Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

City to hire 2 for leaf duty

Members of the Prescott City Council again turned their attention to the issue of leaves, this time hearing a plea from a local resident to keep the burn ban in place and being handed a petition with some 250 signatures asking for the ban to be altered or lifted.

The issue has plagued the council for months as council members heard from various residents regarding the problem of leaves remaining in yards.

Prescott Mayor Howard Taylor said during the March 17 meeting of the city council that there have been problems picking up leaves.

Ill be the first to admit that city has been negligent in picking up leaves, Taylor said.

The councils goal when the ban was first passed was to have city workers use a vacuum machine to pick up leaves. But there are problems with that system. Taylor said the machine doesnt work properly on wet leaves, meaning that leaves piled up just prior to a rain will likely not be picked up in a timely manner, and some residents say those leaves are then scattered before the time when the city crews manage to get to them.

Taylor suggested that city residents who want their leaves removed could bag them during rainy weather but it was pointed out that many of the citys residents are elderly, unable to do that type of work for themselves and unable to hire someone to perform

the tasks.

Taylor said the city has used juveniles sentenced to community service to help pick up leaves on Saturdays but that the weather had prevented the work over the past few weekends.

But you cant depend on the juveniles, said councilman Larry Baker.

Taylor said that another problem is that only a person with a commercial drivers license - a CDL - can drive the truck used to vacuum leaves. He said the only city employee qualified to drive the truck must leave other duties - including driving the citys trash truck - in order to pick up leaves. Taylor said its difficult to find

someone with a CDL willing to work for city wages and that any time the city helps someone achieve the CDL license, that person leaves for a better paying job.

As the council members were faced with the petition requesting a change in the ordinance, it was suggested that the city hire someone designated to pick up leaves. The petition actually requested that the ban either be eliminated or that one weekend each month

be set aside for burning. Objections to both ideas were discussed, including what would happen if it rained on the weekend designated for burning. Councilman Jerry Wilson said the council did not ignore the petition but that the hiring of two people should solve the problem.

We need a crew, all day, every day, said Councilman Howard Austin.

It was noted that simply having two people available wouldnt solve the problem.

We need to come up with some system, said Councilman Gary Lowdermilk.

It was suggested that those picking up leaves could have regular routes, just as the trash trucks run or be given a daily list of residents that had requested pick up each day. Those details were not settled.

Allene Spencer, who has been a proponent of the burn ban because of her health condition, pleaded with the council to keep the ban in place.

Please, please, when you start in voting, think of all the people in town who have this problem, and think of me, she said.

While council members did not vote to eliminate or lessen the penalties for the burn ban, there was a motion made to tighten the restrictions. The ordinance, which applies only to leaves and does not ban the burning of limbs or pine straw, will be brought back to

the council in April with an addendum to ban all outside burning, though farm land is exempted.