Toronto Wellesley on the Park | 194.15m | 60s | Lanterra | KPMB

Northern Light said:
It is; I agree.

Some of that is self-inflicted too.

But it does need to be said, that some of the reorganizations imposed on parks over the years, along with budget cuts/freezes as far back as amalgamation......have also left Parks hard pressed to execute properly.

I don't want to go too far into the weeds on a tangent, but I'll offer a couple of observations

1) There used to be a lot more empowered parks supervisors, (direct operational management) and they used to have a lot more year-round, properly trained support staff who could do things.

Typically a Parks supervisor had 1 or 2 forepeople who usually had carpentry skills, could handle a backhoe, paint and do minor handy work of all sorts, they also had direct control of their seasonal staff who mowed lawns, did weeds,
handled garbage/litter removal and odd jobs.

Today there are many fewer parks supervisors, with much larger parks, disconnecting them from direct day-to-day performance.

Most no longer have forepeople at all.

2)

Parks centralized all carpentry staff
Parks creating 'flying teams' for litter removal and lawn mowing that handle lots of different parks over much larger areas.
Parks lost control of waste removal - hence our ugly garbage cans when that was shifted to waste management.
Parks has many fewer lawn mowers, despite more parks; because
a) Parks cut one mowing per year from the cycle
b) Parks lost responsibility for mowing the boulevards on City Roads (all contracted out now)
c) Because Parks has lost so many functions, Yards have been consolidated; meaning operations equipment is now further from the parks it serves (increased dead head time) and there is less equipment and fewer personnel

Most Parks no longer have staff based out of them; there are a few notable exceptions for signature parks like High Park, and Thomson Park etc etc. But most park washrooms buildings use to have small offices in them where seasonal staff were based day to day, now most of those are locked and empty.

3) When horticulture was centralized (flower bed and formal landscape maintenance by professional gardeners) the staff was also cut back, and many planting beds were eliminated or converted to perennials.
Additionally, with centralization staff are less connected to local displays and upkeep issues.

Horticulture can't afford to maintain the beds they have.

Many/most beds have lost 'seasonal' displays outside of summer. University Avenue, for instance used to get an early spring display with pansies/tulips then a summer display, then a fall one. Today, its one and done.

4) Staff turnover is high in many parts of the department despite comparatively decent wages. There is too much box-checking, bureaucracy, and too many people stuck doing boring, repetitive work (lawn mowing only, can't do garbage, flowers or benches) and that drives attrition, which means a lack of experience.

5) Many staff in management/planning positions lack the requisite experience/training for their jobs. They often have university in a largely unrelated degrees (say environmental studies) which doesn't actually
teach you forestry, wetland restoration, horticulture, lawn maintenance, landscape architecture, etc etc.

6) Due to contracting out the City has lost a lot of flexibility, the City, for instance used to have a lot more working greenhouses in which they grew their own plants/flowers. Today, they have far fewer. This is the sort
of thing where staff used to be in a position to fix things in-house; we need to fix a bench, send the foreperson; we need to weed that flower bed, send horticulture and it was easy, just a phone call or a direct order from a
Parks Supervisor........today, its paperwork, delays and 'sorry, we have no spare people or plants or aren't allowed to do that'

****

Whoops, I got on a bit of rant...............LOL.....

Sorry, back on topic!
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Perhaps electing a progressive mayor who isn't low-property-tax-obsessed could be a solution ;)
 
Towered said:
Perhaps electing a progressive mayor who isn't low-property-tax-obsessed could be a solution ;)
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That, and appointing a City Manager who likes to be held accountable, is highly competent, affable, but demanding.........

I wonder if Andy Byford is tired of London, yet?
 
Northern Light said:
That, and appointing a City Manager who likes to be held accountable, is highly competent, affable, but demanding.........

I wonder if Andy Byford is tired of London, yet?
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I miss Andy a lot, but I fear that's wishful thinking! He left for a reason, and I doubt he'd want to get back on the persistently frustrating merry-go-round experience of dealing with local politics...
 
Towered said:
I miss Andy a lot, but I fear that's wishful thinking! He left for a reason, and I doubt he'd want to get back on the persistently frustrating merry-go-round experience of dealing with local politics...
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He faces that everywhere.

He got fired in New York City by the Governor, despite being immensely popular with the public (they gave him the nickname 'train daddy') ... because the Governor wanted to micro manage who got what contracts and which projects
moved forward.

Now he's in London, but TfL has been in an unholy financial mess, only in part due to Covid......

The man thrives on challenge.
 
Northern Light said:
He faces that everywhere.

He got fired in New York City by the Governor, despite being immensely popular with the public (they gave him the nickname 'train daddy') ... because the Governor wanted to micro manage who got what contracts and which projects
moved forward.

Now he's in London, but TfL has been in an unholy financial mess, only in part due to Covid......

The man thrives on challenge.
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Byford wasn't fired in New York, he quit …because the Governor wanted to micro manage who got what contracts and which projects moved forward — that part's right.

42
 
interchange42 said:
Byford wasn't fired in New York, he quit …because the Governor wanted to micro manage who got what contracts and which projects moved forward — that part's right.

42
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Well...........yes...but....

If you read Andy Byford's resignation letter, which was made public, he alleges constructive dismissal by the Governor.


Key bit:

1655236811902.png


Andy was removed entirely from capital projects and transformative operational projects through maneuvering by the Governor.

Fair enough to point out that he did formally decline to continue on in a position that was Agency President in name only.
 
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Northern Light said:
Completely and utterly shameful.
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What really annoy me is the gobbledygook response and the hypocrisy of councilors touting the need for green space downtown while allowing bureaucracy to delay opening of parks that are already finished. This is not the first time it happened - just a couple of years ago, the parkette by St Joseph just around the corner was also fenced off forever before it finally opened.
 
greenleaf said:
Fences down, lawnmowers running.

View attachment 429723

Bay Cloverhill neighbourhood, one of the densest in Canada, is getting its first public playground.
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Woohoo! And they only missed their twice revised deadline of getting it open by summer by a few days! LOL
 
When is the official opening? No doubt local bigwigs will brag about their roles in bringing the park into fruition (just in time for municipal elections), while keeping mum on the bureaucracy that kept the finished park fenced off for almost a year.
 
Rascacielo said:
When is the official opening? No doubt local bigwigs will brag about their roles in bringing the park into fruition (just in time for municipal elections), while keeping mum on the bureaucracy that kept the finished park fenced off for almost a year.
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Good question, in general, the bureaucracy is under election rules, keeping announcements to a minimum so as not to be seen as interfering in the election.

This, oddly, does not seem to be impacting the mayor much.............but I digress.
 
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