“Hieftje reminded Kailasapathy that she wasn’t serving on the council back in 2008: ‘Just to point out, Councilmember Kailasapathy, because I know you weren’t here, the underground parking structure was fully supported by city council.’”

I think it’s inaccurate to characterize that statement by the mayor as a reminder. It appears to be informational. I can’t see how it could reasonably interpreted as an insult (to use Peter’s word). I think it’s relevant for her and others (both council members and the audience, and now us) to know that council supported the structure. If anything, the valid criticism of the mayor’s comment would be that council didn’t “fully” support the structure if at least one member opposed it, but I don’t remember if that was the case.

Dave’s use of the word “reminded” both in this piece and the followup is interesting.

An obvious point, that the Council Party seems unable to grasp. Thank you for making it, Steve.

When elected officials need to be reminded of this kind of thing, it tells us something about our political culture.

Yes, every spring and fall I drag a dozen or more bags to the street. We also have two compost bins, which we fill. Whatever doesn’t fit in the plastic compost bins, we put in bags and take to the street. We do it in the fall and the spring. (Many of the leaves get raked on to flower beds in the fall, and then raked off in the spring and into bags.) While we don’t have a lot of trees, all our neighbors do just over the property line, so we get lots and lots of leaves.

@2: My understanding is that commodities, including recycled materials, have mostly dropped in value over the last 5 years or more (though I haven’t looked into it recently), so I suspect that the additional surplus you’re talking about hasn’t accumulated.

@4: The mayor’s comment also discounted the fact that Sumi was a citizen in 2008. Not that facts and information are dependent on the messenger for validity.

One thing you may have overlooked is that absent the bulk leaf pick up in the fall, the leaves that fall from trees into the street are not collected either. The City fails to maintain the quality of our road surfaces, fails to maintain the bike lane markings, and fails to remove leaves and other debris or plow snow from the curb area. All of these failings affect pedestrians and bicyclists.

The fall leaf pick up required residents to keep leaves out of the street until the day before the bulk pick up. If the rules are followed, that one or two day obstacle is much less bother than the overall failure to maintain and clear the curb area in general.

Just to be clear, I compost all my leaves. But not everyone can manage 8 compost containers. I’m an outlier, I’m pretty sure.

I’ve been watching how this is handled in my neighborhood. Some people hire lawn care services to take away everything at once. That is an expense that not everyone can bear. I’ve seen others blow the leaves onto city property (medians). Some just leave the whole mess until spring, which also means a lot of leaves find their way into the street anyway. And yes, some energetic souls do fill 20 bags.

This is one of those issues that hit people unevenly. That makes it harder to have a polite conversation about it.

Excuse me, I have to go turn my compost now.