Government

My city sent me a letter from the Registrar. The letter contained a form to request a mail-in ballot. The letter encouraged me to fill out the form to request a ballot so I can mail them my vote in November to avoid Covid-19. That sounded good to me, so I filled out the form and tried to put it into the postage-paid return envelope the city had furnished. That’s when I discovered the envelope was one inch shorter than the form it was intended to hold.

I folded each end of the form by 1/2 inch to shorten the form by a total of one inch. Then I inserted it into the envelope. All I had to do was seal the envelope closed. But when I wet the glue strip on the envelope flap and folded it onto the back of the envelope, it wouldn’t stick. The glue strip was completely ineffective. But I found some Scotch tape and used that to hold the envelope closed.

These are minor annoyances, but it diminishes my confidence in the city’s ability to count votes if they can’t even provide an envelope long enough to hold the form they want me to mail to them. Not to mention the annoying faux-glue strip. How hard are these things to do? Do the people at City Hall even give a damn about competence? It makes me wonder.

A few years ago, a new line item appeared on my bi-monthly utility bill. It was $4.50 and the item said simply “CART”. It puzzled me, but who knows the mysteries involved in city government, so I accepted it. But it showed up on bill after bill, and I became curious. So I called City Hall and talked to a woman in the billing department and I asked her about the mysterious $4.50 CART charge. The conversation went like this:

Me: “What is this $4.50 charge labeled CART on my utility bill?”

Her: “That’s for the extra refuse cart that you have.”

Me: “I don’t have an extra refuse cart. I only have one cart.”

Her: “Our records indicate you have two carts.”

Me: “Your records are wrong. I have one cart, and I want a refund of those extra payments I made.”

Her: “I can correct the statement to show you have just one refuse cart, but I can’t refund the money that you overpaid.”

Me: “Why not?”

Her: “You didn’t complain until now, so we can’t refund the amount that you overpaid in the past.”

I hung up the phone and put on my Naval Special Warfare Command cap and I drove to City Hall and I went to the Utilities department. I found the woman who told me I couldn’t get a refund. It was easy to tell me “no refund” on the phone, but telling me “no refund” when I’m standing three feet away was a different matter.

Me: “So you’re saying that if your bank mistakenly credits your account with too much money, you can keep the money? Really? Is that how the law works?”

I got my refund. It didn’t take long at all. But bureaucrats will try to bluff you if they can. Because they don’t want to do the right thing, they want to do the easy thing, and the easy thing is to do nothing.

I could go on with similar stories, but I bet everyone reading this has their own stories about government.