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City of Midlothian
Management
Blunders
Fire Station
Conference and Senior
Center
Midlothian
Parkway
Fire Station
Midlothian has started
construction on a new fire station. This new station is being covered with
fiber cement siding (e.g., HardiPlank™),
a product that requires
painting and contains a
carcinogen, instead of using brick.
While a 4" thick brick has a
1.25 hour fire resistance rating,
HardiPlank™
does not even have the standard
1
hour rating, nor is it a
masonry product.
We feel this is a short-sighted attempt to save money in that it will cost more
in maintenance later, as well as provide a less fire-resistant fire station.
This is a material the city allows only with a variance;
yet, they're using it on their own building -- and a fire station, no less.
(City
code, see Section 7.8.) Does anyone else think it's ironic that we're not doing the best we can to make
our fire station fire-resistant?
How well could a crew respond to your home if they're trying to extinguish their
own building?
If this station catches on fire, another station will have to respond, taking
two stations out of service. This is a clear case where the city
council should read "The Three Little Pigs." Then they'd know that brick
is better!
We commend the city council for trying to save money; unfortunately, this
is a case of being "penny-wise and pound foolish." (Links
are references for the material being presented. References for HardiPlank™
are provided by the Hardie company, themselves.)
Why would they do this? The city makes it difficult to use HardiPlank™,
presumably because it is not as good as brick in retarding fire. That
makes perfect sense, but it makes the HardiPlank™ people lose out on sales.
So, the HardiPlank™ firm offered FREE HardiPlank™ for the fire station, which
one might suspect would make it more difficult for the city to turn down
citizens after they used it on their own building. So -- a bribe of free
siding to change a policy? Is safety for sale in Midlothian?
The vote on this station was 6 -
1 in favor of the
HardiPlank™;
only Councilman Ken Chambers had the courage to vote against it.
Click here to send an e-mail to the city council and city manager asking
them to use brick.
Conference and Senior Center
It's being kept rather hush-hush by the
city, but there are apparently many defects in the new Conference and Senior
Center, including water leaks and crumbling masonry. Why isn't the city
monitoring construction better than this? Why are they wasting our tax
dollars?
Click here to send an e-mail to the city council and city manager asking
them to take better care of our seniors.
Midlothian Parkway
In the March 31, 2008, council meeting,
Mayor Whatley discussed restricting truck traffic on Midlothian Parkway because
it wasn't built to TxDOT standards to handle the heavy traffic.
With the money spent on this road, why
didn't they spend a little more to bring it up to standards? Why does the city insist on building out of straw?
(See "Fire Station" above.)
Click here to send an e-mail to the city council and city manager asking
them why they didn't think Midlothian Parkway would be driven upon.
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