The Observation Deck

Anne,

Thanks for posting this thread. I've had numerous discussions with people around Lakewood about leaf collection. When I first moved to Lakewood, I was shocked by force of employees removing the leaves. It was an impressive operation to witness, and my two little boys, both into trucks and earthmovers at the time, loved the opportunity to watch.

I have some of the same questions. Is there a more efficient way?

I also agree with you Valerie. I don't think everyone could be trusted to burn leaves responsibly.

It does seem like leaf collection along with perhaps garbage collection need to be critically reviewed. They are two services that are very visible usages of our tax dollars. We are facing a 4.3 million dollar deficit as a city. It's time to look at what we can be, efficiency has to be central to our plans as a community.

I also agree with you Valerie. I don't think everyone could be trusted to burn leaves responsibly.

it is ok.

There is going to be pollution in this world. Operating all the equipment to blow them into piles and vacuum them up and ship them all over probably causes more pollution.

Burning leaves can be dangerous though. Only folks with college degrees and less than 4 points on their driving record should be allowed to burn them.

burning leaves can only help to improve the gene pool

Never thought I'd see leaf burning advocacy on this board, but there you are. I enjoy watching things getting destroyed or burned as much as any man, but leaf burning in the city? On 40 x 120 lots? Crap, I don't think I'd trust the Fire Marshall himself to burn leaves in my back yard.

Operating all the equipment to blow them into piles and vacuum them up and ship them all over probably causes more pollution.

Hmm, no actually' it doesn't cause more pollution to run a backhoe and then a truck to move leaves versus burning them. Leaves on fire don't have a catalytic converter built into them.

The most ecologically sound method would probably be for each person to use the leaves in a compost pile, or shred them to use as mulch. But on some lots there's not an easy spot to do that in...

I wouldn't complain. We used to live outside of Boston and they only picked up leaves if they were in the tall brown bags. So imagine, not only raking your leaves, but putting them ALL in brown bags to be picked up. It was a royal pain the ...
I think Lakewood workers do a good job. This year they are pressured because the leaves were so late in falling down. I hope they get them all before the snow flies.


Mary Breiner

In my younger years, everyone in Lakewood burned their leaves on their tree lawn. I can't remember anytime where the fires got out of control and harmed anything but the grass, and that always seemed to grow back the next year. There was often a lot of smoke, and I suppose that could have made driving a little more dangerous; at that time, no one knew or cared about pollution. In any event, the powers that be decided we could no longer do that, so unless someone changes the law, that "solution" is a non-starter.

I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but no one has made a real case that using vacuum trucks would be a more cost-effective solution. Among factors I would consider would be do we want to spend a lot of money on a piece of equipment that would be used only three or four weeks per year. The equipment they are currently using can be used year-round for many tasks, so as far as equipment alone, what they are currently doing seems more efficient than buying extra equipment.

As far as personnel, I don't really know where the workers are assigned, but I think there is work requiring similar talents year round, from cutting the grass in the summer to plowing the streets in the winter, and I suspect the same pool of workers does this work. I think you get a better class of worker when you can offer year-round employment than if you hire spot labor; I'm a little more comfortable thinking the snowplow tearing down my street is driven by someone with some experience and training, and a stake in his continued employment, than I would be if they were hiring people on a daily basis from some agency. Its up to the city administration to decide how big a pool of workers to retain, and how to get the most out of that cost, and I think we get pretty good municipal service for our tax dollars. I think the deficit we face is a consequence of the slowing economy and our insistence on providing unnecessary services.

I have a compost pile, but between the volume of leaves, and their slowness in decomposing, my little pile could not keep up with all the leaves we find in our yard. I think having the city pick them up and decompose them is a good solution to the problem.