Local media continued….

Deniz Bevan nominates the bus stop between Westmore and Patricia Aves. for "the mysterious nature of its filth."

"Every couple of weeks, or as long as it takes for the first to be cleared and the second to appear, there is a smashed watermelon on the sidewalk to the right of the bus shelter. The seeds scatter all around and the red insides are blown about almost as far as the next corner. The stain lingers on the sidewalk for days, is crushed by cars and pedestrians, washed by rain and, just when you think it's over - there is another one, smashed again!"

Paula McKeown writes that Montreal Transit Corp. bus shelters are "rarely cleaned and often are ankle-deep in half-eaten food, cartons, paper bags, soft drink cans and bottles."

Elaine Herold, who has "the chutzpah to reprimand strangers when I see them spitting or throwing stuff on the streets and public places when there are garbage cans right under their noses," is training for a marathon walk and sees garbage everywhere she directs her feet.

"I don't believe we can blame the city entirely," Herold added in her e-mail. "Citizens have become irresponsible and indifferent about their garbage."

The ubiquity of grunge and depth of despair recall a great line from the Pogo comic strip: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

And the magnitude of the problem raises Lenin's eternal question: What is to be done?

"A few months ago, there was a statement from the mayor's office that we should all do more to clean the city," Alex Ambroziak wrote. "Honestly, this was insulting to myself and a lot of people I know. We are constantly cleaning the streets we live on and love because it seems nobody else does anymore."

Ronit Yarosky wrote to Mayor Gerald Tremblay asking for a refund of the portion of her taxes that pays for clearing snow off the sidewalks of her street and cleaning her back alley.

While Yarosky awaits her tax rebate, Brenda Henry suggests a corporate-sponsored paper chase.

"Let's get together and clean up our city," she wrote. "I picture groups of people tackling the trash and the city following up with stricter rules, fines, manpower and enforcement.

"Here's a chance for some big- box corporation to look good for a change. Anyone want to pay $10 an hour, provide gloves, boots and poker sticks?"

mboone@thegazette.canwest.com

Residents slam C.D.N./N.D.G. cleanup blitz

By Diodora Bucur, The Suburban

Despite the C.D.N./N.D.G. borough’s draconian new law punishing property owners for litter on their land, N.D.G. resident Tom Snabl predicts trash will pile up on his Madison Ave. property for up to three weeks before garbage is collected or bins are emptied.

“Lawns, walkways, driveways, and sometimes even fenced-in backyards, [are] littered with empty pop glasses, bottles, juice boxes, plastic knives, forks and spoons, paper and plastic and paper plates still covered with poutine,” wrote Snabl in an open letter to city officials. “Not only is this filth unsightly, it has also become a serious health problem.”

The letter landed on the desks of borough officials less than a week after they kicked off a $300,000 cleanup campaign, including a pledge to enforce the new anti-dumping bylaws making landlords responsible for cleaning up their properties.

Snabl slammed the cleanliness campaign, saying it only serves political ends.

“This cleanliness campaign is a whole lot of crap that [C.D.N./N.D.G. chairman Michael] Applebaum has been fueling for the last two years,” said Snabl.

But Applebaum insists the cleanliness campaign works. “The campaign is supported by 93 percent of residents, who are in favour of stricter measures,” he said. “If we see that commercial streets have more garbage, we will place more garbage cans.”

“The cleanliness campaign carries some benefits,” agrees C.D.N./N.D.G. megacity councilor Jeremy Searle. But he said his Loyola district falls short of garbage bins. “You need 90 bins just for the commercial Sherbrooke St.”  

There are 637 trash cans in the borough, including 300 in parks and another 40 that are removed in winter to allow snow-clearing operations.

Côte des Neiges Residents’ Association president Alex Montagano says streets are filthy because city officials fail to do their jobs, not because there are not enough garbage bins.

“It’s not a question of whether there are enough garbage cans, it’s a question of streets being dirty — something needs to be done,” said Montagano, whose criticism of the borough’s cleanup efforts brought garbage inspectors out in force last Thursday — to issue 22 tickets fining the association $2,110 for distributing flyers.

Montagano is demanding an explanation why the borough failed to collect large items last Thursday.

“Can the city explain to me how is it that they are expecting people to be responsible and put out garbage at the appropriate time and day and they don’t even send their trucks to pick up [garbage] the day they said they would?” he wondered.

Borough spokeswoman Karine Massé confirmed the pickup was delayed, saying trucks broke down. 

MICU a no-show at CDN town hall

By P. A. Sévigny, The Suburban

The advance publicity for last Thursday’s Côte des Neiges/N.D.G. town hall meeting gave the impression that all four mayoral candidates, including incumbent Gérald Tremblay, would be participating.

But the nearly 350 people gathered in the basement of St. Kevin’s Church had to content themselves with appearances by those challenging for Tremblay’s job, including former Montreal mayor Pierre Bourque, Loyola district councillor Jeremy Searle and Projet Montréal’s Richard Bergeron.

Chaired by Eric Abitbol of Concordia University’s Institute of Community Development, the town hall format allowed each candidate 10 minutes to present his platform after which the floor would be given over to the audience.

Bourque used his 10 minutes to explain how the Tremblay administration had mismanaged and under-financed the borough ever since they came into power. He described how Ville St. Laurent, with half the population of C.D.N./N.D.G. gets $800 per citizen, compared to the per capita allotment of $365 per person in C.D.N./N.D.G. He also pointed out how there was one city worker per 146 people in Ville St. Laurent as compared to one city worker per 365 people in C.D.N./N.D.G.

“This borough has one of the smallest budgets in the entire city,” said Bourque. “No wonder its roads are in terrible shape…this must change.”

While candidate Jeremy Searle agreed with Bourque that the borough was being cheated of its fair share of tax revenue, he also believes that Bourque was not going far enough.

“This borough contributes the second largest amount of tax income to the city,” he said, “…and we’re the ones who get the least back from the city.”

Richard Bergeron’s Projet Montréal is pushing for a radical new plan for the city’s urban development plan.

Bergeron believes the suburbs are sucking the economic life out of the city. Billions of dollars worth of suburban real estate development and transportation infrastructure are effectively turning the city into an urban wasteland, he charged. If elected, he told the crowd that he would immediately reduce the price of a monthly transit pass to $41. He would also put the brakes on real estate speculation by having all the city’s residential leases legally registered.

While Gilles Berger, borough chairman Michael Applebaum’s political attaché was seen at the event, neither Applebaum nor any of the district’s five Montreal Island Citizens Union (MICU) councillors attended the meeting. Organizers with the Côte des Neiges Residents Association complained that Montreal’s Mayor Gérald Tremblay did not even bother to reply to their invitation.

Participant Martin Verreault said he couldn’t believe the mayor or the MICU were no-shows at the widely publicized event.

“The gun has gone off, the race is on, and Tremblay’s people can’t even find the starting line.” 

2005-05-25 09:45:22

Traffic complaints hit council

Borough News

By Diodora Bucur

C.D.N./N.D.G. resident Kees Maas says the traffic light at the corner of Côte St. Luc Road and Earnscliffe Ave. is a security hazard.

Maas was among several residents who complained about traffic at last week’s borough council meeting.

“There is not enough time to cross the street,” said Maas, speaking on behalf of two concerned families whose kids go to the nearby International School. “When our children return home from school, they have about nine seconds to get to the median, which is obviously dangerous also for seniors and the handicapped.” .

Snowdon resident Fernande Brown says the intersection at Victoria Ave. and Côte Ste. Catherine Rd. is also perilous. While Police Station 25 confirms they received at least 40 traffic complaints in the area and ran two radar operations last month, they concluded that motorists tend to disregard the red traffic light at that intersection, but do not necessarily speed.
Further east in the borough, Lacombe Ave. resident Alex Montagano is circulating a petition with 85 signatures  calling for traffic calming solutions. He claims the borough fails to enforce traffic regulations in his area.  

“Lacombe Ave. and Édouard Montpetit Blvd. are now being used as thoroughfares to access Côte des Neiges Rd. It’s unacceptable. They’re residential streets; why is this not being stopped?” Montagano asked the council. He added that in the last municipal election, both C.D.N./N.D.G. chairman Michael Applebaum and C.D.N./N.D.G. megacity councillor Marvin Rotrand promised to reduce the speed limit on residential streets to 40 kilometres.

Said Rotrand: “The speed limit in Snowdon and in Côte des Neiges is 40 kph, the rest of the borough is 50 kph. One of the things with traffic is diversity of opinion, one man’s solution is somebody else’s horror story, one person getting the traffic off their street often has a counter reaction on the other street.”

Rotrand added traffic problems are not solved overnight. The borough has recently adopted a policy setting up residents’ committees with the mandate to find solutions to traffic problems. 

2004-06-17 14:12:26

Litter builds despite campaign

C.D.N./N.D.G. residents say a number of streets in the borough remain dirty despite the litter-awareness campaign borough officials launched last year.

At this month’s borough meeting, Kristina Boudaeva criticized the borough for failing to clean up the commercial strip on Victoria Ave., between Queen Mary Rd. and Jean Talon St.

“Garbage is there all year round and is disgusting... Why is it that in the areas like Outremont and Westmount where there are a lot of people shopping, they don’t have this problem?,” Boudaeva asked the council.

If C.D.N./N.D.G. streets are dirtier than Westmount’s it is because C.D.N./N.D.G. is poorer, said megacity executive vice-chairwoman Francine Senécal.

“We don’t have the budget to give the same kind of services. The budget we receive in Côte des Neiges is not high enough to give these services,” she said.

Boudaeva also added city inspectors fail to enforce garbage rules on Victoria Ave.

“Nothing is done to clean sidewalks... that are shared by the public.”

Said C.D.N./N.D.G. opposition megacity councillor Saulie Zajdel: “Some storekeepers, unfortunately, are not as careful as they should be. People don’t respect our bylaw and we don’t have enough inspectors,” he said. “Garbage is collected everyday Monday to Friday, not just twice a week as it used to be many years ago.”

Other residents like Madelaine Soos said the borough fails to remove discarded furniture. Officials acknowledged the problem, but blamed it on the blue collars who walked off their jobs early this summer, forcing a delay in garbage collection.

Meanwhile, Lacombe Ave. resident Alex Montagano called for the revitalization of commercial areas like Queen Mary Rd.

“In 1996, as much as $1 million was to be put into Queen Mary Rd. between Clanranald and Lemieux avenues,” he said. 

2004-08-18 11:48:57

CDN/NDG chalks up surplus

The C.D.N./N.D.G. borough is wrapping up the fiscal year with a $167,000 surplus, according to a financial report released last week.

The report also claims that most of the $52.7 million expenditure budget went into street repairs, including 7,813 tonnes of asphalt and 7,400 metres of sidewalks.

The borough also picked up 45,107 tonnes of trash and put more than 14,500 hours into cleaning up streets and parks.

But the figures did not sway Lacombe Ave. resident Alex Montagano, who said many of the borough streets remain dirty.

In the past, borough officials blamed the problem on insufficient funds they receive from the central city, a claim, Montagano says, is an attempt by the council to “deflect blame and responsibility onto others.”

“I’ve heard some city officials blame the problem on the fact that Côte des Neiges had a lot of new arrivals, which is a terrible thing to say,” he told the C.D.N./N.D.G. council last week.

“My wife and I sent a registered letter to Mayor Gérald Tremblay asking..., ‘why is it that the streets and parks of the most populous borough remain chronically dirty?’ In response the mayor said, ‘elected officials have the power to decide priorities on the local level’,” Montagano continued. “Can you tell me why this is not a priority?”

Said C.D.N./N.D.G. chairman Michael Applebaum: “When we talk about cleanliness, I can tell you that it is a priority and that we’ve been investing over $125,000 per year extra in order to clean up our commercial, residential and industrial areas,” he said. “We are talking about $225,000 extra per year that we have invested over the last three years out of a budget of $850,000 increase.”

Applebaum says residents who break cleanliness bylaws should also take part of the blame.

“Citizens are the ones who put out the garbage, citizens are the ones who are dirtying our community.” 

2004-09-15 11:02:25

Local Media Continued...