Unkempt, weed wild, returning to nature, too many of Auburn’s 40 landscape medians looked like crazy salads tossed into the middle of the street.
Councilwoman Sue Singer fretted it in the waning days of her last term of four in December, irked that she’d been making the upkeep plea for all of her 16 years in office, with so little to show for it.
Her message: an odd failing to have so many landscape medians gagging under scruff and scurf in a City so eager to attract business.
But things are getting better, Parks and Recreation Director Daryl Faber recently assured the City’s Municipal Services Committee.
“We got back on the plan that we had five years ago,” Faber said. “Honestly, (the medians) are looking really good. So we got back to that phase last year, and this will be our second year of that. While I would say the appearance is not up to the par it was in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009, it’s getting better again. This year it will be way better than last year.”
The difference between today and five years ago, Faber noted, has been bodies, or, better, more of them.
In the throes of the economic downtown that began in 2008 and the two rounds of City layoffs that followed hard on it, Parks lost to layoffs one of its full-time employees and all temporary employees who had tended the medians. Between 2009 and 2011, maintenance fell to the busy maintenance and operations department.
“The appearance did go down noticeably,” Faber said.
Last year parks added some temporary employees, with positive results, Faber said. At this time, the City is without a horticulturalist.
Not all landscape medians on the City’s list receive the same degree of care. From center areas to street beautification areas, some receive ground cover pruning, others get leaf removal.
“I think the biggest issue, from my perspective, is that the ones that are gateways into town are the ones we should really be proud of, and that’s where the energy should go,” Faber said.
Faber explained why the City does not contract out all the work.
“We do contract out the large ones,” Faber said. “The three that came on late are all done by Brinkman Landscape Company. So we contract those out, and it’s now our City crews doing the main ones — Lake Tapps, 277th and B Street.”
Committee members have been studying a complete list of city medians, deciding what level of care each should receive. The idea is also to decide which should get the most attention.
“I look at a list this long,” said Councilwoman Largo Wales, “and I think maybe we should have 10, and maybe the others we should do something that requires no maintenance other than what a street cleaner would do, put the bang where the buck is and get rid of some of the others.
“I don’t know about getting rid of them,” Faber responded. “A lot of them are at a one-time-a-month level already, so if you didn’t do them at all, there would be blight.”
Committee members singled out for particular attention a train trestle on Auburn Way South, overgrown with rose of sharons and sticker bushes, and locally infamous for its ugliness. Once this growing season is over, Faber said, the City intends to pull out the vegetation.
