Less whining, more doing

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/07/2024 (552 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I get letters, emails and phone calls from readers, and the top issue I am hearing about from people all over the city is the seedy condition of Brandon.

I’ve received plenty of complaints about unmowed boulevards, especially on Victoria and Richmond avenues. There has been no shortage of complaints about litter and other garbage on streets, yards and back lanes.

There are plenty of complaints about potholes, broken curbs and sidewalks, along with piles of pea gravel on roads, apparently left over since the winter pothole epidemic.

I hear about broken tree branches and unkempt hedges that are blocking sidewalks, and also about the massive weeds that are growing on public and private property throughout the city.

And, of course, I get plenty of complaints about the deep potholes and long crevasses that have appeared on so many streets, damaging so many vehicles.

I’m not sure why I receive so many complaints from so many readers, but I suspect it’s because they believe they have nobody else to complain to. Many of them say they contacted the city regarding the problem, but it either wasn’t fixed or it returned days after it was supposedly fixed — unmowed boulevards, for example.

While some might dismiss the complaints as the constant griping of a small fraction of the city’s population, at least those people care enough about the state of their city to write an email or pick up the phone. That’s better than the many others who tell me they couldn’t care less about the condition of their city and neighbourhood.

Having said all that, my response to the complaints I receive usually begins with me asking what they want me to do about the problem they are describing. They usually say they want me to write about the problem, presumably in order to embarrass or shame either the city or province to “get out there” and cut the grass, fill the potholes, clean up the garbage, fix the broken curbs and sidewalks, take the broken tree branch to the dump, kill weeds, trim the hedge, unplug the clogged sewer grates or just generally make the problem go away once and for all.

Depending on the nature of the problem, I often respond with these questions: “Is there something you can do to fix the problem? Does the city really need to send a work crew to fix something that you could fix in five minutes or less? The response to those questions usually goes something like this: “I pay taxes. Why should I do it?”

And, as a mechanic once said to me, “there’s your trouble.”

Many of us are caught in the trap of expecting others to do things that we can do ourselves, at negligible cost in terms of time and/or money. If storm sewers on your street are often clogged after big rainstorms, causing huge puddles, is it really so hard to get a rake and put the stuff that is blocking the drain into your garbage bin? It would take you less than five minutes to do the job, and your neighbours would appreciate it.

If the grass on a nearby boulevard is getting too long, have you considered taking an extra 10 minutes after mowing your own lawn to also mow the boulevard? Instead of complaining about a nearby property that has tall grass, have you thought of asking the neighbour if you could cut the lawn for them? Maybe their lawnmower doesn’t work, or maybe they have a health issue that is preventing them from doing the job.

If there’s litter on your street or back lane, how hard would it be to put on a pair of gloves, rake it up and put it your bin? How much time would that take, compared to how much better things would look?

Sure, we can huff and puff that it’s the city’s job to do all that, and that’s what our property taxes pay for. But, really, are you willing to pay even higher property taxes so that the city can hire even more staff to do stuff that we can easily do ourselves?

Years ago, when I attended Dalhousie University Law School in Halifax, I would often read the Halifax Chronicle-Herald. At the bottom of the editorial page of each day’s edition there was this question in large, bold print: What have you done today for Nova Scotia?

I’ll ask the obvious question: What have we done today for Brandon? What are we doing to make our city safer, cleaner and a more enjoyable place to live?

We can either be part of the complaints department, and get nothing accomplished, or we can join many others who are already doing their part to make things better. We can take steps to solve problems, or we can whine while we wait (and wait and wait) for others to do the job for us.

The choice is ours.