance and long-term planning were not the best attributes of past village boards, Guild said, comparing the effect to how someone runs their household.

"People just think, 'What is my budget for a mortgage for a house?' And they don't factor in any of the costs to maintain or keep up that house," he said. "Village hall and the library have so much traffic through it, and the kind of machinery we have to treat (waste) and pump water out of the ground, that's a lot of stuff. And it's my opinion that the village of Poynette has had a culture of 'We would rather not spend any money and not address our infrastructure than spend money and keep the taxes low."

Maintenance issues not addressed forces the village into making temporary "Band-Aid" repairs, Guild said, noting how public works department workers have had to "cobble together" available materials like paper clips and aluminum foil to keep the mechanicals going in the well. He said in the end, it costs the village more not to fix problems up front, and now the needs are rapidly piling up.