INC NEWS - Picking up leaves!

[Anne Guyton]

Well said Bill!  The city council, Howard Clement in particular, promised to return yard waste to the tax base if the "experiment" did not work out and it clearly hasn't.  Let's hold them to it and have a cleaner City.

Anne Guyton

----- Original Message ----
From: "TheOcean1 at aol.com" <TheOcean1 at aol.com>
To: Donald.Long at durhamnc.gov; bragin at nc.rr.com; nancyg at centralpets.com
Cc: council at ci.durham.nc.us; inc-list at durhaminc.org; Patrick.Baker at durhamnc.gov
Sent: Friday, December 8, 2006 1:32:43 PM
Subject: Re: INC NEWS - Picking up leaves!



 




Having studied the yard waste issue, I'd like to chime in here. In my 
humble opinion, the only logical conclusion is to roll the entire yard waste 
program into the tax base. This is because higher income neighborhoods 
participated in the yard waste program at a much higher rate, presumably because 
it was easy for them to afford the expense. Those neighborhood's worked 
well.

 

Lower income neighborhoods didn't participate as much, so a greater amount 
of their yard waste ended up in the storm water run off systems. Water crosses 
all economic lines, so low income leaves can cause flooding in high income 
basements. 

 

If the cost per household is $60 per year, it would be great if you could 
get the citizens to pay it, but we've had enough years to prove that they won't. 
Just one house dumping yard waste down the storm water systems is enough to 
offset several others participating. So it's a losing bet unless you can get 
nearly 100% participation, which we can't.

 

So the least expensive choice for all of us is no charge collection at the 
curb. 

 

Think of it just like garbage collection. If there was a fee for that, 
and just 10% opted out and dumped their garbage anywhere and everywhere, it 
would be a great deal more noticeable than leaves dumped down a hillside. 

 

But that's what happens with yard waste when we charge for it at the curb. 


 

Yes, that means the higher income areas will pick up slightly more than 
their share, and the lower income neighborhoods will get a break with their 
lower tax values. But if it were garbage, instead of leaves, none of them 
would mind, given the choice of Durham looking like a dump.

 

Those leaves aren't as visible, but they cause more problems than many of 
us realize. 

 

Perhaps someday, we'll all enjoy cleaner streets and the ease of raking our 
yard waste to the curb where efficient vac trucks will suck it up. 

 

Bill Anderson


 








 
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