April 11, 2012

When Mayor Sly James was elected, he promised a new paradigm when it came to neighborhoods and community resources.

Apparently that paradigm memo didn’t get over to the folks at the city’s Solid Waste Department.

Neighborhood leaders organizing the big neighborhood clean-up slated for April 28 got the rug unceremoniously jerked out from under them when they were notified there would be no free dumpster service for the hugely popular clean-up, despite the fact that dumpsters as well as additional city resources were promised after last October’s clean-up event. Instead, a $60 per dumpster rental fee would apply.

These community-wide clean-ups usually clear hundreds of thousands of pounds of trash and waste tires from Northeast streets by a volunteer army that usually numbers over 200 people.

Solid Waste Director Mike Shaw says “budget cuts” are the reason for the drawback in providing city support for the event.

This newshound is incensed to say the least.

One would think that if community leaders in Northeast can marshal a small army of volunteers to make this part of the city a nicer and cleaner place to live, they’d have the full support of the city (including resources) for said efforts, especially given some of the cleaning up that’s getting done should actually fall onto the city’s shoulders.

From a budgetary standpoint, all the money that was going to go to snow removal last winter that wasn’t spent would certainly be more than enough to cover the difference.

So much for that new paradigm. Welcome to the same ol’ same ol’.