Scarborough councillors on
the city's works committee have coaxed another $500,000 into
the city's operating budget to deal with the former city's
"crack" problem.
"When we talk about a crack problem in Scarborough, we're
talking about the middle of the sidewalks," said Ward 39
Councillor Mike Del Grande (Scarborough-Agincourt). "The
cracks are wide enough that you need a lawnmower to clear
the grass growing up between."
Del Grande and other councillors on the works committee
managed to reverse a staff recommendation to put off
spending a half million dollars to bring street cleaning and
sidewalk repair rates up to the same level as exist in the
rest of the city.
The operating budget had been pared down prior to coming
to the works committee, to help the city deal with its $500
million deficit going into 2006 - and among the things that
didn't show up in it was the $500,000 that it would take to
deal with a backlog of sidewalk repairs and lacklustre
street cleaning in the east end.
Transportation services general manager Gary Welsh said
the backlog of sidewalk repairs could be dealt with in the
city's capital program, which was enhanced late last year to
construct $10 million worth of new sidewalks.
And the city is undergoing a service review to equalize
among other things street cleaning across the city.
Currently, for example, street sweepers visit streets in
downtown Toronto on average once every one or two weeks. In
Scarborough, it's once a month.
Ward 35 Councillor Gerry Altobello (Scarborough
Southwest) finally put forward a motion to put the cost of
equalizing those services back in the budget: $200,000 for
sidewalk repair and $300,000 for street sweeping.
"Basically it's for bringing Scarborough up to what's
happening in the rest of Toronto," he said. "Scarborough was
getting a lower standard of cleaning on the street than the
rest of the city. I think we need the same standard of
street cleaning as the rest of the city."