The recent relocation of the Police Department's Forensic Unit to an outside park brings to light once again the deplorable conditions suffered by many government workers in the places where they are supposed to be productive public servants.
We wonder how anyone is able to keep up morale when faced with roach- and rodent-infested offices that lack basic sanitary conditions.
While the administration drags its feet on the implementation of payroll reductions and reorganization measures, teachers, students, police officers and many others get up every morning and face spending another day in some, at-best shabby, at-worst unhealthy environment. Unless, of course, you work at the governor’s or lieutenant governor's offices that were remodeled – at great expense – during the last administration.
Remember the Zone A Police station? Remember Elena Christian Junior High School? Remember the many teachers who have been asking for years, "Where’s the toilet paper?"
Those are the extreme examples of almost criminal neglect that plagues our community.
But we think that a visit to Licensing and Consumer Affairs, where they still use handwritten logs to track paperwork, or the Water and Power Authority, where employees have to walk upstairs to make copies while customers wait because of broken-down equipment, gives a clear picture of average conditions for most government workers.
Local cost-saving measures would help to redirect funds. And plugging the holes through which valuable federal funding seeps out of the territory could also help make more money available to change the disgraceful condition of many of our schools and government offices.
Our hearts go out to those who struggle every day to overcome their surroundings and do a good job anyway.
We think there might be some value in forensics being relocated to Government House while those in Government House work in the odorous offices the unit occupied. There is nothing like empathy as an impetus for change.
