Once again, we've put the cart before the horse in terms of street sweeping ("Twin Cities leaf sweep on, despite late fall," Oct. 29). It hardly makes sense to sweep streets for leaves when 80 percent of the leaves are still on the trees. I realize there is always a squeeze to get it done before snow, but this seems a waste of taxpayers' money. Maybe it is time to join every other large city and make street cleaning a weekly project. Instead of two (spring and fall) Herculean efforts, more-frequent, smaller-scale work would keep our storm runoff cleaner. If Boston, New York and San Francisco can do it, maybe we could implement a better plan as well.

DAVID MARTY, Minneapolis