JACKSON — Mayor Derek Dobies and 6th Ward Councilwoman ColleenSullivan today announced a new proposal to purchase new collection equipment and provide bagless, curbside leaf pickup services to residents. On Friday afternoon, Mayor Dobies called for a special meeting of the City Council on Monday at 6:30pm to discuss the proposal.
“For the past year or so Councilwoman Sullivan and I, along with city administration, have been exploring our options to see if we could pull this off,” said Mayor DOBIES. “Residents have been pretty clear that they wanted us to work towards this end. It’s great to be able to have this bagless, curbside leaf pickup service while maintaining low costs.”
Dobies said the duo had originally aimed to have something prepared for the start of the fiscal year in June. With the fall-back option of contracted, bagged pickup being awarded at the last meeting, Mayor Dobies called a special City Council meeting to be able to rescind that vote and move forward with this proposal, should it be supported by City Council.
“It’s one of the biggest complaints I hear from people in my ward. Many neighbors produce dozens of bags of leaves each pickup, or are forced to pay for service,” said Councilwoman Colleen SULLIVAN. “Restoring curbside leaf pickup with vactor vacuuming trucks is a service that will help residents during the fall, keep our curbs from being damaged, and keep our streets much cleaner.”
Currently, residents must bag their leaves and place them at the curb for pickup. For the past few years, the city has paid an average of $130,000 per year for two rounds of pickup with a local contractor.
Under the proposal, the city would:
Rescind the planned bagged pickup currently contracted with United Waste.
Purchase two vactor vacuum leaf collector trucks, and two vactor vacuum leaf collector trailers to be paid off over the next ten years.
Utilize city DPW employees to operate the equipment during typical October, November, and December pickup schedules, with a likely expedited pickup schedule for 2019.
Mayor DOBIES and Councilwoman SULLIVAN are working diligently to mitigate any problems that may arise in this transition back to bagless, curbside leaf pickup, but say benefits outweigh any temporary glitches. hiccups in transitioning to bagless, curbside pickup, but say benefits outweigh any temporary glitches. They stated the costs per year are on par with the current budget.
Both are interested in using the leaves to provide compost to city residents, and to explore opportunities for a spring cleanup as well.
If the proposal passes Monday night, the city will make quick work of alerting the public of the changes and plan for collection.
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