Was it my tweet?

[MineralMan]

This morning, the Saint Paul public works snowplows came back and plowed our street about six times, almost removing all of the packed snow and ice. There's even some pavement showing now, although the street is far from clear. They also salted, which will help, once the weather gets above freezing later in the week.

My tweet? Well, about ten days ago, I left a tweet on the mayor's twitter feed, complaining about his not declaring a snow emergency after a four inch snowfall. I predicted a 2-3" layer of ice on the street, which is just what happened, of course. They finally sent the plows through town, three days after the storm, which did no good at all, as I predicted in my tweet. In the tweet, I gave my street address, since why wouldn't I, because my name was on it and I'm the only one I know of with my name in the city. So, today, the plows came back and plowed the street several times. I just got back from clearing the windrow off the front of my driveway. I think I'll go out and see if the neighboring parallel streets also got that treatment. If not, I'll know that it was my tweet that got noticed, but that they just did my street, and not the others.

That would be embarrassing. Not for me, but for the city.

I'm thinking - Go ahead and complain directly about stuff. Put it on the mayor's Twitter page and tell the mayor where you are. It couldn't hurt, eh?

[SWBTATTReg]

1. Too bad if it was your tweet, it shouldn't have gotten to that point, that perhaps budget ...

watchers need to put aside the budget concerns in lieu of a street emergency/city emergency (after all, critical services, etc., need to still get through iced up streets in case of medical emergencies).

Perhaps your city does have snow routes, which are always plowed first regardless (we do in STLMO), so at least if you can make it to a route considered a 'snow route', you can make it anywhere (in theory).

[MineralMan]

3. Every street in Saint Paul is a snow route.

Previous mayors have declared snow emergencies very quickly and our streets all got cleared. Our current mayor, though, is trying to save money for other projects, so he hasn't been doing that so much. People have noticed, too. He'd better straighten that out or he'll only get one term in office. People are like that about snow removal here. They just are.

[SWBTATTReg]

5. I don't blame you. If economic activity slows to a stop or crawl, then no one is earning/making...

any money to pay bills, taxes, etc. Kind of like shooting yourself in the foot...and you won't be able to do anything at all later.

[MineralMan]

6. The thing is that Minnesotans will get to work, somehow.

We can drive on horrible, crappy, icy residential streets, if we have to. But...we'd really rather not. We expect the roads to be more than just passable. In fact, we demand that they be better than that. The mayor might not understand that, but he will. I don't even want to tell you how much our road maintenance fee is on our property tax bill. It's shocking.

[redstatebluegirl]

2. I remember my grandpa quoting the first Mayor Daly of Chicago telling a group of supporters

what he needed to do to stay in office, he said "make sure you get the trash picked up and the snow removed", they will follow you anywhere.

[MineralMan]

4. Exactly. It is those visible, obvious services that MUST be delivered.

If they're not, you'll be out at the next election. I think St. Paul's new mayor is learning that lesson just now. Local residents are filling the letters to the editor section up with snow removal complaints, and there are more tweets than mine on the city's Twitter pages.

[Wellstone ruled]

7. Hey,way to go.

Twitter seems to be a double edge sword. Neighbor works Production at a local TV Station. If they run a miss leading story on the air,he says the on air talent usually have to make a correction in their next program a half hour or hour later. Seems people use the Talents Twitter Account as a hot line to the Station correcting their mistakes. This happens to be a CBS affiliate that is not owned by Sinclair or Scripts.

[MineralMan]

8. Hmm...I didn't used to use Twitter much.

But, I'm seeing how it can be used to good effect in some cases. Your example is another good one. Alerting news media that they screwed up a story seems worthwhile.

Interesting.

[Wellstone ruled]

9. We do not use Twitter,

but it does have a positive at times. Good on you. Our local Congress People all are aware of the Twitter being used both for them and against them. It is live 24/7 were as e-mail and letters are more latent.

Lurkers and Trolls are always laying in the weeds ready to pounce if you screw up a response.

Public Office can become interesting,yes.

[MineralMan]

10. My problem is that I use my Twitter feed for business purposes.

That limits my ability to venture into other things, like politics, for example. If I don't stick to business, I'd probably lose many of my followers. So, I use it for other reasons very sparingly and only for non-controversial things. Snow removal is OK. Politics isn't.

Since I didn't really use it at all until I started tweeting about the business I'm part of, I didn't bother to create a new handle, so, there my name is. I don't like using screen names much, although I do here on DU, but anyone who is curious can find out who I am very easily. I don't care, of course.