The four-man city crew inched along Wednesday morning, patching potholes on stately Summit Avenue in St. Paul.
They went from hole to hole to hole, barely speaking. They hardly paused.
They knew they were being watched.
From City Hall desks to the neighborhood streets, St. Paul workers have been stepping it up in the days following a TV report that showed Public Works employees sloughing off on the public's dime. Mayor Chris Coleman exploded when he saw the KSTP-TV footage, the department's director stepped down and an investigation was ordered.
The inquiry into alleged misconduct in the paving office will begin Thursday.
While the TV report sparked outrage, it also stung the city. Officials have been quick to say that many city employees hustle. Still, word has been spread among the departments for employees to put their heads down and work.
The pothole patching crews are especially keen to the new scrutiny, and former Director Bruce Beese's last major act was to set a detailed policy of when and where workers may take breaks and how they should conduct themselves.
"We do a great deal of our work in locations visible to all, and therefore we must always strive to hold ourselves to very high standards," he wrote in a Friday memo.
