To whom it may concern
Hi my name is Jonathan Haycock, a long time resident of Logan city. I have lived here for over twenty years. I have seen this city grow. I’ve seen the ups and downs this community has been through. I want to bring to light an incident that occurred to me and my family in the month of October.
My children attend a local elementary school just around the corner. Typically, my wife takes my children to school and I pick them up. The main road that the school is on 400 west and 1200 north in Logan is a highly traveled road, next to a park and baseball fields and in a residential area. On October 18th I was taking my kids to school. Like I said usually my wife would do those, but with it being a day off I was taking them. Took our normal route down the road and on to 400 West. Dropped my children off and was returning home heading south on 400 West. A very busy time of the day on this road. Parents taking their children to school, busses and people leaving for work.
As I was returning going around 20 mph I went over a man hole cover. As that happened, the man hole cover, come to find out, wasn’t secure, shot out and my rear passenger tire went in, flattening my tire and damaged the rim. As I was in total shock of what just happened I pulled over noticed the damage. I contacted the local authorities concerning the matter. As I waited several eye witnesses approached me to make sure me and my son were ok. I informed them we were yet my car was not.
They all said there used to be a cone there covering it. As I also witnessed that the prior week. As I still waited local city workers showed up that were working not far away at the park checked on us. They informed me that this man hole and several others were on a list for a city contractor to fix, but due to lack of being able to get cement it was delayed. After speaking with them and reporting this to the police department I went home and contacted the city.
I tried to reach the individual over this, Brody Parker. I was informed he was out of town and to email him the information. As I did that I waited over 24 hours for a response from him. He informed me that he would come out evaluate the situation and have the city’s insurance adjuster contact me.
On that Thursday I was contacted by the adjuster being informed that, unfortunately, the city is not liable for damages as they had done their due diligence by placing the cone there and were not responsible for someone removing it. I was very upset with that response. Thinking to myself how could this be.
So I did a little research myself. I found out the man hole cover was reported an issue back on October 4th. Also it was delayed being fixed due to the contractor was unable to get cement. So this unsecured man hole cover was left to be fixed who knows when with just a cone on it to make sure people would notice it. So two weeks go by and by chance or my bad luck the cone was removed the day I took my children to school or the night before.
Regardless, there was no cone there when I took my children to school. Like any normal person I think would have done I drove down the road not thinking there was a problem with the road. Yet as I have previously stated by either my bad luck or chance I was on the receiving end of a damaged vehicle from an unfixed man hole cover. Since then, being informed the city did their due diligence, I have tried to speak to the city representative and the adjuster still getting the same answer.
I even asked them, ‘so what if this was a child who discovered this unsecured man hole cover and was caused injury or worse? Would your answer still be the same: we did our due diligence?’ The answer was ‘we don’t look at situations in “what if” situations we take them case by case. We have done what we feel is appropriate to inform and handle this situation and the case is closed.’
So I am taking this a step forward and sharing this with you to bring to light this unfortunate circumstance in hopes that others don’t have to go through this. I sit here even to this day baffled with the answer “we did our due diligence.” I’m sorry, city, I don’t believe you did is my answer. Not because of the expense to fix my vehicle, it’s for the fact that I feel this is a bigger issue for the safety of everyone in this community.
What I am asking for is pretty simple to have the city take ownership of this problem and make things are made right and prevent others from having to go through this type of stressful situation. I don’t feel that is too much to ask.
Jonathan Haycock
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