Joe Pampinto & the Concrete Con

From a Muscle Shoals resident:

Did you see the picture that is in the Times Daily that shows the sidewalk project on Sheffield Avenue in Muscle Shoals? I thought you might like to hear the rest of the story. The driveway being worked on in the picture is the city councilman Joe Pampinto's driveway.

The house you see in the background of the picture is my house. Our house was skipped yesterday so the City Councilman's driveway could be done first. This is Muscle Shoals politics at work yet again and they got a picture of it. The construction company has been tearing up to put in sidewalks on Sheffield Avenue for the past week. As they work they systematically go down the line and take out driveways and then fix them back with new concrete. One by one, down the line.

Then they get to our driveway. We come home to find our driveway has been skipped so that the driveway of the city councilman (that lives after us down the line) can be done first. This puts us without a driveway for our THREE vehicles (parking them on the street) for what will end up being at least a week so that the city councilman can park his ONE vehicle in his garage once again.

We talked to the workers and they said they didn't know why they were told to skip ours but they were short-handed so they could only do one driveway. They were told to do that (the councilman's) driveway first. Yes. We are peons in Muscle Shoals. We aren't special with privileges like getting to have things done first because of who we are.

*****

Joe, we await your comments...



Shoalanda

Ford is Wise, but Wise Isn't Ford

The Bible says it's better to work for less than one's worth than not to work at all. Apparently that bit of scripture is unknown to union bigwigs at Wise Metals in Colbert County.

Employees of Ford Motor Company in Detroit have agreed to a new contract that includes a pay cut for union workers, but union officials at Wise apparently don't consider this an option. After all, it's easier to blame Joe Pampinto than themselves. Barring that, perhaps they can foist some of the blame on David Bronner for choosing not to supplement the 125 million of RSA funds already invested in the struggling company.

No one wants to take a pay cut, but neither does anyone want to see Wise abandon its local operations. If these are the only choices, the pay cut looks good.


What's up with this: Sources say Franklin County pol Jack Harris has three days to remove his campaign signs or be cited for littering. Promises, promises...