Is this a public notice or a campaign notice????
Let's talk about litter.
Lisa McDonald made some mention of downtown streets at
Tuesday night's campaign forum. I live downtown and I
think the streets look mighty good after the Spring
clean-up and city crews ought to be commended.
Hennepin Avenue in the morning is another matter. Or
First Avenue North. Let me suggest that there has been
as long as I remember a certain seediness to the
Avenue. That was part of the "charm" of the place and
prior to the explosion of suburbs in the 60's and even
into the eighties before the powers that be tore down
Block E because of litter and blight; it would be only
right to tear down City Center.
It seems some wish for a degree of tidiness never
expected of downtown. The outcry comes mostly from
those people in city government who would probably be
more happy in a Martha Stewart suburb and who do all
they can to destroy urban ambience at the expense of
those who pay the taxes to satisfy the comfort levels
of those who've moved to the suburbs and only come
downtown at night for sports and theatre, two prime
generators of litter.
I do worry at the frequency of garbage collection at
bus stops but until the council provides another
source of funds Solid Waste is stuck.
When it comes to litter out in the neighborhoods I
would be looking to commercial dumpsters where lids
are left up for winds to carry away debris and where
commercial haulers are in too big a hurry to clean up
that piece of waxed paper that floats to the ground,
apartment houses with inadequately sized dumpters or
infrequent collections especially around the
ends/beginnings of the months when people are moving
out and the system is overtaxed, and along the
highways I would be looking to garbage haulers with
poor methods of containing trash.
Sure individual people litter, throw down a White
Castle bag, etc and most of those people, if you
surveyed them, do not have the sense of themselves as
stakeholders in their communities for one reason or
another and if you looked at them closely you might
understand their feelings and lack of concern.
These are those people lost in the tunnel, and seeing
a light at the end, expect a train. More times than
not, it is a train. They are the ones who have put a
couple hundred away or just got ahead only to have
their car towed as a result of a bogus police stop
based on suspicious probable cause, or maybe a snow
emergency they were unaware of seeing as though they
are Latino, Somali, Lao, Hmong, etc., and there is no
bilingual daily papers or bilingual news broadcasts
and the only public airing of their spoken word comes
once a week for two hours over KFAI.
Or maybe in some cases it is as simple as not enough
garbage containers.
And while I'm ranting, Who picked out the aggregate
behemoth garbage containers that have as much
aesthetic charm as a runover squirrel in the middle of
the street and which must also be a real bear to
empty.
Oof, my aching back!
Tim Connolly
Ward 7
--- "Pai, Vaman M" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> Here's something we can all agree on - the litter
> problem in Minneapolis is
> pretty grim. Litter knows no boundaries. It is
> everywhere - on our streets,
> highways, parkways, rivers and yes, even in some our
> own backyards. The
> responsibility lies with all of us. We need to set
> an example.
>
> The good news? We have a chance to do something
> about this, to make a real
> difference in our City's quality of life, and to set
> some precedents for
> good, anti-litter work in the future. For three
> decades, we have gone
> without a public education campaign. This year, the
> City of Minneapolis is
> about to launch a Clean City Minneapolis education
> campaign with a kick-off
> taking place at the Minnehaha Center, 26th Avenue
> and E. Lake Street, at
> 9:45 a.m. Come join City of Minneapolis volunteers,
> residents of Longfellow
> and Seward neighborhoods, and other business
> partners in cleaning up litter
> in the surrounding areas.
>
> We look forward to seeing Minneapolis sporting a
> clean face for Spring. Your
> presence and assistance will help. Come join Mayor
> Sharon Sayles-Belton at
> the Minnehaha Center on April 28th for the kick-off
> event and help City
> volunteers and your neighbors help clean up the
> neighborhood! If you cannot
> join us tomorrow, check with your neighborhood
> organization and participate
> in their scheduled clean up. If you any questions
> regarding the campaign,
> call me at 612-673-2123 or come join us tomorrow.
>
> Vaman Pai
> Public Affairs Department
> City of Minneapolis
> (612) 673-2123
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> _______________________________________________
> Minneapolis Issues Forum - Minnesota E-Democracy
> Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more:
> http://e-democracy.org/mpls
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
http://auctions.yahoo.com/
_______________________________________________
Minneapolis Issues Forum - Minnesota E-Democracy
Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more:
http://e-democracy.org/mpls
