Ashley wrote his neighbor Chris Rose about this outrage, and his communication prompted Rose to write an excellent tribute to Ashley after his untimely death.
Well, nine days later the T-P printed a letter by Entergy VP Rusty Burroughs responding to Rose's column. I'm biased, so rather than summarize or excerpt from the letter, I will reprint it in full, and merely highlight selected quotes that irritate me:
===
"Entergy committed to saving vintage street tiles"
Friday, April 25, 2008
Re: "We'll miss the blogger next door," Living, April 16.
Entergy New Orleans Inc. employees care about our city's historical treasures, and our gas business has a long history of providing the safe and reliable natural gas service since 1835. When we speak about preserving the history of New Orleans, we take that obligation seriously.
In his column, Chris Rose mentioned the destruction of street name tiles during our gas rebuild. For the gas rebuild, Entergy New Orleans is working with specially trained contractors to install new flood- and corrosion-resistant gas pipes. As part of our normal inspection process, Entergy New Orleans managers discovered that a subcontractor's crew had destroyed the street name tiles on six blocks. That crew was immediately terminated from the job. The fact is, of the nearly 1,500 street corners impacted by the rebuild to date, approximately 500 have street name tiles and only about 18 were not replaced -- a clear violation of Entergy's practice. Those tiles will be replaced, and were in the process of being replaced before the article was written by Mr. Rose.
It is Entergy's practice to carefully remove street name tiles, keep them safe while work is being performed and then restore them to their original street corner. We require our subcontractors to follow the same standards, procedures and practices as Entergy.
The discovery and restoration of the tiles was spurred by our employees doing their job well -- inspecting the work of subcontractors -- and would have been completed regardless of who "reported" the story. We regret any inconvenience and we will continue to work hard to ensure the protection of the city's historical treasures during this long rebuild process.
Rusty Burroughs
Vice President
Gas Operations
Entergy New Orleans, Inc.
New Orleans
===
So, in the two months after that letter was published, what's Entergy done about the missing tiles on Pine and Birch?
They ain't done a damn thing from what I can see. Nada. Zip. Zilch. They ain't done squadoosh. They are squadouchemooks. The tiles haven't been replaced, and the corner looks just as bare as it did in Ashley's pictures which he posted three months ago. But, you know, Entergy's intrepid inspectors had already noticed the missing tiles, and had already initiated the process to replace them long before Ashley "reported" the story.
Yeah, ok.
Again, I'm biased, but there's a faint subterranean tone to that letter that irks me. Here's how Rusty's letter strikes my jaundiced eyes: "Ignorant billpayers, Entergy was on top of this street tile thing waaaay before Chris Rose or his blogger neighbor 'reported' the story. We're in the process of replacing the tiles, and Rose's little story was printed just before we put them back in the wet concrete. He might've caught us this time, a few days before the restoration of the tiles was completed, but don't worry your pretty little heads about it, we got everything under control..."
Ok, Entergy: so where the f*ck are the street tiles?! It's been three months. These are freakin' street tiles we're talking about, not nuclear detonators-- where are they? Every time I drive past Pine and Birch I notice their absence, and it irritates the hell out of me. Like Ashley said:
Entergy, fix it. Fix it now. You're a damned public monopoly, guaranteed to make a profit.
Make it right. It's all important.
FYYFF.
Labels: ashley morris, Roads
