I do not write the rules. I just play the game. [Cleanup Dept.]

For twenty years now the City has been funding District Councils to conduct district cleanups in spring and/or autumn. While some neighborhoods had operated cleanups with money raised in other matters, a moderate winter had left the city with money unspent on snow plowing and authorized a round of cleanups. These early cleanups were done with one-time money. Funding for future years was neither assured nor reasonable assumed. Of course, after a few years of one-time money, District Councils started to think of it as an entitlement and indeed it has become one in fact, if not in theory.

I helped plan and worked on the first Payne/Phalen cleanup in October 1987 and was the District Council president when what was probably the biggest cleanup in the city’s history took place the next autumn – a combined District 2-Distirct 5- Ramsey County Hazardous Waste Cleanup was held in the outer parking of the Phalen Shopping Center parking lot. Traffic was tied up for a mile or so in several directions. I’ve worked on many since, partly because my district runs them twice a year. I haven’t been involved in the planning, just in the doing, but I have great respect for those who put these things together.

And I acknowledge that properly done they do allow for a lot of “community building” and do get a lot of stuff out of the neighborhoods.

But I still wonder if this is the best way to go about things.

And for what it's worth to anybody reading this, this next Saturday [10/13] there is a combined cleanup for Highland Park and Macalester-Groveland and one for Payne/Phalen. The relevant cleanups probably need volunteers and clients. I imagine that you can contact the relevant District Councils.