You would think the city would know it had a problem.

You would expect regular inspections of its equipment.

You would expect the city to undertake a full-scale investigation to find if it really did have a problem.

Yet it took a private citizen calling the newspaper to track down a persistent culprit responsible for unsanitary white splotches and trails of a white liquid substance that permanently blight many of the city’s streets.

And the culprit was ...

The city ... the Sanitation Department, of all things, spreading what the health department earlier warned was a potential environmental problem.

Mayor Don Kyle said that now that the city knows the problem the city will be more diligent in inspecting garbage trucks. But the city has known for some time that it’s garbage trucks might be spreading liquid garbage.

The city could have found the problem much easier and quicker than a citizen with the help of a newspaper reporter who spent much of a morning last week tracking down the culprit.

The great mystery unraveled when the city Maintenance Department took time to inspect the truck suspected of fouling the streets and found a worn-out seal.

The incident underscores the city lacks a spit and shine mentality, also known as attention to appearance and order.

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