[jje1000]

I don't want to sound like I'm supporting these cuts, but can anyone here justify the existence of street sweepers? I'm curious.

They keep our streets from filling up with little bits of debris such as cigarette butts and leaves. They're purely cosmetic, but the impact clean streets have on people's perceptions is enormous.

 

[syn]

As your signature says, “Toronto has a spending problem, not a revenue problem”. The environment, cycling, and snow removal are all 'gravy' according to him. In reality, there's no 'gravy' left. All that was there to begin with was the council expenses, which have pretty much been wiped out and amounted to a drop in the bucket. Does he really think a city service that costs $30 million a year is going to be unnecessary? The shortfall is huge, so I can't imagine what state the city will be in next year. Ford has really shot himself in the foot. He almost has no choice but to raise property taxes, or re-install the vehicle registration fee.

Ford is insane.

Let's not forget he still has a magic $4 billion subway to pay for.

 

[vic]

I don't want to sound like I'm supporting these cuts, but can anyone here justify the existence of street sweepers? I'm curious.

Off the top of my head:

• Removing garbage
• Removing accumulated sand, dust, salt, etc.
• Keeping gutters and grates clear so water can drain
• Cleaning pollutants from the street so they don't end up in the lake
• Preventing our drains from filling up with garbage and sediments
• Keeping the dust down on windy days
• Keeping the city from looking shabby
• Removing glass and sharp objects that pierce tires

 

[grey]

They keep our streets from filling up with little bits of debris such as cigarette butts and leaves. They're purely cosmetic, but the impact clean streets have on people's perceptions is enormous.

Also discarded newspapers, promotional flyers, and trashbin overflow (mountains of trash are generated in a matter of hours on the busiest streets). You might be able to reduce sweeping routes in some areas, but you'd better make up for it by increasing collection frequency. Eliminating it completely will result in permanently trash-strewn streets.

 

[W. K. Lis]

After spending $3 million, City’s consultant finds little fat in public works, from The Star:

City’s consultant finds little fat in public works

David Rider and Paul Moloney

A city-hired consultant is suggesting Toronto plow and sweep its streets less, stop putting fluoride in drinking water and send more trash to landfill, among other cuts.

But the KPMG report on how to cut the cost of public works — the first of such studies done across city departments — offers lots of bone and almost no fat.

“The vast majority, 96 per cent, of services that report through the public works committee are core municipal services ...,” and not ripe for reduction, states the report released Monday.

In fact, city manager Joe Pennachetti said that, if the city acted on all of KPMG’s suggestions, the city would shave only $10 million to $15 million from public works’s $1 billion annual operating budget.

And most of the recommended cuts are politically unpalatable, admitted public works chair Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, who said the so-called hard services are not a “sweet spot” for easy savings.

KPMG also recommended:

Backing off Toronto’s “very aggressive” target of directing 70 per cent of household waste away from landfill through recycling could yield savings. It’s cheaper to send trash to a dump, that gap will only grow as Toronto recycles more and other municipalities have lower targets.

Eliminating community “environment days” hosted by councillors in each of their wards.

Ending collection of toxic goods at environment days and cancelling the “Toxic Taxi” that does household pickup for residents with large quantities of hazardous waste.

Eliminating “small commercial waste collection” and forcing the businesses to pay for private contractors, as large businesses now do.

Scrapping the four free tags each household gets per year for overflow garbage bags.

Halt street cleaning after the spring clean-up, rather than doing it all summer.

Considering a reduction to the “scale of bike infrastructure.”

Contracting out more curbside trash pickup, as well as facility security services and grass cutting.

Suggested cuts unlikely to be pushed by the Mayor Rob Ford administration include a halt to the clearing of “windrows” — piles of snow left by plows at the bottom of driveways — in North York, Etobicoke and Scarborough.

Suburban councillors, many of them Ford’s allies, have fought past attempts to kill the service not offered to downtown residents that costs taxpayers about $3.7 million annually, or 4.3 per cent of the $87 million snow clearing budget.

KPMG also suggests: “Snow plowing standards could be reduced marginally on residential streets.”

Minnan-Wong (Ward 34, Don Valley East) said halting the fluoridation of Toronto’s water is also likely a “no go” unless city staff offer information not readily apparent. In April, Toronto’s board of health voted unanimously to maintain the $1.9 million practice, aimed at preventing tooth decay, despite some residents calling the chemical an ineffective health risk.

Pressed by reporters for potential savings if there is little support for specialty services such as windrow clearing, Minnan-Wong pointed to a recommendation to contract out grass cutting, currently done by city workers, and possible amalgamation of some works facilities.

“Those are easy ones that we should be looking at. Those are efficiencies that in all likelihood won’t affect service,” he said.

However, permanent CUPE Local 416 workers who currently cut the grass on city property have ironclad job provisions in their contracts that expire Dec. 31. The city could currently only lay off part-time and temporary staff, a factor that has limited the push to contract out curbside trash collection.

Councillor Adam Vaughan (Ward 20, Trinity Spadina), a staunch critic of Ford and his cost-cutting exercise, said: “We pay consultants millions of dollars to give us advice we can’t use.

“Show me the councillor who will run (for re-election) on: ‘We’ll stop plowing your streets.’ It (the report) says people are willing to pay a little bit more to get good city services.”

Public works members will consider the report July 18, with their recommendations going to the executive committee and, along with those from the other standing committees. Consultants are also reviewing the efficiency of city services and user fees residents pay.

An accompanying report said the services the public considers important that also rank as core and essential are: public transit; emergency response; water treatment and distribution; public health services; garbage; organics and recycling; roads and traffic; and public libraries.

Torontonians are, however, split on how to pay for the services. Some want higher property taxes and user fees, some would rather see service reductions and others want a combination.

The scarcity of public works savings could heighten pressure to cut so-called soft services, including the millions of dollars in grants to arts and community groups, and social services including health and daycare.

Other KPMG reports being released this week are economic development on Tuesday, followed a day later by community, development and recreation and, on Thursday, parks and environment.

Interesting tidbit: the report cost $3 million while the fluoridation of water costs $1.9 million. Without fluoridation, expect more visits to the dentist ($). Wonder if the Ford brothers have teeth?

 

[Ak2809]

Also discarded newspapers, promotional flyers, and trashbin overflow (mountains of trash are generated in a matter of hours on the busiest streets). You might be able to reduce sweeping routes in some areas, but you'd better make up for it by increasing collection frequency. Eliminating it completely will result in permanently trash-strewn streets.

Ah, I also see several studies showing how sweepers improve water quality.

Interesting tidbit: the report cost $3 million while the fluoridation of water costs $1.9 million. Without fluoridation, expect more visits to the dentist ($). Wonder if the Ford brothers have teeth?

Didn't they remove flouride in Dorval, and saw an increase in cavities?

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazet....html?id=bc24e0d4-5c45-4f39-9764-335f157e9756

"His impressions were eventually confirmed by a study by public health authorities that found cavities doubled in Dorval kindergarten students after fluoride was removed from the drinking water."

 

[grey]

“I will assure you that services will not be cut . . . guaranteed.” - Rob Ford, 9 months ago.

 

[Torontovibe]

Also discarded newspapers, promotional flyers, and trashbin overflow (mountains of trash are generated in a matter of hours on the busiest streets). You might be able to reduce sweeping routes in some areas, but you'd better make up for it by increasing collection frequency. Eliminating it completely will result in permanently trash-strewn streets.

I spoke with Ford on 2 occasions and both times he told me he was going to focus on cleaning up Toronto and that included garbage, graffiti and postering. So far, I have seen no changes at all and if they clean the streets only once a summer, it will just make things much worse. Talk about broken promises.

 

[CanadianNational]

Among the genuinely interesting things to emerge from the KMPG report was that fully 60 percent of the 13,000 respondents to a city core review online survey said they’d be willing to pay a 5 percent increase in property tax to maintain current service levels.

This sounds like common sense, and a good solution.

What is interesting, though not particularly surprising about it, is that the Ford(s) may be choosing to ignore this option in favour of punitive cuts.

There's a lot of picking and choosing (and outright invention?) at the Ford camp about surveying and it's results, and the worth of those results.

 

[grey]

Oh yeah, the core services survey with the super leading questions. How much did they spend on that survey only to ignore it now?

 

[Marcanadian]

Why does it cost $3 million to do a review of services we should already know about? That's like me paying somebody to tell me if my appliances are working correctly, wouldn't you know this beforehand?

I can't believe one of the recommendations is to reduce the waste diversion target, CTV said this could include eliminating recycling in apartments.

 

[nfitz]

Why does it cost $3 million to do a review of services we should already know about? That's like me paying somebody to tell me if my appliances are working correctly, wouldn't you know this beforehand?

Because it's sets the stage to have a rational discussion about what should and shouldn't be cut with a level playing field, and without everyone jumping up and down saying their group is being targeted.

 

[spider]

I think you may find that street sweeping along with blacksmiths should have been discontinued for the same reason when horses disappeared from city streets.

 

[nfitz]

I think you may find that street sweeping along with blacksmiths should have been discontinued for the same reason when horses disappeared from city streets.

With the number of trees in my neighbourhood, there's always leaves, blossoms, maple keys, etc., in the road. Not to mention all the pieces of paper, etc., that the street sweeper gets.

Ford was elected on a promise of cleaning up the city and not cutting services. Cutting cleaning surely would completely the opposite.

Which is why I expect it will be cut.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

Off the top of my head:

• Removing garbage
• Removing accumulated sand, dust, salt, etc.
• Keeping gutters and grates clear so water can drain
• Cleaning pollutants from the street so they don't end up in the lake
• Preventing our drains from filling up with garbage and sediments
• Keeping the dust down on windy days
• Keeping the city from looking shabby
• Removing glass and sharp objects that pierce tires

And here's another, once a week garbage trucks pickup and dump the contents from the tall green organic bins into the hopper. As the truck slowly moves along the street the fluid from the organic contents flows onto the street. Is anyone familiar with this smell? It generally smells something like 1,000 people who have just barfed after eating fish, it's terrible and it lasts for several days depending on how hot it is, whether it rains or not and when the street cleaner comes along.

“I will assure you that services will not be cut . . . guaranteed.†- Rob Ford, 9 months ago.

Thanks, another line for my signature text if I may...