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City has to repair citizen?s lawn each spring

BY CRAIG GILBERT [email protected] It wouldnÂ?t be spring if a crew from the city didnÂ?t show up to repair John CarusoÂ?s front lawn.
BY CRAIG GILBERT

It wouldnÂ?t be spring if a crew from the city didnÂ?t show up to repair John CarusoÂ?s front lawn.

For eight of the past 11 springs, Caruso has needed landscaping repairs because of damage made by the cityÂ?s snow plows.

The chair of the Greater Sudbury Development Corporation board owns a home on a corner lot in New Sudbury. For almost every winter he can
remember, the snow plow has dropped its wing right on his front lawn and scraped up the top soil and sod.

He has become so frustrated with the top soil tango, heÂ?s erected a sign in front of the damage, which runs from his driveway to the top of his lot 100 feet up the road.

It reads Â?Caution: City of Greater Sudbury Annual Lawn Restoration Project.Â?

Â?This year, I set up some diversion markers and for the first couple weeks (of winter) it was fine,Â? Caruso said. Â?But I went out one day and sure enough, he had dropped his wing and ripped it all up.Â?

Each time it is ripped up, Caruso complains. And each time the city sends out a crew of three or four to put down top soil and a new layer of sod.

Public Works officials could not be reached before press deadline for an estimate on the cost of the annual repairs, but it mustnÂ?t be cheap, considering
eight times a crew of three or four has been there to lay down 300 square feet of top soil and sod.

Don Belisle is the cityÂ?s general manager of public works.

Each spring, the city tenders a contract for the seasonÂ?s restorative work.

Â?We dig about 300 holes each year repairing water pipes and so on,Â? he said, adding this year the contract was valued at about $900,000.

The majority of the work done under that contract is curb and concrete work on sidewalks and asphalt repairs to roads, with some Â?greenÂ? work.

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