By Gunnar Schupelius
The district offices have to remove the wild growth on the street trees, but they don’t do it. That’s called a refusal to work, says Gunnar Schupelius.
This annoyance is a Berlin evergreen in the truest sense of the word: the weeds grow meters high on the sidewalks. The street trees are overgrown at the foot.
The women and men of the BSR, who have to sweep the sidewalk, are also supposed to keep the tree discs clean, i.e. the open earth around the base of the tree. But they can’t get through with the broom anymore, it’s pointless.
So handkerchiefs, bottles and bags accumulate in the jungle at the foot of the trees. The dog owners give up, they no longer recognize the heaps in the undergrowth and leave them there. It stinks, it looks pathetic in all districts.
The district offices are responsible for the care of the street trees, including the tree grates. You are obliged to eliminate the wild growth. But they don’t do that job.
Wherever one asks in the twelve districts, general and completely vague reference is made to the tight budgets, so that it seems like an excuse.
The Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf Parks Office has developed a question and answer game on its website. Question (to click): “The area under street trees is often overgrown with weeds. Can’t that be fixed?”
Answer (to click): “As much as the district office would like to do this, due to a lack of staff and funds, it can unfortunately only carry out those measures that are absolutely necessary in terms of road safety (obstructed visibility, risk of injury) or to keep the tree healthy. In this respect, weed infestation of the tree discs of street trees is usually irrelevant.”
That’s how easy it is for those who are responsible and get paid to do it. You evade responsibility. They are paid for by local residents through taxes and yet remain inactive. This is called a refusal to work.
Is there an improvement in sight? No, it doesn’t look like it, because the Wegner Senate (CDU/SPD) doesn’t have the cleanliness of the sidewalks in its program. Page 63 of the coalition agreement (“The Best for Berlin”) only says: “We want to set up an immediate program for 10,000 climate-resilient city and street trees.” No word on what it should look like at the foot of these “climate-resilient” trees and for all the others .
At the beginning of page 10 in the coalition agreement, a big promise is made: “We think of administration from the point of view of the citizens: They don’t look for us, we show them (…) where the services are offered.
As it says in Goethe’s Faust: “I hear the message well, but I lack faith.” Incidentally, the service for maintaining the tree grates is not even offered.
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