Although many cities surrounding it have been having problems governing themselves, Euless residents have been lucky. Our mayor and city council have quietly gone about the business of improving the city without all the infighting that seems so prominent in other cities.
They haven't passed bigoted ordinances like Farmers Branch, designed to target its non-white citizens. In fact, Euless is a virtual cornucopia of racial and ethnic groups, and we like it that way.
They haven't tried to shut down the library or other government services, like its next-door neighbor Bedford, a city that seems to be constantly in need of a recall election.
I haven't blogged a whole lot about Euless, because quite frankly, except to give the city government a pat on the back for their honesty and common sense, there hasn't been a lot that needed to be said. But sooner or later, I guess every city goes a bit astray.
Only six years ago, the only waterways in Euless were a few tiny creeks. Now Euless has four city ponds [one of the many improvements being made by city government]. Last week, several people were seen boating in some of the city ponds. Now the city council has banned swimming, boating or floating in any of the new city ponds.
Why did they do this? According to Ray MacDonald, Parks & Community Services Director, it is because the city has no water-rescue team. The nearest water-rescue team is several miles away in Grapevine.
Surely the city council didn't build the ponds just to look at [or maybe they did]. You would think they should know that if a pond exists, someone is going to make use of it sooner or later. That's just the way people are. Building the ponds without expecting them to be used shows an uncharacteristic lack of forethought on the part of the city.
It looks like it is time to train a few of our firemen and create a water-rescue team. Even if they keep the ban, someday a child will need rescuing from one of the ponds. Children do not always act in ways adults consider to be reasonable.
The city council, in its desire to improve and beautify the city, has created a hazard. Banning the use of the ponds does not make the hazard go away. I appreciate the council's efforts to improve the city, but if they're going to create water facilities, they've also got to plan for the use or misuse of those facilities.
Euless now has ponds. It also needs a water-rescue team.
Any ideas on how expensive something like that would be?
ReplyDeleteBy the way...Bedford doesn't need a recall election so much as it needs to deport the anti-tax citizens who think that paying for libraries and parks for their children is an egregious abuse of government power. They can take the politicians they keep electing with them when they go.
No, I don't know what it would cost. But I don't think the cost would be prohibitive.
ReplyDeleteIt would require further training for a few firemen, and the purchase of some equipment.
But remember, we aren't talking about really deep or really wide expanses of water. The city created the problem, and needs to take care of it.
But I don't want to be too hard on Euless' city council. Most of the time they do a very good job!
By the way, I agree with you about Bedford. I'm so glad I chose to live a couple of miles east of there.