It Will Take More Than 20 Minutes To Cleanup The "Human"Waste...

 ...inside Toronto Silly Hall. 

Why Sue-Ann isn’t trashing David Miller ... for once

Mayor says “Littering is unacceptable ... it’s bad behaviour”

By Sue-Ann Levy

So I’ve been wondering if the 7th annual 20-Minute Makeover two Fridays from today will feature a spring cleaning inside — not just outside — City Hall.
Why couldn’t we take that broom Mayor David Miller has hidden away since 2003 and use it to sweep out all the political deadwood who’ve made a mess of the city and its finances?
But I was informed by the city’s solid waste officials Thursday that kind of major house cleaning won’t happen until municipal election day on Oct. 25.
If only that were true.
I know. Miller is on his way out, as are Coun. Michael Walker, Kyle Rae and Case Ootes.
However, I fear it will take nothing short of a Mad Vac or a front-end loader to pry some of their colleagues from their cozy seats and relegate them to the political trash heap.
Howard Moscoe, Pam McConnell, John Filion, Maria Augimeri, Raymond Cho, Frank Di Giorgio, Paula Fletcher, Norm Kelly and Anthony Perruzza, I’m talking about all of you.
But seriously, I’m for any and all efforts that help make the streets, parks, trails and sidewalks of this city more pristine,
If the 20-Minute Makeover is a way of educating those entitled citizens (of all ages) to pick up after themselves (their dog doo-doo included) or take the few seconds required to walk to a trash receptacle/recycling container to deposit their trash, I’m all for it.
I’d even add that the $275,000 the city is putting into the 20-Minute Makeover and Mayor David Miller’s Community Clean-up Day (the next day) is worth it — although I dare say only King David would name a clean-up day after himself.
“Littering is unacceptable ... it’s bad behaviour,” said Miller at the launch Thursday.
For once I agree with him.
Problem is, each year it seems the city’s litter-picking efforts are hit and miss.
Despite all the mayor’s talk about making this city clean, green and beautiful, he and his minions have never made street cleaning or litter-picking the funding priorities they should be.
There’s a big three-week blitz in April to coincide with the 20-Minute Makeover.
We hear the usual announcement about the hundreds of staff and pieces of equipment — this year it’s 500 employees plus 50 Mad Vacs, 45 sweepers, 20 front-end loaders and 121 trucks — involved in the clean-up.
But once the blitz is done, city officials are never able to maintain the momentum.
The amount of litter seen around town all seems to depend on the time of day and the area of the city.
Trails like the Beltline in midtown Toronto, where I regularly run and walk my two dachsies, are forever a mess, as are our parks.
Myles Currie, director of transportation services, told me major streets like Yonge get swept “numerous times a week” while a local street like Merton will only get done every six to eight weeks.
This year some $17.5 million will be spent by the city’s Transportation department on roadway and roadside cleaning. Another $16 million will be spent on litter-related clean-up activities and enforcement of illegal dumping activities.
Geoff Rathbone, general manager of solid waste, said a quantitative audit of the city’s litter situation has not been done since 2006 — canned to save $25,000 a year.
To put the budget numbers in context, some $46 million will go towards the city’s generous grants program this year, a good portion of which will fund useless art and theatre no one will ever choose to see.
At the drop of a hat, a few weeks ago members of the budget committee decided to turn the $15,000 grant they give every three years to the Glenn Gould Foundation into an annual handout.
Talk about misplaced priorities.
Yep, it’s definitely time to bring in the Mad Vac here at Socialist Silly Hall.
A good house cleaning is sorely overdue.
sue-ann.levy@sunmedia.ca