SCHENECTADY- City police are investigating how dozens and dozens of city tree grates just disappeared at Union and Erie and all along downtown Broadway.
A CBS 6 viewer was at Predel's scrapyard and noticed similiar tree grates lying in a pile.
After contacting CBS 6, the station contacted the Office of General Services.
"They make it safer for pedestrians to walk so they don't trip and the tree roots don't push up the sidewalks. Nobody noticed they were removed because of all the snow" says Bill Macejka who serves as supervisor for the Office of General Services. "We received a tip from you and upon investigating found out that we had a lot of grates missing."
Police have the license of the person who dropped off the grates since it is required by law to present it when selling something to the scrapyard for more than fifty dollars.
Sources tell CBS 6 that the person made multiple trips to the scrapyard and each time was wearing a City of Schenectady uniform and driving a City of Schenectady vehicle.
The grates weigh in the neighborhood of 150-200 pounds each and all together sold for more than 1000 dollars.
"I believe they're between 800-900 dollars a piece" says Macejka. That means to replace all the missing grates would have set the city back upwards of 25,000 dollars.
The grates were estimated to be only six years old and usually have a life of anywhere between 25-30 years.
The CBS 6 viewer known as Matt who noticed the stolen property sent us a text reading "Hey glad you figured out the tree grates. No interest in taking credit. Glad i could help you guys do a great job, keep it up."
Optimists close their eyes and pretend problems are non existent. Better to have open eyes, see the truths, acknowledge the negatives, and speak up for the people rather than the politicos and their rich cronies.
I guess this person, and all of us, will learn a special lesson because of this. If you're going to steal and sell city property, make sure you know the limitation of how much you can sell before you have to supply your ID. Either that, or get out of town before mother nature comes to clear the snow, because you know nobody else will.
The moron drove a city vehicle and was in uniform.......should not be to hard to find
ya think?
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
With the price of metals skyrocketing this will become a bigger issue. I've heard stories of manhole covers gone missing also along with other weird things like train tracks. Scrapping metal is a big business today and since the word is out how much some metals go for like copper you will be surprised at how many people are doing it. Abandoned homes and newly built homes are major targets, people will go in and rip the copper pipes and wires right out of the walls
"In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot."
Tough to beat PEX, but seeing as this region is two decades behind in building technology and the trades (thanks, unions and politicians) copper piping is still the 1950s technology that prevails!
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
Channel 6 just reported that more grates missing than origionally thought, and also some metal things that go around some trees. Police will not comment on who it is. Tree grates, never heard of them until this post, saw them on the news, what a waste of money !!!
It's either a city employee who doesn't live in the city, and thus doesn't pay taxes, so unaffected by high taxes. OR it's a city employee who needed money to pay the high taxes.
Optimists close their eyes and pretend problems are non existent. Better to have open eyes, see the truths, acknowledge the negatives, and speak up for the people rather than the politicos and their rich cronies.
I heard on the radio it was a police officer in a police car!
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
There is no way I could see a Police Officer be that stupid...
Right...like stupid enough to drive drunk, stupid enough to beat up their girlfriends, stupid enough to break restraining orders.....oh wait...they've already done all that.
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