Lawn care limbo
Peduto fails to deliver on promised grass- cutting
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. It’s an easy adage to recite but a hard one to adhere to. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto is proving that.
For two years in a row, Mr. Peduto’s administration promised some of our most cash- strapped residents they would be helped with a routine maintenance task — a hurdle too high to clear for some homeowners either because of the physical demands of the task or the cost of hiring someone to perform it. The task is grass cutting.
Free grass cutting between May and October was offered to some 1,000 veterans or elderly or disabled residents who asked for the help and were deemed as qualifying. But it is August and some of the participants’ yards have yet to come in contact with a city lawnmower. The promise: grass cutting once every two weeks between May and October, weather permitting.
A promise unkept is worse than a promise that was never made. People expecting help — people who have peeked from their window curtains day after day to see signs of activity, only to be disappointed time and again and again — are more than just frustrated. They’re betrayed.
The City Cuts program, which was initiated last summer by the city’s Office for Community Affairs, had similar problems with follow- through last year.
Mr. Peduto’s spokesman points to the “weather- permitting” caveat in the promise, contending the problem has been the season’s rainfall.
Yes, there has been higher- thanusual rainfall for the Pittsburgh area. That was confirmed by a meteorologist with the National
Weather Service at Pittsburgh. But the same meteorologist said there have been 36 days completely without rain since May. Those dates were May 1, 6, 7, 8, 15, 24, 27, and 31; June 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 22, 23, 25, 26, 28, and 30; and July 1, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 25, 26, 27, 28 and 29. And the same meteorologist ( who lives in the region) said he has been able to cut his own grass at least once a week since April and most often twice a week.
In 2018, the pilot year for the program, the same kind of problem surfaced. Grass cutting didn’t begin until August. Yet, according to the meteorologist, there were 12 rain- free days in May, 14 in June and 16 in July.
There is no doubt that the City Cuts program has noble aspirations and the city is to be commended for attempting to look out for its neediest residents. But aspirations aren’t substitutes for accomplishments. There is a flaw in the program that goes beyond the vagaries of Mother Nature. The bright minds of city hall should be able to collectively spark a solution.