This past Saturday we had a gathering of Dignowity Hill residents and city officials at the Carver Center to celebrate the completion of the ACTION (Advocacy to Combat Threats Impacting Our Neighborhoods) program in our neighborhood. The city's Neighborhood and Housing Dept organized the ACTION program as part of the Eastside revitalization initiatives to improve and address quality of life issues. Dignowity was chosen as the pilot neighborhood. It was a relatively successful program which brought together code compliance, animal services and waste management services to the neighborhood in a concentrated focus. One statistic that really struck me was that in 4 months almost 9 tons of trash and brush were picked up in the neighborhood. So far since the beginning of the year when the quality of life initiative for the Eastside was started in February over 180 tons of trash and brush have been pick up. That's pretty impressive but when compared to 2009 when only 6 tons of brush/trash were picked up in all of District 2, I have to wonder what happened in 2009!
Well, I don't want to dwell on the past, obviously not much was being done. So moving forward can this effort be sustained? The only way we can happen is by residents proactively in engaging code compliance and other services and by city departments being actively responsive to our needs. Otherwise, we will surely slip back to old habits.
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