The following summarizes a verbal presentation made to the Emergency Services, Community Services & Operations Committee meeting of June 14th with regard to park maintenance:
Standards
The City has three basic turf cutting cycles: 5 working days for sports fields, 10 working days for passive parklands and 15 working days for boulevards. In addition to these basic standards, we do have some premier sports fields that are cut more frequently and other greenlands/corridors less frequently.
Performance:
The Operations Department is meeting these standards within a day or two most of the time.
With the beginning of each season, we experience less than optimal performance as students become familiar with their assigned routes and equipment and because of equipment failure.
Current Complaints
Spring time growth of turf and dandelions is accelerated and is an annual phenomenon. Dandelions in particular have a high growth rate for 3 weeks during the spring but the growth is now complete and we shouldn’t have further complaints about dandelions until the end of August. For the remainder of the summer, we should experience nominal growth, the appearance of city parks should be better and the delivery of the standard service should occur on a more consistent basis.
Issues
There are a number of issues that contribute to the number of complaints we receive. They are:
Our standard is based on grass-cutting, not weed cutting (growth rate)
Our standard is calendar-based versus requirement based;
The passing of the recent Pesticide By-law may have encouraged those who may not support the by-law to call regarding the proliferation of dandelions in city parks.
We are experiencing an accumulative consequence of the 2000 decision to discontinue cosmetic pesticide application without addressing current cultural practices.
Other Actions
As of the organizational realignment in February 2006 wherein the former Parks Department was disbanded and maintenance responsibilities were assigned to the newly created Operations Department, staff have been assessing the manner in which our parkland has been historically maintained. This assessment revealed the following:
There is a poor inventory of park assets;
There are limited condition assessments of these assets;
There are few maintenance/service standards in place;
Service Standards in place are considered ‘guidelines’;
Service delivery is very reactionary in nature;
There is a very limited ability to supervise the parks maintenance and operations activities
As indicated, staff recognize the need to address these issues and are asking (and answering) the following questions:
What maintenance/service needs to be provided?
How frequently should this maintenance/service be provided?
What maintenance/service is actually being delivered?
How long should it take to deliver this maintenance/service?
How long is it taking us to actually deliver this maintenance/services?
Staff are of the opinion that by answering such questions, the gap between the desired level of maintenance/service and our current capacity to deliver it will be known. Once known, strategic analysis of the gap can commence and mitigation strategies developed. We anticipate the latter action being completed by the end of August 2007. Staff