news-record.com

GREENSBORO — Protest could be in full flower tonight when the City Council considers pruning $400,000 in landscaping fees from the city budget.


Should landscaping be cut to save money? Join the discussion at the Debatables blog.


If the council goes ahead with the cut, Greensboro will take on a shaggy and dog-eared look at 70 spots that have been maintained nicely — and at moderate cost — by a private contractor, critics say.


"If you don't weed, it's going to look weedy. If you don't add mulch, it starts looking thin. If you don't edge ..." said Ann Steighner, vice chairwoman of the Greensboro Beautiful volunteer group. "It's going to be unkempt, messy and sloppy, and it won't send out the image we want to send as a community."


Representatives of Greensboro Beautiful will be at the council meeting this evening to urge the council to reconsider, she said.


The proposed cutback would affect beds of flowers, bushes and trees at nine city parks, three branch libraries, numerous recreation centers and all five "Welcome to Greensboro" signs along such major routes as U.S. 421, East Lee Street and Wendover Avenue.


Residents would notice the change as quickly as weeds can grow this summer; landscaping services would be trimmed July 1, the day the new budget is scheduled to take effect.


At least two council members are reconsidering. In recent interviews, Mayor Yvonne Johnson said she is willing to reopen the discussion, and council member Robbie Perkins said he is flatly opposed to the proposed cutback in landscaping.


The sites affected are located disproportionately in the city's less affluent areas, about two-thirds in districts 1 and 2 that encompass parts of town with more low-income residents.


Under the budget as it now stands, sites now maintained by Attayek Landscaping would be taken over by the city's in-house staff of four permanent and four temporary workers, said Dale Wyrick, director of the city Field Operations Department.


But the in-house crew already has its hands full landscaping such places as War Memorial Stadium, the city curb market and the Greensboro Cultural Center, he said.


"Obviously, if we did it completely, we would have to significantly cut the level of service," Wyrick said.


That could be an understatement. As it stands now, the budget would allow for:


* No fertilizing


* No additional planting


* No edging


* No leaf removal


* Pruning only if branches block drivers' field of vision


* Weeding once every two months instead of weekly


* Trash removal once a month, not weekly


* Half the mulch normally applied.


If the city reduced the contract to $200,000, it could maintain most of those privately provided services at current levels, except the mulching, Wyrick said.


Complete loss of the contract would be devastating for his small company, said Joe Attayek, who has been in business since 1985.


"We've already received a letter telling us," Attayek said of the proposed contract termination. "We're on pins and needles not knowing what to do."


He has held the city contract since 2002. He won it by offering to do the work for $100,000 less than the city could do it in-house, Attayek said.


Steighner said that Greensboro Beautiful applauds the council for its effort to avoid a tax increase, but giving a slovenly look to the city's public spaces is not the way to go.


Unless the city intends to adopt a permanently disheveled look, the council will end up costing taxpayers much more in the long run by re-creating the current landscaping after it has gone to pot, Attayek said.


"It's going to cost them two, three, four times as much as if they had just maintained it," he said.

Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or taft.wireback@news-record.com