Trash rates may need to be increased by 30 percent City Administrator Lambert Little told the Clarendon Board of Aldermen at their regular meeting last Tuesday. But he says citizens can keep that from happening if they step up and help the city save money in its sanitation department.
Little says the current municipal budget planned for the sanitation department to run a deficit of 6.3 percent but the actual loss is going to be between 10 and 15 percent. To get the department back in the black would take a rate increase of 15 percent. To earn enough money to purchase much needed equipment would mean increasing city trash rates by 30 percent, he said.
There are alternatives to higher rates – reporting and recycling.
“If we could stop theft of service, we would not have to do this,” Little said, referring to rural residents who bring their trash to town and fill up city Dumpsters. “It’s out of control. There are enough folks using our Dumpsters from out of town that we could keep our rates low if we could stop them.”
Little says he doesn’t want to pit city folks against county folks, but he also says the situation is out of hand.
City Hall encourages anyone who sees people improperly using a Dumpster to report those individuals to the city or the sheriff’s office. Illegal dumping is a violation of city ordinance and carries of fine of up to $2,000.
Little said it would help also if citizens would recycle more. The city pays for trash going to the Memphis landfill by weight, so recycling and keeping leaves and grass clippings out of Dumpsters cuts costs for the city.
In other city business, the board approved a new policy for leak adjustments on water bills. If a citizen has had a leak and proves they have fixed the leak, City Hall will charge that customer’s water usage from the same period the year before and then charge the city’s wholesale cost for the excess water.
Aldermen authorized the purchase of a used trash truck for $15,000.
Resolutions of Agreement with the Texas Department of Transportation were approved to replace the bridge on Rosenfield Street and the Seventh Street Bridge at City Park.
Little says the old bridge at the park likely will not be demolished but might be moved to a new location for pedestrian traffic, and Mayor Larry Hicks has inquired about the possibility of putting the new bridge next to the old one. The bridge design has not been finalized, city officials said.
The board discussed and approved spending $1,500 to $2,000 for a facilitator to help aldermen do a long-range planning session for future city goals.
The board conducted a six-month evaluation of the city administrator.
The resignation of Alderman Jeremy Powell was accepted with regret. Powell moved outside the city limits.
Aldermen discussed the need to replace a fire truck that was totaled when it was wrecked while responding to an accident earlier this year. The volunteer fire department will hold a fundraiser later this year to purchase a new truck, and the city will support those fundraising efforts.
To set the record straight…the Clarendon Fire Department DID NOT wreck their truck while responding to an accident. This truck was struck by another vehicle which was traveling east or south bound on US 287. The fire departments’ truck was parked insided a coned off area while working a motor vehicle accident 3 miles west of Clarendon in the east or south bound lanes. The Clarendon Fire Department was by no means at fault for the accident which totalled this truck. Three Clarendon Firemen were nearly ran over by the driver at fault just prior to him striking the truck. The firemen were also inside a coned off area used to control traffic at an accident scene. The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) worked the accident.
We apologize for any confusion. We did not say the fire department had wrecked the truck and certainly did not mean to imply that. The department responded to an accident and the truck was subsequently totalled by an inattentive motorist as was previously reported in February. The entire story of the accident can be read at the following link: http://www.clarendonlive.com/?p=8266
Thanks Roger! The original article also states that the truck was struck while “responding to” an accident. I just wanted your readers to know that we were not “responding” when it happened…that the truck was “parked” at the scene of the accident when it was struck. The remainder of your article is correct.
I would like to say that even though the City has a problem with County people putting trash in the dumpsters, at least we use them. County roads are used by City people to dump their junk that they can’t put in the dumpsters in town. We get old furniture, applliances, dead animal bodies, trash that has been cleaned from the yard or garage and even old auto parts. So I am sorry that the City has a problem with us County folks using dumpsters, but at least we don’t dump our trash on City streets!
RECYCLE!!!
Its a really great habit to get into!
Saves everyone money and not to mention our environment. I also agree with tessiehr about people dumping their junk on the backroads. Didnt anyone elses parents teach them how to share? Share the dumpsters its not that big of a deal!!!
Does the city not have a heavy trash day? Having a scheduled day to put heavy trash on curbs would also keep people from dumping their large items on the streets. If i recall its a real pain in the @#$ to dump that stuff seems easier to just trash a couch on a less traveled dirt road.
And how about teaching those jail birds that rents not cheap, even stripped sunshines not free! Send them out to pick up trash or sort recyclable goods. If they can count they can recycle!
And what about community service? I did a little bit of that back in my day (big misunderstanding haha) and i would think that helping out the city with a little trash pick up would have been a lot more “community service” than putting books in alphabetical order at the library or sleeping floors at the courthouse.
There are so many ways to help kick this issue but pointing fingers and making excuses isnt going to cut it.
Oh and P.S. burning your yard clippings and branches isnt a very good idea either. Bag it up and put it on the curb for heavy trash day. hmmm… what a concept.
“Little said it would help also if citizens would recycle more. The city pays for trash going to the Memphis landfill by weight, so recycling and keeping leaves and grass clippings out of Dumpsters cuts costs for the city.”
Recycling is offered as an alternative to increased rates. Recycling and composting greatly decrease the output that goes to the landfills (items in landfills essentially do not biodegrade — landfill conditions do not allow for it).
Clarendon offers extensive recycling options and yet when we drop off our recycling we frequently find the recycling dumpsters full of general trash, to include lawn clippings.
There are numerous ways to save money and decrease landfill output:
1. Compost — veggie food trimmings, dryer lint, lawn clippings, and so much more can go in a compost bin to be used to fertilize a garden or a lawn.
2. Recycle — Clarendon has bins for type 1 PETE plastics, tin cans, cardboard, clear glass, aluminum cans, etc.
3. Use reusable bags. Our local Lowes offers very affordable re-usable bags. Plastic bags contribute to litter due to their light weight and paper bags require a great deal of resources to produce and both end up in the trash. In order to avoid the environmental impact of plastic grocery bags, they must be used numerous times, not just twice (once to bag groceries and once to line a household trashcan = not enough uses).
4. Choose not to bag produce. The bags for produce are not necessary and almost always end up in the trash can. Grouping like produce items for weighing serves the same purpose of the plastic bags and reduces waste. Our local Lowes is happy to ring up unbound produce.
5. Choose products with less packaging. Buying in bulk is less wasteful and creates less trash. Consider whether or not packaging is compostable or recyclable.
6. Make more traditional lifestyle choices like cloth diapering (which has come a long way!), choosing re-usable cloth products like kitchen cloth items instead of paper towels (which are, btw, compostable, generally), reuse or recycle glass products (glass jars are great for storage or for recycling), breastfeed, opt for paperless billing, etc.
There are so many more options to reduce waste and expenses, limited only by the imagination. We can put out so much less trash Clarendon! The slogan reduce, reuse, recycle is so helpful.
REDUCE what you purchase. Think about end of life for the product. What will you when you are finished with it?
REUSE your items. Think like our slightly older brethren. What other use can this item serve? Can I use it for something else? Storage and crafts are popular but they are not the only uses items can be reused for — a quick Google search will provide many options.
RECYCLE — Once a week, take your glass, your cardboard, your cans, and your type 1 plastics, and recycle them at our local drop off spot. We have finite resources. If we want the economy to grow infinitely we need to keep feeding into the resource column.
In this economy, and with these world conditions, we need to adopt a much more depression era mindset. Talk to our parents and grandparents (or great-grandparents!), and discover what ways we can reduce our over-consumption, re-use and/or repair the items we own, and recycle the items we have no use for — together we can head off increased city expenses and increase our quality of life despite economic depression and poor weather conditions.