COMRADE MILLERHey T.O., your litter is showing
Snow melt reveals this city and its residents are filthy
By SUE-ANN LEVY
Snow melt reveals this city and its residents are filthy
By SUE-ANN LEVY
I hate to break it to King David, but the only thing world-class about his fiefdom at the moment is its filth.
Now that Hogtown has awakened from its winter slumber, I'm afraid it is looking more like a pigsty than a cutting-edge city.
I noticed the plethora of soft drink cans, plastic bags, dog poo, bottles, papers and assorted other litter peeking out from the brown grass and nestled in the street curbs the moment I arrived home from down south two weeks ago.
The rain over the past two weeks has only served to turn all of the litter into a depressing, soggy mess.
For years I've been writing about the city's escalating litter problems. After all, it shouldn't take a Harvard-trained economist to figure out first impressions count -- and streets chock full of pop cans, paper and cigarette butts (not to mention aggressive panhandlers) aren't exactly enticing to tourists.
I hoped to heck that Mayor David Miller really meant what he said when first elected in 2003 that one of his top priorities was to clean up the city's streets.
THE BROOM IS MIA
But like most things at Socialist Silly Hall -- where the attention span is very short indeed when it comes to basic priorities -- cleaning up litter is receiving about as much as air play these days as the so-called focus on sweeping City Hall clean of fraud and abuse. (In other words, Miller's broom is MIA, having flown the coop.)
Now to be fair, the blame also rests with Toronto citizens. It is forever amazing to me that there are people in this city who are not the least bit embarrassed to toss their refuse wherever it lands. Smokers, I'm talking about you, too. The city's streets are not an ashtray.
Who do these pigs feel will pick up after them? Their mommies?
Still these days the Clean and Beautiful city about which the mayor and his minions wax poetic is more about filling the city's public spaces with 3,500 pieces of street furniture this year, green roofs and green grants and cluttering neighbourhoods with blue, green and grey bins -- and far less about, uh, actually making the city spic and span.
The Mayor's Roundtable on a Beautiful City -- which was supposed to help coordinate efforts to make the city clean -- is now defunct.
An audit of litter in the city was scrapped in 2007 to save $25,000 and won't be resurrected this year, confirmed Rob Orpin, director of collection operations.
While there was talk over the past few years of consolidating litter-picking under one umbrella, the efforts continue to be fragmented across a number of departments.
Orpin said the litter cleaning budget in the solid waste department -- responsible for picking up litter on sidewalks -- remains at around $15 million this year, after it was cut $294,000 last year. (Remember folks, this budget comes under your new garbage tax.)
Orpin said the first of 120 seasonal litter pickers will start in late March, ending their duties mostly after Labour Day. Another 130 permanent staff pick up or vacuum litter until about the end of November -- picking up litter throughout the winter only if there's no snow.
The transportation department is responsible for street cleaning -- the budget this year is about $21 million -- and the parks and recreation department is supposed to take care of litter in city parks.
About the only effort that has been consolidated is the city's major three-week spring clean-up campaign which will start on April 6 (weather permitting), said Myles Currie, director of transportation services.
He said they'll clean ravines, the perimeter of parks, sweep sidewalks, clear out illegal dumping and tackle graffiti on bridges using 500 staff, 300 pieces of equipment, 55 litter vacs, 50 street sweepers and 20 front-end loaders.
WE'LL DO CUPE'S JOB
That clean-up will culminate with the mayor's 20-Minute Makeover Day on April 24 -- during which you and I will once again do the job Miller's CUPE pals are supposed to do.
To put the city's clean-up expenditures in perspective, some $7 million (or nearly half as much as the litter budget) will be spent on bike lanes and other bike infrastructure this year.
About $5 million is being allocated to community gardens, eco-roofs and other green projects.
The mayor's self-promotion newsletter -- Our Toronto -- will cost taxpayers $850,000 this year.
Another $14 million in grants will go to "priority neighbourhoods" to "make a safe city safer" and to "promote violence prevention."
You get my drift.
Now that Hogtown has awakened from its winter slumber, I'm afraid it is looking more like a pigsty than a cutting-edge city.
I noticed the plethora of soft drink cans, plastic bags, dog poo, bottles, papers and assorted other litter peeking out from the brown grass and nestled in the street curbs the moment I arrived home from down south two weeks ago.
The rain over the past two weeks has only served to turn all of the litter into a depressing, soggy mess.
For years I've been writing about the city's escalating litter problems. After all, it shouldn't take a Harvard-trained economist to figure out first impressions count -- and streets chock full of pop cans, paper and cigarette butts (not to mention aggressive panhandlers) aren't exactly enticing to tourists.
I hoped to heck that Mayor David Miller really meant what he said when first elected in 2003 that one of his top priorities was to clean up the city's streets.
THE BROOM IS MIA
But like most things at Socialist Silly Hall -- where the attention span is very short indeed when it comes to basic priorities -- cleaning up litter is receiving about as much as air play these days as the so-called focus on sweeping City Hall clean of fraud and abuse. (In other words, Miller's broom is MIA, having flown the coop.)
Now to be fair, the blame also rests with Toronto citizens. It is forever amazing to me that there are people in this city who are not the least bit embarrassed to toss their refuse wherever it lands. Smokers, I'm talking about you, too. The city's streets are not an ashtray.
Who do these pigs feel will pick up after them? Their mommies?
Still these days the Clean and Beautiful city about which the mayor and his minions wax poetic is more about filling the city's public spaces with 3,500 pieces of street furniture this year, green roofs and green grants and cluttering neighbourhoods with blue, green and grey bins -- and far less about, uh, actually making the city spic and span.
The Mayor's Roundtable on a Beautiful City -- which was supposed to help coordinate efforts to make the city clean -- is now defunct.
An audit of litter in the city was scrapped in 2007 to save $25,000 and won't be resurrected this year, confirmed Rob Orpin, director of collection operations.
While there was talk over the past few years of consolidating litter-picking under one umbrella, the efforts continue to be fragmented across a number of departments.
Orpin said the litter cleaning budget in the solid waste department -- responsible for picking up litter on sidewalks -- remains at around $15 million this year, after it was cut $294,000 last year. (Remember folks, this budget comes under your new garbage tax.)
Orpin said the first of 120 seasonal litter pickers will start in late March, ending their duties mostly after Labour Day. Another 130 permanent staff pick up or vacuum litter until about the end of November -- picking up litter throughout the winter only if there's no snow.
The transportation department is responsible for street cleaning -- the budget this year is about $21 million -- and the parks and recreation department is supposed to take care of litter in city parks.
About the only effort that has been consolidated is the city's major three-week spring clean-up campaign which will start on April 6 (weather permitting), said Myles Currie, director of transportation services.
He said they'll clean ravines, the perimeter of parks, sweep sidewalks, clear out illegal dumping and tackle graffiti on bridges using 500 staff, 300 pieces of equipment, 55 litter vacs, 50 street sweepers and 20 front-end loaders.
WE'LL DO CUPE'S JOB
That clean-up will culminate with the mayor's 20-Minute Makeover Day on April 24 -- during which you and I will once again do the job Miller's CUPE pals are supposed to do.
To put the city's clean-up expenditures in perspective, some $7 million (or nearly half as much as the litter budget) will be spent on bike lanes and other bike infrastructure this year.
About $5 million is being allocated to community gardens, eco-roofs and other green projects.
The mayor's self-promotion newsletter -- Our Toronto -- will cost taxpayers $850,000 this year.
Another $14 million in grants will go to "priority neighbourhoods" to "make a safe city safer" and to "promote violence prevention."
You get my drift.
2 comments:
I stopped reading sue ann 'tweety bird' when I caught her fudging the facts. I emailed her, and she tried to cover herself, but she couldn't. Clear fudging of the facts. Lame assed reply half admitting to fudging half holding onto the fudge.
I've heard from a number of people who said the same of her.
There's plenty to criticize about Miller, as there is about other politicians in power, however she needs to put her blind hate aside a bit and get things a little more straight first.
I thin "blind hate" is a stretch. Look at Miller's record and starting with what it cost us to stop the bridge to his latest funding an office in London, England there is muc to critize.
Where is his NEW BROOM?
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