Tag: Black Box Bureaucracy

“The World According to Doctrine” — “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Bumper sticker

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Bumper sticker

The government push-back to transparency is as old as authority – Bureaucracy. It’s buried in transcripts, broken into sections, indexed esoterically, in part everywhere; and in whole nowhere — it’s a FOIL request for each document – a Black Box policy process where only the results are viewable.

When I enquired at the Town office about the status of our hamlet’s petition to the NY State for a speed limit – I was told it would take six months to a year; and we would only know if they put up signs.

It’s government by the book; by Kafka.

Little Black Boxes

It’s sometimes helpful to think of local and municipal government policy as little black boxes.

Frequently the policy inside is fully finished, and hidden from sight until its presentation.

Cause and effect are replaced by undisclosed bureaucratic processes and behind-the-scenes communications.

Tompkins County’s never-once-mentioned policy towards traffic control on Lansingville Road is contained within one of these bureaucratic “black boxes.”

After many months of complaints about the noise and reckless behavior of hundreds of thru-cutting dump trucks and tractor trailers to representatives, and requesting a weight limit on our road; the County Highway Department Supervisor assured our representative that there was nothing but agricultural activity.

We sent photos of a number of different dump trucks with gravel plainly visible, and there was silence for a while. Suddenly signs appeared from the County Highway Department stating a limit of “20 Tons” [a sign that is commonly reserved for bridges]; effectively short-circuiting our efforts. [The signs used to stop thru-truck traffic on other local roads have a “4 Ton” limit.]

Recently there has been an even greater upswing in large truck activity on Lansingville Road; especially from one company. Yesterday, when these trucks were followed, they were found to be traveling to and from the site of a 2-year bridge construction project on a state highway. It had been announced that heavy and large trucks would be detoured onto other state highways to avoid small roads and hamlets.

Our email of these findings got no response. Today, there were no big trucks on Lansingville Road.

Is this a coincidence?

Maybe County authorities are reaching out to the State to cut off any chance of our blocking large trucks, or they’re writing a new truck policy with an appendix; like Lansing Town Zoning did when they zoned all “sexually oriented businesses” for rural neighborhoods only.

The rural people of Tompkins County have no oversight or clear view of its policy making; and no right to vote on its policies, or even have their questions answered.

What is going on inside this “black box”?

We have an idea . . .