Businesses on Hope Street in Providence were all prepared for one of their biggest days for sales: small business Saturday.  Oops:

Providence Water crews closed a portion of the street early Saturday morning and part of the afternoon for utility work. The construction has been happening for some time, but business owners, like Asher Schofield of Frog & Toad, thought the work would be paused on such an important day.

In fact, earlier in the week, Democrat Mayor Jorge Elorza was promoting free on-street parking for the area on that day.

How does the city not have a central location or process to ensure that these conflicts don’t happen?

And of course, it’s (unionized) government, so the clients (i.e., people who live and work in the city) can’t just note the problem and send the workers packing.  Whoever makes a mistake, the consequence is never borne by the organization that collects our money to “serve” the rest of us.