Without preamble, we refer to the celebration of the 10th Anniversary of Groundwork/Comcast Cares Day, held last Saturday, May 4 this year.
It is clear that we appreciate the efforts of both organizations, which by mobilizing hundreds of volunteers help us clean up our city momentarily.
And that’s where we have a problem. We feel shame that for 10 years we have not been able to clean and keep our city clean, needing people of good will, some traveling from other cities, to help us getting it done.
We chatted with them and took photos of some of the volunteers at the Riverfront State Park located on Rowe Street, in front of the bags full of leaves they had collected. Next to them, there were two mattresses and a TV monitor, a spectacle so common in Lawrence. Embarrassed, we apologize to them, thinking that they were cleaning such a beautiful park that someone is using as their personal trash can. They were very discreet; they did not comment.
Generally speaking, leaves and garbage accumulate in the fences that surround parks. For this, more volunteers were needed or more time than 4 hours to do the job; even better, enough DPW workers to keep them clean.
According to information received from Carlos Jaquez, DPW Director of Lawrence, our city has 17 workers; 8 of them to clean the streets and 9 are responsible for the parks. When asked what would be the ideal number of employees, he answered by comparing his department with that of Lowell, MA. According to Jaquez, Lowell has 27 workers for street cleaning and another 27 for parks, so we have a deficit of 19 workers for the streets and 18 for the parks.
Given this answer, we assume that the ideal number of employees to have in Lawrence, if not as many as Lowell which is a larger city, at least a little more than what we have. Don’t you think?
But that’s where our shameless mayor comes in. Did you see him dancing of joy, on the Bernstein stage, on cleaning day?
During all these years we have taken pictures of the volunteers gathered in the circle in front of the Bernstein stage listening to the motivators, comparing them, every year there are less and less. This is a sign that even volunteers get tired.
Groundwork Lawrence does a great job with the children of the schools by instilling the importance of agricultural crops in addition to having their hands full with the annual cleaning of the Spicket River.
In our opinion, cleaning up the Spicket River is a necessary task, keeping the city clean, as well as the responsibility of caring for and cleaning the parks, should fall on the CEO of our city. With the money (our money) which he has spent on legal demands and economically favoring his favorite people, we could have more than enough workers in DPW for the cleaning and maintenance of the city, as well as inspectors to watch and punish those who messes it up.
