[image-1]It might not be as eye-catching and newsworthy as the city throwing tax revenue like Bourbon Street beads at Dan Gilbert and the Cavs, but, in other parts of City Hall, the Public Works Department is bringing back an old friend: the street sweeper.

Scene first caught glimpse of the hearty machines on a Gordon Square side street last week. Today, it’s buzzing through Ward 2. The city is planning to post a full schedule of streets in the near future

The street sweeping program, of course, has taken a back seat to pothole repairs in recent years. Citing budget cuts, Public Works Director Michael Cox told WEWS two years ago that seasonal employees (street sweeping, leaf collection) were let go. The ripple effects of a city not providing basic street services are many, including street flooding and storm sewer backup.

Street sweeping was one of many promises embedded in the Issue 32 campaign last year, the ballot initiative that voters approved. You’ll recall it as a .5-percent increase to our local income tax, widely pitched as a silver bullet for Cleveland’s financial woes. Budgets are up ($4.6 million added to Public Works), and the city has begun adding jobs to its payroll.

One finds it difficult not to take the stance that while, in a vacuum, this is heartening, the overall context of public tax revenue distribution is uneven at best. Anyone interested in that dog’s breakfast would do well to scan Cleveland journalist Roldo Bartimole’s archives (Ctrl+F “tax”).


This article appears in Apr 26 – May 2, 2017.

Eric Sandy is an award-winning Cleveland-based journalist. For a while, he was the managing editor of Scene. He now contributes jam band features every now and then.

4 replies on “Street Sweeping Returns to Cleveland”

  1. Yes, finally. I live on the border of Shaker Square and Mt. Pleasant area and haven’t seen this service in years. Now if they would only go back to flushing out the water hydrants too. I have one on my tree lawn that hasn’t been flushed in a while. I hope this is done on a regular basis and not just one time and that’s it for the next five years.

  2. So now they will once again sweep twice a year? Instead of once a year or NEVER at all?

    The city used to do their street cleaning in spring (April-May) or early summer (June), and then again in November, to get the leaves out of the way for the snowplows, and so the sewers wouldn’t get clogged up with wet leaves. Sometimes, if the snow came early, they might wait until December. Some winters, they never came at all. This was the way it was a decade ago, and going back 25 years.

    But NOW they come but ONCE a year, in summer…if they even come at all. And too many lazy jamokes still push their leaves into the street every fall, and leave them at the curb…mainly because they are still stupidly awaiting the coming of the leaf fairies. In late winter and spring, the same crap is STILL there. That’s not the city’s fault. Wake up, sheeple!

    Why do city streets need more sweeping than ever? Because… the pothole crews leave the loose and excess patching material on the pavements, and sweep all that black crud to curbside. I usually end up having to dispose of that junk in the big black trash container.

    But now I can eagerly wait for the city to do another of the jobs we all supposedly pay for, probably by July. Oh, the joys of living in Cleveland…

    Chuckles the Clown

  4. They did my street off Buckeye last Monday, but we have 3 abandoned cars on the street that I called the police about probably 5 times over the past month or so and still 2 of them sit. They did tow the one without plates last week. The other two have plates, but they have flat tires, rusted out, never move and one has three broken windows. The police need to do their jobs too, so the streets can actually be cleaned. And I wonder how old the sweeper is, because it didnt pick up much.

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