Well if they wait for all the leaves to fall then winter comes. Climate change anyone?

In my neighborhood this was exactly what happened, same the year before. The leaves finally fell but really late. Six inches of snow covered them then ice froze them to the ground. This city should go to bagging anyway and forget the pickup.

And the tree trimming? I wrote the city about that. They had to spend 3 years taking down ash trees and did not have the ability to do anything else. Now they are trying to catch up. Makes sense to me. They only had to deal with 10,000 trees.

Give-em-a-brake, this is the worst funding crisis for governments in 70 years and people are worried about their leaf pickup.

Street sweeping. They did that on our street already, it is actually kind of early this year. Many April’s still have snow coming down.

Here is an example. Our street trees are no longer being maintained at almost any level whatsoever. We used to have them pruned, removed, and replaced free of charge by an experienced and knowledgeable forestry department. The “urban forest” that is planted along lawn extensions is a recognized part of a city’s living infrastructure. What I have noticed lately on my street is that branches of street trees are dying, falling, and landowners are simply tossing them either into the street or along the extension. (It is costly or difficult to cut them up and dispose of them if you don’t have the right equipment.)

Also, the leaf pickup was so early last year that many people in my neighborhood were left with piles of leaves along their extensions. Some of these have fallen into the gutter and been carried to the storm drains, where they have clogged the drain openings. Not too long ago this would have been taken care of by the city spring street sweeping program. My neighbor called and was told that they do not have the personnel to perform this service now. Our streets have not been swept yet and the result is a ragged look, with clogged storm drains.

Higgins has been on council for ten years and now she brings up ‘regional cooperation’. Wow…thanks for going out on a political limb.

The cinder block comment was in relation to the design of buildings not to your inference that without the art we would have these block buildings. The fact is that most people prefer a nice looking city: beautifully designed buildings, public art, nice parks, and historical buildings. The character of a city is based on these things.

Like I said before the art program is a tough call because many think of it is non-essential when it is actually needed in my opinion.

Your differentiation of the art program as being “development” rather than “services” and therefore somehow more defensible is revealing of your real priorities. Is your real meaning that Project Grow doesn’t benefit the right class of people?

BTW, I’m sure that the architects in the community will be startled to learn that without public art projects we will be putting up Soviet-style cinderblock buildings. Again, a false dichotomy.

FY 08 Percent for Art Funding

FY 09 Percent for Art Funding

The art question is a tough one because many do not see the value that public art brings to a city. In my opinion the 1% for art program is actually a part of development not community services. If how our city looked did not matter, then we would be putting up gray, square, cinder block buildings that are cheaper to build. We like to have things look nice. Public art beautifies the area for EVERYONE, even those who may think it is unnecessary.

In tough times public art projects may be delayed but should not be cancelled forever. Public art gives a city a large part of its character and impacts everyone who lives in and visits the city. Many other cities that have these programs have shown this. A small community service like project grow has minimal impact on the majority of residents and no impact on visitors.

As for the Dreiseitl art project, we can only install it now, it cannot be installed later. It will not only be beautiful but also will be educational. These things need to be considered along with the dollar expenditures on whether we should go forward with this project. At this time, the council has only decided to look at a proposal for this. However, if the money is not spent on this project, my understanding is that it cannot be moved into another area.

It is not as simple as saying “project Grow” or “public art”. In my eyes it is apple and oranges

If infrastructure is so important, why are we creaming off 1% of all capital projects for the “1% for Art” program? Money is even coming from water projects, in my opinion illegally. (They are paid for by user fees and are subject to the Bolt decision.) I can hear the howls now – of course art is important to our community. But if we are into making “hard choices” and eliminating “luxuries”, does that program justify itself in a time of contraction?

Leaving the police courts building out of the mix, what would you cut from the budget? Would you close another pool, a park? Things need to be cut for the future without harping on the past.

It is easy to blame everything on the PD/courts building, but this is a done deal whether some like it or not. Canceling that project does nothing to help our budget (we would still need to pay rent somewhere else for the courts. The rent we pay now will be used to pay for the bond payments). The city has saved some money to be used for infrastructure improvements. It would irresponsible to move that money over to pay for something non-tangible like project grow when one of the cities main responsibilities is infrastructure.