Tonight the Greensboro City Council will consider cutting $400,000 in landscaping fees from the budget that would affect nine city parks, three libraries, several recreation centers, five “Welcome to Greensboro” signs, and various flower beds. From this mornings News & Record,
“If you don’t weed, it’s going to look weedy. If you don’t add mulch, it starts looking thin. If you don’t edge …” said Ann Steighner, vice chairwoman of the Greensboro Beautiful volunteer group. “It’s going to be unkempt, messy and sloppy, and it won’t send out the image we want to send as a community.”
Robbie Perkins has publicly stated that he does not approve of the cuts and Mayor Yvonne Johnson is rethinking her position on the cuts. The affected areas are primarily in Districts 1 and 2.
The article continues, “Under the budget as it now stands, sites now maintained by Attayek Landscaping would be taken over by the city’s in-house staff of four permanent and four temporary workers, said Dale Wyrick, director of the city Field Operations Department.”
The photos below were taken off of MLK just before going under the Davie Street bridge in downtown Greensboro. It appears that the Field Operations Department is having a hard time taking care of areas it has previously taken care of, much less having additional work thrown on their plate.
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This is an area that the city should have stayed out of in the first place IMO. The City should take care of the large city parks, but these small areas are a good place for neighborhoods and clubs groups to take on as a project for their members. Their investment in the city so to speak, and not one that would take a great deal of effort or money. Other cities are doing this. Portland, Oregon is one of them. Small garden spots are “adopted” by groups much as streets and roads are adopted. It works.
There is also the fact that we saw last year when the county budget cut out some of the fat that should not have been in the budget in the first place. These groups and/or projects are still being funded somehow without the help of the tax payer. Of course there is still some whining going on and unfortunately the commissioners appear to be giving in to it. However if they just hold out another year or two it will be seen that the taxpayers needn’t pay for these special interest things at all and the whiners will go away. BB
Plants are pretty. Police protection and passable roads are essential services. And until they’re fully funded, I’m with Brenda. Let private groups do the planting and weeding.
In houses and small gardens landscaping is very easy and protect the plants are also very easy. In big public garden landscaping design taking the very careful.Thank you for giving this information.