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This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC |
Our New Nature Strip Program
After a frustrating Saturday with the bank continually timing me out, I spent Sunday morning helping a neighbour remove 2m high blackberries from the nature strip. I must say our local council has hit on a genius way to do less with more.
Must have gotten the idea from the self -checkouts at the supermarkets. We do all the work and they still charge us the same or in this case, $300 a year more.
The council has now made residents responsible for nature strips near their homes which they claim will save around $200,000 a year. Though they promise to do more about roadside verges and roundabouts and the presentation of streets, it does have me wondering what they’ll think of next. Will we soon have to fill our own potholes or replace the globes in streetlights and be charged extra for that as well? We’ll wait and see. So long as it isn’t for other frivolous purchases such as that $35,000 metal Christmas tree or that hideous $300,000 sculpture they’ve put up at Lower Sandy Bay.
I’m all for
supporting the Arts, but when I first saw this, it had that trendy freshly rusted look which made it look like someone had left the hard rubbish out and
no one had collected it. Since then the top sections have been replaced with bright shiny ones, which at least makes it look like new rubbish bins stacked on top of one another.
The New Logo
Oh yes, we also paid a lot for the City’s new Logo. The old one was fine – it showed our magnificent and distinctive Bridge. Now for $207, 500 we’ve got a funny bit of paper weaving one of my granddaughters would have given them for free or maybe the cost of an ice cream. Some called it a Band-Aid solution
It reminds me of another Tasmanian Council I was once attached to. It hired a well - known and very respected artist to come up with a new logo. He opted to use the river as a symbol which looked remarkably like a part of the large intestine. Thankfully it was soon abandoned, but not before a lot of money had been spent. Feel much the same about Elon's new X replacing the little blue bird for Twitter - so easily recognised and generally welcome, whereas x could stand for anything and indeed often does in Maths.
Meanwhile, councils should stop trying to be so clever and get back to some of their core business. Yes, we expect our councils to do more than roads and rubbish – tree planting and a few social programs are nice, and we can only dream about cheap and abundant public transport and weatherproof bus shelters and the like. Even a bit of artwork here and there would be OK if chosen by someone with a bit of taste, but at a time when everyone is doing it tough, could they please show a little restraint.
On the other hand, perhaps I should just keep quiet, get rid of the cobwebs on our rarely used firepit and offer it up to the council as an Art Installation. How much do you think I should ask? Just have to think up a catchy name."Desuetude" and "Entropy" spring to mind, or " extinction" perhaps.
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PS In a belated bit of good news, I just read that France is making it compulsory for all parking lots for over 80 cars to be covered with solar panels. This is expected to generate around 11 GWs of renewable energy or the equivalent of 10 nuclear power stations.
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