Either your local officials are incompetent, or the problems at hand are much more complicated than you're giving them credit for.

When it comes to locals, they are much more apt to be voted out by not repairing potholes, then state/national levels where people tend to vote on party lines.

But, back to your road issues, I'm guessing you missed the part where some underlying infrastructure has gone bad, water and sewer pipes the most common culprits were fixed. If traffic were allowed to drive over the problematic pipes it would have made the issue much worse much faster leading to the entire street getting dug up.