INC NEWS - A New Yard Waste Plan For Citywide Service

[Mike - Hotmail]

Cheryl and I watched it on TV (yep, boring lifes).

Randy made some very good points in the two brief minutes he had.

mike


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "RW Pickle" <randy at 27beverly.com>
To: <inc-list at durhaminc.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2006 2:58 AM
Subject: INC NEWS - A New Yard Waste Plan For Citywide Service


>I went to spread the good news to Council last night that I want them to
> loan their $25K of "mad money" to Solid Waste to get 600 brown carts to
> get this yard waste plan rolling. We're early in the budget cycle (they
> just passed it last night) and what better time to do good things with
> some of the money. Solid Waste is just borrowing the money from Council
> because as they sell a cart, the money goes back into the "mad money"
> fund. So there really is no expense to either the Council or Solid Waste
> and we can begin to get the carts out there.
>
> See, Solid Waste really didn't get much in the way of new stuff this
> budget season (although there were nearly a million bucks in new trucks in
> the budget that was passed). And the thought of rolling out the long
> anticipated yard waste plan across town was tossed in the process. But
> that's positive because with the plan I propose, it really doesn't cost
> anything additional.
>
> We already drive all over town picking up yard waste. Some streets may
> only have one cart on them. And as I understood it, some streets aren't
> even traveled down. So the thought that by making it a service to
> everyone, maybe we'll pick up an additional cart of two on a street. So we
> get more waste than we typically do, so what? It's cleaning up the City
> and it becomes a service to everyone. No more $60/yr fees, but you'll
> still have to buy a cart (or 3 more to go with it because they'll pick up
> as many as 4). So now we've managed to give everyone in the City a new
> service at no additional cost. Who even knows if it'll catch on.
>
> Solid Waste may say it can't be done, but  I can't see why. We're already
> driving all over the town picking it up here and there. And if we have to
> make an additional trip or 2 to the dump because of volume, then maybe the
> solid waste crews will put in a little more than the 20 or so hours they
> are doing now with the task system. And in September, they're getting 2
> new yard waste trucks; just in time for fall of the year. I say we try it.
>
> My other thoughts are, do we really need it picked up weekly? They're
> looking at doing recyclables twice a month. Why couldn't we do yard waste
> the same way? Especially this time of year just to see how it all works. I
> say this idea of needing 7 more trucks and folks to staff them is the
> wrong way to look at this problem. You don't put out a fire by throwing
> gasoline on it. Figuring out how to do more with less is one of the few
> ways that actually save the taxpayers money.
>
> As a citizen member of the INC committee that went forth to find a
> solution to the illegal dumping and current fee structure, our goal has
> been to roll out the yard waste plan all across Durham. And because we
> thought Solid Waste understood the yard waste plan was our priority, we
> thought they'd be our cheerleader. So as it turned out, this wasn't the #1
> new initiative they took to the table. And since we thought that is was
> going to be #1, we as citizens never lobbied Council to support it. They
> never heard from us so they thought it wasn't important. And this past
> evening really wasn't the time to be telling them for the first time that
> we really wanted this issue resolved. So instead, I came up with this no
> cost solution
>
> The #1 item was the misplaced bulky/brushy item pickup service that really
> was a wolf in sheep's clothing. That entire program is really an emergency
> management tool that the City felt they needed because of the last big
> debris storm. The contractor sort of had them by... well you know, and
> after it was all done, more than $8M had been spent. So they decided we
> needed these trucks with cherry pickers and big trailers in order to
> prevent that from happening again. So the yard waste wasn't where we as
> your citizen representatives thought it was going to be on the list and it
> was dropped. Leaving us all wondering what went wrong.
>
> At least if we try these other ideas, it'll start getting us ready for the
> next opportunity to have it funded; next year or the year after. Way too
> long for us to wait after spending almost a year on it already. I'm
> throwing this out for discussion. I told Council about it at their meeting
> last night. It really costs nothing to try it and see. Worst thing that
> could happen is that it wouldn't work. But until we try it, we'll never
> know. Just saying it won't work isn't good enough for me.
>
> And your thoughts...
>
> RWP
> 27 Beverly
>
>
>
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