Today the City of Shoreacres is pleased to announce a program to
begin the routine mowing of all ditches in need of attention. It
wwill be our goal to mow on an ongoing and regular basis the street
right-of-way in front of vacant lots as well as any ditches that are
either unmaintained or difficult to maintain because of depth, slope
or water.
The tractor and boom mower appearing in the photograph above is
being operated by our own Public Works Department personnel on
Baywood Avenue.
At their
regular Monday meeting this week the Shoreacres City Council
authorized the expenditure of $75,875 for the purchase of a new
tractor and boom mower. Delivery of the new equipment, ordered
yesterday, is expected in July. In addition to mowing the new
tractor will perform other duties in the Public Works Department.
The city's old
mower had become unreliable and the expense of repair, maintenance,
and operation limited its use. With the new equipment the city will
be able to perform right-of-way maintenance at a much higher level
than in the past.
The orange tractor you will see
mowing ditches this week, Saturday, and the early part of next week
has been rented so that we can get a jump start on the program while
waiting for our own blue tractor to arrive.
This heavy equipment is not expected to
provide the same kind of manicured lawn cut that homeowners can
achieve with their own lawnmower, but it will significantly reduce
the height of weeds, reeds, and brush that would otherwise grow and
foul many of our open ditches.
This new program will assist those residents with ditches that are
difficult or impossible to maintain with a home lawnmower. It will
also facilitate improved storm drainage throughout the city and
reduce some risks of heavy rain event flooding.