INC NEWS - Picking up leaves!

[bragin at nc.rr.com]

This is the way it was done in most places i've lived prior to moving to
Durham. The key is to get the leaves picked up on a regular basis before
they enter the drainage system, where they negatively impact the system
both physically and ecologically.

My understanding is that the vacuum trucks, if they do in fact exist (i
haven't seen them myself) are a relatively new investment on the part of
the city.

Barry Ragin

----- Original Message -----
From: Nancy Grandjean <nancyg at centralpets.com>
Date: Thursday, December 7, 2006 10:52 am
Subject: Re:  INC NEWS - Picking up leaves!
To: bragin at nc.rr.com, Ken Gasch <ken.gasch at hldproductions.com>
Cc: council at ci.durham.nc.us, inc-list at durhaminc.org,
patrick.baker at durhamnc.gov, donald.long at durhamnc.gov

> (Sorry if this comes through as a duplicate message; it didn't go 
> through the first time I sent it.)
> 
> Given that the city already has the leaf vacuum trucks, why can't 
> we rake leaves to the edge of our property and have them vacuumed 
> up, instead of wasting time, money, and environmental resources 
> putting billions of leaves into (relatively small) bags? (Plastic 
> bags would be even worse environmentally.) I'm sure there's a 
> logical reason . . . . (ho ho)
> 
> Nancy Grandjean
> 
> 
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: bragin at nc.rr.com [mailto:bragin at nc.rr.com]
> >Sent: Thursday, December 7, 2006 02:30 PM
> >To: 'Ken Gasch'
> >Cc: council at ci.durham.nc.us, inc-list at durhaminc.org, 
> patrick.baker at durhamnc.gov, 
> >donald.long at durhamnc.gov
> >Subject: Re: INC NEWS - Picking up leaves!
> >
> >My informal survey, from driving around my neighborhood on pickup 
> day,>shows around 25% - 35% participation in the yard waste program 
> in my
> >neighborhood. (Every year i tell Claire not to renew our yard waste
> >subscription, and every year she goes ahead and does it anyway.)
> >
> >A couple of years back, i did another informal survey of municipal
> >policies throughout the state of North Carolina. There were a 
> bunch of
> >cities that did not have separate fees for collecting yard waste. 
> There>were some cities that charged a fee for a yard waste cart, 
> but not a
> >subscription fee. There were a few that gave the cart away for 
> free, but
> >charged a subscription fee. There was one other city (can't recall
> >which, may have been Winston or Greenville) which charged for both.
> >Durham was the only one, however, which charged both an initial 
> fee and
> >a subscription fee which did not have a policy of picking up all 
> leaves>in the city during the fall season regardless of 
> participation in the
> >program.
> >
> >The city does an absolutely terrible job of informing new 
> residents of
> >the policy that leaves in plastic bags will not be picked up. Why 
> should>we jump directly to fining people for gathering their leaves 
> in plastic
> >bags when they are at least attempting to keep their yards, and the
> >streets, free of leaves?
> >
> >Addtionally, many of our neighborhoods have large curbside trees
> >dropping leaves directly into the streets. In my neighborhood, if you
> >were to have seen the piles of leaves at Knox Circle deposited 
> there by
> >nature last week, you'd realize there is nobody to whom a fine can be
> >given for this.
> >
> >Charging citizens extra for leaf pickup in Durham is like charging
> >citizens extra for clearing the roadways of snow in Buffalo. It's 
> a fact
> >of life, and should be budgeted for out of general revenues.
> >
> >That said, i'm still glad to see that the city is at least thinking
> >ahead by (apparently) purchasing some hardware and actually 
> putting it
> >to use.  
> >
> 
> 
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>