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Thursday, May 23, 2013
Town hall meeting to address changes to city solid waste collection
by Melissa Corker, published on May 30, 2012 at 6:02 PM
Storyline: Politics
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The city is asking residents to take part in a town hall meeting Thursday about significant changes to waste collection service and “The Claw,” which is no stranger during the autumn months, when the trees lining the streets drop bushels of leaves.
The meeting is primarily for Midtown and downtown residents, Integrated Waste General Manager Steve Harriman said Wednesday, and the conversation will center on the challenges those neighborhoods face with solid waste pickup.
“The central city has a large population density and lots of mixed-use (developments),” Harriman said. “Waste pickup in those areas affects parking and street sweeping schedules, among other things.”
Harriman said additional neighborhood meetings are being scheduled to specifically address other areas of the city as well.
Changes to the solid waste collection program being vetted by the city include reducing recycling pickup from a weekly schedule to a biweekly schedule, and eliminating the subscription-based “claw” pickup of loose-in-the-street yard waste in favor of a citywide containerized waste program.
“Right now, the claw is in operation year-round, but it serves a small number of customers,” Harriman said. “If we leave the program as it is, those small number of customers would see a huge rate increase. It would at least double, if not triple.”
Currently, the city offers every customer a choice between containerized waste collection and a subscription based claw pickup collection, Harriman said.
According to Harriman, the city serves 124,000 customers, and of those, only 12,000 subscribe to the loose-in-the-street yard waste pickup service with the claw.
“It’s a very expensive and difficult system to operate,” Harriman said. “We are trying to create a system where every customer has the same service.”
City Councilman Rob Fong and city staff will lead the discussion at the town hall meeting, and the public is encouraged to attend and participate, Harriman said.
The meeting will be held from 6 - 8 p.m. Thursday inside council chambers at City Hall, 931 I St.
City staff will be attending the following upcoming neighborhood meetings to share information about the proposed changes to the solid waste collection programs:
June 6 Hagginwood Community Association
June 6 Ben Ali Community Association
June 6 McKinley East Sacramento Neighborhood Association
June 7 Oak Park Neighborhood Association
June 13 Robla Community Action Committee
June 20 Land Park Community Association
More information about the proposed solid waste collection program changes, along with a feedback survey and a blog for the public to leave comments can be found on the city’s Cleaner Streets website.
Melissa Corker is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow her on Twitter @MelissaCorker.
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In most of the city the home owner will now be getting a new container for their yard waste but in the central city neighborhoods where a good part of the plant waste comes from street trees, apartments and office buildings who is going to see to it that these new containers get set out for pick-up? The once of week ‘gardeners’ [glorified mowers, trimmers, and blowers] are not going to be around to do it. Will they just leave it in the street to pile up? It might not be a big issue but we should think about this. Maybe we could have both plant waste containers AND a monthly (weekly during the Fall) street ‘claw’ pick up?
Could this be the first (though unintended) step to privatization?
Personally, I am an advocate for the loose leaf curbside services to continue to be provided as many homes within the city boundary (1) have more green waste than most with large, mature trees/shrubs, (2) don't have room in their side/back yards for multiple cans with their small city plots, and (3) are elderly and don't have the physical ability to pull these heavy cans back and forth to the curb or lift their yard debris into the container yet they enjoy doing their own yard work. I find the cans to be unsightly and have no interest in making the necessary modifications to store a row of them on my small city property. Furthermore, I am concerned that minimizing our current paid city services with promises to allow periodic loose curb pickups may result in a withdrawal of these curb pickups later to save further city expenses yet our fees will be based on the promised services. City government has grown and has made costly efforts toward growth during a recession period that some could argue have been wasteful and counter to the general publics opinion. For the reasons stated above, repealing Measure A, the 1977 voter-approved initiative that prevents the city from requiring residents to use containers, does not appear to be the answer. I have not heard the city make an argument that the 'claw' street pickup program is not paying for itself but I have heard that the city is interested in doubling or tripling the fees residents currently pay for this service. I would like the city to be prepared during the neighborhood meetings to provide an actual cost accounting of the existing program as well as their projections. Residents have a right to know how their money is being spent and how our city government may be profiting from it. I suspect that the city, with their existing budget reductions, benefits from the fees paid for the services provided and is searching for methods to increase their coffers by reducing our services and, in doing so, their costs. I for one am no longer interested in continuing to accept a model where public decisions are based on limited information and trusting compliance rather than supporting data and informed voters.