(This letter was sent to Department of Public Works Director Tom Brady)
Hi Tom,
Thanks for following through and getting our garbage collected on Saturday! We were one of the first streets to be “struck” and then one of the last streets to be picked up. I have to tell you, it made a big difference in the quality of life around here!
One of my very rugged neighbors, seeing me on my front porch after the garbage was collected, stopped, put his hands over his head in a ballet pose, turned his head to the left and sniffed, then to his right and sniffed. Then he did a happy dance. I roared!
Another neighbor just quietly took in the street. I yelled down to him, “It’s a whole new world, isn’t it?” He responded. “It really is!”
Yet another couple of neighbors had seen the truck. The way they described it was it looked like it had been fire bombed a few times … maybe it had?? I know that this is all out of your hands, and all you can do is work toward community health and safety, but I sure hope that we find a more robust way to support this union.
I want to give you a tremendous compliment from a Watertown resident who is very particular and doesn’t hand these things out lightly:
“I went to the 148 Waltham Street temporary drop off location today with both trash and recycling waste. They had dumpsters set up with WPD monitoring the entrance and Tom Brady was there with two assistants. He was directing people and answering questions. He was doing his job. I was pleased that they were organized and that you could move through the process quickly.”
I received an e-mail message from George Proakis this week (thank you, George) in response to my letter to him in Watertown News. See: My Watertown News Letter. Here’s what he said:
“Linda,
Thanks for sharing.
I’ll check in with our DPW team to see what’s creating the gaps in our construction notices to neighbors from these contractors and what we need to do to get it fixed.
By the way – if you want that full construction list that Angie mentioned in her message to you, we put those lists on-line every week at: https://groups.google.com/a/watertownconnect.com/g/con-not
It is still not a replacement for notices dropped door to door, and we can’t list something there if the utility doing the work doesn’t tell us what’s going on . . . but nonetheless it’s a good resource to have.
And you got this right: I have a great Deputy Manager who can fill in for me when I can’t be at a meeting. She did a great job. I also have a great DPW director. With the ongoing trash situation, we’ve all been checking in a few times a day, and making sure to update the community in our daily updates and on-line FAQ about trash and recycling options during the strike. Right now, we are working to see if we can setup a Saturday pickup to catch the backlog and get things back to baseline before Monday.
Thanks,
George “
So, I know that this won’t be easy, but it would be great if we could start to get this communication on road work under control. Get some standards in place. National Grid simply telling residents that they’ll be working on the street in the next few months (or not) doesn’t come under the category of efficient communication. (Suffering in silence is not one of my strong suits, and I think that a lot of residents’ patience around the City is wearing thin).
I opened the link for this week’s utility work, as George suggested, and this is what it said:
Utilities
Note: Utility companies are responsible for notifying residents prior to conducting work. National Grid Gas
National Grid’s Contractors, Feeney Brothers and NEUCO, will begin and/or continue gas main replacement work on the following streets:
- Prescott St – NEUCO – Performing gas service installation on Prescott/Gilbert
- Belmont St – NEUCO – Installing gas main on Belmont St near Prospect St
- Oliver St – NEUCO – Installing gas main connections with service transfer on Marshall/Oliver St.
- Elm St – NEUCO – Installing gas main on Elm St.
- Watertown Square (2 crews, night work) – NEUCO – Installing gas main on N. Beacon/ Arsenal St.
Localized detours of the traffic immediately surrounding the work site may occur. Small neighborhood streets may be closed to transiting traffic. Please expect minor delays.
It’ll be interesting to see if they end up on my street, as they did last week, even though it is not mentioned in the DPW notes for this week. Suffice it to say, confusion reigns, but with your help and guidance, we’re hoping for a clearer process for repair work in Watertown.
Thanks again.
Linda Scott
Love the part about setting a standard for work repairs. You can’t change just about anything to your home without a pre and post inspection. Shouldn’t the same be true for out of town firms who dig up and “modify” our streets?
Yes, James. I can’t say that the workers on my street, in general, haven’t been nice. but I would have no idea if everything was going according to plan. It would be nice if somebody did. You’d need a complete, correct schedule of work in order to check things out.
I wonder how Mt. Auburn Street work is going, for instance, given that the state required us to take the lowest bid. The firm that got the job worked on Highland Ave. last year. Do you remember that fiasco?
One of the concerns when there was finally a walk around Highland with the City Manager was that they tore up the corner of Highland and Lexington, left it like that for a very long time and didn’t put caution tape around it. An elderly woman fell and injured herself. I was told by a resident who could see this corner that when the company took pictures of the accident site, they made sure to have the caution tape up.
At the time of this company’s hiring, our City Manager assured us that the work on Mt. Auburn would be watched like a hawk…sure hope that’s happening!
Oh No!! A correction! The workers on my street HAVE been nice! Sorry, workers!
They are working down my street. I was notified by a big orange sign stating “Street Closed to Traffic”.
Hi Erik,
That sounds about right. In some cases, it’s a last minute thing, a gas leak, etc. That can’t be planned for. But this was planned work, and because of lack of notification, (unless you count a a very nice glossy and general pamphlet that was delivered about a month before, saying work was going to be done, (As my mother would have said, “Work’s coming…so’s Christmas!”), residents’ lives were thrown into chaos.
People were late for work, having to wait for trucks to be moved to get them off the street. Others who had left early, came home to a closed street. This is not life-threatening, but it sure adds to resident discontent and frustration when they don’t have a clue what’s happening on any given day on the street where they live
I had a 10:00 am appointment, and when I saw the trucks pull up (I’m an early riser), I went out to question them about if I’d be able to get off the street. They said that they’d move trucks, etc. to get me off. I figured that was a disaster waiting to happen, so I moved my car to another street and parked there before they got started…it was quicker to walk out of my neighborhood than to wait for passage.
We also had a backhoe permanently parked at the corner of my street and Main for a few weeks, with absolutely no work being done. It was quite awkward and dangerous getting on and off Main Street, with the lack of visibility and the narrowing of the street. I hear that that wasn’t right. Who was checking up on this? A simple drive by and then a phone call could have corrected this.
As the National Grid worker said to me: “What does the DPW have to do with this? They’re water; we’re gas.” True, but DPW is also the department that is assigned to keep track of all of this. I’d like them to do that, but first, I’d like a system that would help them to do this in the easiest, least time-consuming manner.
Hi Linda:
Thanks for writing about this. I walked down the street to see which entity was doing the work.
It is NEUCO. Someone in our City government needs get our streets properly re-paved once NEUCO – or whichever outfit digs things up. It looking like WWI Verdun out there.
You’re welcome, Erik. When they’re done with your street, would you ask them to come back to mine and pick up the bright yellow tubing they left that everyone is tripping over? (LOL!). Just kidding…they’re far from done with my street, so I’m sure that I’ll see them again…sometime.
While I was doing the 2026 budget article for Watertown News, I looked back at budgets from long ago, which, under “cost savings” talked about waiting until everything (water, gas, etc.) is redone before repaving the street.
The idea was that you could repave a street and have that newly repaved street torn up and patched again (they’re not going to go to the expense of a total repave after they’ve just done it) if you don’t wait until everything under the street is redone.
I believe that I saw similar language in our newest budget. Again, it would be nice to know where each street stood in the process. I’m thinking that you’d have a better chance to see this information, because it would be compiled by the City, I’m guessing at DPW.
The yellow tubing is reminiscent of a Calder sculpture, and probably as expensive.
I’ll wait for the re-paving. Looks like it will take some time.