Autumn comes around every year, does it not? And we pretty well know what happens in autumn, correct? But:
The city's Board of Public Works has approved buying a new machine to dispose of 50,000 tons of excess leaves next year.
Beginning next year, either Fox Contractors of Fort Wayne, which has a had city contract for leaf disposal for the past five years, or another company will be responsible for processing and disposing of 25,000 to 30,000 tons of leaves annually.
Currently, the city's contract with Fox only calls for the disposal of 10,000 tons of leaves a year. The leaves are stored at the city's yard-waste recycling facility, 6202 Lake Ave., in giant mounds. The board also approved buying a machine that provides the necessary oxygen to turn the leaves into compost, said Wendy Barrott, the city's director of energy and environmental services.
“We have to get a handle on this,” Barrott said.
Maybe it's just me, but leaf collection would seem to be one of the basics. I think I would like city government to try to get that right before it tries to tackle something like "ending homelessness in 10 years" or enacting a green program to help save the planet.
Comments
Shoot for the stars, I guess. What you say makes sense, Leo, but who the hell motivates an electorate by running on an "efficient disposal of leaves" platform? I guarantee you that 90% of the people who pay city taxes haven't the faintest idea where leaves go once they are sucked up by the "elephant trucks" (my 3 year old son coined that phrase). Wouldn't exactly be a very useful tool with which to bolster one's polling numbers.
I would think you of all people would be jaded enough to not even bat an eye at some of the ridiculous political prostitution to which we are subjected...
Heh. Eliminate homelessness in 10 years? Wow! Why didn't we think of that sooner?
If the silliness does become so commonplace that I don't bat an eye, then I WILL be jaded -- maybe any day now. Mayor Richard did pretty well in his re-election bid by the equivalent of leaf collection, emphasizing basic infrastructure; "Look how much better I've done on paving and potholes." Then he got "visionary" in his second term.
Fort Wayne's potholes were costing a lot of drivers a bunch of money. It was downright awful there for a while. I actually broke the top out of a strut tower in 1999 hitting a pothole on Wells street. That takes a heck of a pothole, and to boot, I wasn't going very fast. I have a good friend who worked as a pavement and infrastructure mapping engineer for the city Fort Wayne several years ago...the stories he used to tell over our after-work brewskies were hilarious. If people called him and complained (about potholes etc.) in an irritating or annoying fashion, he would schedule the repairs as far out as the scheduling software would allow...and it was sometimes 6 months. I could get them fixed in about 4 hours most of the time just by giving him a call at the office...