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Weed control by Town of Creston crew turned into overkill

Weed killer wiped out most of letter writer Leanne Boire's flowers; dead weeds left n the road...

To the Editor:

I know that common courtesy is not common in today’s world, but surely we can’t overlook respect of people’s property. My husband and I have always placed a feeling of pride in our property, including keeping our yard attractive with flowers, which we plant each year. We are not so sure what we will do next year.

For the last two years, we have welcomed visitors, and each time they called the town to complain about the abundance of weeds growing between Highway 3 and Crawford Hill, the problem being the height of these unsightly growths obstructing a clear view of the highway from Crawford Hill.

Eventually, a crew from the Town of Creston arrived to cut the weeds on both sides of the street and then they put weed killer on both sides; one side is the boulevard, the other has a sidewalk with a three-foot retaining wall, which also was put in by the town. What resulted by this obvious case of overkill was that the weed killer wiped out most of my flowers that have been growing there for almost two years. The dead weeds were left on the road, which would result in them either washing into the storm drains; this too is unthinkable.

Now in my world, the town should have used leaf blowers remove the debris. Instead, the neighbor who helped plant the flowers was forced to call the town to complain. A week later, a street cleaning machine arrived to clean up the street. Clearly this wasn’t done for nothing so who has to pay for it? This already poor taxpayer feels that our high taxes are enough without adding to the total. The destruction of our flowers feels like an act of vandalism but who will take responsibility for this inappropriate and irresponsible action?

Courtesy has been forgotten here and if it sounds like community pride is being stifled at the same time. Somehow it just doesn’t digest well.

Leanne Boire

Creston