How Do You Move the Wheels of Government? Embarrassment!

Quartzsite town government is a lot like government elsewhere (well, depends on who you ask), it's a s-l-o-w process. Glacier watchers, this may be just the place to set a spell.

A local business owner operates on the corner of Plymouth and Main Street ("The B-10"), and not far from his place are the homes of the local magistrate court and the county district court. Invariably, his business days are broken up--not with sales--but with folks looking to pay a call on one of the courts.

Asking town fathers to put up a sign pointing the way to the courts just seemed to fall on ears in need of Belltones. Finally, inspiration hit: If you can't get them to do it nicely, must embarrass the daylights out of them. A cardboard sign soon appeared on the businessman's property:




One of your intrepid reporters stopped in the other week, asking to purchase a map to the courthouse. He was met with an incredulous look, a bit of a 'hem and a haw,' and finally informed that if he simply continued north on Plymouth Street three blocks he could save himself a buck. 'After all,' he was told, 'we were simply trying to make a point with the town.'

Making a point finally worked. The other day the advert for courthouse maps came down, just after local government put up a new sign on the B-10, pointing lost souls in the proper direction.