Portland leaf pickup charade rolls on
The leaf "harvesters" of the City of Portland came down our street this morning as part of the "fall cleaning for the urban forest ($30)." Since we refuse to pay for what should be done for free, late yesterday we got the gutter in front of our place so clean you could eat out of it. Now, after the sweepers came through, there's a coating of chopped up leaves and slime left behind. They used to come through on a second pass to wash that stuff away, but these days, along with charging folks for their "service," they just leave the muck to get all over everything for another month or so. Way to go, Sam Rands! This is just a small part of why your political careers are over.
| Posted at 3:25 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (6)
There is probably a camera on the back of the sweeper and the city will send you a bill anyway for not cleaning.
I hope you took pictures of the "before" status of your gutter.
Posted by Portland Native | November 12, 2011 3:32 PM
I have a picture of a clean gutter. When was it taken? My word against theirs, I suppose.
I'm also willing to bet that the whole scheme of charging for this is illegal. It would be great to see that issue settled by the state supreme court.
Posted by Jack Bog | November 12, 2011 3:37 PM
Not to mention that the City has been encouraging the planting of street trees for decades now.
Not only that, they specify what varieties of trees may be planted as street trees.
The ones they provided (the first year of the program, when the trees were free) for streetfront in my parking strip were inappropriate, in mature height and in root activity regarding walkways.
Dumbassed city.
I live on a former streetcar street. My house has no offstreet parking, because the city allowed prior owners to sell of their side lot to build a duplex.
Dumbassed city.
We have repeatedly asked the City to provide information on when they will be sweeping on our block...they have refused. Rationale: Residents might throw their trash into the street for City crews to sweep up.
Dumbassed city.
Net result...No notice, no moving of cars, no street-cleaning. Despite what the City says, it does not clean the street gutters in my neighborhood. Most of the schmutz just flows down until it clogs the storm sewers and creates lakes at intersections during downpours.
I used to clean those out...if they are going to charge me a user's fee to clean the streets in front of my house, and continue to not clean it like they've done for decades, I'll send them my bill for cleaning out their storm drains and call the CoP DoT everytime the lakes form.
Dumbassed city.
Posted by godfry | November 12, 2011 4:50 PM
Jack, I assume you are using a reasonably modern digital, and if it is at the level of a DSLR, then in the data known as the EXIF file, will be the date and time of the shot. Probably point and shoot have this also.
You did set these when you got the camera, right? (oh, dear!)
Posted by Lawrence | November 12, 2011 6:55 PM
EXIF data can be spoofed. If they think they're getting 30 bucks from me, I say, "Bring it on!"
Posted by Jack Bog | November 12, 2011 6:58 PM
Sam is too busy twittering tonight to worry about leaf taxes.
Why do I get this image of some sad little crippled bird in a tree, singing, "help me help me"?
Posted by Portland Native | November 12, 2011 9:45 PM