OT: Has State slashed the landscaping budget?

[00Dawg]

I took the family over for yesterday's game, and honestly, it looked bad coming in off 182 and walking from the dorms past the Sanderson Center.
Weeds everywhere of all varieties, poorly watered new sod, piles of cut grass in spots, and even a few dead trees among the more recent plantings.
I would've been embarrassed to bring a prospective student in that way.

 

[wsjmsu75]

I took the family over for yesterday's game, and honestly, it looked bad coming in off 182 and walking from the dorms past the Sanderson Center.
Weeds everywhere of all varieties, poorly watered new sod, piles of cut grass in spots, and even a few dead trees among the more recent plantings.
I would've been embarrassed to bring a prospective student in that way.

Guess we wanted our grounds maintenance to match our baseball team's play.

 

[Leeshouldveflanked]

There definitely doesn’t look to be as much effort put into as it used to be.

 

[jethreauxdawg]

I wonder if they do not

Have enough employees coming to work to maintain the grounds right now.

 

[57stratdawg]

It was looking rough last time I was on campus a few weeks ago.

 

[Russ Wheeler]

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

I imagine there’s been some budget constraints and employee issues. Just a guess.

 

[Forrest4Moore]

Something has changed for sure. The grass off most of the sidewalks is rife with weeds of every sort.

Also begs the question, and maybe it needs its own thread: it’s asinine to have done away with the parking on the off/on ramp at College View.

At least when it was parking, the constant traffic beat down the weeds that would grow there. As it stands now, we’ve done away with probably 300 parking spots, inconvenienced 1000+ fans, and created an eye sore.

It would be one thing if limited the parking there was because they had some landscaping intentions, but it’s been 2 years and nothing...

 

[Choctaw Dawg]

Something has changed for sure. The grass off most of the sidewalks is rife with weeds of every sort.

Also begs the question, and maybe it needs its own thread: it’s asinine to have done away with the parking on the off/on ramp at College View.

At least when it was parking, the constant traffic beat down the weeds that would grow there. As it stands now, we’ve done away with probably 300 parking spots, inconvenienced 1000+ fans, and created an eye sore.

It would be one thing if limited the parking there was because they had some landscaping intentions, but it’s been 2 years and nothing...

Amen, I parked there every game and it was always a quick walk. The last year people parked there for regionals there were threats of being towed for the first time all season but people still parked there and it would be hard for a tow truck to get in there, they shut that parking down for the next football season because all of a sudden MDOT decided to cite a "safety" issue.

BTW don't hold your breath thinking that new parking garage is going to be free parking for baseball season. It might be but I won't get my hopes up

 

[The Usual Suspect]

I took the family over for yesterday's game, and honestly, it looked bad coming in off 182 and walking from the dorms past the Sanderson Center.
Weeds everywhere of all varieties, poorly watered new sod, piles of cut grass in spots, and even a few dead trees among the more recent plantings.
I would've been embarrassed to bring a prospective student in that way.

Absolutely, it has gone down the last several years. They focus on the drill field and junction areas and that is about it. I was there for graduation a couple of weeks ago, and it was way below par. When I was a kid and when I was at MSU, you would see men assigned to each section of the campus to pick up trash and weed all beds. Now, I see a guy on a little Kubota with a blower on the back blowing trash back up on the grass. I had a grandfather and a great uncle that worked in the Physical Plant and campus maintenance in the 60's-80's and what they do now is a joke. Thanks president K. I guess. It was on a downward trend before Covid, yet he most always mentions our beautiful campus.

 

[The Peeper]

Employees in the past took some pride in their work, maintained their own equipment and wore uniforms. Now they look like a rag tag bunch of misfits. There is a hodgepodge of equipment of varying manufacturers. They now contract out the annual flowers because I saw a company doing that this week. I knew a lot of the old timers that had been around a long time and they are all gone. And yes, I'm sure there's been budget cuts and there are probably half a dozen landscaping positions posted on MSU website now.

 

[Crucifictorious]

Ironically, today's "State Spotlight" on the university webpage was about the Top-rated landscaping of our campus: https://www.msstate.edu/state-spotlight/2021/05/maintaining-campus-beauty

 

[WilCoDawg]

When people come up to me after going to the campus for the first time, the first thing they mention is how beautiful the campus is. Hopefully they will realize that this is a selling point to counter the “it’s in the middle of BFE” observation.

 

[FQDawg]

Also begs the question, and maybe it needs its own thread: it’s asinine to have done away with the parking on the off/on ramp at College View.

At least when it was parking, the constant traffic beat down the weeds that would grow there. As it stands now, we’ve done away with probably 300 parking spots, inconvenienced 1000+ fans, and created an eye sore.

It would be one thing if limited the parking there was because they had some landscaping intentions, but it’s been 2 years and nothing...

Just so you're mad at the right people... That's a state Dept. of Transportation issue. The university (or the city) has no control over whether or not parking is allowed on the on/off ramps.

 

[The Usual Suspect]

Ironically, today's "State Spotlight" on the university webpage was about the Top-rated landscaping of our campus: https://www.msstate.edu/state-spotlight/2021/05/maintaining-campus-beauty

I used to believe our campus was very special in it's beauty and upkeep and I always felt it was a major selling point to offset other negatives. But, having visited many colleges in the last 5 years, I can tell you that almost every SEC school and most of the other large universities are just as beautiful or better kept.

 

[MSUDC11]

I started noticing that things looked rough right after COVID first hit a year ago but gave them the benefit of the doubt given that I’m sure there may have been cutbacks and grounds keeping may have been on the back burner while nothing was happening on campus whatsoever.

Unfortunate to hear that there are still issues though.