Nearly a month ago at the February 24th meeting of the Orange City Council, the City Manager was directed by the Council to restart a power washing contract to clean the sidewalks of the Orange Plaza.
As of today it appears that nothing has been done to address any of the issues we highlighted in our article regarding the deteriorating conditions in the historic Plaza. https://theorangeindependent.com/once-the-crown-jewel-of-orange-the-plaza-is-quickly-tarnishing/
Thursday afternoon we stood in the Plaza with a business owner that is increasingly fed up with conditions in the area and watched as one pedestrian after another stepped in the remnants of a large pile of dog feces and tracked it for several yards down the sidewalk, and into nearby stores.
We contacted Orange Public Works and a city worker responded in less than 10 minutes with a spray bottle and a towel that he used to attempt to clean up the disgusting mess. The results were significantly sub-optimal given the limited cleaning tools at his disposal.
Another business owner who asked not to be identified said “the City workers are great, it’s the City Council and City managers that are failing to do their jobs. It’s really pathetic that they can’t mange to do simple things to clean up our historic city center and keep it clean.”
We reached out to Council Member Ariana Barrios who represents District 1 which includes the Plaza area for comment. She said “I realize it’s frustrating. It’s frustrating for me as well. But I’m also trying to give our team some grace while they juggle the job vacancies, the recent strike, and the new parking system. My understanding is we’ve made contact with the vendor(s) and we are putting a new cleaning schedule in place.”
