As I pulled out of my garage I noted again that my ever growing collection of yard waste was still present.
So just for giggles I took a quick tour of the neighborhoods to see how many others were still present and unacccounted for.
The images that follow are but a few that I took in the process. I did so in order that I might show them to our Street Department Superintendent at the aforementioned meeting.
I was also going to inquire of him the route schedule for the pickup of such in the four quadrants of the city as proposed/promised some months ago.
But alas he was not present as he was shepherding his crew through the process of repainting school crossings around the city. From what was said I came away with the impression that all hands were on such duty as per Mayor England.
I can't however, verify that to be the case as I'm running low on gas so I passed on the temptation to do so.
What I can say with certainty though is that many of the examples cited below have been brought to the street departments attention weeks hence and the remainder are in very plain sight! Assuming anyone has their eyes open that is!
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The above is from our very own Spring cleaning /storm damage cleanup efforts. I alerted the proper entities of its existence at least two weeks ago.
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This one in the 1900 Block of spring Street (Division Street) has survived at least three garbage day/recycling truck/various other city vehicle drive by's!
The two directly above are from the 700 Block of Market Street and are the remains of trees located on city rights of way which if I'm not mistaken makes them the cities responsiblity.
Oh, and note that obstructing the sidewalk appears not to be a safety concern after all.
Then this one on the 600 Block of Main Street was according to the owner phoned in and put on the to do list on March 6 of this year and the pile keeps growing!Now to give the devil his due we all understand that the city is shorthanded, there have been a series of storms of late, we have budget woes, and on and on and on.
However, unless my ears deceived me Thursday last, the Mayor did say at the Common Council meeting that ours streets were clean.
Somehow I fear he has been misinformed as the items referenced above for the most part are not new though they may be growing.
So tell us Mr. Mayor, what else do we as citizens need to do?
We volunteer for weekend cleanups several times a year to rid our city of that which has accumulated only to watch it accumulate again. Thanks by the way Mickey for furnishing the dumpsters for such events!
We encourage our neighborhoods to police their own as much as possible.
We have offered on many occassions to haul our own to the dumpsters at the 4th Street location only to be turned away as we're informed that one can't put bagged yard waste in said dumpsters. And this after we've been told by the selfsame officials to bag it, leave it at curbside & it will be picked up!
We have followed the street department's grapple truck down many a road to watch it drive by pile after pile some of which it had to swing out & go around to keep from hitting them enroute to who knows where!
We have raked loose leaves to the curside as instructed only to see them either blow back into our yards or get washed down the storm water drains all the while being told WE the Public are responsible for said drains in close proximity to our property.
So PLEASE help us help you!!
Raise wages, raise taxes, raise rates, or fire 'em all and start over!
Park a dumpster on every street corner!
Petition the Council for more stringent legilation!
Request the Governor send in the National Guard complete with dump trucks to assist the Street Department!
Or like us buy a pair of gloves & blue jeans & jump in.
But quit with the same ole, same ole!
Storms past, economic disasters pending, and lack of property tax revenue aside I'm unaware of a city employee that has gone without a paycheck as of yet. Albeit some may not have been as big as they would have liked!
We just need to see some effort at getting our money's worth! And more often than once or twice a year via an insert in the councilmen's packet that never sees the light of day I might add!
So again how do we accomplish this feat? Outside the box ideas anyone?
By the way, isn't our thirty days about up??
13 comments:
maybe its time to privatize the street department
Lloydm a call was placed to the mayors office asking if a representative was going to be at the last ESNA meeting for a follow up. No one showed up, no one returned a call...We've already started for the April meeting.
Ceece,
Imagine that!
The last time we had a load of yard debris, we loaded it all, bagged, into the back of our pickup truck, so we wouldn't have to go through the ordeal of leaving it curbside and begging for pickup.
We were told that we cannot bring bagged waste to the street department, since it has to be loose in the yard waste dumpster. Mickey did send someone to get the stuff pretty quickly that time--we parked our pickup at the end of the drive and all they had to do was transfer it to their truck.
But when we called again with another pickup, we got 'the attitude'--were told the 'guys were mad' because we had so many bags.
What I can't figure out is this--if the street department can pick up bagged yard waste, obviously it's going somewhere. Is it a secret location that cannot be divulged to the public? If we could be informed of the location it goes to, we'd be happy to haul it there ourselves. Alternately, why can't we have a permanent drop off spot for bagged yard waste down at the street department or elsewhere so we don't have to go through the same old crap each time we have stuff to get rid of?
Simply providing a resident drop off location for bagged yard waste would probably remedy a good percentage of pickup requests. It's an easy solution, and would save a great deal of time since the street department could simply go to one location. How about even parking a truck there so we can throw the bags in? That would eliminate even more street dept. man hours.
On Elm ,in the 2000 block, there are piles of storm debris in the street (I think you have a picture of it posted) that are from the wooded area that actually belongs to the city. Some work was done there (by the city?) a few weeks ago and the debris was piled in the street but has never been picked up.
Ann, your solution is so simple and practical, which is why I suppose it just can't work here? Once again I advocate taking the initiative and identifying a city owned vacant lot and putting in some sort of holding bins for composting yard waste. Then theorically, we can take the compost when it's ready. All the organic waste I see this city churning out is a renewable resource.
Contrary to what you have been told Roger, property owners are not responsible for the storm drains near their property, the storm water department is responsible for maintaining all public storm water conveyances.
I would ask Stormwater board chairman why this has been communicated to you via the street department head, also technically speaking, raking leaves to the street is legally considered an illicit discharge per IDEM stormwater MS4 permit regulations.
Eco,
Note that Highwayman(Lloyd)wrote this post, not Roger.
oh ok, well it still is a fact that the stormwater department is responsible for said drains and when we, the former board, had stewardship of the stormwater utility with EMC taking care of operations and maintenance, not once was a property owner held responsible for public stormwater infrastructure.
Privatization worked well in stormwater perhaps that idea was terminated too soon by this administration.
As to the excuse that the street department is short on personnel, fact is they took half of the department and made them storm water employees, so essentially by taking stormwater back in-house the city has cut its street department operation in half, that coupled with 85% of the city's budget earmarked for police and fire, what did you expect?
Again, privatization sometimes makes sense and actually saves taxpayers money.
The thing that makes situations like the yard waste pickup issue so frustrating is that there are solutions, and they don't require thinking 'outside the box'. They don't require extra money, and in the long run probably would reduce the manpower needed.
The city has these resources: trucks, vacant lots throughout the city, dumpsters and neighborhood associations willing to partner and assist. It also has residents, many of them with the means and the willingness to transport their yard waste if provided a place to do so.
It's pretty easy to see how these resources can be utilized to provide a partial solution to the problem of yard waste pickup.
the city also has a built in attitude of just doing the bare minimum to get by that permeates throughout its operations. It is evident in the third floor and all the way down to 4th and culbertson.
It's a problem of leadership, this administration chose department heads and key staff based on politics not professionalism, perhaps the real answer is a professional city manager who ignores politics and runs the city more like what is expected in the private sector and professional circles instead of the political hack culture we are stuck with.
I noticed all that "grass" bagged up in front of the house on Main. I figured it was just a part of the Police clean up.
You never know on this street, do you, Matt?
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