Kudos for quick repair

If we’re going to complain about road conditions on this page, it’s only fair to give credit where credit is due.
A couple of weeks back, the shortcomings of the Indiana Department of Transportation when it comes to Jay County were targeted. And rightly so; the record is as lousy as the condition of the highways.
But about the time that editorial was published, one particular intersection in Portland began to deteriorate rapidly.
It was as if there had been an earthquake or a sinkhole beneath the place where Pleasant Street and Arch Street intersect. Enormous chuckholes appeared almost overnight, the kind of chuckholes that can bend a tire rim or cause a blowout.
And since the problems appeared not only overnight but in the middle of winter, there seemed nothing else to do but chart a detour around that spot.
But a funny thing happened.
On one of those rare mornings without new snow, the Portland Street Department stepped up and addressed the situation.
The fix was clearly a band-aid, a patch to get the city through until warmer weather.
But it worked.
Kudos to those who recognized the problem and stepped up to get the job done, lousy weather or no lousy weather.
That’s the sort of responsiveness that can restore one’s faith in local government. Or at least in the guys at the street department. —J.R.