> The reason the city does not thoroughly protect these markers, Pallamary said, is money. “They waste all the money needed to maintain the streets and monuments on city pensions. It is simply a matter of priorities,” he said.
Haha....ya recon' Mr. Pallamary doesn't like city pensions?
Note they improve sidewalks, sewer lines, roadways, for millions of dollars and they can't waste a small fraction of that on preserving property markers.
If it's a third party installing the improvement, the City merely needs to add a requirement on the permit that the agency installing the improvement must have (pay) an independent licensed land surveyor to preserve the existing monumemnt locations. If it's a city job that is making the improvements, they need to budget for the survey marker preservation in the job money being used. They spend over a million dollars to improve a sidewalk, and can't budget in 10,000 of that to preserve the existing monumentation?
Let's look for retired city employees to lynch.....
New Ontario Good Roads Association Special Provision
This Special Provision is under the auspices of the Ontario Good Roads Association.
http://www.ogra.org/lib/db2file.asp?fileid=33710
There is a small 'd' typo, but the document is light years ahead of many jurisdictions.
Cheers,
Derek
Sadly, Not the first time I've heard of this and I don't think the City is doing much about it. Mike P is a great advocate for surveying down there and he continues to give back to the profession in many ways. If anyone works in that area and wants to know the history of the surveying there, Mike put together a great book called "Lay of the Land". I have a copy and its a great history read.
"assistant deputy director city land surveyor for the City of San Diego"
I can see the problem from here. Too much bureaucracy!
Norman surveyor says property markers are ..........
A problem not unique to LaJolla. Imagine all the work that would pour in to survey offices worldwide if monument protection statutes were halfway obeyed.
"Let's look for retired city employees to lynch....."
I completely agree with you there, Tom.
This Alimentary guy might be a good person, as others have stated, but for someone who supposedly questions priorities, it appears that his are a little skewed; or his reasoning at least.
Does he want the government to subsidize his clients rather than meet it's contractural obligations to former employees?
Seems a little self-centered in focus, or maybe just not very perceptive.
Sounds more like an engineer, actually
🙂
Clyde
PS
How many people outside of California can pronounce La Jolla correctly?
La Hawlla?
La Holler?
😀
DDSM
Law Hoy-yuh.
It is popular to blame employee pensions for everything right now.
Somehow we did pensions during the 1930s (The Great Depression) but we can't now?
The City of Stockton borrowed a bunch of bond money for ill advised and expensive projects which sank the City finances. The City Council made those decisions yet it's the fault of the average employees pensions according to the conventional narrative. I call BS on that.
If the City wanted to protect those monuments they would do it; it wouldn't cost very much money in terms of the City's Capital Outlay budget. It has nothing to do with Pensions.
Norman surveyor says property markers are ..........
A couple things come to mind.
1. The money that could be saved by better project planning would more than cover preservation. The blame on pensions is inappropriately placed.
2. Surveyor's rules for setting monuments in roads need to be modernized and the preservation laws need to reflect it. Witness monuments off roadways should be the officially preserved mark, not the roadway point. The insistence on placing points that have a life span of a few years is just as deplorable as the money wasted by government project planning. Two or 3 smartly placed control monuments along a roadway corridor would have a higher chance of survival and be easier and safer to access.
3. Surveyor's organizations should work with city, county and state officials to work out a compromise. Surveyors will give up roadway monuments and the road projects will appropriately recognize and guard witness marks as a checkoff as a planning item.
Norman surveyor says property markers are ..........
:good: :good:
Good post. I agree wholeheartedly. And what better time to offset/preserve those monuments than when a project is taking place that will destroy those monuments. It's a simple addition to the contract, to state that all monuments in the area of construction be referenced outside of construction area. (of course calling out details for the minimum monument standards, and other language to make sure the location and quality of monument is safe).
And charging to a project that will destroy the monuments is the exact place such a preservation effort should take place. Why would you spend overhead dollars (or retired employees pensions), to do something that should be charged to the very place that would harm the monuments? You might have an easement to use some land for a specific purpose, but you need to restore the surface to the needs of the fee-simple owner, after maintaining your utility (or whatever the easement is).
P.S., no offense was intended to the surveyor who made the statement. I suspect that anyone who would make such a statement, actually cares about monument preservation and the survey profession, and is probably more "active" than a lot of our brethern. It's just clear to me, that he is puting all the government financial and other problems in one basket, and letting his political position influence his opinion. (Someone tell him that P&R has been turned off 😉 ). In my opinion, his recognition of what the problem is, is clear, but his solution is just a bit misplaced.
Norman surveyor says property markers are ..........
I do monument preservation projects all the time. Hard to beleive that it's not SOP in Cali.
Norman surveyor says property markers are ..........
MM,
I see the reverse all the time. I don't think it's the State per se, but probably more the local agencies. There is always someone in different agencies, that has some sort of opinion on these matters, and decides that "this is a waste of funds" and they don't see the value of preserving monuments, or don't respect the weight we surveyors generally put on them. Many think in the same terms of many other nonsurveyors that feel there is enough math to replace those monuments without going through the extra time and efforts.
I don't know how many others see it, but I see all the time engineers, or other fields, saying "I don't want to waste a lot of money on surveying". It's very hard to understand if you know how much money would have been spent on surveying 20, 30, 40, or 50 years ago. Today, as you and I know, we can do more work in a day with a two-man crew, than it would have taken a 3 or 4-man crew a month to do a long time ago.
If no cities or counties in your state have this kind of problem, then more power to you. I hope your area can be a model to many of our other states.
