Marlinton Mayor’s Corner

The economic health of a country is determined by labor productivity. In layman’s terms, it is the value of the work a worker completes in an average hour, to produce GDP. As more and more work is produced in an hour, the overall productivity level increases.

The boss of any organization should always be looking to identify and expand levels of productivity. When a product unit or a consistent service is being produced, it makes the calculation easier. For instance, tracking man-hours versus gallons of water produced at the water plant, is easier to calculate. Even the garbage collection hours have a cost per ton component. Water and/or sewer repairs and the other random daily work orders are not consistent. They-are-what-they-are.

 The Town Maintenance crew has primary jobs assigned as they begin typical days. However, they are given work orders on and off during the day. Some of those orders may be an emergency or require meeting a technician. When this is the case, the crew receives a call from the office. Sometimes, as they have just arrived at another assigned job.

 In such a case, you may have just seen the crew go by and here they come back again.

The point is: when you see men riding, they are going somewhere, and probably responding to work orders from the office.
Remember: We service a large area – Brush Country, Campbelltown, Edray and Riverside require crossing the bridge and going north on US Rt. 219.

Most of you know where the cell service ends. The office can confirm to you that there are times the men will return from a Brush Country call and be given another Brush Country call – sometimes, before returning to the job that was going to be the first morning work order and now it is noon. 

I invited council members at the Monday evening meeting and I invite the public in this article: If you have a legitimate complaint or see unprofessional behavior, let me know.

Call the office or send an email to me at townofmarlinton@frontiernet.net. 

If you have an idea, put a signed note in the drop box at the office door.

Please do not try to stop employees on the street or interrupt them when they are during one job to ask about another.

Ask anyone and they will tell you that one boss is enough.