With the attack ads of Mayor Tom Henry and challenger Paula Hughes getting nastier and more cartoonish, here's something that might pass for an actual issue:
“On county council Paula Hughes voted to cut vital services like snow removal,” said Mayor Tom Henry. “Now she says leaf collection is a luxury she would consider eliminating. These are basic city services that keep our streets safe and our homes and businesses from flooding. I've balanced the budget and cut spending without eliminating vital services and if re-elected I pledge to do the same for the next four years.”
[. . .]
On October 9, 2011, when asked about city services by the Journal Gazette, Hughes stated that: “My perspective on the leaf pickup is it is a luxury as a citizen
Comments
Who decided our yards should look like golf courses anyway? Just leave the leaves on your yard. They'll decompose and improve your soil. Earthworms eat dead leaves and thrive, further improving your soil. Also, I can't see my grass getting long in the spring, so I don't have to mow it until my wife hits me with a cookpot or whatever.
Hey - We can them "leaves", so why do we not "leave" them?
Of course, I wanted to say "We call therm ......."
Hughes does raise the issue and rightly so on leaf pick up. I view it as a luxery and do not use it. Instead I use my leaves in my shrubs which reduces the need for mulch and chemicals to keep the acidity where it needs to be.
I think it would be great if the government would prioritize spending starting with 1 and identifying every item in the budget in terms of priority. We need to recalibrate what government provides.
My guess is that we could eliminate many of the
While we are about discontinuing unneeded city services, lets put garbage collection and expensive recycling at the top of the list. With our present money crunch continuing unabated, we will soon be unable to make fiscally conservative choices when government greed and government self-preservation locks us into more and more bills we cannot afford. If given a choice, would you pay for everything thing that is now government-imposed?
On second thought, we should first close our parks in order to evict our Occupy Everything, Contribute Nothing derelicts.
The problem with leaves is that some damnable fool rakes them into a pile, and then some kid acts the fool and decides to hide in the pile, and then some other kid acts the fool and decides to run over the pile with his car.
Every time I see piles of leaves at the side of the road or I go past a Breseler's ice cream shop, I think about that tragedy, and it's been what, 35 years?
No arguing about it, please. Either arrest anyone who dares rake leaves, or else collect them promptly, so it never happens again.
Harl,
I have the same fear. Well said.