Annual Street Sweep and Some Angels

A toast to a job well done and a very shiny new street.

Every year on the weekend preceding Art in the Park Monmouth Roadies get up real early, head into the street and greet their neighbours with a cache of brooms, shovels and rakes.
The mission:  Spring cleaning of the neighbourhood kind.  It's a pretty good social event as neighbours work side by side to literally scoop up the road goo that has accumulated over the fall and winter months and then take it away to the city yard waste site off of Central Avenue.  Usually about two pick up trucks full. 

There is a second purpose to this as well.  Monmouth Roadies know all too well that there is no other neighbourhood like theirs anywhere in Windsor and they like to show it off.  Next week Art in the Park will draw thousands of tourists and visitors to the area and a great many of them will walk Monmouth on their way to and from the event.  Every year residents get hundreds of compliments from total strangers about how clean and pretty the street is. 

The annual street sweep has become not only an annual tradition but a successful marketing event.    Residents on Monmouth are approached very often by people who are looking to find a home on this unique street.  They drive up and down looking at the homes, some knock on doors and many approach residents out in the street who they think might have some privy real estate information.  On that same note, more homes on Monmouth sell privately every year than through traditional real estate listings.  For a street that only 25 years ago was referred to as the Old Walkerville Moat this branding effort has payed off. 

This year's sweep was a little tricky.  For the first time in the event's history no pick-up trucks were available.   Another big  issue was the  roadwork detour for the Wyandotte and Walker upgrade.  Over the past few weeks Monmouth has been the main detour route bringing a very unnerving amount of traffic and construction equipment up and down the street.  There have been more than a few near accidents.   Residents were concerned about working safely in the middle of it all.  Neighbours quickly worked out a "Plan B".  All road debris was scooped up as usual but packed into yard bags to be diposed over the next few days.  Traffic cones were strategically placed to route traffic across Monmouth and over to Walker Road.  All worked out surprisingly well.

Without Asking the Angels Came

The element of surprise lives on Monmouth.  As the sweep started to ramp up, a coffee cart was delivered to the block courtesy of Taloola Cafe.  A nice, well received  touch.    Soon after that, one of the neighbours handed off some extremely delicious lemon cake to all of the street cleaners.  It was turning out to be a great day in the hood.  And then it got even better.   Around noon, as the sweep was successfully winding down and the street was looking absolutely spotless, a few troops were hoisting martinis and brooms  near the corner of Monmouth and Niagra .   A city yard waste truck making its way back to the depot stopped and the driver asked what was going on.  Within seconds he and his partner rounded the block , picked up  all of the yard waste bags and tossed them into their hopper.   Unbelievable!  What a perfect ending!  Fists and high fives were the order of that event.  The sad part is that these guys will probably be losing their jobs to outsourcing if the current city council and administration get their way.  Hats off to these CUPE members.  This attitude and ethic won't be matched by any outside contractor. 

So, in the end Monmouth Road is once again all spanky, shiny for Art in the Park.  This was our best Street Sweep ever. 

Thanks everyone! 

This Years Pics:  Click on images to enlarge

Friends and neighbours chip in.

New faces in the Hood

Look what fell out of the sky.

All for one.  One for all.

Scoop and Bag.

New Roadie growing in the patch.

Socializing on a fabulous day.

Comment from a Candidate. Not Afraid of Real Issues

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

Urban Blight. No Sense Talking About it

There are as many definitions out there of urban blight as there are examples.  So much so that political dialogue about it has become nothing more than cheap talk.  It is all in front of us if we choose to see it.  This kind of decay always starts with symptoms which are very recognizable.  It could be as simple as missing paint, long standing graffiti, makeshift repairs, broken windows, missing shingles and accumulating junk.  It starts, it grows, and it spreads until it renders a part or whole of a city dysfunctional.  We tend to blame it on abstract concepts like deindustrialization, depopulation, unemployment, fractured families, lack of manpower and political disenfranchisement.  Perhaps partially true but even if that is the case why don't we do anything about it?  The answer may be at the end of our arms.  That is to say, to take charge, to pitch in and to nip urban decay in the bud before it starts to take off.  And if it is already out of control then we not only have a right but also an obligation to fix it.  By whatever means.  That is what our Property Standards Department is for.  For that matter, chipping in with sweat equity is also a real pretty and cheap solution.

Controlling urban decay has a real payback for any community.  A fresh coat of paint and clean yard goes a long way to improving the overall optic of a city.  When we look good, we feel good and when we feel good about ourselves we go out of our way to promote continuous improvement.

So where do we start?  The first and most obvious place is at the top.  Our local politicians have to take inventory of their respective wards and they have to put an action plan into place.  Property Standards are set for a reason so there is no excuse for not enforcing them.  Citizens are an amazing resource.  A little bit of organization and good will goes a long way and in these parts we have proven that over and over.

So how do we start?  Once again we have to start at the top.  Our Mayor has to take ownership of his city.  Together with his council they can set the agenda and put some pretty quick wheels on such a project.  It's funny in one respect.  We voted these politicians in to serve us and our community in the best possible way.  That means that if we ask loud enough they should respond accordingly.  It also means that if they ask us in return to give them a helping hand with such a project then we can easily be there to help out.  So who's asking?

Here are but a few examples of Made in Windsor blight:

Click on images to enlarge.

Condemned and waiting for what?  Repairs?  Arson?

It starts here and it has to be ended here A.S.A.P.

Art in ownership.  Really?

Historical gem just sitting, rotting, doing nothing.

A whole row of decay.  It's been sitting in this condition for years.

Government planned blight.

Blight from an obvious source.

A closer look

Blight as a lifestyle?  Probably not.

The dish farm.  Easily controlled through Property Standards.

Some paint, flowers and tenants.  Why is this place sitting totally vacant?

Why is this allowed?

Planned blight in progress? 

Dish farm, decay, zero lot line. 

No rules in this place?  Dishes could go on the roof too.

The Dish farm.  They can all go on the roof.

A burned out Pita factory.  Its been sitting in this condition for years.  Why?

Pick a siding.  asbestos, bitumen, aluminum or corrugated steel?

Could this kind of Civic improvement be another municipal election platform?

 

Thinking About Wind Factories in our Lakes

The real and whole debate about wind turbines in our lakes is about to unfurl. The emotions about the technology and about alternative resources is thick. On one side we all want to live on a safer, cleaner, greener planet. It's easy for us, especially in lieu of all of the hype and promotion that is hurled our way from anxious politicians and profit hungry equipment manufacturers. We all want to believe. And we should. The real difficulty though in bringing this technology on is going to depend upon our own objectivity and clear judgement when it comes to deciding on the most viable and conscientious way to deliver and implement it. As always we have to do our own research in order to make the most responsible and future reaching choices. One thing that we do not want to do is to destroy one good thing to bring about another. Whats the sense in that.

Before us is a very important choice and we only get one shot at it so we have to get it right. We can continue to build land based wind farms that help stimulate local economies and do not draw the ire that the lake based factories do or we can buy into the Provincial governments hype to plant over 700 of them into Pigeon Bay and Lake St. Clair. There are only two reasons that the government wants to put them in these great lakes: This will be the first fresh water installation in the world that will create a large optic for Dalton McGuinty's government (do we really want to be their guinea pigs) and they do not have to pay royalties to land owners because they can plant them in crown based lake beds for free. If Southpoint wind and the provincial government are allowed to get away with this we will all have to live with the legacy for many years to come. It will be at the expense of our local ecology and our economic well being. Here are a couple of clips to start us along that path. Please review them very carefully:

Please take some extra time to learn about the pros and cons of offshore wind farming.

The WUC/Enwin Experiment Continues

Ken Lewenza Jr.  WUC Board, City Councillor

Click on images to enlarge

A few posts ago we examined a local billing experiment about Windsor's ever so compassionate and caring hydro and water  provider.  For several months a local resident usurped zero hydro electricity and zero water.  Consistently the bill from Enwin was over $50.00 per month despite this miserly consumption.  The bills were packed with penalties, strange fees and even sewer charges which is odd because if no water was consumed then none would leave in the drain pipes.  Well...The experiment continues.  Still no water is being consumed and still no hydro is being consumed and still no sewage leaves the premise.  Here is the latest hydro bill juxtaposed against the one we examined earlier: 

This is the bill we examined a few weeks ago.

This is the most current bill

Notice that the consumption is still exactly the same on both billings.  ZERO!  Now take a look at the total billing. 
In the span of one month we have gone from  $50 some odd dollars to $89.83!  One would think
that after Councillor Lewenza's admission that the billing practices of Enwin might need a bit of  re-jigging that this kind of "power pricing" would be at least kept in check.  There continues to be no rhyme or
reason to the WUC's billing practices.  Once again the bill is spiked with all kinds of curious surcharges
and fees.  It makes one totally anxious for the HST to kick in doesn't it? 

So here dear readers is another very real election issue that has to be dealt with.  Any politician; incumbent or not has to embrace it or he/she is not worth their salt.  What say you?