ROGER A. FIGARD | Posted: Saturday, January 20, 2007 6:00 pm
My name is Roger Figard and I have had the honor of serving as your City Engineer for the past 15-plus years. As you may know, up until some two weeks ago, my duties included responsibility for oversight of snow removal and street maintenance within the city of Lincoln.
Because of the failure to meet the expectations of the residents in responding to the snowstorm of Dec. 31 last year, those responsibilities have been transferred to someone else. It is a personal and a professional embarrassment to me that the snow removal effort for that storm was not conducted satisfactorily and that the change in management was deemed necessary.
I write by way of explanation and not of excuse, so that the residents of Lincoln hopefully will weigh the extenuating circumstances that contributed to any failures on my part when passing public judgment upon my performance.
I was on scheduled vacation from Christmas until Jan. 2. On Dec. 26, my daughter, who suffers from serious medical problems, exhibited signs of a shunt malfunction and her doctor directed us to bring her to Chicago on New Year’s Day for further evaluation. On Dec. 30, we all traveled to Kansas City for a planned family gathering and stayed overnight.
Around 9 a.m. on New Year’s Eve, as we drove back to Lincoln, I did call the snow removal supervisor to inquire as to the weather conditions in Lincoln and the actions being taken by the staff. I requested the supervisor to contact the director and give him a status report, and I subsequently talked to the director myself as to my status and the need to transport my daughter to Chicago. Before leaving on Jan. 1, I called the snow supervisor to check on the status of the snow removal effort and followed up that call with a call to the director to update him and remind him that I was leaving for Chicago.
We drove to Chicago on Jan. 1, and, on Tuesday, my daughter was admitted to the hospital and underwent surgery on Jan. 3. She remained in a Neurosurgical Constant Care unit for 24 hours thereafter and then remained in the hospital until early the next Friday morning, when she was released.
Unfortunately, because I did not receive a call from anyone expressing a concern about the snow removal effort, I assumed that the Street Maintenance Division was aggressively and actively managing things in a satisfactory fashion. My assumption was in error, and, as the supervisor, the buck stops with me. Regrettably, the storm came at a time when I was focused on my daughter and her health.
I fully accept responsibility for a snow removal effort that did not meet the expectations of the community. I write only to apprise the public that it was not a case of indifference on my part, but, instead, one of competing family pressures that diverted my attention from the New Year’s Eve storm. As your public servant, I intend to work diligently to regain the trust and respect of the community.
Roger A. Figard is city engineer of Lincoln.