Posted by Hal Dardick and John Byrne at 10:35 a.m.; last updated at 2:30 p.m.
Some Chicago wards would get more frequent street cleaning while others would go longer between sweeps under a proposal by Mayor Richard Daley’s administration to cut the number of sweepers.
Instead of one sweeper in each ward, the city would have 33, with each one assigned to an equally sized chunk of the city under a “grid system,” aldermen said today after being briefed Monday by Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Thomas Byrne.
Ending the ward-based street sweeping map will increase efficiency, Mayor Richard Daley said today.
"If this side is one ward — of the street — and that’s the other side, we can only street clean one side one day and the other the other day," Daley said at an event to announce spring break programs for students. "Now you clean both at the same time."
Not all aldermen are on board.
"I want to keep Chicago cleaner,” said Ald. Willie Cochran, who opposes the measure because it would give him less control over how streets are cleaned in his 20th Ward on the South Side. “I want more efficient delivery of services. Some wards need more work. Mine is one of them. . . . I want to keep control of that sweeper.”
Ald. Ed Smith, 28th, said aldermen want to be consulted about cutting the number of street sweepers — which he said "could be a major problem" for aldermen trying to keep their wards clean — even if there’s is little they can do to prevent Daley from going ahead with the plan.
"We understand there is a major crisis in terms of the dollars we need to adequately do the job we’re trying to do," Smith said. "But planning is a major part of whatever you do. Who sits down and plans, makes sure everybody is consulted in this process? You don’t want to get planned out of the process. That’s what we’re very concerned about."
Ald. Richard Mell, 33rd, also expressed reservations, saying he often assigns a street sweeper where it’s needed, giving the example of cleanup after a block party.
“We have special street-sweeping schedules because we have the ability to do that,” Mell said. “Once they start on that grid system, you are never going to have control of it.”
But Ald. Robert Fioretti, 2nd, said he has long advocated the city should go to a grid system, both for street sweeping and garbage pickup, to create more efficiency. ‘It only makes sense to go to a grid,” he said.
Aldermen who oppose losing control of local street sweeping have to make
concessions as the city pushes to save money, he said. "It’s called efficiency, saving money," Daley said.
Ward-level street department superintendents will insure street sweepers
remain responsive to local calls for cleaning, Daley said.
Under the current system, geographically smaller wards get swept more often than the bigger wards. If the grid system were implemented, each grid would be of equal size, so each street in smaller-sized wards would get swept less often, aldermen said.