VDay.

[Dirka Skene]

I am sorely tempted to take a ziplock bag full of biodegradeable soap and accidently drop it in to the fountain to fill the downtown area full of bubbles.

Oh oh oh!!! Do it and take lots of pictures! Do it, do it, DO IT!

[A Hay]

Bubbles!!

Great visual image, UNLESS you are the one who has to go out and clean up the mess.

Here's another image. Two or three workers, diverted from other productive work, spending 3-4 hours cleaning up the mess, using hundreds of gallons of treated water. Fountain is not operating (so others are denied the visual experience of the flowing water).
Other people get the idea of playing a joke on the "City" so this is repeated every few days. The city fathers decide it's not worth the hassle and shut off the fountain permanently.

I'm in the public works business. Been there, done that in two cities.

Here's an alternate vision, get your friends together and clean up a city park or a river or stream bank so that more folks are encouraged to get out and enjoy the outdoors.

OK, end of rant. Dread, I mean no insult to you, but it touched one of my hot buttons. I try to spend the public monies entrusted to me to improve the quality of peoples lives. Every dollar spent to fix an item vandalized or pick up litter is one dollar less to plant a flower or tree or fix a pothole. There are a lot of people in the Public Works arena who really do want to serve the People (And of course a few bad apples who are corrupt and give the rest of us a bad image.)

So please keep the soap bubbles in the fountain a virtual image. They really are prettier that way.

Tom