Since starting this blog, I've had a range of comments and emails from people across Canada Bay. Most are supportive, but some come right out of left field. Take this one for instance, in response to a post of mine about smashed up bus shelters near Five Dock Park (I have left the spelling and punctuation as it was posted):
do you seriously have no life?
of course there are some problems within the park and as a local resident i think the council does a fine job. you really cant expect them to respond imediately to your every little insignificant report of yours when there are definately more pressing issues for them to attend to.
the park gets regularly cleaned of graffiti and the rubbish around is usually picked up within a few days.
if you dont want your kids to 'frolick' in such an environment, dont take them there! its as simple as that. even better why dont you clean everything yourself, you have as much of a responsiblity to do it as the council does and all you seem to be doing is complaining to them and anyone who will listen about the state of the park and the way it is handled.
do you seriously have no life?
Actually, I have a very nice life. The point I have been trying to make here for the last 9 months is that doing this sort of stuff does not take much time - no more than a few minutes per day at most. If you can't be bothered reporting something because you are worried it will take hours, all I can say is relax, it won't. Just have a go. Even if it does take an hour the first time, what is more fulfilling - seeing your local park tidied up, or watching an episode of the Bold and the Beautiful?
of course there are some problems within the park and as a local resident i think the council does a fine job. you really cant expect them to respond imediately to your every little insignificant report of yours when there are definately more pressing issues for them to attend to.
I think Council does a fine job too, and I've told them that quite a few times. I don't expect them to respond immediately to things like rubbish in a park, but I do expect a quick response when there is a clear safety hazard in a public space - such as a huge slab of broken glass on the footpath. When I contacted Council the next morning (when they opened for business), they saw it as a serious problem and took care of it immediately. I didn't tell them to do that - they figured that out for themselves.
As for more pressing issues to attend to, kindly list what you think they are and we can debate them.
the park gets regularly cleaned of graffiti and the rubbish around is usually picked up within a few days.
The only reason the park is regularly cleaned of graffiti is because residents report it to Council, which is what this blog is all about - don't sit back and think that Council will magically find out about it - report it yourself. Council do not send the graffiti truck to the park every Monday morning to remove graffiti because that's just what they do - they send the graffiti truck in response to a report by a resident. If no reports come in, then the truck doesn't get sent. Simple.
if you dont want your kids to 'frolick' in such an environment, dont take them there! its as simple as that. even better why dont you clean everything yourself, you have as much of a responsiblity to do it as the council does and all you seem to be doing is complaining to them and anyone who will listen about the state of the park and the way it is handled.
'Frolic' is not spelt with a 'k'.
As for not taking my kids there, it's a public park, and we residents pay our rates and charges to ensure that it is maintained in a safe and suitable condition. Our rates pay for gardeners and so forth to mow the grass, trim the trees, weed the flower beds, plant new flowers each year and maintain the furniture and fittings in good order (such as painting or mending the park benches every few years etc). Unfortunately, they also have to spend some of their time picking up rubbish that other people couldn't be bothered taking to a nearby bin, or fixing fittings that have been maliciously and deliberately wrecked by other people.
I am quite happy to help out with keeping the park in good order, and I chased up Council last year to see what they were doing about forming a "Friends of Five Dock Park" group, which is part of their anti-graffiti strategy.
I don't really get the rest of your point. I am not "complaining" to Council - I am simply passing on information to them. We had a councillor drop by for a drink tonight, and he said that he is always copping complaints from residents who want to know why such-and-such a problem has not been attended to, and when he asks, "Well, have you reported it?", the answer is generally, "You should have known about it and fixed it by now!"
Tell me this - how on earth is Council supposed to find out a problem exists if no one tells them about it? I bet this is a common refrain that you'd hear from members of councils right across this country - there are always those who expect others to do something for them, but never both to tell them what needs doing. They're just looking for an excuse to complain, to vent, to take out their frustrations on others.
It's like the old saying - "If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" My take on it is this - "If a graffiti tag is sprayed on a park bench, and no one reports it to Council, does it actually exist?"
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I took this photo today of a quiet street near Neild Park. The lawns and verges are all nearly trimmed, the gardens are beautiful and the road side trees all looked well cared for. In Canada Bay, we have to mow our own verges (Leichhardt Council for instance mows the verges in their area, and badly if you ask me), so this pretty street scape looks this way due to the individual efforts of all the residents.
No one has to tell them to maintain their gardens and mow their verges and sweep their footpaths - they do it because they have pride in their homes and in the street. You could view this as an example of spontaneous order in action.
I took this photo to demonstrate the different mindsets that people have - the residents of this street go out of their way to make it a pleasant place to live. The person who left the comment above clearly has different ideas about how we should manage our affairs.
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