The Road to Excess is Beautifully Landscaped!

Beautiful rock gardens, raised beds, new plantings of both flowers and trees. Sound like a subdivision in Brookfield? Guess again, it's the pick and choose boulevards throughout our fair city of Milwaukee. You know, the city that doesn't have any money. The city that adds a new "snow removal fee" every year. Oh, and the city that can't keep some boulevards and waysides mowed, let alone beautifully landscaped. I'd like to know how these roadside garden spots are chosen. On the one hand, Washington Boulevard has undergone a beautiful transformation. New roads, bike easements and in some spots sidewalks last year. This year, all new boulevard landscaping. If I were the cynical type, I'd refer to the Mayors residence being located along picturesque Washington Boulevard. That doesn't account for the same expensive to install, and costly to maintain landscaping along Lisbon Avenue or 76th Street. If EVERYTHING else in the city was taken care of and there was extra money, I wouldn't have a problem with this. I equate it to my own family finances just for some perspective. I owe on my house, I owe on credit cards, I owe on automobiles, my kids go to public schools. Why shouldn't I use what's left on those credit cards to go to Jamaica? BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE STUPID! Now the cost of all this landscaping is one thing, what about the maintanence? How many partially furloughed city workers will it take to mow, trim around the rocks and raised beds, weed, and care for these monuments to shortsightedness? Who cares, maybe Barack will pitch in with "shovel ready" money. No, it'll be us, the taxpayers of the City of Milwaukee. Although I'm sure it won't be a tax, maybe a beautification fee? It seems to me like Nero's fiddeling again.