Not long ago, I got a message from a reader. The essence of it went like this:. If you had your way, what would you do about it? As we celebrate Earth Day events in Onondaga County, this seems a good time for my answer:. In the first five minutes, I would appoint a new and meaningful beautification committee, with representatives from Onondaga County, Syracuse and the region.
I would fill it with such citizens as Syracuse Realtor Joe Nastri and Kevin Sullivan, a downtown banker, citizens who detest garbage and trash along our roads. Then I would tell them: You are the voice for anyone sick of littered streets. We encourage you to be noisy and persistent. They would have their own Web site for reporting trouble spots, a Web site open to citizens across Central New York.
The Interstate 81 exit ramp from Cicero is a mess? Or the shoulder of Burnet Avenue, near Interstate , in Syracuse?
Every year, in February, I would bring public works administrators from the state and from local municipalities to the same table. In Onondaga County, particularly, I would make sure those officials thoroughly talked out specific obligations, so trouble spots on jurisdictional borders - say, the West Street access ramps to I in Syracuse - would get cleaned, regularly, by someone.
Tony Ilacqua, a state Department of Transportation spokesman in Syracuse, recently told me that all Onondaga County interstates will get six full litter pickups this year from Robert Henty Landscaping, a private contractor from Auburn. Ilacqua also spoke of the safety issues involved with cleaning interstate islands isolated by high-speed downtown traffic, safety issues that are a legitimate concern. So I would seek new ways of doing routine interstate cleanups at highly visible spots, maybe by walking up embankments from city streets, as we at The Post-Standard do when we clean up near our parking lots.
